Billy The Fish - Background

Background

The strip chronicles the football team Fulchester United F.C. (Fulchester is the fictional town in which many of Viz's characters live). Originally the strip was produced in serial format, a rarity for Viz, but later became an occasional strip, usually appearing when major tournaments were being played or parodying major incidents in the world of football. The strip returned to its serial format for six months in 2007 as a result of a sponsorship deal with bookmakers betNOW, who were advertised in a deliberately ridiculous manner in each strip that they sponsored.

Characters include:

• Billy Thompson, the main character. Despite born half man, half fish, has managed to have a long and successful career as a goalkeeper for Fulchester. Essentially, Billy is a human head (complete with mullet hairstyle) on a fish's body, who inexplicably floats approximately five feet above the ground, and propels himself with his fins and tail. The first Billy was killed saving a booby-trapped ball in an FA Cup final, but was replaced by his son, who was also called Billy and happened to look exactly like his father.
• Tommy Brown, the team manager. A bluff, no-nonsense type in a sheepskin jacket, Tommy is the second-most used character – in the past he has had open heart surgery on the pitch and (coinciding with Channel 4's The Manageress starring Cherie Lunghi) was revealed to be a woman in disguise. His catchphrase is "someone's out to make trouble for Fulchester United. The question is who?"
• Syd Preston, the team coach. Syd is usually a hapless straight man trying to make sense of events. Sid was born in Scotland so he speaks with a Scottish accent.
• Rick Spangle, the millionaire pop star and chairman. In one strip, Spangle was revealed to be a Martian determined to get Billy to sign for his team Dynamo Mars, but of course this plot thread was never expanded upon
• Brown Fox, a scantily clad, big-breasted Native American woman who plays winger.
• Johnny X, the invisible striker His father was killed in a childhood accident, so Johnny has been invisible ever since.
• Terry Jackson, the unsettled reserve team keeper. Billy replaced him as Fulchester's first choice goalkeeper, and Jackson has since spent much time attempting to kill or otherwise discredit Billy in order to gain his place back. In the first episode of the programme, Jackson shot what everyone thought was Billy, but it was actually a balloon of Billy. Later in the book series, he joined Grimthorpe City and teamed up with evil Gus Parker and Wilf his henchman to discredit Fulchester United and kill Billy Thompson for revenge.
• Professor Wolfgang Schnell BSc. PhD., a mad scientist who usually only shoots for goal after working out the best trajectory he should kick the ball at, achieving this with a calculator, various charts and a geometry set
• Evil Gus Parker, boss of Grimthorpe City (Fulchester's arch rivals.) Parker is often behind highly contrived schemes to discredit Fulchester United.
• Wilf Evil Gus Parker's henchman. Wilf helps his boss to discredit Fulchester United so Grimthorpe City can become winners of the league trophy.
• Shakin' Stevens, the famous pop star signed for Fulchester in an early strip, parodying the time when Spandau Ballet signed up for Melchester Rovers, the team featured in Roy of the Rovers. He was later joined by Mick Hucknall, the frontman for Simply Red.
• A pair of conjoined twins, who scored a vital equalising goal in one game. The referee decided that because of their condition the goal counted double, resulting in Fulchester winning the game.
• Maxwell Baxter a supposed "ruthless millionaire," whose schemes always appear to spell trouble for Fulchester United. Despite appearing in many strips, the real Baxter has never been seen, as he always turns out to in fact be a cardboard replica with a hidden tape recorder (except for one appearance where he was upgraded to a waxwork dummy with a concealed CD player). This started a repeating gag about threats to the main characters always turning out to be cardboard cut-outs of the real person. Based primarily on Robert Maxwell.