The first television series is set in a zoo operated by Bob Fossil, the second in a flat and the third in a secondhand shop in Dalston called Nabootique.

Regular Boosh collaborators include Michael Fielding, Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown,[12] Nigel Coan,[12] Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry.

[18] It has been commented that Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt first met when in 1997 they both appeared on the same comedy bill at a pub in north London.

", with Barratt responding that "We were both doing quite surreal stuff, eh...", with Fielding adding "It was quite weird wasn't it, a lot weirder than the show in a way...", with Barratt continuing "...but we sort of, when we first met we kind of liked each others comedy but we didn't know that it would work, we didn't know whether it was gonna cancel each other out and make....", with Fielding responding "Yeah, too weird to make sort of, straight...", with Barratt continuing "...might just become geography or something else or... this sort of thing, but it worked for some reason...", with Fielding adding "We had quite a good chemistry straight away.

"[7] On the day they met they both went back to Julian's place that night where Barratt played music on his Akai sampler whilst Fielding used a ping-pong ball to make an eye patch.

It was a huge relief when they chanced upon one another and decided to be the new Goodies... ...What they take from the classic Seventies series is more the spirit of... ...silly and surreal comedy.

We thought we’d make inroads into the jazz scene in London – we’d read biographies about guys who got gigs at Ronnie Scott’s and got spotted and immediately taken into someone’s band.

[22] It was also commented that "...both [Fielding and Barratt] had fathers who loved Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, and who encouraged their sons to avoid getting proper jobs.

But I watched a lot of stand-up at uni – people like Mark Lamarr, Sean Hughes, Eddie Izzard, just standing on a stage doing these phenomenal routines.

"[22] It has also been commented that this occurred "...during his first standup sketch at Reading University..." and that he "...ran through the back door mid-act and through fields to a lake.

...It was very raw, but it was, it was hilarious..."[4] After Barratt and Fielding's first performance together at Oranje Boom Boom at bar De Hems, in London in April 1998,[4] they developed their zookeeper characters, Howard Moon and Vince Noir, in a series of sketches for Paramount Comedy’s Unnatural Acts with Barratt commenting that "Early on we had Rich Fulcher, we were working on a sketch show...".

[4] Dave Brown who also collaborated on the Mighty Boosh with them commented further on their time at the Hen and chickens which is a theatre bar in Islington, London, "They would use the Hen and Chickens as this kind of... place to, a platform to just try stuff out and it was just a great little place they could do a regular spot... ...where they would probably write and have ideas in the week, try stuff out for half of that and then for the rest of it, it would just be improv and mucking about.

And then we used to put potted plants all around the gig and music on... ...to try and make it into a sort of play... people couldn't believe the audacity.

[4] From the radio show Fielding and Barratt were given a half-hour television pilot of the same name, and Barratt has commented that "...we wanted to get on TV but it'd been a lot of trouble because they thought it was eh, the scripts we sort of gave them were sort of like massive epic adeventures that sounded like it would cost them a million pounds to make so they said this isn't, I dont know how this is going to work on stage, well actually what happened is...", with Fielding adding "We wrote it for Channel 4 originally...", and Barratt replying "[we spoke to them]...before we'd done a stage show and they said how is this going to work on TV cos it is ridiculous.

One was a "Rocky Horror Picture Show type thing," according to Fielding, in which Barratt played a character who has woken up believing himself to be the last man on earth.

The second series moved away from the zoo setting to show Howard, Vince, Naboo the shaman and Bollo the talking ape living in a flat in Dalston.

After three weeks of this I started to feel unusual so Ivana Zorn, who is Nigel Coan's partner, now does a majority of the painting and I just design the main characters.

[33] Fielding also made drawings that formed a basis for the characters costumes and make-up in the Mighty boosh TV show.

[34][33] Regular Boosh collaborators include Michael Fielding, Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown,[12] Nigel Coan,[12] Richard Ayoade, Matt Berry[4] and Ivanna Zorn.

Vince Noir is quite modern, a bit of an indie kid; Howard Moon is... ...eccentric... ...and we rely heavily on Julian's music and my animation...

In 1998, they took The Mighty Boosh to the Edinburgh Festival, recruiting fellow comedian Rich Fulcher, whom the pair had met while working on Unnatural Acts.

[39] In 2000, the Boosh premiered their third stage show, Autoboosh, at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, adding Fielding's younger brother Michael to the cast.

The show focuses on the adventures of a pair of zookeepers at "Bob Fossil's Funworld": socially awkward, jazz enthusiast Howard TJ Moon, and ultra-vain, fashion-obsessed Vince Noir.

On 15 November 2007, as part of the publicity for the premier of their third series the same day, Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding returned to Radio 1, this time on Jo Whiley's Live Lounge.

Though each episode invariably starts and ends in Dixon Bainbridge's dilapidated zoo, the "Zooniverse", the characters of Vince and Howard often depart for other locations, such as the Arctic tundra and limbo.

This series had an even looser setting as the four characters leave the confines of the flat in every episode, travelling in their van to a variety of surrealistic environments, including Naboo's home planet "Xooberon".

This was followed by six of Barratt and Fielding's favourite episodes from the three series: "Party", "The Power of the Crimp", "The Nightmare of Milky Joe", "The Priest and the Beast", "The Legend of Old Gregg", and "Tundra".

On 23 December 2008, BBC3 held a Merry Booshmas Party featuring the entire series 3 as well as a broadcast of The Mighty Boosh Live.

[45] On 8 February 2012, whilst sledging, Noel Fielding said that he and Barratt had discussed plans to make a Mighty Boosh film.

The book includes original stories, crimps, concept art, behind-the-scenes photography, comics, and various other things, featuring old and new Mighty Boosh characters.