ROBERT POPPER – Screenwriting Shenanigans & The Value of Chutzpah

The best one me and Ian ever got was, like, we still couldn’t work out it was like a document. I think it was creation or something, but it was, you open it and it says, in memory of my father, blah, blah, blah. Which is weird, having a TV proposal in memory. It seemed to be a cross between a television program, but mainly a manual for how to operate a remote control car.

Hello, I’m Laura Shavin, and this is The Offcuts Drawer, the show that looks inside a writer’s bottom drawer to find the bits of work they never finished, had rejected or couldn’t quite find a home for. We bring them to life, hear the stories behind them, and learn how these random pieces of creativity paved the way to subsequent success. My guest this week, Robert Popper, is responsible for many of the greatest television comedy moments of the past 20 years. Possibly best known as the writer and producer of six series of the multi-award winning sitcom Friday Night Dinner on Channel 4, and two series of the cult science spoof Look Around You with fellow writer performer Peter Serafinowicz, he has also written, script edited, and or produced such series as Peep Show, The Inbetweeners, The IT Crowd, Him and Her, and he even wrote on four episodes of the hit US comedy South Park. More recently, he co-wrote some of the award-winning sitcom Stathletes Flat, and in the literary world, he is known for his alter ego Robin Cooper, author of three best-selling books based around the time waster letters, an audio compendium of which has just been released on Audible, read by Popper himself, and featuring the voices of Serafinowicz and Dawn French. Robert Popper, welcome to the show.

Hello, what a welcome.

How many long sub clauses were in that?

The sub clauses were excellent. You are on fire.

The back of my throat is slightly on fire, as a matter of fact.

Have a mint, have a mint.

I wanted to ask you, actually, you’re reading these letters out yourself. Does your alter ego Robin Cooper have a different voice to your own?

Yes, he does. Yes, he speaks like this, and he sort of speaks like this. I do lots of phone calls as him, but then they’re on the Audible thing as well. I’ve been doing lots of prank phone calls since I was about seven. Robin Cooper kind of emerged while I was writing the letters, really, and then… Yes, he sort of… I beg your pardon. He talks a bit like this.

Oh, right. I see. How old is he just out of interest, would you say?

You know why? He must be 60 now, 62.

If he’s a day. Right, let’s kick off with your first off-cut. Can you tell me what it’s called, what genre it was written for, and when it was written?

This was… I guess it was for school. Actually, you know what? This was in a little book of poems I found. Sound pretentious, written by me. So actually, I think it was just for me. And it’s a poem called My Brother that I wrote when I was eight in 1975. Jesus.

My brother has four names. They are Jonathan Howard Lee Popper. He has fairish hair and blue eyes, not to mention his heavy hand he takes after my dad. Jonathan can be very mean. If someone would ask for a crisp, he would put his hand in the bag and pull out a very small one. He is always getting told off and then he would start crying, which is very unusual. Jonathan is a very tough kid. He’s very good at pinching, kicking and punching. Unlike most four year old children, Jonathan is very good at football. For instance, Jonathan and my dad were playing football against me and they won 10-9 and Jonathan scored six goals. I was very surprised. He can tackle me and spends most of his time fouling me. It’s horrible when he wears his red sandals. He is a very fast runner. He came fourth at Sports Day in the running race and the beanbag race. In the night, we nearly always get out of bed and start playing. It’s great fun. My mum and dad don’t think so. And to tell the truth, we don’t think so when they come up. It’s great fun to have Jonathan as a brother. And I wouldn’t like another.

Oh, quite a bleak ending. Actually, sorry. I should have introduced that as not a poem. It wasn’t a poem.

But you know what? That’s exactly what I was going to say. That’s not a poem. It doesn’t rhyme. It doesn’t scan.

I got it wrong. It’s not a poem. It’s actually quite depressing and quite dull about it. Actually, I just found this book and I thought, you know, what is all this stuff? Yeah, there was books of writing and poems. And it’s something quite bleak about the end. I think sort of lovely and also bleak.

The bleak bit.

I wouldn’t have any other. Just an it, just end. I like things that do that. They just end.

Well, I presumably at the age of eight, you sort of got tired. Your little wrist had got tired.

Yeah, my little wrist. I’m listening again. It’s quite a dull bit of work, but that’s I think is a good way to start.

Well, I mean, considering you are the writer and producer of the great sitcom about a Jewish family, which is two brothers, it does.

That is why I thought it might resonate.

Yes, that’s the obvious place to start, really, isn’t it?

Carry you over the board and threshold.

Well, no, I mean, this was the little Robert Popper sitting at home writing about his brother then and then do that wiggly screen thing, fade in 20, 30 years later, and was writing Friday Night Dinner about his brother and him.

But I do remember his sandals. He would give a good kick. I remember that.

It did have an element of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, the comment about the red sandals.

I know, I know. It makes him sort of sound like a little prince as well, which I quite like.

And presumably it’s all based on truth that you have a younger brother.

It’s all based on no lies. I have a younger brother called Johnny, which I named after Friday Night Dinner, same character, I called him Johnny. I couldn’t be bothered to change it. And we have spent since we were, you know, well, since he was born and I was alive, we have fought, as in playful. To this day, it just doesn’t ever end. We still fight. That is just like our bonding, just jumping on each other and he wins. He’s younger than me, but he’s stronger than me, so he always wins, but I don’t care. That’s just what we do. It’s what we do. My wife, when she first came around, she actually went to a Friday Night Dinner at my mum’s and she just couldn’t believe, I mean, number one, she’s not Jewish, number two, she just couldn’t believe the level of violence, physical violence that was occurring in front of her. It’s sort of calmed down a bit now, but, you know, at any minute, something could occur.

Is it a good example to set your children?

It’s too late to change now. That’s what they know. That’s just all they know.

Dad fights with Uncle Johnny.

And loses.

But then dad did write Friday Night Dinner, so he wins in the end.

He wins. He wins.

So Friday Night Dinner was very much based, obviously. Is there a lot of truth in the whole family relationship? How do your mum and dad feel about the characters that are supposedly based on them?

