Watch TOM GREEN instead.

>I watched the videos of this the week. I didn't see most of it when it was on TV. I thought at least 1 third of it was completely unfunny, but the rest made up for it... anyone else got a less rose-tinted view?
>

Hmmmm....coincidentally, I went back to my tapes of the shows last weekend. I'm not sure about a "less rose-tinted" view, but what with real news getting ever more hysterical (did ITN believe that TDT was a real news show then?), maybe this 6-year old satire is no longer quite so funny. Even at the time, Armando Iannucci said that they despaired at pilot stage - they did a pile of seemingly ludicrous/funny/Dadaist sketches, switched on London Tonight and found the lead story to be something along the lines of "Traffic Jam in Capital". They nearly gave up on the spot, was the way he put it (well, more or less).

The other problem might be the sheer number of increasingly diluted attempts to emulate TDT. From the reasonable but unremarkable Friday Night Armistice to the downright desperate (I can't even be bothered to name the culprits - I think we know by now), it's a case of diminishing returns. Makes you wonder how many crap remakes of jam might be on the way in years to come.

Even taking your ratio into account though, John - two hours out of three is still not a bad strike rate.

Even so many years later though it is still very funny and just as relevant as ever.

I got the videos back out again just today, and I have to say it's still fantastic. Yeah, some things no longer have the same impact because they're not quite as relevent what with the world getting stupider, but there's still loads of pure gold in there.

Just looking at the stuff they didn't bother putting in the series and left to the "mininews" bits shows this.

>Just looking at the stuff they didn't bother putting in the series and left to the "mininews" bits shows this.
>
Can't argue with that - I do happen to think it is the best single comedy series of anything in the last ten years, but I thought Jon's message was interesting, because he wasn't slating it, just being a little bit questioning. Which is absolutely fair enough. My original reply was not to agree with him, but to try and see where the sceptics were coming from.

Incidentally, thanks to SOTCAA's Edit News - I never knew about the outtakes on the end of Tape 1 of TDT. The call to McDonald's is astonishing even now, in this era of prank call fatigue.

One thing that bothers me is that TDT is billed a s challenging the self-important news media agenda, yet it depends on caring about that agenda to begin with. Which is the same problem with '..Armistice', and is in its most extreme form with Rory Bremner.

It's the same problem with Lee & Herring's 'Ironic Review' sketches : spot-on as parody, but 'making fun' of something (The Modern Review)that nobody in real life takes seriously anyway, except for the dozen or so people that work for it.

Still, most of TDT was funny, that's the main thing.

Most of it still stands up very well. God knows I've had to sit through it enough times (my wife's American and every time we have transatlantic guests it's "You really have to see this show" - sure enough, a quick blast of one of the stronger episodes eventually turns into an all-night videofest, replete with 'On The Hour' audio tapes and any Partridge I can find).

So, these 'mininews' items turn up on the official BBC releases, eh? Might be worth junking my (deteriorating) copies of the '95 repeats (minus mininews) and buying the real thing. Of course, I need to check 'Edit News' to see if I'll be missing anything... ;)

The Day Today influenced a lot of less talented people to ape the two things it pioneered: (a) the Iannucci/Morris shouty delivery/non-sequitur sort of stuff, and (b) the naturalistic, documentary-style acting.

The show is probably greater than the sum of its parts. Some bits are better than others. But it comes (or appears to come) from a more innocent era, where a group of people could get together and be genuinely excited by a project simply because it is good.

With a lot of substandard ersatz-TDT shows, there's no clear reason *why* they don't work - just something about the attitude and feel that's all wrong. With TDT, their hearts were in it.

It's like Oasis being influenced by The Beatles. If you're influenced by something which is original, the logical thing is to do something completely different.

>The Day Today influenced a lot of less talented people to ape the two things it pioneered: (a) the Iannucci/Morris shouty delivery/non-sequitur sort of stuff,

This wasn't exactly "pioneered" by TDT, now, was it? Surely The Goons pioneered it, and it has been copied in various different ways ever since, by Python for one.

