Comedy Central imports "Bob and Margaret"By Hugh Hart, posted June 20, 1998 Bob comes down to the living room wearing no pants and spends the next 10 minutes telling his wife how their life together is a living Hell. Bob doesn't know that dozens of appalled guests are in hiding, waiting to surprise Bob for his birthday, and they've heard every word. Welcome to the world of "Bob and Margaret" debuting Monday at 10:30 ET on Comedy Central. The surprise party story earned British husband-and-wife filmmakers Alison Snowden and David Fine an Oscar in 1995 for best animated short. Film. Now they bring the adventures of a dumpy middle age dentist and his podiatrist wife to American primetime. Although this is the first animated series on Comedy Central since "South Park," the two shows have nothing in common besides a decidedly dark shade of humor. "Someone dies," deadpans Fine, "but not in every episode." "We spread it out a bit," says Snowden. Unlike "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill" families, "Bob and Margaret" don't have children (unless you count their fat, lazy dogs, William and Elizabeth). And there are no pop culture references. Instead, the humor is droll, ironic and decidedly British, without the "Monty Python" histrionics. The characters have chins. In fact they're nearly all chin, with big red noses. And the thick English accents can be a challenge. Cultural nuance aside, the show is a lot like real life, in particular, Snowden and Fine's. In one episode, "Burglary," two well educated burglars ransack Bob and Margaret's home, taking everything from classical-music CDs to their teapot ("Pours very nicely," observes one crook). Feeling violated, Bob decides to up the ante on the insurance claim and raise their standard of living. This, as most things do, sends Margaret into a panic. The police, meanwhile, are spectacularly uninterested. "We did get robbed," says Fine. "The police came, and they were so bored. It was just another burglary call. They did actually cut themselves, the burglars, when they broke the glass, just as they do in this episode. They dripped blood all over our house. We said to the policemen, 'We've got blood here, DNA and all that stuff.' "And they were like, 'Oh, right.' They wanted to appear to be doing a good job, so they said, 'Have you got an envelope or something?' They took a knife from the sink, that had egg on it, and they scraped the blood into the envelope and said, 'We'll get that down to the lab right away.' " "That is what we had for breakfast," says Snowden. "They'd trace it back to us." And like in "Burglary," Snowden and Fine were able to upgrade, courtesy of the insurance company. Says Fine, "We just thought, 'Gee, where's the victim here?' " Though neither Snowden nor Fine have any personal connection to the world of tooth repair, they made Bob a dentist because they wanted him to be depressed and, Fine says, "we'd heard the statistics that said dentists do have a very high suicide rate. There are also practical considerations. "We love putting irritating noises on the soundtrack," says Snowden, "so you've got this constant gurgling of the water and the drill. It just all adds to the tension and the irritation of the situation." Top of page |