Review of the new CBBC animated comedy from Paul Whitehouse,

The very obvious way to describe That’s Jokes, the new CBBC animated comedy from Paul Whitehouse, is as a Fast Show for kids.

Sketches are short and daft, and rely on constantly recurring characters and scenarios, such as bloopers from nature documentaries, a zombie whose call for ‘brains’ is always misheard, and Guy Reader The Newsreader, who finds himself in peril during every report he files – including a recreation of a classic Buster Keaton stunt. 

Across the board, most characters are animals. A stand-out is Posh Pom, based on Whitehouse’s own Pomeranian and pretty much a canine equivalent of the Fast Show’s aristocratic reprobate, the 13th Duke of Wybourne, whose breeding goes to pot as soon as there’s food around. Then there’s Hutch Street, a very loose EastEnders parody featuring guinea pigs in which nothing much happens until the notorious Clive arrives, heralding the familiar ‘doofs’.

Because it’s a kids' show, there are farts and burps and – in one scene that manages to combine two childhood obsessions – dinosaur poop.

Whitehouse and his wife – the neuroscientist Mine Conkbayir, with whom he presents the podcast I’m ADHD! No You’re Not – are credited as associate producers, with the comedian describing That’s Jokes as the product of ‘an out-of-the-box ADHD brain’.

For a neurotypical adult mind, the skits do become repetitive, even over a short 11-minute episode, but the zany, anarchic humour at their core is of the sort that has timeless appeal, as The Beano’s similar approach proves every issue. 

Jack Bennett directs and heads a writing team that comprises kids’ comedy stalwarts Howard Read, Isabel Fay, Tasha Dhanraj,  Tiernan Douieb and Inel Tomlinson, the latter two of whom are also in the voice cast.

» All 15 episodes of That’s Jokes are on BBC iPlayer now.

Review date: 9 Nov 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett