Deconstruction of the mockumentary ‘Look Around You’: ‘Germs’

All of the episodes of the series’ Look Around You’ started with the same introduction. This introduction highlights the key aspects of the series, that it is about science and that it will be an amusing program to watch. This can be told due to the computer in the background. This shows that it will be science based and the text on the screen as it is moving incredibly fast shows that the

series will be funny. The logo of the series is basic, the name of the series in simple white text with the O in You being replaced by a picture of the Earth.

The opening titles for the actual episode consist of a person doing an impression of a scientist trying to explain a technical aspect of science. The person doing the voice says exactly the same thing for the start of each episode. By doing this he is showing that all of the episodes are linked. When he says ‘That’s right!’ it is an example of the comedy that will be expressed in the show.

All of the episodes in the series start with a scientist supposedly picking a chemical bottle off a shelf. All of the bottles are labelled, often humorously for instance plague and plaque. This is humorous as they are not referred to at all in the program. This makes it a visual gag that the viewer has to spot themselves. Another of these in the Germs episode is that there are three petri

dishes on the desk, one containing E-Coli, an actual germ, another containing a substance labelled E-Walker, the name of a chemist who won a noble prize, and the final one containing a substance called E-Nesbit, a children’s author.

As this program is pretending to be from the 70’s, some of the facts that they put down have to be accurate to that date as opposed to when it was actually made. For instance, when Germany is shown, the surrounding countries include Czechoslovakia which had been separated into different countries by the time the program had been made.

The narrator is using a posh accent for the duration of the program. In this one scene, he pronounces words differently from how the general public would normally have pronounced them. This makes the audience think of the narrator as being more intelligent than themselves. The narrator also makes up scientific terminology to make him look even cleverer to the

public. For example there is no such thing as a ‘Bakerloo Bell Jar’.

The first experiment is designed to make the audience of the show both disgusted and amused at the same time. This is done by putting ‘sewage water’ into a student’s mouth, for the disgusted part, and pretending to take the professor’s temperature whilst his pants are round his ankles for the humorous aspect. This will make the audience laugh as most people will imagine that it is

their own professor in the position.