Monkey Dust

2003
8.5| 0h30m| en
Synopsis

Monkey Dust is a British satirical cartoon, notorious for its dark humour and handling of taboo topics such as bestiality, murder, suicide and paedophilia. There were three series broadcast on BBC Three between 2003 and 2005. Following co-creator Harry Thompson's death, no further series were made.

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Reviews

Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.
FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
crownofsprats The first thing I will say is that I wish I could give this a higher rating. But the truth is that like all sketch variety shows, some bits are going to be way funnier than others, and the un-funny ones drag down the rating by subverting the high expectations that the funny ones set up. Also, the repetitive nature of the sketches leaves a lot to be desired for the binge-watchers among us, who would much rather just cut all that time-wasting fat away and get to the real meat.But all that aside, if you are a thinking, feeling person ambling your way through the 21st century, then you will want your comedy to be as bleak and dark as possible. Otherwise...you know what you get otherwise. In this regard, the show gets full marks: the show is not just "edgy" or "distasteful" or any of the other stock adjectives you use when you want to hype comedy, but so soaked through to the core with a particularly virulent strain of pessimism that it threatens to implode under the weight of its own melancholy into something unpleasant. It never does - it just sags at times in its comedic delivery - but like..you will want to avoid this if you are the sensitive type. The show is most savage towards the media and the government, obviously, but it never lets individuals off the hook for anything, correctly interpreting the massive ills caused by those aforementioned institutions to be the byproduct of thousands of bad people making bad decisions. It's also quite violent, and depicts lots of cruel and gory things like animal experimentation, medieval executions (courtesy of the Pedofinder General, of course), and generally all sorts of men, women, children, and animals being senselessly hurt or killed.The show also gets high marks for their use of downbeat songs throughout the series, which often act as bridges between segments. It's chilling to learn that one of the show's creators died of cancer - it really comes through in the later seasons, and there is a lot of rumination on hospitals, doctors, and things of that nature. In a way, some of that ends up being a man's attempt to grapple with mortality, stapled forever to its humble corner in the tapestry of our civilization's creative output.In any case, a great dark gem to be discovered by all the clever little thinkers out there who spend their days depressed by the reality around them...
alexeykorovin It's a cartoon series with dark humor which is absolutely fun to watch. The series shows the UK (which is in most respects quite similar to other EU countries) from its dark "insider" perspective, something you would rarely see on TV or in movies. Here you will find a gay guy who struggles to find a partner, a wrongly accused murderer who spent 27 years in prison and forgot how to live a normal life, a hilarious "classically trained actor", a group of "wankers" who talk about completely useless things, then another group of idle young people who have nothing to do or talk about and end up playing Russian roulette, a suicidal father and so on. The images are frequently very violent which might turn off some people. But actually I would recommend this series to everyone except maybe small kids. Most characters who die in some of the episodes are alive again in the next episode - typical for comedies, it's more like a cycle or a snapshot of reality rather than a long story split into scenes (although some of the sub-plots do develop across episodes). The satire here is very smart, really British-level smart. E.g. I could hardly imagine such a series appearing in the US, for comparison. Some jokes here have very deep meaning and stay in your head for a long time. This show is so great that it totally deserves to be released on DVD, translated to other languages (German, Russian, Spanish etc). It's a true gem! Frankly, I am happy that in case of this series the artistic genius totally prevailed over suits, marketing and political correctness.
Cosmo Soave-Smith After watching the first episode, I couldn't stop looking at my friend, wide-eyed and with my mouth gawping open, and repeating 'oh... my... god...'The humour in this show is so far removed from what anyone could ever conceive as being comedy, it's disgustingly brilliant.Obviously, as you become familiar with the format and the few recurring characters, you start to anticipate the horrors and thus it seems funny when they arrive in front of you, still born and deformed.The point is, TV is nothing these days. It's predictable and doesn't inspire emotion. Monkey Dust bucks that trend with moments so diabolical, you'll wish you were dead.so Cheers then!
jpt27 'Monkey Dust' contains the most ****ed up humour you will ever see broadcast on terrestrial television. It's one of those rare moments where you wonder if the grey-faced executives who OK'd the show's production knew quite what they were letting themselves in for. At least South Park was barefacedly crude.Monkey Dust could have easily been great art, although luckily for us audiences, the creators have used their undeniable artistic flair and creative verve to sacrifice the art and wring the carcass until comedy comes splitting out the sides. This is comedy so messed up, so deeply deeply wrong, that most of the laughs come without the need for punchlines. It's very rare for a show to create situations which are just inherently funny. Monkey Dust has them like pearls on a string.The show, half an hour long, comprises a series of interlinked sketches, with returning characters competing with one-off spectaculars. I like shows like this; they have an ongoing sense of when the comedy has been fully developed. The animation is done in a kind of new-wave, post - computer graphics style, a good blend of hand drawn and computer animation. Different studios worked on different sketches, and so there's a lot of variety in the half hour.And now for the content. Monkey Dust has been described as Little Britain's older, edgier, criminally insane brother, and that's not such a bad way of summarising it. Both shows deal with everyday situations going on around the British Isles, and however mental the comedy may be, we're really laughing at the fact that what's being shown is not so very different from reality. Three flagship characters include a nameless elderly paedophile and his attempts to groom young girls on internet chat rooms; Steve the First-Time Cottager, whose attempts to lead a flamboyant homosexual lifestyle are hopelessly at odds with his modesty and shyness (the first time we see him he is reading a self-help book called Yes! I Can Gobble Off A Complete Stranger;) and my personal favourite, Ivan Dobsky the Meat Safe Murderer. Ivan was an friendly, innocent Liverpool lad before he was locked up 27 years ago for a crime he did not commit. Campaigning celebs have finally got him acquitted, unaware that police and prison brutality have turned him into an utter, utter psychopath. "Hullo I'm Ivan Dobsky the meat safe murderer, only I never done it, I only said I done it so the police men would take the rat out of me anus." Monkey Dust works so well because not only have they found comedy in the most unlikely of places, but because they even went looking for it in the first place. Occasionally the humour hits hard when a sketch begins with picturesque domestic bliss, because you know that in about thirty seconds time the rug is going to be pulled - hard. It also runs the risk of alienation when it makes fun of characters who closely resemble you and your friends. But the show never goes for a cheap gag, and that's admirable in a post- 'Friends' world.If you're after some dark comedy which is going to stay with you for a unconsensually long time, then Monkey Dust might just be the gimp suit that fits.