Vic Reeves on 25 years of Shooting Stars: ‘It’s wrong, but I did like rubbing my legs at the ladies’

Does Vic Reeves think that in 2020 it would be acceptable to bend over one half of Hale and Pace (or any celebrity) and shoot them up the backside with a spud gun? Back in the mid-1990s it was fair game on Reeves and Bob Mortimer’s quiz panel show Shooting Stars.

“I don’t know,” Reeves ponders. “No… I don’t suppose you can shoot someone up the a___. We also got Lisa Stansfield to hold a piece of celery up her a___, and a dog came and licked some Greek cheese off it.”

Like much of their best comedy, Shooting Stars felt like Vic and Bob’s silliest ideas, unfiltered and made real. There were ridiculous questions (“An adult heron’s beak is longer than a Curly Wurly, true or false?”); the Dove from Above, which had to be coaxed from the ceiling by the sound of cooing; sketches, magic tricks, and daft interludes; songs in the club singer style; Reeves rubbing his legs at female guests with demented sexual delight; and – of course – the scorekeeper George Dawes (Matt Lucas), a man-sized, drum-bashing baby.

There was also merciless (but good natured) ridicule of their celebrity guests, as best demonstrated by the outrageous final round challenges. Which is how Norman Pace found his backside being used for target practice

Other highlights include Richard E. Grant being rolled around in a giant barrel; Mark Lamarr having fruit of escalating sizes dropped on his head; Janet Street-Porter walking into the full force of a wind machine with a mattress strapped to her back; Jack Dee having an opera singer belt out a tune inches from his face; and Anthea Turner and Myleene Klass locked in a box from the neck down, trapped with what they believe is a dangerous animal but unable to see that it's actually just Vic Reeves with a pair of joke horns.

“There was absolute panic and fear on people’s faces,” says Reeves. “A magnificent deception.”

When the first series of Shooting Stars debuted – on September 22, 1995 – it was part of a mid-1990s hot streak of Friday night BBC Two comedy, which also included The Fast Show, The Friday Night Armistice, and Knowing Me, Knowing You (in short, it was deeply uncool to go out on a Friday night).

Shooting Stars wasn’t just funny, it was exciting: a livewire of super-charged nonsense and finely-tuned surrealism – as sharp as it was bluntly stupid. It leg-rubbed its way into the cultural moment, a subversive, on-point comedy in the age of laddism and Cool Britannia.

“It was a huge show for me,” says Dan Skinner, who later became a regular as comedy character Angelos Epithemiou. “I was already a fan of theirs from Big Night Out. It must have been what punk rock was to people in the 1970s – like it smacked them in the face. Shooting Stars was just the perfect thing for Vic and Bob. They basically had six stooges on there every week who they could just take the p___ out of.”

A few years before, comedy had been dubbed “the new rock ‘n’ roll”. If that was true, Vic and Bob (regular NME cover stars in the 1990s) were the indie innovators, having their style and riffs covered by others in broader strokes, but keeping to the cutting edge themselves. “They’re uncompromising,” says Dan Skinner. “They write material and if you don’t get it, you don't get it. They’re not remotely bothered. It enhances their credibility. They’re true artists.”

With its zeitgeist-popping, shrewdly-ironic line-ups of pop stars, comedians, ladettes, glamour girls, ageing personalities, and EastEnders – split into two teams each episode – plus, inimitable catchphrases and slapstick, Shooting Stars was more accessible than Big Night Out and The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. Arguably, it made Vic and Bob mainstream stars.

But Reeves – real name Jim Moir – says they weren't looking for that. "We never really wanted to be mainstream," he says. "It was really our secondary job. Our main job was The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. Shooting Stars was a bit of fluff really. But that’s the one that captured people I suppose.”

Shooting Stars first aired as a one-off special in December 1993, as part of a Reeves and Mortimer all-nighter on BBC Two, At Home with Vic and Bob. Jonathan Ross and Danny Baker were the original team captains. It was named Shooting Stars because they happened to be listening to Shooting Star by Bad Company at the time (“It was as slack as that,” says Reeves), and the idea of asking ridiculous questions was nabbed from a segment in Reeves’ stage act called The Big Quiz. Watched now (it’s on YouTube) the first episode is both low-key and low on big laughs.

“It was just a one-off, we weren’t really that bothered,” Reeves says about the pilot episode. “When people at the Beeb were saying we should do more, we thought, ‘Oh, if we’re going to do more we’ll make more of an effort.’”

