Mike and Angelo S10E1 (1998) - FULL EPISODE

Oh Give Me a Gnome. Zoe's on her way round to visit, but Angelo still thinks now is a good time to test out his new patent-pending plutonium-powered matter transporter on Mike. Needless to say, the molecules soon get in a bit of a muddle, and suddenly the question of what clothes to wear to impress ceases to be the main priority. This episode was originally broadcast on Thursday, 8th January, 1998. It's easy to see why this was chosen as the opener for the new series: just the three main characters plus recurring girlfriend, a zany Angelo invention which goes wrong, and a straightforward premise which quickly gets out of hand. Textbook stuff. But that's not to say that this is simply Mike and Angelo by numbers - on the contrary, it gets us right into the swing of things with a minimum of fuss, and the way the farce builds and then continues to grow beyond what's expected is extremely funny. Throw in the emotion and the woman-to-girl talk about the male "silly cell", and we've got one of my favourites from the later years of the show. It's fairly obvious that there seems to be an element of The Fly influencing things, and I'm also pretty sure that the brief "Eureka-ka-ka-ka" exclamation is a Shooting Stars reference. Amongst the daftness, we're exposed to the sort of teenage anxieties most of us have done our best to forget, and there's probably a vague moral somewhere about not worrying unduly about your looks or feeling insecure and paranoid in a relationship. Full marks to the make-up and costume departments, and increasingly so as the episode wears on, and also to the props people for that surprise gnome near the end. (I wonder where that ended up!) This is also the point where new credit sequences were introduced. All round excellent stuff. Many thanks to Lee for providing this recording. (To the best of my knowledge, the contents of this video have never been available commercially anywhere in the world. Please also note that I don't monetise any of my uploads. Nevertheless, if you are a copyright holder and have an objection, please don't hesitate to contact me.)