For this series background and history I highly recommend reading Lupercal’s review below…

Anyway, in Britain we have what are known a C-List celebrities (I suppose other countries have these type of people too). These are people who’s claim to fame is appearing on some no-name show occasionally (or many years ago), leaving behind vague memories. The end result is that they are usually greeted with the lines: “You’re that bloke of the Telly” generally followed by “what was that show called?” and “How don’t tell me;” mostly because the general public person usually can’t remember what piece of mindless tedium s/he saw them in. This is an area usually located in the early hours of afternoon television, a time when the only people watching the box are the unemployed, college students and the retired. Roger Mellie is a parody of this piece of annoying British culture, originally part of ‘Viz,’ itself a parody of kiddie comics like the ‘Beano’ etc.

As the animation is fairly lacking, it is the voices that make the show worth watching. Peter Cook (one international poll called him as the greatest comic of all time) is immaculate as the perennial loser Mellie; the title character seems to be part parody of Peter’s own TV career while at the same time being the complete opposite of Peter’s real-life persona (Roger is stupid and ugly, Peter was smart and charismatic, even when drunk). I agree that 'Derek and Clive' may have had some connection with the makers choice of voice.

Harry Enfield pretty much does everyone else, from Alan Bennett soundalike Tom to the various characters and other C-list celebrities that Roger meets. He is extremely good at this, but this isn’t surprising as Harry Enfield started his career provided voices on the hard hitting satirical puppet series Spitting Image; and go on to create a number of eccentric characters of his own (Kevin the Teenager arguably the most famous of them all).

It is very good at what it is, a series of made for TV shorts, with all the problems that that brings; if it wasn’t for the two great comics providing their vocal talents (and probably they critical ones) I don’t know if this would have worked as well.

I liked it, but I’m faced with a problem between my objective and subjective sides… I mentioned Spitting Image, which came out before and through this and was a lot meaner in against it’s targets to boot. Yet it is very enjoyable in spite of all this, it pokes fun at something that deserves mirth; and that can help my opinion of anything. At five episodes long, it avoids certain criticisms, like outstaying its welcome: yet leaves you thinking that much more could’ve been done. ultimately it is saved by Cook and Enfield who inject life into what otherwise would be a pretty apathetic show.

I give it 2½ stars, pretty much all for the voice talent; but I'll also say that it's a very high 2½ stars.

Considering what a simple concept this is, why do I get the feeling it's too British to make sense to a US audience unless I write an interminable amount of background. Oh, well. Here goes.

In the postwar era, British comics were basically dominated by 'Beano' and 'Dandy', and later by 'Cor!' and a host of similar such things. They generally consisted of stylistically similar one or two page cartoons of regular characters whose names either rhymed or involved allitteration (Desperate Dan might be the most enduring example). These characters generally had some ridiculous quality or possession. The comics had one other thing in common. For the most part, they were really, really annoying, and filled with kids who'd say irritating things while they got up to all sorts of hijinks, which were about as funny as a tub of lard (at least this is the reaction I had after about the age of seven). (The one exception is Black Bob the Dandy Wonder Dog, and I have some of his annuals, but nevermind that)

Anyway in 1979 some bloke in Newcastle started producing a comic called 'Viz' which was basically an uproarious adult parody of these comics. It essentially took the same formula but filled it with vulgarity and surrealism, so you got strips like the one about the Vicar who had a Church up his bottom, or 'Biffa Bacon' about a psychopathically violent Geordie family who continuously beat each other up for fun.

One of the earliest and most enduring characters was 'Roger Mellie the Man on the Telly'. Roger is a clueless, gung-ho, sexist, drunken idiot who works for a local TV station and manages to spectacularly screw up every show he (for some reason) gets put in charge of by his long suffering manager, Tom. For example, if it's a kid's show he'll turn up drunk. If it's a gourmet cooking show he'll ask the French chef if he can have chips with that. If he has a female guest he'll grope her. My favourite remembered line was from some show where Roger was clearly bored by whatever his guest was doing, and Tom tells him to show some interest, whereupon Roher walks over and studies whatever's going on, and says, "That's right bloody interesting, that is!"

Anyway, in the early 90's Viz turned some of their most popular strips into a series of animated shorts which were shown on TV and then got a video release. Naturally Roger was one of them.

That's the background. It's about as long as I expected.

Anyway, the animated Roger probably isn't as funny as the cartoon Roger (the character had been around for a while by then, too), and I very much doubt anybody won any prizes for animation or general production values, but this isn't Ducktales or even The Simpsons, and it was great just so see the strip animated at all.

*some spoilers*

The episodes basically follow the same sorts of scenarios as the comics. There used to be one available on the web (probably still is). This involves Roger taking over an investigative journalism show, and going off to report on a slum landlord who's going to evict a poor, frail old lady. Unfortunately Roger's testosterone-fuelled idea of reporting backfires when he gets it into his head that the old lady is the real villain, smashes down her door, and torments her with hard-hitting questions about whatever he'd decided she 'had to hide'.

*end spoilers*

What saves 'Roger Mellie' from being mediocre is the inspired choice of comic legend Peter Cook to play the lead part. No doubt the producers had in mind his hilarious but blisteringly offensive 'Derek and Clive' albums of the late 70's.

Bear in mind this is the man who an international panel of comedians and comic writers voted the funniest person in history. It's no secret that in his later years he was pretty well permanently drunk, and that he burned so brightly, so early that he famously claimed to have lost all ambition at age 24 and claimed "I don't give a toss. Life is about passing the time enjoyably".

Nevertheless, even at his supposedly most tragically wasted, Cook was unquestionably a comic genius, and the irony is that after failing to ever really break into films like his partner Dudley Moore, he finally found the role he was perhaps born to play in 'Roger Mellie'. Cook is hilarious, and Harry Enfield (one of the next generation of British comics) is equally ideal as Tom.

It would be ridiculous to claim this is a classic, but as a brief animated record of one of the funniest comic strips ever to come out of England, I'm just glad, and somewhat amazed, that it ever got made (let alone released on DVD 13 years later)