New team captains were picked: Mark Lamarr and Ulrika Jonsson. At the time, Jonsson (a panelist on the pilot) seemed like an odd fit with Vic and Bob: a girl-next-door weather presenter and the host of Gladiators. Ulrika was quickly recast as a pint-downing, game-for-a-laugh comedy protégé. (Two years later, Vic and Bob wrote her one-off sketch special It’s Ulrika.)

“She was on morning TV and started laughing her head off at the weather, which we liked,” says Reeves. “I suppose we wanted a bit of glamour and someone who was up for a laugh. That was it, simple as that.”

Lamarr was mocked for being a Fifties throwback (“He’s a greasy lover!”) and Ulrika took relentless stick for – among other things – being an illegal immigrant (“Have you ever had an illegal entry, Ulrika?”); her love life (“Look vaguely interested, Ulrika,” Bob would say, “pretend that I’m a single man”); and being bald under her blonde locks.

“She was up for it,” laughs Reeves about the mickey-taking. “I forgot about her being bald.”

Matt Lucas – who also appeared on The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer – was the breakout comedy star of Shooting Stars, playing “the man with the scores” George Dawes.

Reeves recalls telling Lucas: “Look, we’re doing Shooting Stars and you look like a big baby… You dress like a baby playing the drums and we’ll call you Dawes, like See Saw Margery Daw.” Lucas would also appear as Marjorie Dawes, first as George’s mum in Shooting Stars and later as cake-shovelling tyrant in Little Britain.

Announcing the scores between each round, Lucas had free rein to come up with his own, often-insulting lines (“Oh, so you want to know the scores then, you fat cow” is a personal favourite). In later series, Lucas would perform “George’s Song”, including fan-favourites Lesbians and Thank You, Baked Potato (which Lucas revived during lockdown and sang as a duet with various celebs). The segment is best remembered for Lucas shouting “PeaNUTS!” while trying (and failing) to not laugh.

“That’s what we liked about the whole show,” says Reeves. “We’d tell Matt don’t tell us what you’re going to do, because we want to enjoy it as much as the audience at home. And we never told any of the guests what was going to happen. Sometimes the production didn't know. We told as few people as possible.”

Among Reeves’s favourite surprises for the guests was a smelly shoe – purportedly belonging to Stephen Fry – which really did stink. “I was quite into stink bombs at one point,” says Reeves. “I cracked a stink bomb in the shoe and passed it round to everyone. That was just us laughing at the reaction of everyone, smelling this awful stink.”

Another time, he tricked David Dickinson with a fake antique. “I said, ‘I’ve got a trophy that was awarded to Churchill for winning the war,’” recalls Reeves. “It was one those little s––– ones from Timpson. Antique dealers always have a look underneath, so I put a filthy picture there, just to see what the reaction was.”

In a later skit – and a strong contender for Shooting Stars' funniest ever moment – Reeves turned his deranged affections to Christine Bleakley and showed her a tattoo (actually a biro drawing) of her face on the small of his back. Pulling down the back of his trousers to show the tattoo in full, he revealed what can be charitably described as heavily-soiled under-crackers.

“She laughed her head off," says Reeves. "When I did that, I’d got some old underpants and put the stain on with coffee, and hung them up to dry outside my house. My wife came out into the garden and said, 'What are you doing?! What are the neighbours going to think?!'”

A few guests were bewildered: Dallas star Larry Hagman didn’t have a clue what was going on; and Robin Gibb insisted on promoting his dreary new ballad. “He thought he was on some pop show,” Reeves says. “He wouldn’t go on unless we played it. So we played it and just moved on.”

The catchphrases caught on fast: I remember irritating friends at school with incessant trumpeting of the “Ulrika-ka-ka-ka!” and “ERANU!” lines. Not to mention the leg-rubbing and handbag-lifting. “That went everywhere,” says Reeves. “There were footballers doing the leg-rubbing. And people started doing the handbags but without handbags. People will do it now and not know what it’s from. It’s kind of gone into society through the backdoor.”

Reeves at least remembers the genesis of the leg-rubbing: “I had this tape, from Warner Bros or somewhere, of these awful recordings that people had sent in looking for record deals. There was one bloke singing this song which was awful – [adopts sinister voice] ‘Come here and sit on my knee!’ – and you could hear him rubbing his legs. I said, ‘He’s rubbing his legs in anticipation!’”

