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Mongrels, autrefois connu sous le titre de "nous sommes mongrels" et "le monde artificiel", est une serie qui est sortie d'abord entre le 22 juin et le 10 aout 2010, avec un documentaire qui s'institule "Mongrels decouverte" sorti le 11 aout 2010. Une deuxieme série de "Mongrels" est sortie et est actuellement en developpement. La série tourne autour de la vie de cinq animaux qui trainent à l'arrière d'un bar à Londres. Les personnages principaux sont Nelson, un prétentieu égocentryque, Marion une chatte, Kali un pigeon et Vince le renard. C'est un spectacle fait surtout pour un public adulte basé sur de l'humour. Par exemple, le premier épisode commence avec une scène où Marion, décrite comme essayant désesperement de réanimer son maitre décédé, apprend qu'elle a été morte pendant 4 mois pendant lesquels son maitre a donné la permission à ses amis chat de la manger.

Mongrels, formerly known under the working titles of We Are Mongrels and The Un-Natural World, is a British puppet-based situation comedy series first broadcast on BBC Three between 22 June and 10 August 2010, with a making-of documentary entitled "Mongrels Uncovered" broadcast on 11 August 2010. A second series of Mongrels has been commissioned and is currently in development.

The series revolves around the lives of five anthropomorphic animals who hang around the back of a pub in the Isle of Dogs, London. The characters are Nelson, a metrosexual fox (voiced by Rufus Jones, performed by Andy Heath); Destiny, a pretentious self-absorbed Afghan hound (voiced by Lucy Montgomery, performed by Richard Coombs); Marion, a "borderline-retarded" cat (voiced by Dan Tetsell, performed by Warrick Brownlow-Pike); Kali, a grudge-bearing pigeon (voiced by Katy Brand, performed by Iestyn Evans); and Vince, a sociopathic foul-mouthed fox (voiced by Paul Kaye, performed by various puppeteers).

The show is aimed at an adult audience, and features "neutering, incontinence, cannibalism and catnip overdoses" and features humour style such as slapstick and farce. For example, the first episode begins with a scene in which Marion, portrayed as desperately trying to revive his deceased owner, learns she has actually been dead for four months, whereupon he casually gives his cat friends permission to eat her. Mongrels has attracted accusations of plagiarism, with claims that Mongrels stole ideas from a similar Channel 4 show called Pets.

Plot

Mongrels looks at the lives of five animals that hang around the back of a pub on the Isle of Dogs in the East End of London called The Lord Nelson. The hero of the series is Nelson (Vulpus metrosexualus), a fox who lives a metrosexual lifestyle. He is described as a hero because he lives life more like a human than a fox. Described as: "The only wild fox in East London with subscriptions to all the major broadsheets (excluding The Sunday Times), Nelson is, as he never tires of introducing himself at dinner parties… 'An urbane fox!'"

Nelson's love interest is Destiny, a self-important Afghan hound who wants anything she can get her paws on. However, Destiny has no interest in Nelson. She is the pet dog of Gary (Tony Way), the landlord of The Lord Nelson. However, like the other humans that appear in the series, he cannot understand what Destiny or what the other animals are saying. Elsewhere there is Marion (Felis retardicus), an idiotic cat to whom Nelson acts as a father-figure. Marion has been abandoned by several owners and is very corruptible. Then there is Kali (Aves aggravaticus), a pigeon who likes to revel in the misfortune of others. She has several grudges, including a hatred of all humans and foxes for the way they treat birds. Lastly, there is Vince (Vulpus c***itcus), a violent, foul-mouthed fox who considers himself a proper animal. Almost all his lines contain at least one swear word that is always bleeped over.

Production

The show took five years to make. The idea was first suggested between the creator and director of Mongrels, Adam Miller, and the show's head puppeteer, Andy Heath, when they worked on ITV children's show Ripley and Scuff.

Miller described Mongrels as: "an adult sitcom, trying to do for puppetry what American shows like The Simpsons have done for animation. Obviously that's aiming very high. Think [stage musical] Avenue Q meets Family Guy but with puppet animals." He also said that: "We wanted to make something that had the pace of an American animation but with British sensibilities, that was adult, but not crude, that was based in the realities of the animal world, and that didn't rely on the puppets to do the comedy."