Yeah, it’s kind of loosely based on it. I mean, originally the idea was just about the fact that when you go home, when you’re like an adult, you just revert to being a kid again. And everything, all those old relationships and power structure, you just fall into the thing you had when you were young, when you were little. And I thought that was just, number one, a universality. I can’t say that word, but I’m going to say that. And I thought it was just funny. And I thought the fact that we went home generally on Friday night was like a Sunday lunch. And it was the same every week. It just could kind of encapsulate that. And there was a lot of silly stuff I could do in that. Yes, but in answer, they all, yeah. I mean, my mom is funny and smart. And my dad didn’t use to wear a top in the house, like in the show. And it was pretty grubby and irritable when he could be. And to say just the weirdest, oddest thing. I mean, I didn’t put this in the show, but I remember years ago, before Sky TV and stuff, on their TV he used to have a little post-it note. And in pencil, because he only writes in pencil for some reason, there were five channels, you know, Bbc 1, Bbc 2, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5. And somehow he had managed to tune the TV so that he needed a reminder what channels what. I’ve got a picture of it. It’s like, one, ITV, two, Channel 4, three, Channel 5. What do you think one or two would be? None of them were right. And that was stuck on the TV for fucking years. It’s like my favourite. I’ve got that somewhere. It’s like my favourite possession. My dad’s TV guide. How my mum puts up with that, I just don’t know.

But no doubt they’re very proud of being featured in a…

They’re very ashamed. No, they were fine. They were great about it. They were really good.

Right. Well, time for another off cut now. Tell us about this one.

Try and get this right. These are some short poems. These are poems.

These are poems, are they?

Yeah, these are more disappointing ones. I wrote when I was 10, but all about the seasons.

And you wrote them at 10. What year was that?

Bloody hell, 77. Just after punk.

As you will be able to tell from these poems.

Yeah, they’re quite punky. Yeah, the influence of punk. I don’t know if it was punk going into New Wave is kind of beginning. So you’ll see it.

Winter. Winter is cold. Down comes the snow. Freezing wet weather and just listen to the wind blow. The rain is falling as hard as can be. The leaves are now falling off the pinewood tree. Umbrellas go up. Put your coats on. Don’t go outside for the thunder’s begun.

Spring. Spring is warm.

Out comes the sun.

People in happiness having such fun. Birds are singing in the trees. Leaves are blowing in the breeze. Gazing, just gazing down by the wall. The sun is now like a red-hot ball. The scenery now is just beautiful. Mountains, lakes and hills are now like a square that is practically full.

Summer. Birds are singing in the trees. Leaves are blowing in the breeze. The sun is shining through the trees. Hear the humming of the bees. In the nests, the birds are tweeting. Worms are the food they are receiving. People lying in the sun. Now is the time not to run. School has ended once and for all. People swimming in a pool.

Autumn. The leaves are falling onto the ground. Rusty red leaves are now found. The wind is blowing against the trees. That is the sign of autumn. The trees are swaying. The wind is blowing. Flowers are dying. Leaves are falling. But you better watch out, because winter is near.

Autumn’s the dark one. I don’t know why autumn is not winter. It just doesn’t…

Oh, they were all pretty dark.

Worms are the food they are receiving is brilliant. Also, I mean, brought with beautiful and like a swear that is practically full, that was our favourite line.

Like a square that is practically full.

They’re good. I love the way they were read.

Thank you very much. Were you very obsessed with trees, leaves and wind when you were a 10 year old? That’s the basic overriding theme.

I must have been. Yeah, clearly. I can’t really remember. I remember I was obsessed with, I’ve learnt the word incandescent and that was in every essay, incandescent. So much so that if I ever had to read out my essay, say it at school, if I said incandescent, everyone would shout incandescent, meaning we know you always use that fucking word. So then I just always use that word to sort of annoy everyone. That was my word.

Incandescent. And yet it didn’t have, and it could have, it would have been perfect.

It predated the incandescent phase.

I see.

Haven’t used it since. I don’t think in anything. I don’t think I could.

What, incandescent? Well, if you say it enough times, it ceases to mean anything. So you were a bit of a writer at school then, were you? We don’t really know.

No, I think I used to write with my best friend at school, Gideon, and we used to do projects on our own, and we had a teacher we liked, who we nicknamed Mr. Bigger Bagger, I have no idea why. And he was cool, and we used to just do projects. So we used to do, just for ourselves, the theory of triangles, where we would prove a triangle is a circle or something, but do quite a lot of work on it. It was just crap, and give it to him, and he would mark it. It was just like, it wasn’t even homework. It was just the thing we used to like doing. So we did some of that stuff.

How old were you when you did that?

I probably about 12 or 13. No, what I used to do was, I remember this one, I must have been about 11, and a teacher asked us to write an essay about our favorite TV shows, and then we had to mount it on a board and decorate the board with the names of the programs. But I, it’s quite young when I started doing all this crap. I just, I had like a few programs that people would know, and then I made up all the other ones, and then I decorated the thing with like the news at 10, and then it would have, I don’t know, Sampson and the Ape or something, the Mysterious Keys or just things like that. And then it would have another news round, and then it would have Billy Brunson and his dilemma, things like that. And it got like, I got a really good market. It was part of the display, like on parents’ evening, and it was up there on the wall. And yeah, I was so proud of that. I think I told my parents and they were like, oh, Robert.

Well, doesn’t that foreshadow your, certainly some of the work in Look Around You and all that?

Yeah, I think I’d always done that. And yeah, I would sometimes put like in my essays, like a few times I put the word shit in and stuff.

What, school essays?

Yeah, I did. We had a history teacher. He just thought, he doesn’t read this. So I got like twice managed to put the word shit in the middle of it. Actually didn’t notice it, stuff like that. Or just a word that doesn’t mean anything and it’s just not noticed. So I would do that.

What an incredible child you were.

No, I was an idiot.

No.

I was a bit old. I was probably like 16 when you’re doing that stuff.

But still, to have that kind of creative spirit, I mean, sorry to bring it down to being too sincere here, but that sounds like you were quite an interesting kid to be around.

