Not the nine o'clock news

It is a tribute to the prophetic nature of The Day Today – the innovative TV spin-off of Radio 4’s excellent current-affairs parody, On The Hour, which kick-started the comedy careers of Chris Morris, Steve Coogan and Patrick Marber, amongst many other performers – that shortly after viewing the immaculately designed and packaged new DVD of the series, I tuned into Sky News’ coverage of the US Marines’ recent assault on Fallujah, and could scarcely differentiate the contemporary war reportage from the ten year-old news satire I had just viewed.

The absurdly OTT graphics, tautological analysis and oleaginous (w)anchors could all have slotted quite comfortably into the jump-cut carnage of TDT, which, with its inch-perfect satire of news broadcasting, has deservedly earned itself a reputation as one of the finest British comedy programmes of the 1990s. Indeed, so painfully accurate was TDT’s hilarious depiction of a media/celebrity culture sleepwalking towards an abyss of sensationalism and meaningless soundbytes, the programme is currently incorporated into British media-training courses as an example of just how easily flashy presentation and ostentatious graphics can overtake the actual substance of news reportage.
But the programme didn’t just lampoon the vacuous rhythms and stylistic excess of war coverage/live news broadcasting with an unprecedented degree of comedic flair. In a recent interview with this writer, Prime Time presenter Mark Little observed that TV tête-à-têtes with high-ranking political figures have all but assumed the characteristics of pre-scripted pantomime, since spin-doctors, image consultants, and not least, politicians themselves, are all hyper-wary of committing PR gaffes, the media fallout from which can be cataclysmic.
Morris – whose background in current affairs lends his bombastic, Paxman/Buerk-inspired onscreen persona an almost frightening level of accuracy - has an acute understanding of this duplicity, and his delight in subverting the interview process can make for the most exhilaratingly cruel bloodsport.
Just take, for example, his proto-Ali G mockery of Labour MP, Paul Boateng, during a discussion on the pernicious influence of gangster rap. In what proves to be a virtuoso exhibition of pompous interrogation, Morris opens with the query, “How do you feel about some of the more dangerous elements to have infiltrated youth culture in recent times?” Boateng, puzzled, replies with, “I don’t know what you mean by the more ‘dangerous elements.’”
“I’ll tell you what I mean,” announces Morris, sounding for all the world like the Irish Times’ self-appointed moral guardian, Kathryn Holmquist. “I’m talking about guns. I’m talking about violence. I’m talking about people like Uzi MC, the Blood Rap movement, Hermann the Tosser – how do you feel when young people are presented with the sort of stuff that they’re churning out?”
Backed into a corner, Boateng counters with vintage parliamentary jargon. “Hermann the Tosser has not invaded my own particular consciousness,” he declares. “But he has had invaded yours, and is quite clearly a concern. I mean, it sounds to me, it sounds to me (at this point, Morris emits a matey, ingratiating laugh – prompting a mightily relieved Boateng to do the same – and continues with, “Indeed. It sounds to me too”)…it sounds to me rather an unpleasant name, but he may be a thoroughly splendid and delightful individual.”
Elsewhere, we’re treated to Doon McKichan’s wonderfully stoical business correspondent, Collaterlie Sisters (who relays the day’s events on the markets courtesy of graphics such as the “currency kidney” and the “finance arse”), Rebecca Front’s “Enviromation” slot (providing much-needed insight into government iniatives such as energy-conserving “frozen-fire” and land-saving “mobile cemeteries”), and the alarmingly convincing MTV spoof, “Rok TV”.
Rok TV is one of those classic comedy sketches that simply needs to be seen to believed. Aside from airhead German presenter Harfynn Teuport (essayed by Morris with authentic broken English) and Nirvana performing in a Tampax commercial, there’s also controversial gangster rapper, Fur Q.
Vilified for executing fans live on stage, and – a much worse crime, this – sampling Phil Collins’ ‘Easy Lover’ (strategically reworked as ‘Uzi Lover’), Fur Q’s lyrics are the equal of anything in Spinal Tap’s hallowed songbook: “Uzi like a metal dick in my hand/Magazine locker, big testicle gland/Bitch wanna try it/I said ‘Keep her quiet’/Shove it up her muddafuckin’ ass and fry it”. Almost as much fun are the analytical contributions on the Fur Q phenomenon from media commentators such as Rolling Stone’s Derryn Zikks, who contends that, “The controversy is preposterous. These killings are obviously ironic.”
Featuring the same attention to detail so lovingly bestowed upon the original series (the episode selection menus are set against the backdrop of line graphs, which put together such magnificently nonsensical pairings as “Value of Prescott (£/%) against GDP” and “Number of train crashes per week vs. the general stupidity of children”), The Day Today DVD has to be the news source of choice for the discerning political junkie.
Because – as the team put it in one of the show’s intermittent mathematical equations – fact into doubt just won’t go.

The Day Today DVD is out now