Oobah Butler’s Quest for a Million: A Hilarious Tale of Financial Futility

Near the beginning of this comically unsettling documentary, presenter Oobah Butler sets the stage for his latest escapade, brandishing a Channel 4 contract like a golden ticket. He claims that signing this document is akin to “guaranteeing that I will amass a million pounds in just 90 days.” If he pulls it off, he’ll be rolling in cash. If not, well, let’s just say he might need new career aspirations—possibly something that doesn’t involve a camera.

Now, if Oobah Butler hasn’t yet popped up on your radar, you might be wondering why anyone should care whether he graces our screens again. To that, I strongly respond: it matters—immensely! Over the past decade, Butler has emerged as a master of the comedic prank, a satirist who playfully pricks the absurdities of modern life. He became an overnight sensation in 2017 when he tricked TripAdvisor into crowning a non-existent restaurant—“The Shed at Dulwich”—as London’s top dining venue, leaving the platform’s algorithm gasping in disbelief.

In his first Channel 4 documentary, *The Great Amazon Heist*, Butler shifted his mischief to a weightier target, using his trademark irreverence to expose the shockingly lax age restrictions (yes, kids ordering deadly weapons from Alexa is a thing) and the questionable working conditions that Amazon notably denied. With a galactic sense of humor and a knack for the bizarre, Butler’s work has a unique ability to strip away the pretense from the moral decay lurking behind the shiny veneer of capitalism.

However, in *How I Made a Million in 90 Days*, Butler adopts a novel approach. Instead of outsmarting the hustlers, he decides to roll up his sleeves and join them. Observing how Gen Z is glued to the idea of entrepreneurship, he dives headlong into the murky waters of social media business schemes, intent on inflating his net worth faster than stocks in a meme-fueled trading frenzy.

At first, Butler’s antics are outright comedic. He binge-watches motivational videos from modern-day business gurus—your Steven Bartletts and Luke Belmars. Soon, he initiates a business venture, opting for the quick-and-dirty route by peddling bizarre, limited-edition products to generate hype. Thus begins his foray into “the first legal child sweatshop in Britain in over a century.” Using a particularly inventive legal loophole, he has some spirited kids “crafting” a new line of football shirts that are, shall we say, eerily akin to a public health warning on fabric.

Comedy aside, Butler soon finds himself low on funds, prompting a trip to New York in search of investors. Here lies the darker side of entrepreneurship. He mingles with the quintessential Wall Street types and surprisingly finds camaraderie with Iqram Magdon-Ismail, the co-founder of Venmo, who seems to have an affinity for tinfoil proposals. Alas, after Butler mentions his idea about bomb-shaped luggage, Magdon-Ismail vanishes faster than a dollar bill at a casino.

Left with empty pockets, Butler plunges into a self-imposed financial despair. He takes on publicity stunts for a crypto company, which dangles golden promises that yield little more than hot air. Moreover, he grapples with the soul-crushing realization that compromising his integrity for the sake of quick bucks is profoundly unfulfilling, much like eating a salad when you crave pizza. But wait, the elusive Magdon-Ismail resurfaces with a plan: why not auction off 10% of all future earnings for a cool million? Seems logical—if you’re into financial masochism.

With such an audacious premise, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the finale is a tad fuzzy—though we’ll keep the details under wraps, just like his bank account. What matters is that along the way, Butler dissects the delusions associated with extreme wealth, dismantles the false promises of hustle culture, and reveals how much of the crypto-CEO landscape is built on nothing but smoke and mirrors. At a time when our screens are swamped with cookie-cutter celebrity documentaries that barely raise a smirk, it’s a breath of fresh air to witness content that springs from the mind of an unapologetically inventive host. While Butler’s future may not be lined with gold bricks, it’s safe to say it should be peppered with Channel 4 contracts, at the very least.

*How I Made a Million in 90 Days* is currently available on Channel 4.