Not The Nine O'Clock News

Not The Nine O'Clock News was a ground-breaking comedy television programme shown on the BBC broadcast from 1979 to 1982.

Memorable sketches

Memorable sketches include:

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• A darts parody featuring the "sportsmen" being scored on units of alcohol instead of the darts
• A hi-fi shop with disdainful staff, making fun of the ignorance of a customer ("A gramophone?")
• Rowan Atkinson addressing the Conservative party conference, interspersed with footage of applauding government ministers. Railing against non-white immigration, he remarks that they cannot help it if they are from India, adding, "And I like curry. But now that we've got the recipe, is there any reason for them to stay?"
• The General Synod's Life of Christ (a parody of the controversy surrounding the film Monty Python's Life of Brian)
• Constable Savage (a barbed attack on alleged police treatment of ethnic minorities) http://www.wepsite.de/constable_savage.htm
• Rowan Atkinson as a vicar trying to express his support for homosexuals within the Church ("Are you a gay Christian?"), not very convincingly and with great embarrassment
• Gerald the Intelligent Gorilla ("Gerald was wild when he was captured." "Wild? I was absolutely livid!")
• Come Home to a Real Fire (Buy a Cottage in Wales) (a reference to a spate of arson attacks by Welsh people against English people's second homes, and a parody of the contemporary coal marketing campaign). The Welsh were frequent targets of attack, as was the UK political party the Liberal Party.
• Pamela Stephenson doing a couple of send-ups of Janet Street-Porter, exaggerated almost to the point of incomprehensibility.
• Film of Roy Jenkins, the then-leader of the Social Democratic Party, standing behind a lecture stand played to the sound of a man urinating into a bucket.
• A spoof of the BBC Two channel close-down announcement in which the clock moves to the right to reveal Atkinson running a moistened finger around a champagne glass to produce the closed-channel tone.
• A spoof of religious affairs programmes chaired by Stephenson in which Atkinson complains to an Anglican Priest, "Where was God when I cut my finger?" to which Stephenson replies, "I think it's fair to say God can't be everywhere at once," to which the Priest snaps, "Of course he can, he's omnipresent!"
• Two men in the stands at a women's football (soccer) game, commenting on the utter poorness of the game. The conversation ends up to the point where the men are about to stop going to such sport matches, when the game finally ends, and the players take off their shirts, revealing that the women are not wearing bras or other undergarments. The entire crowd cheer the exhibition.
• Atkinson, walking down a street, spots the camera filming him, smiles, waves, and, not looking where he is going, walks into a tree. The same format was used in other sketches with different results.
• Atkinson as a vicar introducing a broadcast of "Songs of Praise" from his church lambasting the suspiciously devout congregation "And didn't the hat shop do well this week!", before introducing the first hymn "All Christian men give praise, the 'Beeb' is back in town".
• Trade union representatives issuing demands to corporate bosses in order to avoid a strike - the demands included the chance to sleep with the boss's wife. They were also offered use of the boss's swivel chair and an automatic bottle opener.

The show usually ended with a musical parody or pastiche (as would Spitting Image in later years), normally either from the writing team of Curtis & Goodall, or penned by the show's musical director, Philip Pope. Titles included "I Like Truckin'", "Nice Video (Shame About the Song)", "Sooper Dooper" (an ABBA parody), "Gob On You" (unusually, written by Chris Judge Smith), the "Ayatollah Song" (featuring Pamela Stephenson singing "Ayatollah, Khomeini closer...") and, for the final episode, "The Memory Kinda Lingers" (a verbal pun on the oral sexual act performed on a woman).

Related Topics:
Spitting Image - Philip Pope - ABBA - Ayatollah, Khomeini - The oral sexual act performed on a woman

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