The best thing I did was, I was 15, but it was the year where you could give up. I know it’s all different now, but you’re doing subjects and you’re not gonna do them anymore. You’re not gonna do them for your GCSEs or O levels or whatever. And biology, I was giving up. So you still had to do your end of year exam, but then you knew you were never gonna do it again. So you would just write crap, it didn’t matter. But I remember we had like an exam room there’s about 150 kids in there, all doing biology, of which two thirds were going to give it up. So I remember coming up with the idea that, and this is before like mobile phones and people would have watches and often on the hour, you’d hear one go beep beep like that. It was like when the first watch goes beep beep at three o’clock, everyone just put up your hand and ask for four extra pieces of plain paper please. So it was great. So it started at two and when it was three, like 75 hands just went up suddenly. It’s like a bit of conceptual art and there’s two invigilators. Like a flash mob. A flash mob. Flash mob, that’s it. And it was like, oh, hello, hello, can I have four pieces of paper please? Okay, the next person, can I have four pieces of paper please? And it’s like, they can’t say what the fuck’s going on because people are actually doing the exam. That was great. That was what the best bits of school that, all that stuff.

Okay, moving on now. Let’s have your next off cut.

So this is a fake CV I wrote in 1993 when I tried to get a job in comedy and TV, didn’t know anyone, so I thought I would do this.

Name Robert Shaku Popper, marital status, single, nationality, British. Background, November, 1970, I was the sole survivor of an air crash in the forests of British Columbia, Canada. Reared by wolves, I lived for 12 years in the Canadian forests, hunting, gathering and learning the ways of the wild. In 1982, I was rescued by English missionaries and taken to start a new life in edgeware middle sex. Education, I have little formal education, save what I learned in the forests of British Columbia. I can read and write English, am numerate and can dress myself. Employment, January, 1984 to January, 1986, Nesbit Pencils Limited, Nesbit House, Mahogany Road, Perry Vale. Having lived among forests, I’ve always felt a natural affinity towards trees and wood. Thus, a position with a pencil manufacturer seemed appropriate. I worked in the factory, moving from the blunting department through to sharpening. Reason for leaving. I found the nature of the work personally upsetting. March, 1986 to February, 1990, Glossop Syrups UK, Smedley Way, North Harrow, Middlesex. On leaving Nesbit, I believed it was a natural progression for me to move from pencils to syrup. I worked as part of a team developing new flavours and in addition to increasing sugar content in all of Glossop’s syrups and treacles, I helped introduce a further range of products. Glossop’s Industrial Syrup, for the aeronautical industry. I produced the in-house bi-monthly magazine, Success with Syrups. January to February, 1990, Health and Safety Officer, Reason for Leaving, Boiled. Made a full and miraculous recovery after slipping and falling into a vat of boiling syrup, industrial range. Please see reference. Interests and hobbies, personal hygiene, collector of Velcro garments, regular contributor to Colostomy Weekly. I am a keen huntsman and a more than provisioned with a rifle, curtain making, baying.

Now there was a further addendum to that CV, but we didn’t have time to get that recorded, unfortunately. So tell us about this very strange CV.

Well, I decided I wanted to go find work in TV and comedy. I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t know how to get in.

What were you doing at the time? Where were you?

I was playing guitar in a band that was just a band that wasn’t a famous band. And we used to just argue the whole time. Because I played guitar since I was like seven and that’s all I ever wanted to do. And I realized I don’t want to do this anymore. And I remember Alan Partridge was on the radio, knowing me, knowing you. And Today Today was on the radio. And I was thinking, oh, this is so good. I really want to do something like this. So I didn’t know anyone. And I remember my parents knew someone, a friend of a friend whose son worked on Esther Ransom. And I think that was useful. But he gave me some advice. You need to write to producers of shows you like. So I then found out some names and I wrote to them. And I thought, well, they don’t know me. Everyone sort of wants to work in TV, don’t they? So then I suddenly thought, well, I’ll just make up a CV that looks completely normal. So at the beginning of that CV, it has my name and address. And then it just, it’s suddenly, oh, I survived an air crash.

Although Robert Shapley Popper was a bit of a giveaway.

Well, that was one like tiny hint there. And it also had another job of me working for a company called Purine, that was it. Which is basically, you realize it’s just their re-bottling piss. And the references from the guy, it’s just printed on prison paper, Pentonville prison. And it basically says, I’d like to also add the I too. I’m available from work as from like 20 years in the future. I was so proud of that. To this day, it’s like maybe my favorite thing I’ve ever written because it got me like through so many doors and it got me to the comic strip Presents, which was Peter Richardson, who’s a genius. And he said he wanted to meet me and I came in and I just heard him shout, bring me the wolf man. And so yeah, it got me into like, that was my way of getting to meet people. Basically writing stupid made up things has what early on got me into places.

So you sent him your CV, you got an interview with him and you started working at the comic strip.

Well, it wasn’t really an interview, it was weird, because I walked into the comic strip and I remember it was like, sort of slightly stepping into Sesame Street, it was like all higgledy-piggledy, or like quite grotty and dirty and rundown.

Like the young ones.

Yeah, kind of, yeah, it was a bit. And I went upstairs and he was there with like some young comedy people, all older than me. And he said, oh, sit in, we’re just doing some ideas and script things. I went, okay. And they were smoking dope. And I thought, wow, this is fucking great. I want to work here. This is just so, this is a job. And there was no mention of a job. He said, oh, we loved your CV. And then they were being funny. And then-

Did you join in? Were you asked for your opinions?

I think I did a bit. Yeah, I think I did a bit. I think he liked me because he was looking at me a lot for like, oh, is this funny? And at the end of it, you’re all thanks for coming in there. Thank you. Because he’s so vain, Peter. He’s lovely. By then I’m like, okay, right. So what should I do? He said, well, maybe like just come tomorrow or something. So I thought, okay. So we’ll just turn up the more. And I remember like someone was working and I said, well, you have said, oh, I’m starting today and my job starts today, I’m working with Peter. I went, oh, because I hadn’t been given a job. So I sort of bullied my way into getting a job. And I got a job as like a runner and his assistant quite early on and with like crap money. But I sort of just kept turning up. I think he couldn’t even remember that. He said, definitely come. But then, and then I worked there for two, three years. And yeah.

Did you ever get to do any writing, any creative stuff?

