When Life Is Art: Trigger Happy TV
by Claire Zulkey

It is likely that no one will ever know quite what made Dom Joly snap… probably not even Dom Joly.

Trained as a diplomat and political reporter, he grew bored of his position on British news channel ITN, and -- with no ulterior motive that he'll cop to, other than boredom of course -- he began seeing if he could film his just-the-facts political interviews in front of some rather unusual backdrops.

"I was doing these boring sound bytes for Parliament and I wanted to see if I could get something funny going on behind it," says Joly, "such as having friends dressed as clowns fight in the background of interviews."

Needless to say, he did not keep his job.

"After three or four times of this happening, everybody started wondering if this was too much of a coincidence."

But what didn't work for ITN worked well for Channel 4. These surprise bits of street humor (or as Joly calls it, "pissing around with a camera") evolved into the program now known as Trigger Happy TV, a show trademarked by short sketches wherein people on the street are secretly videotaped interacting with Joly's characters, oversize props, and actors in animal costumes. This spring, U.S. cable station Comedy Central brought Joly Stateside and reinvented Trigger Happy American-style. The new incarnation is shot here and features a cast of seasoned American comedians, instead of simply Joly himself.

The question is, why should we watch? I was a little suspicious of Trigger Happy, mostly because it can only be compared to its hidden-camera brethren. ("It's like Jackass, but clever," said my boyfriend.) I almost turned it off when I saw the telltale, wobbly handheld camera; however, as I watched I realized "Trigger Happy's" main drawback is only that it looks like its comedy counterparts.

With programs like Ali G., The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, Punk'd, Crank Yankers, Girls Behaving Badly, and Jackass, monopolizing the primetime viewing hours, the performance-stupidity genre is hurtling toward pop-culture burnout. However, Joly insists that Trigger Happy is different.

"It's not about making people look stupid, it's about having people put up with other people being stupid," Joly says. And he thinks that's a good thing…

They're Professionals

What strikes me about Trigger Happy TV is that among the quick, silly skits stands the influence of serious comedic chops. Although the fellas on "Jackass" became famous because of "Jackass," it's a show made by amateurs. This is fun in its own right because it gives you the feeling that you or your stupid friends could be making the show. However the repetition of these regular guys doing silly things can wear down. Similarly, performers like Ali G. or Jamie Kennedy are known for very little outside their performances on their hidden camera shows. Even Ashton Kutcher essentially reprises his role of giddy schoolboy Kelso from "That '70s Show" on "Punk'd."

In the Channel 4 version of Trigger Happy, Joly pretty much ran the show himself, giving it a sort of home-movie feel, comparable to the more informal hidden camera shows like Jackass. Upon bringing Trigger Happy TV to the States, however, Joly held tryouts for a cast and is now backed by Second City and Saturday Night Live alum Jerry Minor, Improv Olympic performer Jessica Makinson, and Spy TV actor Travis Draft.

Although each sketch on Trigger Happy TV is at most a few minutes long, the actors bring a bit of depth to their characters while their improv training makes the humor less haphazard than many of the show's peers. Minor's small sketches of an evangelist predicting the 'changing of the light' at a crosswalk or of a base coach hurrying confused and bemused pedestrians across an intersection are short but well-conceived. You get the feeling that these are well-thought sketches, and not as much "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we drank some beer and then did this?" sketches. Trigger Happy leans more toward Saturday Night Live or MadTV based on its organization and the background of the actors.

Not Just a Boy's Club

Jessica Makinson is a fresh face on the scene of hidden camera shows, which usually don't feature (let alone star) females. For those who feel that Jackass is an idiot frat boys' club, it's refreshing to see a female, and it's delightful to Makinson making an out-an-out ass of herself -- whether she is performing in a cheerleading costume in a gas station or asking park bench sitters if they'd like some fresh ground pepper.

When creators of these types of shows insert women into scenes, it can feel like a precursory nod, such as the disappointing female performance in Jackass' hardboiled egg contest. While Makinson utilizes her femininity in her characters, such as playing a bride searching for a witness to her marriage to a giant rat, her presence gives the cast a more bona fide ensemble feel. Rounded out with black veteran comic Jerry Minor, the small cast is more diverse than Jackass, where Johnny Knoxville, Bam Magera and Steve-O look like they grew up on the same block.

It Rocks While You Roll

Although the show is full of visual gags, Joly, a self-described "music obsessive," is adamant that the antics are accompanied by quality tunes.

