STUPID

Stupid is a high concept British children’s television show that’s a hybrid of sitcom and sketch show. Broadcast first on the digital CBBC channel, then on BBC1, it is created and written by English comedy writer Dean Wilkinson – writer of Ant and Dec’s SMTV Live, Chums, Bad Penny and the Arthur King novels. The show centres around the mythical King Stupid, an immortal Deed Monarch who is the instigator of all stupidity on Earth. With his amazing mind controlling equipment, the pompous, arrogant and childish King Stupid has files on every human and can make them behave as stupidly as his whim desires. He resides in a gothic castle in the Ether World, a pan-dimensional realm home to many Deed Monarchs each of which with different facet of humour behaviour to rule over, such as Queen Sensible, King Angry and Count Cruel. The Ether World is also home to a myriad of ogres, imps, banshees, witches and boggarts. Stupid’s work is made all the more difficult by his annoying purple gremlin butler Goober who goes out of his way to make the King’s life hell. The love hate relationship between the King and Goober provided the sitcom element to the show with a self resolving story arc throughout each episode. The two main characters act like video jockeys introducing the King stupid work on earth – the sketches – in which children and adults are manipulated into doing seemingly random and stupid acts for no apparent reason. Characters include Devil Finger - a little boy whom the King has convinced has a finger possessed by Satan. He prods and pokes his victims viciously in the ribs to a Psycho style violin shriek soundtrack. The Emotionally Unstable Scout Leader who takes his troupe around with him while he stalks his ex-wife and her fancy man. My Gran Keeps Dying, a grandmother with a wicked sense of humour who keeps convincing her grandson that she’d just died. Two series, each containing ten episodes, have been filmed to date. Series one starred comedian Marcus Brigstocke as King Stupid and veteran actor Rusty Goffe (Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and Star Wars) as Goober. In series 2 comedian and impersonator Phil Cornwall took over the role of the King whilst Goffe reprised the role of Goober.