I did a bit of writing with him on a film that we didn’t make. And, you know, mainly like assisting him on the writing, but also kind of chipping in and just learn loads watching him write. So yeah, that was, it was really cool because it was quite punky and it’s quite rock and rolly. Just because like you be there and then someone would walk in, your daughter, you buzz and it would go, it’s Jeff. And you go, who’s Jeff? And like, it’s Jeff Beck, the guitarist, who’s Peter’s best friend. Like, I recognize you, Jeff Beck. And it’s Pete there. He’s upstairs. And then the phone would go, hi, it’s Kate Bush here. It’s Peter. So, you know, when you’re like young and it’s like, fucking it was Kate Bush on the phone, it was…

That sounds like the best job in the world.

It was really intense because you worked really long. And yeah, it was fun. It was like, you know, I remember like living in his family house for a while while we were writing and stuff like that. So it’s all like intense and mad, but it was great. Yeah, it was great.

Okay then, next off cut, please. What’s this one?

This is from Mein Kampf. No, this is from… This is from 1993. It’s a letter I wrote to the fictional character, Alan Partridge.

Dear Mr. Partridge, I am writing to tell you that up until recently, driving on the A41 had never been so much fun. Every Tuesday night between 6.30 and 7:00 PM, this perfectly ordinary Honda quintet owner would be transformed into a sniggering, incoherent idiot, oblivious to the outside world or indeed the outside lane. From the moment your AHA signal 30 minutes of guaranteed stupidity, my body would begin to display the classic symptoms of rigor mirthis. My grinning face screened in numerous car mirrors seemed to drive us to suggest that I was either in sheer awe of the Brent Cross flyover or merely enjoying the company of a very funny yet invisible passenger. In a sense, these motorists would be half right. With so much free parking, Brent Cross is the ideal place for family shopping. What I’m trying to say in roundabout manner is that I found your show, Knowing Me, Knowing You, extremely funny. Now, you may have gathered, possibly from the eye-catching golden envelope, courtesy of the Eric Morley stationery collection, that I have been trying to grab your attention. The reason is simple. I would like to work with you and your team of writers on any of your forthcoming projects in any capacity. I cannot offer years and years of experience of writing for radio. What I can offer you, however, is an enthusiastic love of comedy, a sharp original mind, an ability to make people laugh and a vivid and surreal tortoise imagination. I’m 25 years old and have a degree in languages from Manchester University. For the last year, I have been playing guitar in a jazz rock band and have performed live in London and in Manchester, although unfortunately, we have never quite broken into the Norwich music scene. I have in my time produced several comic magazines, written sketches for school and university reviews, acted in an Oscar-winning short film and I was once Cecil from Watford King of Trivia, Hertfordshire’s most boring host on a local radio station. You will find that I have an eye and an ear for the ridiculous and another eye and another ear for the ludicrous. I can also offer a lift home to anyone who lives off the A41. Your sincerely, Robert Popper. PS. I understand that you are no doubt a very busy man and I have therefore enclosed a stamped addressed envelope. PPS. In case you find yourself totally tied up at the moment, I have also taken the liberty to write myself a reply letter on your behalf. You will find this inside the enclosed envelope.

Now we couldn’t fit-

That is so embarrassing. It sounds like something written by Noel Edmonds.

Well, we chose to read it in that way.

No, it’s good. I’m glad. I know it’s embarrassing. Sorry.

We didn’t want to do an Alan Partridge impression, obviously, and we just wanted the energy in the letter and the enthusiasm.

It’s so overly written and, oh my God. No, I knew it was embarrassing, so I thought, well, I want to put that in.

I haven’t been humiliated enough in my life.

No, it’s just, I mean, the cute moment is probably I have a very torturous imagination. I thought, okay, that’s all right, that one. But the rest of it is like, oh God.

My favorite one was the outside lane reference, the outside world, that was a good one. And also I can offer anyone a lift. All the car jokes got me basically.

Yeah, this is the same time when I broke my CV, I think, I wrote to him by his agent, or whatever, but I put them in gold envelopes. I bought gold card or something and covered the envelopes in gold because he’d remember me. And then I broke like a letter from Alan Partridge back to me in there. So he would go, oh, he can write Alan Partridge. And then I just kept doing it. I know Steve now, not good buddies, but I work with him. I know, but he often says, oh, I found another one of your gold envelopes in the loft the other day.

How many letters did you actually write to him then?

I don’t know, quite a few.

So this was just one of many?

Yeah, there was a few I wrote to him. Yeah, and then they phoned me, I think, and said-

Stop writing to us.

Left a message, stop writing to us, please. And they said, well, we’re doing a TV show. I don’t think we’re gonna look for new writers, but if you want to write a script, write a script. So I never written a script. So I spent two weeks writing a script for like an interview thing, and I sent it to them. And I think they phoned me or they wrote back and said, we actually, we got lots and we thought it was great. It was really good and we really liked it. But we’re not using other writers. We got a writing bug, just so you know. So that gave me like massive confidence. So I’m like, okay, well, maybe then I can do a bit of this. I remember bumping into Patrick Marber, who used to write up with-

Yeah, Patrick Hanrahan-

I saw him in the street.

Hanrahan, one of his-

Exactly. In Soho, I saw that’s Patrick Marber. So I went up to him and said, Patrick Marber, yeah, I’m Robert Popper. Oh, we thought you’d have curly hair.

How brilliantly surreal. So it wasn’t directly successful as such, it didn’t actually get you a job like your CV did.

Oh no, I didn’t get a job, no. But it gave me a bit of confidence, like, okay.

So they’re both from 1993, so in what order?

Doesn’t mean trying to break in.

So what happened? You sent them both off at the same time, and then you got the job at Comic Strip?

I think I probably sent them at the same time, same, yeah, something like that.

So you were actually fine, because you were working at the Comic Strip at that point?

Or that was before, I think that might have been before the Comic Strip. I think this was probably just before the CV went out, but yeah, it’s kind of around the same sort of time.

And visit offcutsdraw.com for more details about the writers and actors, and to find out about future live shows. Thanks for your support. So you presumably, having mastered the art of attracting employers’ attention, the boot was on the other foot, tables were turned, et cetera, and you were on the receiving end. Did you get a lot of similar stuff yourself? People sending gold envelopes, et cetera?