>and (b) the naturalistic, documentary-style acting.

Again, John Bird and John Fortune have been doing this since the 60s. There's probably tons of examples...anyone? (my brain is a bit frazzled at the moment)

>
>it comes (or appears to come) from a more innocent era, where a group of people could get together and be genuinely excited by a project simply because it is good.

I do think it's sad that you don't believe that this happens, or even *can* happen, any more. You may feel a bit jaded yourselves, but each generation has as much to say as the last. OK, so it will probably be the same things said, and only older people who have seen it before will realise that. They will try to convince the younger generation that it's all been done before. The younger generation will stubbornly refuse to beleive this and still feel that what they are doing is original, worthwhile and better than anything that came before it. If they didn't we'd never have had Python, TDT and countless others. It hurts to realise that you're on the older side of this division, as I'm beginning to realise, but it's important not to take that as a cue to start slagging off everything and to stop being creative yourself.

>>It's like Oasis being influenced by The Beatles. If you're influenced by something which is original, the logical thing is to do something completely different.

Now THAT is spot on. God, I wish I'd said that. But of couse, it's been said before...

Louise

We need people to say that things are shit at the moment. We need comedy to be prodded awake again (personally I think that's just happened, with 'Jam'), as we still seem to be at the 'Yes triple album' stage of the 'prog-rock / punk / sell-out' cycle. It'll all come round again, don't worry...

Well 'pioneer' is probably the wrong word, but TDT certainly ossified a way of combining the two styles and doing it well. And it employed a comedy vernacular which was entirely its own (albeit one which owed a huge debt to Lee & Herring's work for 'On The Hour'). What we're complaining about is comedians who simply do second-rate versions of shows they admire rather than doing what genuinely makes them laugh.

Further to your earlier point, Louise: nowhere on this site do we express a contempt for comedy audiences. Our overall gripe is with journalists, agents and other executives working in the comedy industry; we're arguing that audiences (which include us, of course) are patronised and actually deserve better. The whole of Edit News is concerned with the fact that audiences are all too often denied the chance to watch (and re-watch) the comedy they love for the most ludicrous and self-serving of reasons.

And we think we always right? Well, only in the sense that that's the whole point of having an argument. Some of you have used this forum to tell us that we're completely WRONG...and so you should. Some of you have even come up with reasons why. But we're not trying to 'redress the balance' just for the sake of it. It's how we feel.

Probably the wrong place to ask...I have not been on this site for long, but I see that SOTCAA is mentioned a lot....what is it ?

And my view on TDT...I can't really take news that seriously about 40% of the time, as the howlers in script writing could so easily have come from the computer terminals of TDT writers. Don't know if this is on a funny or a sad note, but the last time I did a marathon watch of all the episodes was the time Princess Diana died....I had just switched off, and the BBC World News coverage was on BBC 1&2.... Seeing the Union Flag, I couldn't help thinking "everything is ok !"

SOTCAA? Look in the top left corner.

Strange as it may seem....I don't access this site from typing in a www address...I was e-mailed a hot link, and it goes straight to Not BBC...no other information is there ! If it helps my browser shows
c:\TEMP\the NotBBC TV Forum.htm. It works fine !! But it does mean that I appear to miss a lot of other things!!

Try:
http://www.notbbc.co.uk/corpses/

I ought to explain that this forum was running long before the corpses ever was, as a tv forum (hence discussion of logos etc) - I didn't have the diskspace to start up another forum, so I thought it was sensible to merge the two, given the broad similarity of subject.

I am now enlightened !! Ta for that...my life is complete !

I am now enlightened !! Ta for that...my life is complete !

I am now enlightened !! Ta for that...my life is complete !

Yaay, yaay, and thrice yaaay?

*rofl*

Oooops...how did that happen ???
Me and technology...!

This will probably go in 3 times now !

heheh. ruddy Dreamcasts.

Dreamcast Schmeamcast. I'm typing this in on my digital watch.

At the third beep, cthe time is...


...time i was off to work, actually.

Cardinal "ruddy alars" Biggles