The original idea, known as The Un-Natural World was of an urban fox living in Brixton called Nelson, who was so used to living in the city that he had lost any sense of being an animal. It also featured a cat who was trying to encourage Nelson to be more animal-like. While Miller was working on BBC Three sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps he pitched the idea to producer Stephen McCrum. McCrumb criticised the way the show ended (both characters leave where they live), but he suggested of taking the main characters and writing a script about them. After reading the script, another Two Pints writer, Jon Brown came in to write scripts. At this time rules were set out with regards to writing the show, such as the animals could not be dressed in clothes unless it was in a flashback sequences or during songs.

The new script was then pitched to the BBC. The pitch was based on the same pitch used by The Muppet Show as a tribute to it. The producers liked it but did not fully understand what the show was about. Miller, Brown and a third writer, Daniel Peak began to write scripts over a period of four years. A pilot was eventually filmed and the BBC commissioned a full series, targeted at adults. Despite the adult nature, Millar did not want to make the show too crude. Eight episodes were filmed so as to spread the cost over each episode made. When the show began, the character of Nelson originally came across as brash and obnoxious, but this was changed to make him more metrosexual and middle class. Rufus Jones was the first person to play the role. After several other auditions, Jones was called upon to play the part. Paul Kaye at one time provided the voice for Nelson before taking the role of Vince.

When the puppet for Marion was first created, he was depicted as having stripy fur, but looked more like a mouse in the eyes of the crew, so his puppet was changed. Marion's image was based on topless photos of the comic actor James Corden. It was then decided by the creators to make the character more foreign and find a accent that reflected this. There was discussion about Iranian-British comic Omid Djalili playing the role. In the end, Tetsell was cast after auditioning with a version of Djalili's Iranian accent, which in reality has been described as "every accent on the planet", but with the joke that Marion was meant to be a Persian cat.

Destiny was created to be the love interest of Nelson. The character took a long time to develop and Millar claims it was only at the end of the series when it was discovered that her humour came from her selfishness. Kali was created to be a villain, with Millar describing her as a "Hitler-figure". Vince was partly based on the brash version of Nelson. When writing for Vince the writers blanked out all of the characters swearing like it is done on the show, but when it came to recording the programme the swear words had to be put in for Kaye to read them. During read-throughs of the scripts, a toy horn was honked whenever Kaye swore to give an idea of what it would sound like during the programme. McCrum says that one of Vince's redeeming qualities is that he is very vulnerable.

In the unbroadcast pilot, another character was included called Debbie. Debbie was a suicidal chicken who never left her coop. However, it was decided that the character did not go anywhere and could not be sustained for a full series, so the character was axed. Another chicken character called Wendy appeared in the first broadcast episode as a reference to Debbie. She even had the same voice actress, Ruth Bratt, who performed her voice in exactly the same manner, as Debbie.

The show's puppeteers claim there are different problems working with different characters. For example, Destiny is the largest puppet and so moving her is more difficult. As Marion spends much of his time sitting on top of a rubbish bin, his puppeteer has to stand inside a bottomless tin. Kali is said to be the most difficult puppet to work with, because as she has no hands she is limited to what she can hold.

The show was originally entitled We Are Mongrels, but the title had to be changed for two reasons: one was that the title was too similar to another BBC Three comedy show, We Are Klang. The other is that none of the characters were mongrels. Therefore new suggestions were called for. Rejected titles include I, Nelson; Humans! Everywhere!; The Garden Gang; Undergrowth and Never Been Stroked. The last of these titles was rejected after one of the show's writers, Danielle Ward; "said it sounded like 'a makeover show for virgins'." During this time the crew referred as Mongrels and it eventually became the show's title.

Songs

Every episode features a song sung by or at least including one of the main characters. The band of the show is called 'Vermin', and features several rats playing drums and guitars.

Episode One: "The Chicken Song (F*** Chickens)" sung by Vince and featuring Nelson
Episode Two: "What Kind Of God?" sung by Kali and Christopher Biggins (as God)
Episode Three: "What a difference a day makes" sung by Marion and Lollipop
Episode Four: "Everyone loves a Lesbian" sung by The Female Crow (credited as Cassandra in the episodes end credits) featuring Kali and Destiny
Episode Five: "My Destiny" a song Nelson started singing, but was stopped by Gary (who took Destiny [who Nelson was singing to] away just as Nelson was starting)
Episode Six: "Breaking Up Is Such A Faff" sung by Nelson featuring Marion playing guitar
Episode Seven: "Middle Class is Magical" sung by Nelson featuring Marion. Destiny also sang a section of "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"
Episode Eight: "Ugly Women Are Beautiful Too" sung by Destiny

There was also a song in the pilot episode, titled "Where my Balls at?" in which Marion sings to his missing testicles.