Yeah, people did send some cool things like food, biscuits and chocolate, which would go in the bin because they obviously might be injected with acid. But I used to get what I instigated, the nutters file, which was the worst. So obviously, when you were there, I never thought I wanted to be a commissioning editor or anything like that, but at Channel 4, I liked the comedy on there and I got asked in for a meeting. I didn’t know what it was about and then I realized, I said, what is this meeting about? I said, oh, we’re looking for a comedy commissioner. Are you interested at all? I’ve never ever thought about that. Then the more he spoke, this is Kevin Ligo who used to run it and he runs ITV now. I suddenly thought, I really like this guy and I really liked Channel 4. It seemed like a good place when you walked in compared to walking into the BBC, which feels like a cross between, I don’t know, a hospital and a prison. You just think someone’s going to say, don’t run. Channel 4 was funky then, particularly then it’s quite funky. So we’re always looking for new interesting things. I thought, it sounds like this might be fun. It seemed like you could be creative. I remember I thought, you know what, I want this job now. I kept thinking, how am I going to get this job? He said, we’ve seen so many people, by the way. I said, really, who have you seen? He said, the list, it’s in the bin there. I said, can I see it? Okay, gave me the list and I knew those people. I thought, you know what, I want this job. I went, him, I don’t think they’re right. Not that right. Yeah, I’m not sure about any of these really. And anyway, I had a second interview and I somehow got that job. But the best bit of the job was getting like terrible, terrible scripts, just like for random people. Occasionally, you know, once every six months you will get like an absolute zinger. And then I instigated the nutter file, which is where we would collect all these. And the worst one I ever got, it jumped out at me because the front cover was just covered in hand-drawn swastikas. So I was like, okay, right. But it wasn’t like he wasn’t a Nazi because it was, well, it was about the war and Hitler. And if I can summarize it, I’ve got to work it out. So it was something to do with, this is his made up story, it was in the war. So Britain are losing the war and it’s like early 1941 and the Germans are doing very well and it looks bleak for Britain. And then a dog, I don’t know if Winston Churchill finds this dog like an Alsatian, which has a birthmark on it like it’s fur, which is shaped exactly like a swastika. And they think, hmm, Hitler loves dogs. If we could train this dog, this is at the time when Hitler is deciding whether he should invade Britain or the Soviet Union. So if we could train the dog to salute, to give a Nazi salute when Hitler mentions, shall I invade, in German, of course, somehow, Britain or Russia, and the dog salutes the Russia bear, then he’ll do that. So they send the dog over somehow into Germany and let it run near where Hitler is. He finds it, and it’s like, Gott und Himmel. It’s just a sign. And the dog salutes him. So that’s his dog. I’ve got this in my fucking loft, definitely, because I saw it the other day, and I don’t know why I haven’t got it in front of me. It’s covered in swastikas. Anyway, so we got the scene. I remember the scene so well, because I read it loads of years. Now gentlemen, this is when we decide if we should invade Britain or Soviet Union, as if anyone has ever said that. So he has on his table, the map of the world, and shall we invade here, Britain or Soviet Union? And the dog jumps up and salutes over the Soviet Union. That is it. This is Providence. We invade Soviet Union tomorrow. And from that day, Britain was saved, and nevermind Soviet Union, blah, blah, blah. And I think it ends with there is a statue now of him saluting, like the Nazi salutes, yeah.

Of the dog, is the statue of the dog saluting?

In the story, I think at the end, it says, and to this day, a statue was erected to the dog.

So was this a comedy pitch just out of interest, or was it? Because it was sent to you, your comedy commissioner.

Maybe it was, it didn’t seem like a comedy. The other baffling one, which was brilliant, I used to work there with Ian Morris, who went on to write, co-write The Inbetweeners. And the best one me and Ian ever got was, like we still couldn’t work out, it was like a document. I think it was Croatian or something, but it was, you open it and it says, in memory of my father, blah, blah, blah, which is weird having a TV proposal in memory. It seemed to be a cross between a television program, but mainly a manual for how to operate a remote controlled car and how he built it with his father and it had a full diagram and how you operate it. And somehow that was a TV program and we couldn’t work out if this is just a manual that he’s made himself, but somehow this is at the front, it said like a eight part, 45 minute television entertainment show. But it was mainly about the history of him and his father designing this and then diagrams of the unit and how it’s operated. We read that so many times, and we couldn’t figure that one out.

And this was before or after you did Look Around You. I just wondered if these pitches in any way influenced Look Around You because they sound the sort of thing that almost Look Around You would be.

I mean, maybe, but I’ve always been attuned to like stuff that’s brilliantly badly written. I love that, just things that’s so misguidedly wrong, but you know, earnestly done. I mean, we used to get some unbelievable things, game shows as well, that were just absolutely awful with like prizes that were like 30 million pounds. Things like that. The moon, yeah. Yeah, a weekly prize of 30 million and things like that, a weekly prize.

Time for another off cut now. What have we got?

Okay, this is from about 2003 and it is a TV pitch document. I don’t even know if it’s completely finished or not, but it was for an American version of Look Around You for like a series two type thing, for HBO to be called the incredible world of everything.

Imagine you could pack a whole week of school learning into one weekly TV program. Now imagine that TV program was made by some very silly people, very silly people. In fact, everything you were meant to be learning from American history to sex education was absolute nonsense, but it was all presented dead straight. Now imagine it is all set in the 1970s and 1980s, the glory days of schools television. You’ve got The Incredible World of Everything, the silliest and also most serious comedy program on TV. The Incredible World of Everything is written and produced by Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz and takes as its starting point their hit UK series Look Around You, series one. But wait, what is Look Around You? Look Around You celebrates everything kitsch and cliché about science education, complete with synthesized music, bushy hairdos and outlandish experiments. Throughout the series we observe a colony of ants build an igloo, receive a telephone call from a brain, discover why ghosts can’t whistle and reveal the largest number in the world. Science has never been so silly. So now you know about Look Around You. What exactly is the incredible world of everything? The incredible world of everything is a spoof school’s magazine show set in the 1970s and 80s. It shot through with the surreal and wildly silly humor that made Look Around You such a success. Each show is divided into mini filmstrip style programs, which we call modules. Each module, complete with its own title page and distinct style, covers a different topic, from fashion to music, science to sex education. Some modules will be regular, others will pop up now and then. Here are some of the modules stroke mini programs we might feature. 50% Fit, Physical Education Lessons presented by Quentin Sampson, a man who only exercises one side of his body. One half is incredibly muscular, the other limp and weak. Before the Teletubbies, babies had to make their own entertainment, literally. is a program for babies, presented and made by babies. Teething issues, rattle reviews, and hard-hitting interviews with adult politicians. Presented by Simon Crofton, won and Felicity Virtue, 7 months. It’s your decision. Issues for school leavers. Leaving home, opening a bank account, choosing a career, planning your own funeral. It’s about time. With the science of time travel still in its infancy, you can encounter quite a few problems. We show you what to do if you unearth a time capsule from the future, or what to say if you receive a phone call from yourself. Wet paint, arts and crafts, practical instruction and viewers’ paintings. Presented by Salvador Dali’s grandson, Peter Dali. In the nutty, sex education. Eggy time. The stakes are high in this entertaining educational quiz where the contestants have to eat a hard-boiled egg for every incorrect answer. The incredible world of everything. It’s Monty Python at school.