Reeves agrees the wanton perviness is an odd sight in 2020 (it’s just a few notches above Lisa Stansfield gripping a stick of between her bumcheeks for our amusement). But when asked about his favourite guests, Reeves admits: “This is probably wrong now but I did like rubbing my legs at the ladies.”

I tell Reeves that at the height of Shooting Stars, I once bunked off school to see him at the Bristol Virgin Megastore, where Vic and Bob were signing copies of a Shooting Stars cash-in book. The store was rammed. In the pre-Twitter age, when a whiff of a celebrity was deeply exciting, they were like a pair of rock stars turning up. Reeves says he wasn’t bothered by the fame of mainstream success, but mainstream success itself.

“It wasn’t really the fame,” he says. “It was more that if we were mainstream we were doing something wrong. We were knocking about with indie bands – and we were the indie band of television. If you had a hit record, it’s not quite right. We had the feeling that we didn’t want to be in with the popular crowd.”

In 1998, Shooting Stars did a live tour with The Fast Show. Reeves recalls that in each town they’d bring in local celebrities as guests. “We were in Manchester, and Bez came on,” says Reeves. “I think he’d had a bottle of brandy and two bottles of wine before he went on stage. He came on and did a cartwheel, and all these pills fell out of his pocket. He was grabbing around on the stage, gathering up his pharmaceuticals.”

Shooting Stars took a four-year hiatus, then returned for another two series in 2002. Will Self replaced Lamarr as the captain of Team A, with a drunken, ranting Johnny Vegas joining as a regular panelist. (Vegas being spun on a roundabout and trying to not spill a drop of his Guinness is a highlight.)

The series was revived again in 2008 and ran for another three series, this time joined by Jack Dee and Dan Skinner’s Angelos – the kebab van owner who’s deluded into thinking that Ulrika is his girlfriend, but who’s always got an eye for other female guests because Ulrika’s “on the turn”. “I don’t think it’s something you would do now!” laughs Skinner about his Ulrika-baiting gags. “I think Angelos can get away with that stuff because he’s the lowest status in the room… no one would ever go near him.”

Skinner landed the role after sending a video of himself in-character to Bob Mortimer (“For god’s sake Mortimer it’s about time you gave me a job," said Angelos. "This is getting ridiculous”). Invited to rehearse on the set, Skinner realised he was being auditioned. Mortimer told him: “You’ll just have to chip in when you can, but that’s what it’ll be like on the show, so off you go mate!” That was how it continued for the next three series. “You could just chip in and shout whatever you like," says Skinner. “Vic and Bob love to be made to laugh.”

Skinner was similarly surprised by Vic and Bob’s ridiculous games. In one challenge, he had to stand face-to-face with Matt Lucas, and had to keep a straight face and balance a stuffed bird on his head while Lucas wobbled his cheeks around. “You had no idea what would happen,” says Skinner. “That was great fun being chucked in. If someone had told me ten years earlier that Vic and Bob will ring up and say, 'You be on our show, do your best character, and do whatever you like…' I just couldn’t believe it. I was convinced every week that someone from the BBC would tap me on the shoulder and say, 'Thanks a lot but that’s the end.' But it never happened.”

Lucas left the show in 2010, and Skinner took over from George Dawes as scorekeeper for the final two series. “I was terrified,” laughs Skinner. “I was in the office and Bob just said, 'By the way, you're scorer in the next series.' Just like that. I tried to take it in my stride but inside I was thinking, ‘Oh f–––––– hell…’”

After eight series, the BBC ended Shooting Stars in 2011. Reeves says he'd still making them now if he could. “I think they got better and better,” says Reeves. “The last two were my favourites.”

Though perhaps not as culturally on-point as it was in the Nineties, what made Shooting Stars so deliriously funny was still there – the slight shambles of it all, and the sense that it was as ludicrous and funny to the panelists as it was to the viewers at home. The spirit of Shooting Stars seems to come from Vic and Bob’s real-life friendship – their shared sense of (ridiculous) humour that's always in-sync but still able to catch each other off-guard.

“When you work together closely for a long time you become kind of psychic," Reeves says. "You know where to pause, and when the other person is going to do something. You’re mentally tied together. Bob and me would know exactly what we were doing, and we were very closely guarded with everyone else. But we’d also have a bit of room to surprise each other. That’s what makes the show really, the unprofessionalism! I you see someone laughing and enjoying themselves, it becomes sort of infectious.”