British comedy
The Day Today, 1994
This is a good example of how BBC Radio usually takes the risks with a new comedy format before a cautious TV producer will jump in and make a good series of an already proven formula. That's not always the case of course, but whereas Armando Iannucci's On The Hour was already good radio The Day Today went on to take full visual advantage of showing just how ridiculous it is to try to make the news sexy. Meaningless slogans such as "Fact x Importance = News", "Fact Into Doubt Won't Go", incomprehensible graphics and nonsensical news stories, all surreally delivered by self-important presenters and journalists: Steve Coogan's 'Alan Partridge' was born in this series of six half-hour shows and he is really one of the more consistently good highlights, alongside Chris Morris as the eponymous, intimidating and Paxmanesque presenter. Morris's sneering delivery is often more Paxman than Paxman himself.
The singular piece which puts their point across best is the manufactured news of the war between Australia and Hong Kong, in which Morris himself marshalls two diplomats into facing off and declaring war on air, a result for which the studio reveals it has the graphics and set design already in place with the reporters already on location. This two-disc set has a second disc of 'easter eggs' and extras (with even more over-the-top graphics) including the unseen pilot show, which illustrates how Iannucci and Morris went back to give this war story more visual impact before it was finally ready to put on air in the fifth show.
But throughout the series there was also a little too much filler, with weekly items which didn't really communicate their point well, if they had any. Morris is rightly the focus of The Day Today, even though the final programme ends with him lying prostrate in adoration in front of the presenter's desk - it's in fact the news that is God to these people, and if you hadn't got that point already after six weeks then this symbolic gesture should have left you in no doubt. A parody that's now a small legend of its own late night slot, even though Morris was to later surpass himself with the radical cynicism that was Brass Eye, before heading off into even more dangerous televisual territory with Jam.