Billy the Fish

Billy the Fish is a long-running cartoon strip in the British comic Viz that first appeared in 1983. Created by artist Chris Donald and writer Simon Thorp (who later took on both roles) Billy the Fish is, like many Viz strips, a lampoon of British comics – In Billy the Fish's case, that of football-themed strips such as Roy of the Rovers.

Background

The strip chronicles the football team Fulchester United F.C. (Fulchester is the fictional town in which many of Viz's characters live). Originally the strip was produced in serial format, a rarity for Viz, but later became an occasional strip, usually appearing when major tournaments were being played or parodying major incidents in the world of football. The strip returned to its serial format for six months in 2007 as a result of a sponsorship deal with bookmakers betNOW, who were advertised in a deliberately ridiculous manner in each strip that they sponsored.

Characters include:

• Billy Thompson, the main character. Despite born half man, half fish, has managed to have a long and successful career as a goalkeeper for Fulchester. Essentially, Billy is a human head (complete with mullet hairstyle) on a fish's body, who inexplicably floats approximately five feet above the ground, and propels himself with his fins and tail. The first Billy was killed saving a booby-trapped ball in an FA Cup final, but was replaced by his son, who was also called Billy and happened to look exactly like his father.
• Tommy Brown, the team manager. A bluff, no-nonsense type in a sheepskin jacket, Tommy is the second-most used character – in the past he has had open heart surgery on the pitch and (coinciding with Channel 4's The Manageress starring Cherie Lunghi) was revealed to be a woman in disguise. His catchphrase is "someone's out to make trouble for Fulchester United. The question is who?"
• Syd Preston, the team coach. Syd is usually a hapless straight man trying to make sense of events. Sid was born in Scotland so he speaks with a Scottish accent.
• Rick Spangle, the millionaire pop star and chairman. In one strip, Spangle was revealed to be a Martian determined to get Billy to sign for his team Dynamo Mars, but of course this plot thread was never expanded upon
• Brown Fox, a scantily clad, big-breasted Native American woman who plays winger.
• Johnny X, the invisible striker His father was killed in a childhood accident, so Johnny has been invisible ever since.
• Terry Jackson, the unsettled reserve team keeper. Billy replaced him as Fulchester's first choice goalkeeper, and Jackson has since spent much time attempting to kill or otherwise discredit Billy in order to gain his place back. In the first episode of the programme, Jackson shot what everyone thought was Billy, but it was actually a balloon of Billy. Later in the book series, he joined Grimthorpe City and teamed up with evil Gus Parker and Wilf his henchman to discredit Fulchester United and kill Billy Thompson for revenge.
• Professor Wolfgang Schnell BSc. PhD., a mad scientist who usually only shoots for goal after working out the best trajectory he should kick the ball at, achieving this with a calculator, various charts and a geometry set
• Evil Gus Parker, boss of Grimthorpe City (Fulchester's arch rivals.) Parker is often behind highly contrived schemes to discredit Fulchester United.
• Wilf Evil Gus Parker's henchman. Wilf helps his boss to discredit Fulchester United so Grimthorpe City can become winners of the league trophy.
• Shakin' Stevens, the famous pop star signed for Fulchester in an early strip, parodying the time when Spandau Ballet signed up for Melchester Rovers, the team featured in Roy of the Rovers. He was later joined by Mick Hucknall, the frontman for Simply Red.
• A pair of conjoined twins, who scored a vital equalising goal in one game. The referee decided that because of their condition the goal counted double, resulting in Fulchester winning the game.
• Maxwell Baxter a supposed "ruthless millionaire," whose schemes always appear to spell trouble for Fulchester United. Despite appearing in many strips, the real Baxter has never been seen, as he always turns out to in fact be a cardboard replica with a hidden tape recorder (except for one appearance where he was upgraded to a waxwork dummy with a concealed CD player). This started a repeating gag about threats to the main characters always turning out to be cardboard cut-outs of the real person. Based primarily on Robert Maxwell.