"In the U.K. show we used an extensive soundtrack of my favorite bands from the Cure to Mercury Rev to Elastica, or Blur, Jacques Brel, David Bowie, or Elton John (when he was good), and so on." The music was so popular that the show released three soundtrack albums on Amazon, which all went gold. (Pick This Up!) Unfortunately, when Joly and crew cleared the rights to use the carefully-chosen music, it was only for the U.K. and not worldwide.

"When Trigger Happy became a big global hit, we had to renegotiate with publishers for rights to use the same music abroad. They screwed us, and it was just way too expensive," says Joly, which resulted in creepy, bland elevator "shit music" during Trigger's first run on Comedy Central.

However, now that the U.S. version of Trigger is on the air, the show is getting clearance from U.S. record companies to play good music again. "Although we can't get everyone we want, it's a pretty good selection," says Joly, as the new soundtrack features music from groups like the Dandy Warhols, the Flaming Lips, Grandaddy and more.

Joly adds rather wistfully, "If you haven't seen the original U.K. Trigger Happy TV, with the original soundtrack, then you have never really experienced the show because 50% of it is about the music and pathos -- and loads of things were cut to the original music and then changed by having something else dumped on top of it.

"It's a beautiful thing when we get the music and the sketches and the editing all to flow together," remarks Joly.

I have to agree. There's something uniquely poetic about a group of adults in plushie suits walking down the street in slow motion to dreamy electronica Brit pop. Wacky Benny Hill-type music just wouldn't be the same.

Oh, the Humanity

For a hidden camera show, Joly seems to find a touching humanity that might be hard to fathom in something that seems to be such a one-off concept. "Our characters always have something slightly sad to them," he says, "Like the loser obsessive guy you used to hate in school."

For jokes that last less than a minute long, Joly finds soul and depth for the characters his actors present. For instance, Travis Draft often plays a cashier in a convenience store who attaches outlandish items to the bathroom key to prevent it from getting stolen -- such as, say, a live dog. (Joly explains it is simple to pay a store $100 to let him use their security camera.) Jessica Makinson's inappropriate cheerleader always ends her enthusiastic rhymes about gas-guzzling and fast-food eating with a somewhat pathetic and embarrassed "Thank you," which turns the character from a joke to a personality.

"The absurdity and the touch of sadness is just what makes me laugh," says Joly. "It's like Michael Douglas in Falling Down; somebody on the edge."

Forward Fast

"We move a lot faster than a lot of other shows," Joly says. "While there might be something like three jokes in a Jamie Kennedy episode, we usually have about 45 jokes per show. There's hardly ever a setup. We want the joke to explain itself in one frame. You know that cartoon 'The Far Side' by Gary Larson? That's my idea of perfect comedy."

It seems like other shows of the Trigger Happy ilk end up repeating themselves. Ashton Kutcher plays prank after prank on his celebrity friends, which are impressive in their scale and star factor, but not necessarily in their cleverness. The guys on Jackass do stupid stunts and hurt themselves. Even on the British version of Trigger Happy TV, one could predict that Joly would be yelling into his signature giant cell phone, that somebody naked would step into an elevator, or that someone in a giant animal suit would frighten a pedestrian.

Well, the large telephone is still there, as are the elevator antics and the animal suits. However, with a cast twice as large as the British version, there's something new practically every episode.

Plus, although there are regulations on where one can use hidden cameras, the Trigger Happy cast has the run of the country, so the variety of backdrop keeps the show fresh -- whether Joly is screaming into the giant phone proclaiming that the top of the Empire State Building is 'rubbish' or whether two giant eyeballs are staring at a sunbather on a beach in Miami.

Joly returns stateside several times a year for three-week increments where the cast generates ideas. Obviously, with more people in the cast, it creates a wider range of sketches, characters and ideas. Even the 'regular bits,' the carryovers from the old show and the recurring characters seem brighter and livelier when interspersed with one-time, new sketches (such as Jerry Minor's excruciatingly unforgettable baby-kissing politician).

It's hard to tell whether Trigger Happy TV would be shown Stateside if it weren't for all the other shows that resemble it. Unfortunately, if it is overlooked, it will be more likely because unfamiliar viewers lump it with every other hidden camera or reality TV show. Let's hope this British import will last longer in the States than Robbie Williams did.

Get happy on Comedy Central at the following times:

Monday, 10p: weekly premiere episode
Monday, 10:30p: secondary (repeat) episode
Monday, 12a: repeat of weekly premiere episode
Monday, 12:30a: repeat of secondary episode
Friday, 1:30a: repeat of weekly premiere episode
Saturday, 8p: repeat of weekly premiere episode

Claire Zulkey is a Chicago writer who has written for the Chicago Tribune,
Modern Humorist, and more. She publishes daily on www.zulkey.com