Trigger Happy TV’s soundtrack helped redefine TV comedy

When Trigger Happy TV premiered on Channel 4 in 2000, it could have easily been written off as just another prank series. There was a man dressed as a giant squirrel hassling passersby and a guy yelling “HELLO?” into an oversized Nokia phone in public spaces. But Dom Joly’s hidden camera show carried a secret ingredient that made it unlike anything else.

Rather than relying on canned laughter or over-the-top sound effects, Trigger Happy TV paired its absurd moments with songs from Grandaddy, Blur, The Beta Band, Babybird and Pulp. The result was strange, often emotional, and completely different from the usual comedy fare on British television. It was an introduction to moody indie music cleverly wrapped in slapstick.

“I think it often gave Trigger Happy unwarranted depth,” Joly shares with NME 25 years later. “You’re watching two dogs beat the shit out of each other listening to Jacques Brel thinking, ‘Why am I moved by this?’ Deep without a meaning. That’s how I described it.”

As the anniversary tour approaches, Joly reflects on how that defining soundtrack came together, how he became friendly with The Cure’s Robert Smith, and what the next chapter for Trigger Happy TV might look like.

Dom Joly in ‘Trigger Happy TV’. CREDIT Channel 4

Trigger Happy TV became Joly’s way of living out his rock star fantasies

Dom Joly never really loved being labeled a prankster. “‘Prank’, to me, means what it used to mean, which was just fucking idiots and jocks doing stupid shit.” Instead, he saw hidden camera comedy as a creative medium. “In a way, what I was doing in Trigger Happy was sampling. I was taking bits of songs and dropping them in between the comedy.”

As a proud goth who once played in the band Hang David, Joly always gravitated toward sad music. “I find it beautiful but also it’s got pathos,” he says. “I was a singer, but I wasn’t a great musician. Putting music on Trigger Happy was kind of my way of doing that because I love music more than comedy.”

Dom Joly and his old band Hang David in New York. CREDIT: Dom Joly

The soundtrack itself became the joke

Thanks to a blanket licensing deal, Joly could use almost any track he wanted while producing the show for Channel 4. But broadcasting internationally wasn’t so simple.

“It was insanely expensive and the only country that paid for the whole original soundtrack was Germany, which was incredible,” he explains. “MTV wanted to buy it but with this terrible international soundtrack that I’d had to make – a sound-alike.”

That only reinforced how much the music mattered. “I’d edited the whole show more for the music than the comedy,” he says. “If you just plonk some shit lift music on top of it, it just changed it. In the end, I sold it to Comedy Central with the shit soundtrack, but it was always very depressing that America never saw it properly.”

Every character had their own signature song

UK fans became familiar with certain tracks tied to specific recurring scenes. A Chelsea pensioner slowly walking down steps or crossing the road was backed by The Beta Band’s ‘Dr. Baker’. Grandaddy’s ‘He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot’ scored moments with clowns throwing custard pies at one another in laundromats or parks. James’ ‘Born Of Frustration’ set the tone for scenes of Joly turning an elevator into a pop-up restaurant or using a showroom toilet to everyone’s shock. “It wasn’t like, ‘Here’s the lyric telling you what the joke is’. What I tried to do was have theme songs for characters.”

His personal favorite remains the giant snail crawling across Redcliffe Gardens in Fulham, soundtracked by David Bowie (later replaced by Muse’s ‘Unintended’ on home releases).

“I could ring someone at that time and say, ‘I need a snail costume’ and six days later I’m in a tight body stocking with a massive snail costume,” he remembers. “I put ‘We Are The Dead’ by Bowie on it and it’s just perfect… It’s the most surreal idea. Everyone around the world understands it. It’s odd, funny and it’s got this amazing music that gives it kind of art house depth.”

A random meeting saved Trigger Happy TV
When picking a theme for Trigger Happy TV, Joly immediately landed on ‘Connection’ by Elastica. But it wasn’t included in the blanket agreement, which meant they needed to pay.

“The blanket agreement didn’t include titles, so you had to pay,” he recalls. “It came back and they said no… I couldn’t think of what other song to use, because it was so in my head.” Deflated, he wandered into HMV for ideas and ran into Justine Frischmann at a cash machine on Portobello Road.

“I run up to her, and she looks totally freaked out,” he says. “She probably thinks she’s going to get mugged. I go, ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I know this is weird, but I’ve just made this show. I think it’s really funny. The title sequence used ‘Connection’. We asked your guys whether we could use it, and they said no.’” It turned out she hadn’t been asked at all but was curious.

‘I said, ‘Fine, I know where you live. I’ll drop it off.’ And that completely freaked her out. At the time she was living with Damon Alban from Blur and it was around the corner from me in Notting Hill. The next day, I’m walking up to her door. There’s a very nervous-looking Damon staring out the window, so I waved, put the video through and then I went away. The next day they ring up and say, ‘Yeah, we absolutely love it. You can use it.’… I thought, ‘Right, we’re blessed here.’”

The show attracted its own cult of celebrity fans

Not only did Joly fill Trigger Happy TV with music from his favorite artists, he also ended up connecting with some of them.

“I was at one of my gigs, this kid queued up and he said, ‘I just wanted to say thank you, because your shows were the only ones that me and my dad laughed at together’,” he recalls. The dad was Mark Hollis of Talk Talk. “That honestly just broke me – the idea that this guy whose music I loved watched my stuff. I also I knew he was quite a sad guy so [the fact I’d made him laugh] was amazing.”

Dom Joly and The Cure’s Robert Smith. CREDIT: Dom Joly

The Cure were fans too. Robert Smith would later appear as Joly’s best man in the spoof documentary Being Dom Joly. A photo Joly snapped of Smith in his kitchen after a night of drinking in the early 2000s recently became part of a long-running online joke.

“I posted some silly meme about The Cure being depressing and some fucker said, ‘They’re not depressing. I don’t think you know anything about 80s music, especially The Cure’.” So he shared the kitchen photo. “‘Just because he’s been in your kitchen, doesn’t mean you know anything about them’,” the commenter shot back. “It’s like, dude, you’ve lost. Fuck off.”

Dom Joly is still causing trouble 25 years later

This October, Joly and co-creator Sam Cadman will revive Trigger Happy TV for four special live shows. “It’s difficult because it was a show with members of the public,” he admits. “This is more of a celebration. If you enjoyed the show, come and enjoy, you know? Wallow in some nostalgia.”

With classic characters returning, Joly hints at the possibility of a new project. “Sam and I were thinking about maybe trying to film a weird hybrid, doing some jokes, but also making it a bit of a road trip with the characters, as though they’re back together,” he explains. “I don’t know what it’ll be. It’ll probably be very wanky but we’re going to make a little half an hour thing, put some music on it, and then see if anyone’s interested.”

The ‘Trigger Happy TV’ 25th anniversary tour begins October 7 at Birmingham’s Town Hall before heading to Glasgow, Manchester and London. Tickets are available here.