That’s quite well written, I thought. I’d watch that. I’d make that now. See, when we did Look Around You 1, which was our spoof science 10-minute show for BBC 2, we got Series 2, like two years later, which was the, like, Tomorrow’s World spoof, with me, Peter, Josie Derby and Olivia Coleman. And before we came up with that idea, originally, this was our idea that we wanted to do, but I think BBC said, no, we want more of a, like, with regular people in it, but I would have liked to have done this.

Did you pitch it to anyone in America, or was it just written on spec?

I think that was for, like, I don’t even know if we did send it in, but I know, when I found the document, it said for HBO.

At the top of the document, you referred to Matt Groening and Jack Black. Presumably you had an in there anyway.

Yeah, it was quite a big cult thing in America. And people seemed to like it because it was stupid and weird. So, yeah. But we pitched kind of this to BBC 2 as well, like straight after we did series one, they said, like, can we do a 30 minute thing? And they didn’t go for that. And they went for the tomorrow as well thing. But I would have loved to have made this. I think it would have been such fun, yeah.

So you wrote that with Peter, your writing partner on many projects. How did you two meet?

We met on a thing I wrote with Mark Freeland, who is a comedy producer now, and Matt, Lucas and David Walliams. The first thing we did was about 1998. For Channel 4 we were going to do a series, but it turned into a 45 minute special. And it was called You Are Here, and it wasn’t very good. It was just before the League of Gentlemen. It was kind of set in a village. But then the League of Gentlemen, same time, did it properly. And we didn’t do it properly. And Peter was in it, and we bonded over Pot Club, as we used to call it, at night. And we became instant, instant super great friends. And then we used to just hang out all the time. And then we just used to talk about, you know, weird, stupid things. And then we one day came up with Look Around You.

Was this your first project that you wrote together?

Yeah, it was. Yeah. And it just started as a, let’s write a short film for fun. And then it was like, no, you know what? Let’s just make it. So within sort of five weeks of talking about it, coming up with the idea, we had made it. And we shot it all with, like, buddies, illegally. We used to go turn up at a place at six in the morning and film outside their premises. And then as they turn up for work, we would leave.

And that’s the first episode?

No, that was called Calcium. And that’s just on the DVD. That was a 20 minute version of Look Around You. Ended up for Bbc 2 as, like, first series as 10 minutes. Eight of them, I suppose. This was just for fun. It wasn’t for TV. It was just for, like, us. And we had a big screening and we invited lots of people we really admired and people sort of seemed to really like it. And we hadn’t thought of it as a TV show at all. And then people started saying, well, you should try and do that for TV. We go, well, it’s so weird. Who would do that? And then eventually Talk Back, the production company who did The Day Today and Chris Morris and Alan Partridge, they got in touch and we loved them. And they said, we’re going to take this to Bbc. We’ll have a go. And we’re like, OK. Then we had a meeting with them and they said we’d like to commission a series. And we’re like, really? And we’d like to do six. And then I went, how about 10? And they went, all right, eight. So it’s like kind of different then. I mean, if you don’t ask. So, yeah, it was great fun. It was like the most fun I’ve ever had in my life ever doing that with Peter.

OK, let’s move on to the next offcut now. This one is right.

This is called Peter and the Wasp. And it’s a bit of a script written by me and Peter Serafinowicz in 2004.

Interior, Piggy’s Cafe, Day. Peter is sitting at a window table with his best friend Wasp, who is a Wasp. Peter is absentmindedly doing the crossword puzzle. The Wasp is crawling over a menu.

So have you decided?

Not yet. Don’t rush me.

I’m not rushing you. I’m just hungry. Look, could you do me a favour and see what the specials are?

All right.

The Wasp flies up from his spot on the table and over to a blackboard with the specials of the day written on it. He hovers in front of the board, slowly getting lower as he reads the information, then buzzes back to the table.

They’ve got Thai beef curry. A vegetable bake.

And a chicken and mushroom pie with…

Oh, hang on. The Wasp flies over to the board again, has a quick look and returns to the table, passing a woman who gently swats him out of the way.

Garlic mash.

Oh, thanks, man.

A confident bubbly waitress walks over. This is Elaine. Peter and the Wasp both secretly fancy her.

So, are you two going to eat anything today?

Yeah, sorry, Elaine. I think I’ll just add some toast and another coffee, please.

No problem.

And you, my dear. Do you do…

Your hair looks nice.

Oh, thanks. It’s in a nice style.

Come on.

Do you do ant’s eggs?

No, I’m afraid we don’t do ant’s eggs.

Do you do beetle grubs?

Elaine shakes her head.

Do you do baby nymph flies?

Look, you know they don’t do that sort of food in here. This is a human restaurant.

Elaine smiles at Peter.

All right, then.

I’ll just have a bowl of chips.

Matt, you’re not getting a bowl of chips. You only ever eat a tiny little bit of one chip.

But I’m hungry.

I’m really sorry. It’s because you’re here, you see. It’s just showing off.

Don’t worry.

It’s fine.

I’ll just have a nut.

OK.

Thank you.

Elaine leaves. A moment later, another waitress, Jenny, places a mug of coffee in front of Peter.

Thank you.

Peter goes back to his crossword.

You made me look a right idiot then. What? With Elaine.

