Pat Mustard and Mrs. Doyle, in Craggy Island Parochial House.
| “ | Teresa, I forgot me feckin' trousers! | „ |
| ~ Pat Mustard, leaving a customer's house 'very early in the morning'. |
| “ | I thought you were Marilyn Monroe. | „ |
| ~ Pat Mustard on Mrs. Doyle's dolled-up appearance. |
Pat Mustard is a one-off antagonist from Irish comedy Father Ted. He serves as Craggy Island's milkman, and also has an addiction to 'delivering more than milk on his rounds'.
He was portrayed by Pat Laffan.
Appearance
Pat Mustard appears in only one episode of the much-loved Irish comedy, season 3 episode 3 "Speed 3".
History
Following Ted and Dougal returning from a contest judging the babies (which they disliked due to an unnatural number of hairy babies) they find the house over-filled with milk. They discover Mrs. Doyle has become infatuated with Pat Mustard, the new milkman. A coarse and arrogant man, he tells a lot of unrealistic stories about himself including that he fought in the Vietnam War (despite Ireland not joining the war); that he works as a lifeguard or swimming instructor at the local pool (despite being overweight and looking about 60 years old); that he taught Elvis Presley "how to play karate"; and that he is a former Mr. Universe. Pat wears a lot of cheap jewelry and drives a pimped out milk float. He is nevertheless very popular with the ladies. Later on while reviewing the pictures of the hairy babies, Ted notices them sharing hair styles with Pat and realizes that he is the "hairy baby maker."
Confronting him the next morning, Pat partially denies the allegations and claims that he is too careful to be caught. He then manages to trap Ted when he foolishly endorses artificial contraception (as Catholicism is meant to be against it) and claims that Ted would have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch him. Ted and Dougal get up very early in the morning and stalk Pat, spying upon him as he delivers the milk. And sure enough, they soon get evidence of him sleeping with every woman he delivers milk to (even forgetting his trousers after walking out of one home).
Revealing the pictures to his boss, after clearing up the confusion (his boss thought that Ted was selling them to him, and subsequently offered him £16 for it) he fires Pat. And due to there being too much milk, Dougal volunteers to deliver the milk instead. However, angry that he lost his job (and more importantly can't have as much sex as he wants), Pat fits a bomb to the milk float, so that it will arm if it goes over four miles an hour, and will go off once it goes under four miles an hour.
Pat then calls Ted to brag about it, and carries on for several hours, continually talking about how they shouldn't have underestimated him and how dangerous the bomb is, even though Ted left soon after he mentioned it would blow Dougal up. Arriving in his Rover 213, Ted manages to warn Dougal, but is not fast enough to stop him going over four miles an hour, meaning the bomb is armed and Dougal is trapped. To keep him safe, Ted has him drive on to a roundabout and say there, until they can find a solution.
Phoning his friends, Fathers Beeching and Clarke (who live on Barren Island), Ted searches for a solution to the problem, and after holding a Mass, they realize that the answer is in the plot of an action film, but pick the wrong one and watch The Poseidon Adventure. Meanwhile, Pat continues to brag on the phone, unaware (or perhaps not caring) that there is no one listening. Finally finding a solution, Ted steals Jack's pet brick with the intention of put the pedal so the milk float keeps driving at 5 mph but Dougal can get off.
Arriving, Ted successful pulls of the plan and saves Dougal, they jump off leaving the milk float to drives off the roundabout. Meanwhile, Pat finally hangs up the call, having finished boasting, but ironically by chance the milk float crashes straight into the phone box he is in, and the bomb goes off, apparently killing him.
Pat previously told Ted that if/when the bomb goes off, it'll be so loud it'll be heard "as far away as the North Pole". True to his word, when the milk float ploughs into the phone box Pat's in, we see instead of his apparent demise in the explosion, an Inuit man fishing, and then getting startled by hearing the explosion.
After the end credits have rolled, Ted goes outside with the rubbish. As he puts the bag into the bin, Father Jack's pet brick, half-burnt from the explosion of the milk float, strikes Ted on his temple, knocking him out. This is then followed by one of Pat's half-burnt stickers used to pimp out his milk float.
Trivia
- Pat's theme music is Syd Dale's Man Friday.
- The act of Pat putting explosives on the milk float, together with the speed of the milk float triggering them, is an obvious homage to the Speed films. The title of the episode, Speed 3, is also a homage. In an interview, writers and executive producers Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews said they came up with this episode after asking themselves "How can we make a sequel worse than Speed 2?"
- The stickers Pat uses to pimp out his milk float read "Shit happens" (which follows the brick when it hits Ted), "Milkmen - do it on your doorstep" (which gets the 'do it' bit blacked out when Dougal takes over) and "Young Banger".
- Brendan O'Carroll, the Mrs Brown's Boys actor/writer, auditioned to play Pat.