alan
Alan is a force of nature, like wind or a bin fire, people seem to see themselves and their friends in him. That's when you know you've got a classic character. He represents the natural urge everyone gets at a dinner party to punch the host in the face while he's talking.
cheese&wine
Reluctant 70s party goers try to make small talk with limited success. This is the debut of the popular favourite Cheese & Wine series, if you don't count the pilot 'Porn Club' in Comic one where Gerry is moaning about his wife having it off with a lorry driver in a car park.
home clubber
A top notch surrealist and cut-price giro philosopher, whose ill-informed musings and half baked ideas appeared in the Guardian Guide every Saturday from 2004 to 2011. A council-bothering, armchair-bound, cheap booze connoisseur, he was always one step ahead of conspiracy theories and a pioneer of technology freeloading.
peace&quiet
Described for Series One as 'a man's efforts to relax in his garden are repeatedly spoilt by his neighbour (a cross between Keith Moon and Heath Robinson) eating a packet of crisps into a PA system'. In Series Two the same man moves into a block of flats where things get a lot worse. Features polo necks and velvet jackets.
barney
Ordinary bloke turns into a 12 foot red monster every time he sees Alan Titchmarsh on telly. Still struggling with his anger issues, Barney looses it big time in Series Two. He ends up bursting through a plane after Alan Titchmarsh introduces an in-flight safety film.
stroller
The Toss 'Stroller' range was conceived as a bold new greetings card vision. They instantly spoke to another overlooked, niche audience - people who didn't really want a card in the first place. For these people, sending a card of a man attacking some carol singers with a baseball bat was often the closest they ever got to reaching out to a friend.
sneezeman
Goose-stepping nose with legs and a hat has bionic allergic reactions to contemporary life. Here we see his most ambitious sneezing fit, animated by the award-winning Matthew Keen.
work
fly talk
Voiced by Paul Kaye and Mackenzie Crook. They slipped into the minds of two flies with astonishing ease. We noticed they were working really close to the microphone to get those intimate slurping noises.
gnat burglar
A bionic mosquito capable of sucking a dinosaur dry.
space argument
We always like to get the music right in any Modern Toss sketch. With Space Argument, we used the start of Dvořák's 'New World' symphony which works really well until the Hovis bit starts, then you start thinking about bread instead of space. The astronauts were voiced by Paul Mackenzie - once again, they locked straight into the mindset of a pair of outer space postman.
punctuation networking event
Originally done as part of 'Jon & Mick's Typography Laugh In' for Eye Magazine. A sort of Cheese & Wine party for punctuation marks. We immediately saw its potential and stripped it down for parts.
drive-by abuser
Voiced by David Schaal. The second we heard his bass baritone voice shout "Good luck to ya, I wouldn't have the fucking nerve!" we knew he was fully channelling the character. These sketches in the TV series proved highly cost effective" we could abuse up to 20 things a day providing they were all close to each other.