Meerkat

Um.

Meerkat is rough.

[laughs]

Compare the market.

We're live from the ever-glorious studio.

Sitting to my right, as always, the Vampire King, King Possum, Lord Meerkat, Tristan Boland.

Howdy, howdy,

mushy, mushy, monkey, monkey.

I woke up, you know, in a zoo next, you know, next to a bobcat wouldn't be in the zoo.

Meerkat wouldn't really be in this mountain lion.

You can watch all the cat videos you want.

I woke up in the Milwaukee Zoo in the mountain lion cage.

So how do you differentiate when something is boring? Now, what's interesting is the advertising agency, VCCP, decided to do something completely different that had never been done before.

It might have seemed like a crude idea by turning the name Compare the Market into Compare the Meerkat.

It seems almost absurd, but what's remarkable about this is that the advert, which now dramatizes its offering through the characters of Alexander Orlov, basically a Russian meerkat, And it's lasted for more than 20 years and still going.

And not only has the character become synonymous with comparing the market, but toys and merchandising has also followed.

Sitting to my right, as always, and all brown this week, looking like a UPS driver.

It's the Vampire King, King Possum, Lord Meerkat.

It's Tristan Bowling.

I'm cosplaying as a poopy.

The uncle kills the father and the son goes off and becomes crazy and befriends a Two tricksters.

Clearly, what I now forgot what the Warthog and the Meerkat, their names are, but they're clearly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, aren't

they? Yeah.

Pumbaa and Timon.

[laughs]

Meerkats evolved between 22 and 15 million years ago in Africa.

Living in packs of 10 to 30, a meerkat pack is known as a mob because they work together and fiercely protect their territory, just like people from Kent.

[laughs] When faced by a predator, the meerkats all stand together with arched backs, raised hair, and lots of hissing at the edge of their territory, just like people from Kent.

It's like living in the world's most high security branch of IKEA, but without the meatballs and significantly more scorpions.

[laughs]

Meerkats are pint-sized, overengineered home-digging machines, like a sort of shrunken Nick Knowles.

[laughs]

It's just...

The Meerkat's gone now, isn't it? It was only a week-long reign by the Meerkat upper crew.

Dave says, same old story.

Your friend Dave, I think that is, Neil.