2.44 The Comedy Badge
Badge Design
Round with a face crying with laughter.
Episode Summary
Opening Squirrel
Tag almost Riding his bike into a muddy puddle.
Start
Norrie is playing with the spinning top. Happy and Roly are building a tower. Betty is reading a book on shapes. Tag is playing with the cars.
Set-Up
Tag trips over and bruises his knee. Happy prescribes laughter as his mum says it’s the best medicine. The Squirrels decide to make Tag laugh but they don’t know how. Duggee can help, he has his Comedy Badge.
Story
Duggee starts his comedy class by writing some complex equations on the blackboard. The purpose of comedy is to turn a frown, upside-down. He begins with a history of comedy, starting with ancient Egypt and following the development through pictures, words, stage and eventually cinema with Stanley Squeak.
The Squirrels aren’t sure what to make of this, they don’t find it funny. They talk about what they find funny:
- Betty like Doctor Pluto’s Fun Facts It is a book fully of funny facts such as it is impossible to lick your own elbow. The Squirrels all try it. It’s fun but not funny.
- Roly likes Busy Bears, a kid’s cartoon with fairly basic jokes. No one else laughs.
- Happy thinks his cousin Eric is funny. He tells a story about when they went on holiday and the water only came up to Eric’s knees because Eric is really tall. The Squirrels don’t find Happy’s story funny.
- Norrie tells a joke. What do you get if you cross an elephant and a potato? Mashed potato. This starts a discussion about how whether elephants like potatoes. Happy’s mum won’t even have them in the house. No one laughs.
The Squirrels are frustrated, causing Duggee to step back onto some roller skates. He rolls backwards, tripping over some blocks and into a table. He switches on a fan which blows him onto a trampoline. He bounces up, through a ball pool and into a costume box. He changes his costume into a smart suit and boater and falls out of the clubhouse onto some girders. A bucket falls on his head and now blind, he bounces around the farmyard animals and into the barn. He emerges on the back of the angry bull and covered in hay. He springs across some bushes and into the clubhouse. He pulls the bucket off his head and the water soaks him.
The Squirrels find this hilarious. Tag’s knee is better, physical comedy did the trick.
Bridges
- Duggee in a comedy stereotype costume with big eyebrows and moustache.
Close and Credits
The Squirrels have earned their Comedy Badges. Duggee turns to get the badges but steps on the roller skates again and repeats the process.
Duggee steps on the roller skates once more and we hear lots of bangs and crashes off screen.
Outfits
- Duggee wears his professor’s tweeds for his comedy lesson.
- Part way through the physical comedy routine he changes to a comedian’s suit and boater.