Plot Elements

As the above characters suggest, plot elements in the strip are frequently nonsensical, inconsistent, and highly contrived, often being set up and then forgotten about for no reason. They include:

• Surreal turns of events, especially in order to make ludicrous cop-outs from cliffhangers. For example, at the end of one strip, a game in Japan is interrupted by Mothra, the giant beast from the Godzilla movies. At the start of the strip in the next issue it is swiftly revealed that it was actually just a harmless cardboard cut-out of Mothra. Everyone sighs with relief and the game continues. On more than one occasion, characters have awakened from perilous situations to discover it was "just a dream" (e.g. "So... it was all a dream?"; "Yes, apart from the bit about playing for England.").
• Satire of the tendency in football fiction to have impossibly competent teams steamrollering their way through the competition. Fulchester usually win a game with scores of around 5-nil – but if Billy is not in goal they instead lose by the same margin. One strip, lampooning the 'back from the brink' plot type, had Fulchester narrowly beating a team of paperboys (because their goalkeeper's mother called him in for his tea) and then moving on to the FA Cup final the next day.
• Incidents relating to real-life events in British football. For example, Billy The Fish often adopts the current hairstyle of footballing celebrities such as Paul Gascoigne or David Beckham. On another occasion, Billy shouted a tirade of abuse at Tommy Brown, for daring to order him to tie his shoelaces (even though Billy, not having feet, does not wear shoes.) This prompted Brown to drop Billy from the team, which mimicked the incident whereby Irish footballer Roy Keane was dropped from his team and sent home from the 2002 World Cup for hurling abuse at his manager.
• References to the strip's supposed unpopularity amongst Viz readers. In one strip Tommy Brown drops his trousers and defecates on his desk to prove that no-one is reading.
• A "spot the difference" version of the strip, the differences from the normal version being extremely obvious; for instance the strip is titled "Pilly the Fish", Syd Preston suddenly appears nude in one panel, and Tommy Brown is replaced by Adolf Hitler.

Book and Episode Cliffhangers

The book episodes invariably end with a cliffhanger which is resolved in the next issue in one or two panels. For instance, when manager Tommy Brown revealed that 'he' was actually a woman in disguise, the following episode had her leaving the country for ever and being replaced by her identical twin brother.

• When someone stole a bag containing the gate money, which Sid Preston had left on a table beneath a small air vent, it was theorised that only a contortionist from the local circus could have entered the room. However Syd then realised that, now that he thought about it, he had actually left the bag on a different table - where indeed it was.
• Billy was convicted of the murder of his wife and children, and was about to be executed. In the nick of time his family turned up to say that they weren't dead; they had merely been out shopping.

The television series had cliffhangers at the end of each of the 4 episodes that were broadcast: Episode One The team are given a lift to Rossdale Stadium in Rick Spangle's jetplane. Suddenly, Spangles peels off his head to reveal an alien underneath it. The team discover they are his prisoners and that the plane is going to Mars...

Episode Two Billy is at a death camp in Botslavia. He has been send there for a punishment for signing a written confession to crimes perpetuated against the Botslavian states. Several guns are pointed at him, and Billy says: "Oh, well. This looks like the end." Once given the orders, the soldiers open fire...

Episode Three Gus Parker announces that when the match takes place on Saturday, Grimthorpe City will win the league trophy, and no fish, large breasted Indian or invisible striker is going to stop them...

Episode Four The narrator explains that the final whistle had blown before the ball had crossed the line, which means that Grimthorpe City are champions of the league trophy. But he is wrong. The referee apologizes for blowing the whistle. He was just testing it. Fulchester are champions of the league trophy.

