Mongrels is a British puppet-based musical 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 and final series of Mongrels began airing on 7 November 2011.
The series revolves around five anthropomorphic animals who live around the back of a pub in Millwall, the Isle of Dogs, London. The main characters are Nelson, a metrosexual fox (voiced by Rufus Jones and performed by Andy Heath); Destiny, an Afghan Hound (voiced by Lucy Montgomery and performed by Richard Coombs and Sue Beattie); Marion, a "borderline-retarded" cat (voiced by Dan Tetsell and performed by Warrick Brownlow-Pike); Kali, a grudge-bearing pigeon (voiced by Katy Brand and performed by Iestyn Evans); and Vince, a sociopathic foul-mouthed fox (voiced by Paul Kaye and performed by various puppeteers).
The show is aimed at an adult audience, and features "neutering, incontinence, cannibalism and catnip overdoses" and uses several humour styles such as slapstick and farce. For example, the first episode begins with Marion, who is 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.
On 18 January 2012, it was announced via Twitter that Mongrels had not been renewed for a third series by the BBC. Despite this, the characters have continued to make public appearances since, including at furry conventions, as well as making cameos in other TV programmes.
Plot
Mongrels follows five animals that live around the back of a pub called The Lord Nelson in Millwall, on the Isle of Dogs in the East End of London.
Nelson (Vulpus metrosexualus) - a fox and the protagonist of the series who lives a metrosexual lifestyle and is 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!'" Destiny (Canis self-absorbedb*tchicus) - an Afghan Hound who is Nelson's love interest and best friend, though she has no interest in him. Destiny is also the pet of Gary (Tony Way), the landlord of The Lord Nelson who, like the other human characters in the series, is unable to understand what Destiny and the other animals say. Marion (Felis ret**dicus) - an unintelligent cat whom Nelson acts as a father figure towards. He has been abandoned by several owners and is easily corruptible. Kali (Aves aggravaticus) - a sadistic pigeon who revels in the misfortune of others, and speaks with a Black English accent. She has several grudges, including a hatred for humans and foxes for the way they treat birds. Her name is a pun on the word callipygian. Vince (Vulpus c**ticus) - a violent, foul-mouthed fox who considers himself a proper animal. Almost all his lines contain at least one swear word that is constantly censored.
There is no over-riding story arc between episodes, though each episode does contain recurring elements. During each episode, there are cutaways from the main plot to create extra gags. Most episodes also feature at least one celebrity appearance and every episode features a comic song. Episodes also sometimes contain references to events in previous episodes.
Cast and characters Rufus Jones as the voice of Nelson, an urban fox who has embraced a middle-class, metrosexual lifestyle. Operated by Andy Heath Dan Tetsell as the voice of Marion, a homeless Persian cat. Operated by Warrick Brownlow-Pike Lucy Montgomery as the voice of Destiny, a beautiful Afghan Hound. Operated by Richard Coombs and Sue Beattie Katy Brand as the voice of Kali, a cynical, vindictive and street smart pigeon. Operated by Iestyn Evans Paul Kaye as the voice of Vince, a violent, foul-mouthed and sociopathic fox. Operated by various puppeteers Tony Way as Gary, Destiny's owner. Ruth Bratt as various incidental characters.
Creation The show took five years to develop. 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 the CITV 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, Marion, who was trying to encourage Nelson to be more animal-like.
While Miller was working on a BBC Three sitcom he pitched the idea to producer Stephen McCrum. McCrum criticised the way Miller ended the first script, which ended with Nelson and Marion leaving where they live. McCrum told him it was best to set the series in a single place rather than have the characters move from one place to another. McCrum then suggested taking Nelson and Marion, and writing a script about them. Later, another writer, Jon Brown came in to write and 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 sequence or during a song.
The new script was then pitched to the BBC. A pitch pilot, inspired by the one created for The Muppet Show, was made. Miller argued that when The Muppet Show did it, "it just must have just knocked the socks off the people who saw it, because it's like nothing you've ever seen before, and we thought: 'Why fix what ain't broke, so we did our own very British version of that." 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, Miller did not want to make the show too crude. Eight episodes were filmed in the first series so as to spread the cost of making the series over each episode.
Character development When writing for the commissioned series began, the character of Nelson was originally depicted as being brash and obnoxious. This was later changed to make him more metrosexual, middle class and likeable. Developing the character of Destiny, Nelson's love interest, was a challenge to the programme makers. Kali was created to be a villain, with Miller describing her as a "Hitler-figure". Vince was partly based on the brash version of Nelson.
In the pilot episode, titled We Are Mongrels, a sixth main character was included who was named Debbie. Debbie was a suicidal chicken who never left her coop. However, it was decided that the writers could not sustain the character for a full series, and as such the character was axed. Another chicken character called Wendy appeared in the first broadcast episode as a reference to Debbie. Both characters had the same voice actress, Ruth Bratt, who performed Wendy's voice in exactly the same manner as that of Debbie.
Casting Rufus Jones was among the first people auditioned for the role of Nelson. After several other auditions with other actors, Jones was called upon to play the part. Paul Kaye at one time provided the voice for Nelson before taking the role of Vince.
It was then decided by the creators to make Marion a foreign character and to find an 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 poor version of Djalili's Iranian accent. Tetsell describes the voice as a mixture of, "every accent on the planet", but with the joke that Marion was meant to be a Persian cat. Tetsell also explained how it was easy to drop into a Russian accent while doing the voice of Marion.
Puppets 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 body shape and image was based on topless photos of the comic actor James Corden.
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 in a rubbish bin, his puppeteer, Warrick Brownlow-Pike, has to stand inside a bottomless bin for long periods of time. 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.
Recording 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 included I, Nelson; Humans! Everywhere!; Undergrowth and Never Been Stroked. The last of these titles was rejected after one of the show's additional writers, Danielle Ward; "said it sounded like 'a makeover show for virgins'." During this time the crew referred to the show as Mongrels and it eventually became the show's title.
When writing for Vince, the writers blanked out all of the characters swearing like it is done on the show, but when the voice lines for the episodes were recorded, 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.
The show also aimed to be environmentally friendly in its production. A report from the BBC's in-house publication Ariel: "From reusable water bottles filled from tanks of tap water to double-sided scripts, Mongrels is aiming to be the most sustainable production at the BBC." The production team also use reusable or compostable cutlery in their canteen, reducing any future merchandise packaging to just a barcode, and replacing conventional lighting with fluorescent tube lights. This last move reduced the electricity bill for the second series by a third, saving £500 a week.
Broadcast The third episode of Series 1, "Marion the Young Lover", was viewed by 417,000 viewers during its premiere airing on BBC Three. The first episode of Series 1 had been requested 211,000 times on BBC iPlayer in June 2010. Mongrels was one of the most-requested series on BBC iPlayer during that month. Series 1 averaged 410,000 viewers overall on BBC Three. Series 1 did not make it into the BARB top 10 programmes on BBC Three any week during the time it was premiering.
The second series premiered with a double-bill of the first two episodes on 7 November 2011. A total of 350,000 viewers watched both episodes on BBC Three that night, less than the average of the first series.