For as long as I can remember, my life has been made better by two middle-aged men obsessed with faeces and talking birds. Since I first spied them on a tiny, fuzzy television as an impressionable kid, I knew that between their outsized lapels and batshit dance-moves, there was something about these nutters, something about Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, the presenters of Shooting Stars – a show steeped in barmy history, recently returned for a brand new series.

In a summer sizzling with BREAKING NEWS and shots of half the country going up in flames, the return of madcap game show Shooting Stars, has been welcome relief – a riotous half-hour of surreal sketches and Pythonesque wit.

As fresh and fanciful as it was in the 1990s and still thriving off the new energy of scorer, faux tramp and George Dawes replacement Angelos Epithemiou, the new series has already seen team captain Jack Dee scouring for a pound coin in an exploding pram,  Eastenders actor Jake Wood throwing a fake head into a bin and the continued reign of the Dove From Above.

As kookily unhinged as ever, the show's one-liners still sting ("True or false, Yoko Ono has a sister called OhYes?") and it still feels a bit like you’re watching the two coolest nursery children dictate an amateur evening of entertainment for the proud, but seriously worried, parents.

In a world where comedy panel shows have increasingly become opportunities for people named Russell to chop their Edinburgh set into handy soundbites, Shooting Stars is the glorious exception. To the uninitiated, though, it probably also looks like a good advertisement for the immediate return of straight-jackets and electric shock treatment.