Well, it’s your own fault.

Peter fills in a short answer. Suddenly, the wasp, buzzing loudly, flies onto Peter’s arm and stings him.

Ow, shit, man!

What are you doing?

Ow!

That really hurts, man, you little bastard!

Well, it’s your own fault.

I would never do anything like that to you, never. You know what? You can be really nasty sometimes.

Big deal.

Oh, big deal. Right. Well, tomorrow I’m going to take you to Dr. Simon and have your sting removed.

You won’t.

I will.

Well, I’ll sting him.

You won’t.

I’ll sting him and everyone else.

If you sting anyone again, then that’s you and me finished. I mean it. I mean it. End of friendship.

Really?

None of my friends treat me like that.

Well, none of them have got stings.

This isn’t funny. I’m sick of it. You can move out of the flat and we’ll never see each other again. Right?

Peter goes back to his puzzle.

I’m sorry. Sometimes I can’t help it.

You can help it.

It’s my enzymes.

It’s not your enzymes. You always say that.

Jenny comes over with some toast and a nut.

OK, guys, who’s having what?

I loved this, I have to say. It made me laugh all the way through the recording of this.

You know what? I really love that too. That was Alex Lowe, isn’t it?

It is Alex Lowe.

I love Alex. Thanks for doing that. That was brilliant. I really enjoyed that as well. I was going to play the wasp.

He’s short of it.

That was going to be my first question. What did the wasp sound like?

Oh, they don’t have stings, do they?

Yeah, that was sweet. That was fun. I remember we went and pitched that and we did a read in the office of the BBC and I did the voice. The insult just looked at us like, okay. That would have been funny, man.

So what happened in the rest of the episode? Because that’s obviously just a little…

I don’t even know if we wrote the rest of the episode. It was just that scene. Maybe. Who knows? Maybe that was like a sample scene and we went and pitched it. It would have been funny. I don’t know how we’d have made it, but it would have been funny. Peter and the Wasp.

Yeah. It’s a great title. I thought it sort of had a normal yet surreal feel like you can have in certain animations. I can imagine it would obviously be a lot easier to animate than it would to be.

Yes, it would be.

To get a Wasp co-star.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s train a Wasp up. But I like the fact that the Wasp is sort of irritable sometimes. You know what I mean? But they were really close. Yeah.

They were best friends.

Yeah. It was sort of sweet as well.

But have you written for much animation? I mean, apart from South Park.

No.

So South Park was your only animation that you did?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I don’t think I have. No.

So how did you get South Park then?

I worked a bit in LA and I got to know Matt Stone from South Park as a buddy. And he used to tell me, oh, sometimes we go on like a little retreat like me and Trey Parker and the producer and I think there’s like three writers generally on South Park. And we like sometimes bring a buddy along and we go away somewhere like really nice in California for like three days and we just talk crap. And I used to think, please ask me one day. And then one day he sent me an email, hey, man, you know, I mentioned blah, blah, blah. Would you like to come? So we went to like somewhere really nice in Los Angeles and I rewatched all of South Park. And he said, don’t do any work. And it was just, I think, like an hour or day of talking crap. I think what it is because South Park, they make in six days and they don’t really know what they’re going to do. So I think it was like, if we happen to have any funny ideas that could be used as backups, that’s useful. But I think it’s just fun and it was great. And then they asked me to come on, join the series, but you don’t write on the series. And I could only go for like four, by the time my visa was done, four episodes. But it was, it’s Trey writes it, it’s Matt and Trey. And Trey is the one that then goes and writes it. So you’re in a room from 10 in the morning to one in the afternoon, three hours, that’s all you do. They carry on working and the night before the show goes up, they work the whole night, so a whole day and night. But the other writers, they’re there just for literally three hours a day, it’s brilliant. And no one has a pen, there’s no computer, you never see a script. And it’s Trey going, okay, what are we going to do? I had an idea, maybe this, and he just walks around the table pacing. And I realize you just have to like facilitate Trey’s genius brain, because he is the most impressive person I think I’ve ever met in comedy. And when he has three scene ideas, he will then write on the board, like in five words, you know, Cartman, Bunk School, 2, The Police, Look for Cartman, 3, he has like three scenes. And then he goes, okay, you go now. And you go at like one o’clock, back to your hotel, whatever. And I remember the first day, the writer is saying, oh, you wait till you come in tomorrow. I go, what did you say? So you come in the morning. Okay, oh, yeah, so I did a bit of work on those scenes. And you think you’re going to see a script, follow me. And you follow them into like the edit suite. And they’ve done it. They’ve made those scenes, which often don’t bear any relation to what was discussed. They’ve voiced them, done the music, and they’re ready, they’re done. So you’re just in a room, basically facilitating his enormous brain.

So you’re being amused.

Yeah, I mean, it’s difficult being British a little bit, because as much as you know American culture, it’s about childhood, really. So some of the things you said, we’re going to talk about summer camp, you think, oh, what is summer camp? I think I know what that is. You know what I mean? There’s all that. There’s a whole like divided by language. But also part of the buzz is, oh my god, because I’m such a fan, Trey is doing Cartman now. And Matt is doing Butters. So I’m like dying inside. I’m sitting here and they’re doing the actual voices.

Oh, wow. Did you get to do any voices? They let you do a two second. Oh, the wash.

But Peter Serafinowicz, he worked on it as well. He did some voices on it. Yeah.

Right. Well, we’ve come to your final off cut now. Can you tell us about this one?

Yes. It’s also insane. This is called Sneeples. And it’s from a, well, I suppose a document that I posted up in the nature hut in the woods near my house in 2014.

Sneeples, sometimes known as Snimmsnims, are small furry mammals that walk on two legs and use their hands to forage for food, berries, nuts, grubs, etc. They live mainly in northwest Europe, although there are colonies of Sneeples as far afield as China. Sneeples can be found in Highgate Woods, but are quite difficult to spot. They live in underground dens and usually only come out when it is dark. The female Sneeple just dates for about four months and usually produces four or five baby Sneeples, known as Tibbies. Tibbies are only about three inches in size when born and are also quite blind, although they gain their sight in a couple of weeks. Sneeples are quite harmless to man and can sometimes be quite friendly. There have even been reports of Sneeples nuzzling up to dogs and small children. If you do see one, please let us know. Happy Sneeple watching R. Cooper, September 2012.

