Roger Mellie (‘The Man on the Telly – who says ‘Bollocks!”) is a fictional character featured in Viz magazine. His catchphrase was originally the same as David Frost’s catchphrase ‘Hello, good evening, and welcome,’ but very soon degenerated into ‘Hello, good evening and bollocks!’
The character first appeared in Issue 6 in July 1981 and (like many other characters in Viz) is a foul-mouthed and obnoxious misogynist who manages to maintain a career as a television presenter, in spite of his objectionable personality and incompetence (he sees himself as highly professional, despite abundant evidence to the contrary).
He is shown working on various TV networks and channels, the fictional Fulchester Television (FTV) and the BBC being his primary employers. He is the ostensible author of ‘Roger’s Profanisaurus,’ a vulgar parody of Roget’s Thesaurus which is updated with extra entries in each edition of Viz and has been published several times under considerably risqué titles.
His fictional biography states that he was born Born Roger Edward Paul Mellie in 1937 in North Shields, and was educated at Fulchester Mixed Infants, Bartlepool Grammar School, and the Oxford Remand Centre. He began his broadcasting career as a cub reporter on the news with Robert Dougall and shot to fame filling in for a poorly Bruce Forsyth on Saturday Night at the London Palladium with his ‘Last Turkey in the Shop’ routine, featuring genital mutilation routines. Recruited by Fulchester Television he became a popular TV personality and established his own production company, MellieVision.
Mellie was frequently pulled over for drink-driving and, in 1986, he ran over and killed a bus queue. He often stays at his favorite lap-dancing club in Acton until past 3 am, but lives in Fulchester with his 17-year-old Thai wife and fifteen Staffordshire Bull Terriers. He has had five previous wives (two ‘accidentally’ murdered) and is a convicted rapist, undischarged bankrupt, a hopeless alcoholic, extremely sexist, very right-wing, a bigot and a recovering cocaine addict.
He owned a restaurant in Stoke Newington with Alex Higgins, George Best and Chris Quinten. He once almost died while unveiling a plaque, but was resuscitated by the nurses in hospital, and promptly ordered his breakfast – sausages, fried bread, fried eggs, black pudding and several other heart-destroying items.
Roger’s straight man is Tom, in early strips, a director or producer, later a portmanteau figure, an agent for Roger or a television executive, to suit the situation. In one issue, he has a sign reading ‘Tom – Straight Man.’ One of Roger’s defining features is that he will always arrive very late, regardless of if it is to a job or simply a meeting, despite Tom making desperate attempts to make sure Roger understands the importance of being on time (leading to Tom’s catchphrase of ‘Where the Hell is Roger?’). Roger usually arrives announcing ‘Sorry I’m late, Tom.’ In one strip, Tom imagines Roger has arrived on time only to discover that it is a life-size cardboard cutout, and, on another occasion, Tom is utterly shocked as Roger arrives two minutes early – but then he wakes up. Roger and Tom have crossed over into the ‘Billy the Fish’ strip occasionally before realizing they are in the wrong page.
On one occasion in 2006, while requiring a liver transplant (due to chronic alcoholism), Roger became a hit-and-run driver: he ran over and killed a motorcyclist without stopping, later receiving the dead man’s liver for himself, then celebrating the successful liver transplant with a booze-up at the nearest pub.
Sometimes the strip follows current or recent events. In a parody of the kidnapping of Alan Johnston, Roger is kidnapped in Beirut, but after eight days it turns out to be an attempt to seek publicity. Tom discovers that the BBC is in on the deception and reluctantly takes part by being a fake phone-in contestant on Radio 4. In 2011, due to recent news stories revolving around celebrities taking out super injunctions in an attempt to protect themselves from scandal, Roger goes to his crooked solicitor attempting to silence his ex-wife from releasing a book about their violent marriage which also details Roger’s ‘questionable’ hobbies. However, it emerges he is not trying to silence his wife to protect himself, but is actually releasing this information himself in a new autobiography and he does not want her to cash in before him.
In 2015, following the high amount of media attention following Jeremy Clarkson punching a producer (memorably referred to as a ‘fracas’), the strip showed Roger entering his office just before he is due to renegotiate his contract to present Roger Mellie’s Skidmarks and punching Tom in the face. As Tom attempts to recover, Roger organizes the ensuing scandal and his recovery to ensure a lucrative contract. When meeting the Director General of FTV in the cafeteria, Roger turns up drunk and is delighted to be told his show is being recommissioned for five years along with a huge salary increase. However, Roger then is told there is no hot food available (another reference to the incident with Clarkson), causing him to fly into a rage and then punch the Director General too.
In another strip, Roger finally finds mainstream success by presenting Bargain Hunt only to have it ruined when a dead body is fished out of his swimming pool. However, despite whatever misfortunes and/or scandals might befall him, Roger never learns his lesson and his TV career always remains intact.
Roger has also appeared in several other parodies of real TV shows, including a stint as presenter of Springwatch whilst Bill Oddie was in hospital after Roger had accidentally shot him. Roger’s version of the show consisted of him launching live rabbits from a catapult for Jack Charlton and Ted Nugent to shoot. Usually, Roger has little success hosting mainstream shows but often suggests pornographic reworkings of well-known shows, which against all odds prove successful.
The Daily Omnivore 
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