Hermes & Renato, known as Banana Mecânica from 2010 to 2013, is a Brazilian comedy troupe formed in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro in 1999 (and based in São Paulo as of 2002) by childhood friends Marco Antônio Alves, Fausto Fanti, Adriano Silva (also occasionally credited as Adriano Pereira), Felipe Torres and Bruno Sutter (later joined by Gil Brother from 2002 to 2008, and by Franco Fanti, Fausto's brother, from 2015 onwards), whose name was taken from the first characters they ever created for their sketches: Hermes (played by Alves) and Renato (played by Fausto). Other characters popularized by them include Luís Boça (Torres) – a geeky, naïve 32-year-old kidult who lives with his grandmother Lourdes (Alves) and speaks in a thick paulistano accent – and Joselito Sem-Noção (Silva) – an inconvenient trickster whose pranks always cause harm to those around him. Heavily influenced by comedians such as Os Trapalhões, Chespirito, Monty Python and Costinha alongside old pornochanchada films and the 1988–90 television comedy show TV Pirata, and known for their edgy off-color humor frequently reliant on pop culture references, word plays, puns, catchphrases, profanity and double entendres, they acquired a massive cult following throughout the late 1990s/early to mid-2000s which lasts to the present day, and had their own television programs broadcast at different times by MTV Brasil (1999–2010, 2013), RecordTV (2010–2013, as a segment of variety show Legendários) and FX (2015–2016); from 2004 to 2005 they also had an eponymous radio program, broadcast by São Paulo-based station Mix FM. They were also responsible for creating Tela Class for MTV and idealizing the parodic heavy metal band Massacration. History The origins of Hermes & Renato trace back as early as 1990, when Petrópolis-based friends Marco Antônio Alves and Fausto Fanti used to perform comical sketches for fun in their houses under the respective monikers of "Hermes" and "Renato", while recording them with a camcorder; Hermes was taken from a former teacher of one of them, and Renato was a mutual friend whom they liked to joke about. By 1999 they were joined by Adriano Silva, Felipe Torres and Bruno Sutter (all of them long-time friends who occasionally performed together on their amateur sketches), becoming a fully fledged professional comedy troupe, and obtained a contract with MTV Brasil to host their own sketch comedy television program. During their tenure with MTV, the troupe amassed a strong cult following with their raunchy,