Reception

Mongrels has been given mixed reviews. The main comments have been that most of the jokes work, but some are in poor taste. A reviewer for tvBite.com said that the show was "a bit hit and miss" but also that, "the hits are genuinely funny and even the laugh-free moments have a well-written sheen. Time and effort have been spent on the jokes – and it shows."

Jane Simon of the Daily Mirror wrote: "While most of it is very funny, some of the gags about Harold Shipman completely misjudge the tone. Maybe the age group BBC3 is aimed at reckon anything is fair game for comedy. Have a word please, someone."

The Independent's Tom Sutcliffe said that: "It does have its laughs, though, because the script isn't entirely about crass shock value", but that the sitcom, while aimed at adults, is "not really for grown-ups."

Sam Wollaston of The Guardian was mainly positive about Mongrels, but said that the main reason he thought it was funny was because it depicted "cuddly children's toys [...] saying things you wouldn't normally expect cuddly children's toys to say. Like 'You are such a cock-end'", and that, "the novelty will wear off at some point not too far away".

According to BARB the average ratings for each episode was around 300,000 viewers.

Awards and nominations

Mongrels won the Royal Television Society Craft and Design Award 2009-2010 for "Production Design - Entertainment and Non-Drama" lead by production designer Simon Rogers. It was also nominated for the award for "Tape and Film Editing - Entertainment and Situation Comedy" lead by film editor Nigel Williams, but lost to Pete versus Life.

Plagiarism accusations

Mongrels has attracted anger from production company Fit2Fill which claimed the BBC "ripped off" their 2001 Channel 4 sitcom Pets. Fit2Fill claimed they received 30 emails from people saying the series were similar, and they once pitched the idea of Pets to then BBC head of comedy Mark Freeland, who also acted as the executive producer of Mongrels.

The producer of Pets, Andrew Barclay said: "We checked the BBC's Mongrels website this morning and the Beeb do appear to have hired the same puppet builders and puppeteers as Pets. We also notice that Mongrels' executive producer is Mark Freeland, to whom we did once pitch a Pets follow-up show."

Comments have been made with regards to the plotlines of some episodes and the similarities between characters. For example, it is claimed that "Both shows feature a conflict between a foul-mouthed character and a more posh character (Nelson and Vince in Mongrels, Hamish and Trevor in Pets)", that "Both shows feature an idiotic character (Marion in Mongrels, JP in Pets)", and "Both shows feature a self-absorbed female character (Destiny in Mongrels, Davina in Pets)."

The co-creator and co-producer of Pets, Brian West, went on to post his views on a BBC blog post about Mongrels. Following this, a telephone conversation between West and Mongrels producer Stephen McCrum took place where McCrum, "claimed that no-one from the BBC production team had watched Pets before or during the development and production of their series." From this West responded that: "We might therefore conclude that any similarities between the two shows is 100% coincidental." West left people to judge for themselves whether Pets had been copied.

Afterwards, Andy Heath, a puppet builder who worked for both Mongrels and Pets, said on the same blog that he met Adam Miller in 2002 after he [Heath] finished working on Pets in 2000, to work on Ripley and Scuff. Miller then began developing the idea for Mongrels in 2004. Heath then went onto say:

"Pets was Pets. Mongrels is Mongrels. If, as a viewer, you can sit down and say they are the same, then there is little point of making any new shows, if the slightest similarity (puppets and animals) can be suggested as idea stealing. I am surprised Basil Brush hasn't been on the blower, as he is a fox, and that must be a copy! Right? I worked on both, and know for a fact where they both come from. Two very different ideas."

Merchandise

The first series of Mongrels was released on DVD (region 2 and 4) and Blu-ray disc (region 2) on 16 August 2010. The DVD and Blu-ray discs featured the unbroadcast pilot amongst their extras.

See also

• Pets
• The Ferals
• Fur TV
• Meet the Feebles

References

General

• « Mongrels », BBC (consulté le 20 juin 2010)
• « Mongrels - Production Details », British Comedy Guide (consulté le 20 juin 2010)

Specific

External links

• Modèle:BBC programme
• Script from Mongrels Series 1, Episode 3 from BBC Writers Room
• Modèle:British Comedy Guide
• « Mongrels » (présentation de l'œuvre), sur l'Internet Movie Database