Not the Nine O'Clock News

Forget everything de_niro_2001 said about Not the Nine O'Clock News. This is absolutely brilliant comedy that relied heavily on the events of the period it was made in. This makes it sometimes a little bit out of date but if you know anything about the period it was made in, or remember that period, you can still laugh very hard. Too bad they don't offer the complete series for sale on DVD. I would certainly buy it. All members of the cast went on to have great careers. The young Rowan Atkinson is hilarious and Griff Rhys Jones and Mel Smith are very very funny. Pamela Stephenson, as the only woman of the cast, is great in doing impressions of news readers. She also often plays an interviewer providing the other cast members with the setting to deliver their material. Like in the interview with Mel Smith as the trainer of a talking gorilla (played by Rowan Atkinson). For now you can only buy 2 compilation DVD's. If you love sarcasm and irony, this is a series for you. If you loved Blackadder, this is a series for you. Just give it a chance, to watch it is to love it.

What a pity that the comment that is visible on the front page puts down one of the best sketch shows of the 1980s and completely misses the point. It reminds me of the time when someone wrote to 'Points of View' to complain about the racism in 'Goodness Gracious Me' after the 'Indian teenagers visit Britain' and 'Going for an English' sketches. As the writer of the comment was Scottish I wonder if he finds 'Chewin' the Fat' offensive to people with throat cancer! Not the Nine O' Clock News was equally capable of hilarious comedy and biting satire. I remember Rowan Atkinson's monologue as an alien with a faulty translator being the first thing that ever made me laugh uncontrollably, long after the sketch had ended; The series' songs were clever parodies of such pop stars of the time as Sheena Easton, Blondie, Kate Bush and Motorhead; and the 'Gerald the Gorilla' sketch was superb. There was also excellent satire as well, directed at police racism (the 'Constable Savage' sketch), religious outrage over 'Monty Python's Life of Brian' (the 'Life of Christ' sketch) and patronising Hollywood attitudes to issues in other countries (the 'Hollywood Salutes Lech Walesa' sketch). Perhaps our negative reviewer found the 'Coca Cola' sketch offensive to fat people instead of a comment on the fact that a so-called 'cool' drink is actually fattening and unhealthy. It's a pity that this series is only available on 2 'Best of' DVDs (why the hell do the BBC do that?) as it was the launchpad for the careers of Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones, all of whom are still entertaining us (to a greater or lesser degree) today. And furthermore it shows us that Pamela Stephenson was a talented comedienne who need not have given up performing (though to her credit she has achieved a great deal in the years since her 'retirement'). A much-missed gem.

This show was practically compulsory viewing for teenagers and students in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It introduced the British public to Griff Rys-Jones, Mel Smith, Pamela Stephenson and Rowan Atkinson. Chris Langham was in the first season but seemed to get replaced by G R-J after that.

It consisted of a series of sketches, some purely comedic, others with political overtones. The pizza parlour worker, played by Rowan Atkinson, sneezing on the pizza and declaring "Extra mozzarella" is the former, the close-up of a yobbish Griff R-J talking about him and his mates picking on some black blokes "because we 'ate 'em, right?" and the camera gradually pulling away during the monologue to show he's a uniformed policeman would be the latter.

Some great writing (Clive Anderson, Andy Hamilton, a pre-"Four Weddings and a Funeral" Richard Curtis), go-for-it acting and sketches that hit frequently enough to forgive the ones that didn't. The sketch with the trendy lefty social worker declaring the only way to deal with young men who misbehaved was to "cut their goolies off" is still a classic, as is Gerald the talking gorilla.

The reason that NTNON isn't remembered as much as it could be is the sheer topicality of many of the sketches. The company bosses acceding to the increasingly outrageous demands of the Union bosses - "and his daughter to be phased in at a later date" - are still funny, but were probably funnier still at the time. Of course, there are plenty of other sketches that don't require a full knowledge of Britain in the early Thatcher years to appreciate, and if you ever get the chance, it's worth catching them.

And the songs are still brilliant. Altogether now - " I Like Trucking"

If there is one defining characteristic about British humour it is our ability to laugh at ourselves, not take anything too seriously, and therefore a good few 'sick' jokes abound. Name any major disaster of recent history (Townsend Thoresen, Exxon Valdez, Concorde) and dozens of 'sick' jokes spring to mind. Such is the case with NTNOCN, with their constant Chappaquiddick references and the 'Wallaby Airlines' skit. I was a big fan of NTNOCN, and loved the skits "Gay Christian" "American Express" and "Gerald the Gorilla" as well as their parodies of "That's Life" and "Game For A Laugh" ("Oh, I don't believe it! We love your show!") and dead-on impressions of celebs such as Janet Street-Porter and Sir Robert Mark. The songs were funny too, such as "Gob On You", "The Bouncing Song" and a great skewering of 80's music on "Nice Video, Shame About The Song". All in all a must for any aficionado of British humour.