In other media

Billy The Fish was made into an animated movie by Channel 4 in 1990. It told the story of how Billy joined Fulchester United. When it aired on Channel 4 in June 1990, it was shown as a full omnibus film. It was shown again on Channel 4 in January 1991, however this time it was split into four episodes and featured the voice of comedian Harry Enfield. The programme aired every Saturday from 1 to 22 January from 5:00 to 5:30. This then spawned "The Viz Billy the Fish Football Yearbook", which described itself as The Official Book of the cartoon of the Comic of the Channel 4 T.V. series of the cartoon Billy the Fish.

All the characters were voiced in Scouse accents (apart from Syd, who had a Scottish accent). It was the only Viz cartoon to get a "U" certificate on its release, rather than "18" as the other Viz videos earned. When they were updated for DVD release in 2004, Billy the Fish was the only one not to get its own release, instead being included as an extra feature on the Roger Mellie DVD. In the second episode of Billy The Fish, Roger Mellie made a cameo on a television.

Plot

Episode One

The story begins with the narrator explaining that young Billy Thompson was determined to be a football player, despite being born half man/half fish. One day at the local park, he plays a game of football and the players think he is great. Tommy Brown, the manager of Fulchester United orders a contract to join Fulchester United. But nearby, Gus Parker, evil manager of Grimthorpe City is watching and tells his sidekick Wilf that Billy is too good. Wilf explains that Grimforth won't stand a chance against Fulchester on Saturday. Gus Parker tells Wilf that they should arrange a "little holiday" for Billy.

Later that week at Fulchester Stadium, the team coach Sid Preston has some bad news for Tommy Brown. He tells him Billy Thompson has been kidnapped and that Fulchester have little chance to play at the football match on Saturday. Meanwhile, Wilf and Evil Gus Parker are with Billy Thompson who has been tied to a football goal post. He tells Wilf that on Saturday, Billy will line up for Fulchester. He shows him a balloon of Billy which isn't the REAL Billy Thompson, but a lifesize replica of him.

Saturday arrives and the crowd thinks Billy won't make it. But suddenly, Billy's inflatable replica floats out of the tunnel. Tommy Brown explains that Billy must have escaped with only seconds to spare. Soon the game starts but Billy's replica doesn't do anything. The crowd discover that the Grimforth player scored. They also think Billy is rubbish and boo him. Meanwhile, the real Billy is with evil Gus Parker and Wilf. He has hidden Billy in the middle of the Grimforth City goal post. Mr Ramano, a hypnotist hypnotises Billy and tells him he will play for Grimforth City. Meanwhile, Billy's inflatable replica has let another goal and after only 20 minutes, Fulchester are 11 goals down to Grimforth City. Thanks to Billy's replica, the game has had a disappointing start. Tommy Brown announces that this will Billy's first and last game for Fulchester United.

At that very moment, an arm reaches out of a window above the grounds and points a shotgun at Billy's replica. He says that "this is the last game that Billy The Fish will ever play!" and pulls the trigger. There is a moment's silence and a player says that Billy must been exploded. Because Billy has been kidnapped and assassinated, Terry Jackson, the unsettled reserve team keeper will take his place. The game restarts. But as Terry Jackson is about to kick the ball, two policemen put their hands on his shoulders. They show him a rifle he had in his locker and arrest him for killing Billy The Fish. Tommy Brown is not happy about everything that has happened and says this is just the kind of start the game doesn't need, but Sid Preston says the game could still continue either way. Meanwhile, Evil Gus Parker announces that Fulchester United are out of the cup. Mr Ramano tells him that Billy Thompson is dead.

Meanwhile in the changing room, Sid Preston discovers the team has fallen asleep and the game restarts in 2 minutes. Tommy Brown tells Sid the team had been drugged and that he hired a team of actors to play them in the first half of the game. The real team are in a broom cupboard, wide awake and ready for the second half. As the second half begins, a player trips over something. It is a gravestone. On it, it says: R.I.P. Billy The Fish. Everyone discovers Billy is dead and has been buried on the pitch. Tommy Brown says that 64 year old Rex Finnley is the team's only chance. At once, Rex scores 12 goals and the crowd thinks he is amazing! But just as he is about to score the 13th goal, a Grimforth player trips him and he falls over. There is a loud voice and everyone stops. It is Maxwell Baxter. He tells everyone he has just bought Fulchester Stadium and wants to build a supermarket, saying that demolition will begin at once. But one of the players finds it is not Baxter but a cardboard replica with a hidden tape recorder.

