The Day Today

Watching I.T.N. nowadays one can't help but be reminded of 'The Day Today'. Smug, patronising presenters, gaudy sets, cheesy links, gimmicky presentation, an unmistakable political bias, all were hilariously parodied by Armando Ianucci and Chris Morris over a decade ago. Morris himself is superb as the anchorman, the rest of the cast are fine too, particularly the underrated Rebecca Front. But it was Steve Coogan's verbally constipated sports commentator 'Alan Partridge' who caught the public's imagination, going onto to appear in no less than two spin-offs. The bombastic theme music and flashy graphics of 'Today' added greatly to its humour. My favourite sketch featured a convicted American killer wanting to die like his idol Elvis Presley - by gorging himself on hamburgers. It is to the credit of Ianucci and Morris that they didn't milk the concept for all it was worth - 'The Day Today' ended after only one season. Luckily for us, Morris had another great show up his sleeve - 'Brass Eye'.

The day today was recently repeated on the British cable/satellite channel UKG2. I didn't manage to see the programme before, but I am a fan of Chris Morris and had been awaiting this repeat for some time. I thought it was brilliant and I think the BBC should have repeated it, as they were the network that originally screened the show. The absurdity of some of the "reports" was fantastic. The ideas of a soap opera being set in a bureau de change or the war correspondent kicking the door down of a house, shooting a woman and setting up broadcasting equipment was so surreal, it made it obviously not a real news report. The closest things to reality were the graphics and Chris Morris' portrayal of the newsreader [the graphics only were if you ignored the voiceovers of stupid phrases and the newsreader only if you ignored the madness of the news stories.]It was excellently written with a near-perfect cast and it even spawned a major character, Alan Partridge [whose segments were not that funny in my opinion.] Going back to previously, most of the acting was realistic, the things the actors were depicting wasn't.

The Day Today was NOT trying to fool veiwers. It was a satirical portrayal of the american style of news reporting, where the producers value ratings above the truth. Sadly, this is what UK news is becoming.

It's not really a news spoof. It is a sketch show like Monty Python's Flying Circus was. The sketches are held together by the news format. It is a reminder of the happy days of the BBC, when the suits took chances, and they paid off like this did.

..and no, I'm not exaggerating. From Chris Morris' self-important tone of voice, to Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, to illegal backstreet dentists, to Peter O'Hanererhanerohan, to The Bureau.. this show is a non-stop roller-coaster of insane ideas presented as reality, and has to be the best satire of news media ever done (possibly topped by Brass Eye). My favourite has to be Steve Coogan's road safety advert, 'well do I look cool? Do I really look cool? WELL DO I??'

It's a combination of performers who subsequently went on to do other brilliant stuff, but all of them combined is quite something.

Put simply, if you haven't seen this show, YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS.

The first time I sat down to watch The day today,it was by accident as I was looking for the news... I got the news but with a hysterical slant on this country with it! I continued to watch every week and enjoyed it more each week. (Although I didn't think it would be possible) Chris Morris' mix of news and complete jiberish has you not only laughing wildly but also wondering if you will come out of the other end of this episode with your sanity in tact... then enters spoof sports presenter Alan Partridge, just like every sports news presenter he appears to know about as much about sport as a bunch of grapes in a bag, but still gives an incredibly enthusistic report on Luton, um... "Hitting a goal!" At this point you KNOW that your sanity will at least be dented! Along with spoofs of green reports, an in-studio philosopher +even a "Day today exclusive war" you learn nothing about day to day news, (although you don't from most other news shows either!) but you do realise how odd the things are that make you laugh.

The only criticism I could possibly have of this great programme is it's one season running time. It was a loss to british comedy.