Poem. Market Day Sneeples by R. Cooper, 2009. Oh, where are you going, brave lady of old?

I’m going to the market for wares that are sold.

If you see there a Sneeple, brave lady of mine, will ye bring him back homewards, should there one you find?

Oh, that I will do, for my darling, my dear, a Sneeple I shall bring ye, oh, that I do swear. And here is the Sneeple from the market I bring.

Oh, thank ye, my darling, I give you this ring. And so we were married the day after that, and the Sneeple, our Sneeple, wore a flower in his hat.

Notice, Caution, Sneeple breeding ground. We are currently undertaking an intense breeding program with our Sneeples. While this takes place, we ask all visitors kindly, do not touch the Sneeples. Sneeples are naturally shy mammals, and may also be shunned by their peers if they come into contact with humans. Do not feed the Sneeples. Please note, potatoes can be lethal to Sneeples. Do not disturb Sneeple nests or warrens. Please refrain from playing loud music near nesting sites. Throwing frisbees, hoops. If you see a baby Sneeple or Tibby that is away from its parents, please report the matter to a Woodland official. No balloons. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your cooperation. Be S-A. Be Sneeple aware.

Yeah. So, explanation, I think.

In the Highgate woods near where I live, there is a hut, sort of grotty nature hut. And it’s got like a permanent display where you go in and there’ll be like a thing from like 1993 and paper that’s been laminated and stuck on the board with drawing pins. And it might be like bat population and there’ll be a graph, which is impenetrable. And then next to it would be the children from the school had drawn some leaves that’s on there. Then there’ll be like centipede colony information. So it’s quite dull and grotty. And I remember there, I was there with my wife, I thought, you know what? I could just make up an animal, print it up, make it look old so it’s been there for ages and just stick it up here and see how long it will stay here. So I had these creatures I invented when I was little called Sneeples, which are just these sort of flubby, flobby little blobby things.

They look like Mr. Men, don’t they? Because you should like the illustration with it as well.

Of course, yeah. And then I made like, yeah, the first two things you heard. So I made them and I went to Ryman’s got it laminated, they just printed it up, looked at it like it was normal. And then my wife was on lookout. She was scared because she’s not as sort of naughty as me. And I pinned them up in there and they were there for about eight months up in there. And then one day they were gone. Just love the idea that the committee that run that, you know, nature reserve thing would be like one day, okay, this is a sneeple. Sorry, who put these up a sneeple? What are these? And it’s, I just love the idea that would have been a thing anyway. Then I, you know, a year later, I did the one which was the sneeple colony, which I put onto a piece of wood and hammered into the ground. That was also there for months.

The sneeple warning one?

Yeah, the one with the breeding ground, yeah.

When was the poem? I noticed that was written by Robin Cooper.

Yes, I just decided to put it by R. Cooper, as in Robin Cooper. So I just put R. Cooper.

Love that poem.

Yes, that took me about 45 seconds to write. It’s absolute crap. But it kept me very happy. We would go to the woods and go, come on, let’s look in. And then one day it’s like, oh, it’s not there anymore. But yeah, those are the sneak whores.

But this Robin Cooper, we didn’t really talk about him. We mentioned it earlier. He is the character that writes the Time Waster letters that you’ve had three books.

Yeah, they were stupid letters. Generally, the stuff I do starts as a, as you can tell, sort of hobby. And 1999 started, I got a brochure from this garden furniture catalogue. And I had a small flat, I didn’t have a garden. And it was, I kept getting it. So you know what, I’m gonna write back to them. And I said that I was a garden furniture signer and I have an entire range of scarecrows made from beef. Would you be interested in seeing them? And I just signed it Robin Cooper on a whim. And they wrote that we would be very interested in seeing your scarecrows made from beef, question mark. So I wrote back and said, thank you. Oh, I noticed I wrote beef. It must be a spelling mistake. They should of course be scarecrows made from Beal, B-double-E-L, no such word. And then I did my diagrams of these like ridiculous scarecrows that were apparently based on Roman themes. And then they wrote back and I thought, oh, this is great. And then I just started writing more and more. And I found this book called the Directory of British Trade Associations and Hobby Groups. So it would have like the British Marble Collectors side of the British Lizards Association, the British Mustard Society, blah, blah, blah. And I just started writing to them and they’d write back because they didn’t get letters. And it was just a hobby. And then I used to just print them out and show them to my friends. And I did more and more and more. And then eventually, after trying and failing, they became books, yeah.

Well, we’ve almost come to the end of the show now. Final question, are there any offcuts that you’ve still got that you haven’t shared with us today?

You know what, I have got quite a lot of other scripts with Peter that we wrote. There’s some other episodes of Look Around You that were never made. There’s animation about hexagons. There’s an animation, which I love to do, which is about a piece of carbon, a piece of litmus paper and some iron filings called the Three Friends. And they go on to like a Tudor medieval mystery, which is great. That is fun. And then there’s, yeah, we wrote some scripts for our fake religion, Tavuism. We wrote a full fake Tavu church service. I could have actually done that one actually. And yeah, there was quite a few actually, but I was just being picky and fussy and not wanting to give too much away. I don’t know.

Well, fair enough, did you? But you may decide to redevelop them.

But you had the Sneepers, you got Sneepers.

We’ve got the Sneepers and we’ve got Peter and the Wasp. And also the Look Around You, the incredible world of everything. There were some really good ideas in that.

And also the poems about the seasons, which are going to probably become like part of the English syllabus, I imagine.

Yes, I would think so. A level, not even GCSE.

Worms are the food they are receiving.

Yes, that’s, what was that thing about square? Like a square that is practically full.

What was it talking about though? What was the bit before?

I imagine it will either be leaves, trees or wind.

Trees or, yeah.

It’s mainly trees and trees featured very heavily in those poems.

Yes. Yeah.

Well, Robert Popper, it’s been fabulous to talk to you. Thank you so much for sharing the contents of your off-cut straw with us.

Likewise, and thank you too.

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Robert Popper. The offcuts were performed by Alex Lowe, Lizzie Roper, Toby Longworth and David Holt, and the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit offcutstraw.com, and please do subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.