The game rebegins with Rex Finnley about to do the kick that will win the game. As he kicks the ball, the crowd discovers he aimed at the floodlights. Tommy Brown says that Rex has had a disappointing effort, but suddenly high above the stadium, the ball turns, flies into the net and GOAL! Fulchester United have won, and right on the final whistle! Sid and Tommy Brown talk about how fantastic the whole thing has been. The furious Gus Parker shakes his fist, yelling: "We'll meet again, Fulchester!" Back in the changing room, Tommy congratulates Rex. Rex tells him the ball has a highly advanced jet engine controlled from inside it. Tommy Brown knows the only person who's small enough to fit inside the ball - Billy The Fish. Billy is alive and well. He explains that his small fish like body is the obvious choice to fly Rex's jet-powered air craft football. There is suddenly a voice from behind everyone. It is once again Maxwell Baxter. He accuses everyone of cheating and threatens to discredit Fulchester out of the cup competition and the football league. But once again, Sid discovers it is not the real Maxwell Baxter, but another cardboard replica with a hidden tape recorder.

The next evening, before the cup clash with Rossdale Rovers, Tommy Brown introduces the team to their new member - Shakin Stevens! Billy tells him: "I've got all your records! Welcome to the team!" while Sid Preston explains that Stevens could be just the person the team needs for tonight's match with the Rossdale Rovers. But as the team march out of the tunnel, they discover the ground is empty! Sid explains the place where they are is their own ground - Fulchester Stadium! Tommy Brown tells him someone must have moved the road signs, leading the team around in circles. Now they are 200 miles from Rossdale, and the game is about to kick off in one minute. As Sid explains the team will never reach Rossdale in one minute, Tommy discovers the clock on the grandstand. It says: 6:30. He now knows that last night, the clocks went back an hour, and that he forgot to change his watch. As Billy tells him the team won't reach Rossdale in an hour, Tommy tells them they will- in the jet plane of their chairman and millionaire popstar, Rick Spangles. He tells everyone: "Hop in lads, and hold on tight." Soon the plane is in the air, and Spangles makes an announcement that there has been a slight change in destination. He pulls off the front of his face to reveal a Martian underneath. He tells the team the plane is going to Mars, and they watch in horror as it turns into an alien spaceship...

Episode Two

But, as a Rossdale player counts down on his watch, he, the referee and another player look up and see the alien spaceship with the team lowering themselves to the ground with a rope. The game starts and soon Shakin Steven is ready. Billy is tied to a post at a Botslavian death camp. He has been sentenced to death for writing a written confession to the Botslavian states. The soldiers point their weapons at him and Billy replies: "Oh, well. This looks like the end." The chief gives the order to fire, and the soldiers pull the triggers on their guns...

Episode Three

In a local pub, evil Gus Parker has heard what Tommy Brown has said about Saturday's big football match. He announces that on Saturday, Grimforth City will win the league trophy, and no fish, large breasted Indian or invisible striker is going to stop them...

Episode Four

As the ball crosses the line, the whistle blows for the end of the match. The narrator announces that Grimforth City have won the match instead of Fulchester United, and they are champions of the league trophy....

But the players are wrong. The referee apologizes for blowing the whistle, saying that he was just testing it. He tells everyone that the goal stands and that Fulchester have won the league trophy and the match.

In other media

Prince William of Wales was nicknamed Billy the Fish, a pun on his title, during his time in the Royal Air Force, where the nickname also became his callsign.