The Influence of Fight Club

[rjpeters]

The 'This Is Our War' trailer in TDT is staggeringly offensive, isn't it?

Is it? A sketch which satires the way in which media and news outlets like to package war and sell it as a form of entertainment for pure profit. Hardly offensive in this day and age is it really.

The brilliance of that sketch, and pretty much the whole of TDT in general, is the subtlety of it. The 'This Is Our War' trailer works because of the juxtaposition of the images with the music eg Get Down On It (Kool and the Gang?) over stock footage of a soldier hitting the ground; Jet, followed with the shot of a Jet dropping bombs. If that was done by the 11ocs lot, you can just hear Iain Lee's smug, stupid voice ruining the entire joke.

Yes, a certain degree of 'soul' is needed when you write anything, especially comedy. Whereas you spot it with most of Morris's work, with the likes of Davies et al, you can see that they are just jumping on the bandwagon and riding it as far as it takes them before jumping on the next one. In a way you can't blame them. If theres anyone to blame it's the Jane Roots of this world for commissioning it in the first place.

Ian Curtis' mother wasn't too enamoured with Rok TV, as you can imagine. She did write a letter of complaint - which was replied to by Morris, who expressed his sympathy but refused to apologise.

I've always found the Ian Curtis bit in Rok TV the funniest part of that sketch. Sorry.

[Rats]

The brilliance of that sketch, and pretty much the whole of TDT in general, is the subtlety of it

No, I think the point he was making is that it isn't subtle at all, it's a battering ram parody that would have slotted neatly into brasseye and that if it turned up as a stand alone piece in the 11 o'clock show, it would just be offensive because it would be just as tacky as everything else.

[gazzyk1ns]

Well yes, I agree with your overall point but not your "reasoning", I think it was a swipe at the fact that "news" people act as "caring" as they can, until it involves making money or furthering their career/programme.

[alan strang]

Yes, a certain degree of 'soul' is needed when you write anything, especially comedy.

You need soul, full stop. You can't fake 'the right attitude'. It has to be there from the start.

I've always found the Ian Curtis bit in Rok TV the funniest part of that sketch. Sorry.

When I first saw that go out back in 1994 I was convinced that The Day Today show wouldn't reach Show 3 - that it would be ripped from the schedules and dumped in a BBC skip somewhere. It was a genuinely eye-popping moment in television and nothing I'd watched previously had prepared me for it.

And how long does it actually last - about four seconds?

[rjpeters]

I've always found the Ian Curtis bit in Rok TV the funniest part of that sketch. Sorry.

When I first saw that go out back in 1994 I was convinced that The Day Today show wouldn't reach Show 3 - that it would be ripped from the schedules and dumped in a BBC skip somewhere. It was a genuinely eye-popping moment in television and nothing I'd watched previously had prepared me for it.

And how long does it actually last - about four seconds?

[pedant mode]I think it's nearer five[/pedant mode]

I know what you mean. Even though I was pretty clueless about Ian Curtis when it first went out (I knew who he was and that he was dead but not the circumstances. But then I was twelve when TDT was first transmitted), there was still a sense of "woah, what the fuck was that" about it. Probably what made it / makes it so funny, because it was so daring.

[Rats]

Well yes, I agree with your overall point but not your "reasoning", I think it was a swipe at the fact that "news" people act as "caring" as they can, until it involves making money or furthering their career/programme.

I didn't do any reasoning, I did say what it would have looked like if it were in the 11 o'clock show though, that might have been where we got our wires crossed.