Mump and Smoot live on the planet Ummo and worship the deity Ummo, as long as he might be responsive to their prayers. Their dialogue is in their native language of Ummonian, which is nevertheless clear to the audience (who often play a part in the performance). They combine influences from sources including Monty Python, the Three Stooges, "I Love Lucy", Alfred Jarry, Samuel Beckett, and Antonin Artaud to elicit in their audience the peculiar mix of sympathy, empathy, schadenfreude, and horror that stem from watching flawed individuals alternately fail and succeed at their petty but all too human schemes. Mump and Smoot shows are said to seem so spontaneous that people sometimes forget that they are scripted. To obtain this effect, Kennard and Turner use an improvisational technique rooted in an art called Canadian clown, developed by Richard Pochinko in the 1980s. Pochinko's style borrowed from many traditions including First Nations, American and European clowning.