3 hours ago
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Bob Mortimer, writer, host
The first time I saw what was to become Shooting Stars was Vic Reeves – AKA Jim Moir – doing The Big Quiz during Vic Reeves Big Night Out live. I’d never seen anything like it. It was full of meaningless questions and had an attitude. I remember thinking: “There must be something we could do with that.”
We got lucky. We were doing a Vic and Bob Christmas TV special and thought we might be able to get away with having that “Big Quiz”. It must have had something as the BBC approached us saying: “We think you could do this as a show.”
It was the most intense writing we ever did. We’d sit for hours trying to think up true or false questions, but because we loved it we were happy to give it the time it needed.
Jim put George Dawes, played by Matt Lucas, in the romper suit, but after that, anything you see him wearing was Matt’s choice. We wouldn’t know what he was going to wear or say. He would come to me before filming and say: “At some point, can you ask me if I like going to the cinema?” I never let him tell me what this was setting up. Then we were genuinely in hysterics on the show because we hadn’t heard it before.
Team captain Mark Lamarr was a gift. Being deadpan is in his nature. He’s not easily impressed. Ulrika Jonsson, the other team captain, actually gave a toss about the show, which was unexpected. She wanted to win.
Lots happened that the guests couldn’t prepare for. We’d sabotage their seats. A good chunk of them would say: “My children love it. I had to go on.” Others were on publicity rounds and I suppose their agents chose the wrong show. Larry Hagman, who played JR in Dallas, seemed unsure of what was going on but went along with it. People always say they’re glad they did it. They may be lying.
The challenges were fabulous. I remember dropping cheeses on guests. We pretended to put people in a cage with a monkey and they were terrified. We once wanted to bring a horse into the studio but were told we couldn’t in case it bolted. I don’t know where the Dove from Above round came from. We just thought it’d be funny.
There’s before and after Shooting Stars. It altered the parameters for the fun that should be had and the imagination that could be used on panel shows. It was one of the few places where you got a little glimpse into what a celebrity was really like.
Jim Moir AKA Vic Reeves, writer, host
We intended Shooting Stars as a one-off but it worked well so we carried on. When we filmed Big Night Out, we wouldn’t show scripts to the crew, which they hated because they didn’t know where to put the cameras. We did the same with Shooting Stars. We’d say: “Something’s going to happen here but we’re not telling you what.”
No one knew about stuff until we did it. I put a stink bomb in Stephen Fry’s shoe that absolutely stunk out the studio. I had a stuffed buzzard with a crucifix around its neck and Christians complained saying: “Birds can’t be Christians.” It’s the most complaints we ever got.
I came up with the name George Dawes so we could say his mum was Marjorie Dawes, the dreadful dietician in Little Britain. We didn’t hear his songs until the night. Peanuts is my favourite. There’s nothing to it apart from him saying “Peanuts”. We were creased up.
Bob had seen Ulrika presenting the weather and having a laugh. We thought she looked like she had gravitas. Mark had left The Word. I said: “Could you start filming next week?” He said: “Yeah.” It was as easy as that. I got the feeling he didn’t think any of it was funny. Calling him a 1950s throwback was a throwaway comment that stuck. “Ulrika-ka-ka” was Bob trying to do a song echo. We told them to have a go at us: they’d give back as good as they got.
A few guests had too many in the green room because they knew they might be in for some kind of ordeal. Bee Gee Robin Gibb would only appear if we promoted his new single, so we paused everything during the show, listened to it, then went: “Right, let’s carry on.” Rubbing my knees came from a kids’ Christmas record where you could hear some old fella rubbing his legs as he sang. I thought it was really funny. It became a regular thing. Same with raising handbags and going “Ooooh!” People still do that but I don’t think they know where it comes from.
We needed some sound or word to end rounds so I just said “Eranu” and “Uvavu” and Bob said, “That’ll do.” I saw Paul Shane on Pebble Mill at One doing You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling. He was proper like those old club singers, so I started doing songs in that style. Mark would always guess them right, no matter how disjointed they were.
I’d sometimes make the prizes myself. The art department would say: “I can make that look better.” But I’d say: “No.” Same with makeup. I liked drawing lines on my face. They’d said: “You’re making us look really bad.”
The show was an antidote to comedy. It was a format people could get their head around – and then we went sideways with it.
