Waterlogged Pitch

So, as is tradition every five years or so, the BBC have announced some new idents for BBC One. As part of the tradition, several message board posters and the Daily Heil are ready to whine loudly about the fact the BBC has spent some money on something that isn't Radio 4, and (if the new idents feature any non-white faces) it's overwhelmingly politically correct, or (if the new idents don't feature any non-white faces) the BBC is inherently racialist. Well, BrokenTV understands the concerns of Middle England all too well (we once lived in a constituency where Boris Johnson was running as an MP, you know), and flush from the success of our little BrokenTV ident in the bottom corner of this very screen, we submitted our own design proposals to the BBC. Now they've gone and picked Red Bee instead of us, we can now make our offerings available to you, the Peoples Of The United Kingdom Of Great Britain And Northern Ireland. The following is a transcript of our meeting with the BBC, made just a few weeks ago.

-

Hello, the BBC. Why did you devote a ninety-minute show to The Goodies and then fail to show any of the classic episodes afterwards, eh? Anyway, we're here to make our proposal for the new idents, which, if you'll excuse the pun, are 'express'ly designed to offset the flak you usually receive from the right-leaning members of Her Majesty's press. Eh? Eh? If you'll just allow us to get our laptop out of our bag, and fire up Powerpoint...

[BrokenTV fumbles around rucksack. After a fashion, a Powerpoint presentation flashes up. The first page is a BBC logo atop a massive flowchart filled with words like 'synergy', 'identity', 'the need to meet needs' and 'the opportunity for opportunity' in a bad choice of font.]

Here we are. Now, this [gestures vaguely at screen] is what you're clearly looking for. This sort of... thing. And we're sure you'll get lots of pitches that only address these needs. But...

[Click. The screen switches to a new slide, with the title 'Criticism'. Click. A selection of Daily Heil and Daily Express headlines fade in. "I'm white, middle-class, straight and I love my wife. Why does the BBC hate me?", "Are the BBC training terrorists how to explode Britain by screening Time Trumpet?", "Were the BBC responsible for Diana's death?", you know the drill, printing questions as headlines so they don't have to tell the truth. It seems BrokenTV have used the 'Wheel Clockwise, 8 spokes' transition for every page, the chumps.]

...what about the selection of drubbings the BBC regularly receives from the seething faces of right-wing columnists and people who post on the internet? What about their needs? It's their BBC too! The Beeb is funded by everyone for everyone, so why shouldn't the majority of it's output cater for the tastes of a few million people in the Home Counties who think What's My Line should be brought back and shown on Saturday nights and they should bring back hanging? We assume your silence means you agree with us, which is why we've come up with the following ideas for BBC One station idents.

Proposal one. Here we address the inevitable complaints that the new brand identity will cost some money.

[Click. New slide, a mocked up headline reading "the BBC spend £1.2million on thing that isn't even a programme - should the board of governors all be shot?"]

In order to offset the inevitable criticism about you spending lots of money THAT COULD BE GIVEN TO NURSES on branding, how about this...?

[Click. A black screen. Slowly, a monochrome lo-res globe and BBC One logo is etched onto the centre of the display.]

We're pretty sure we'd worked out how to stop
the cursor blinking and everything.

That's right; this is a BBC One ident that will comfortably avoid any criticism. And appropriately enough, it's running on an second hand BBC Micro we'd picked up on eBay for just ten Great British Pounds. It takes a while to load, so you might want to start the tape going a few minutes before the end of the previous programme, but it is very cost effective...

[Silence.]

You don't seem too impressed. Look, it's in mode 7 and everything!

[More silence.]

Okay, well how about section two.

[Click. A newspaper headline "'Is having lots of foreigners dancing about between programmes the reason I fought in World War II?' says war hero", above a montage containing some sepia soldiers, a BBC logo, a union flag with a cross through it, and a swastika with a question mark next to it.]

A lot of people are concerned that the current brand identity doesn't reflect the identity of Britain. Granted, these are the sort of people who are likely to complain loudly to strangers about how they expect the BBC will soon drop the word 'British' and replace it 'Blair's'. Or, of course, 'Brown's'. As long as the next leader of the Labour Party has a name beginning with 'B', they'll make that point. So, with that in mind, we've prepared some proposals for BBC One idents that reflect the identity of our sainted isle and a bit of another isle.

[Click.]

Here's one you'll love... a Chelsea pensioner doing the Ricky Gervais dance in a fish and chip shop.

We came up with that logo as well. We think Red Bee
have hacked our PC, you know.

[Click.]

A mob of Sun readers burning down the house of a suspected nonce. You can use this one before the news, if you like.

[Click.]

Four teenagers furiously texting in a McDonalds. You can use this before youth programmes, and they'll instantly identify with the BBC brand. Instantly.

[Click.]

A man with a shaved head in a pub saying that 'if they don't like British culture, they should go back where they came from'. Pan out to reveal he is sitting in a British 'fun' pub in the Costa del Sol. One of the racist bits from Little Britain is playing on a TV set in the background, and a bunch of patrons in England football shirts are laughing a little bit too much at it.

[Click.]

A bulldog chewing a wasp.

[Click.]

A woman selling CD-R copies of a David Gray's White Ladder album at a car boot sale. She tells a potential customer that she'll throw in The Best Of Texas as well for three pounds. Truly heart warming, it'll put people in a good mood, and judge programmes like The One Show a bit less harshly.

[Click.]

Another scene showing Britons at their best - a man stopping next to a Pay & Display ticket machine, proclaiming "'Ere, love! There's still an hour on this one if you want it!" to a woman parking her car.

[Click.]

A postman cheerily walking up the path of a lovely thatched cottage. He is delivering a region one boxset of a classic BBC series that isn't actually available over here. It's a bit 'ironic' this one, it'd go down a storm with the ABC1s.

[Click.]

You like? So, when do we get our money? Oh, you'll let us know. Great.

[BrokenTV departs, already mentally spending it's large fee.]

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Rubbish Films That Are Great: Number 2

Only about a year after the first part of RFTAG (we're still getting hits from searches for "Beverly D'Angelo shower" y'know), here comes part two. And it's a cracker.

Night Of The Comet (1984)

Just look at this plot summary: "Two sisters, high school seniors in the early 1980s, awaken one morning to blood red skies and the realization that the human race has been wiped out. It becomes apparant that anyone who was not surrounded by steel when the Earth recently passed through the tail of Haley's comet has been reduced to a pile of red ash".

It gets better. Not only is it one of the very few films along the lines of "Oh no! Everyone in the world is dead apart from us... and possibly some others!", but it's possibly the most 1980siest film of the entire 1980s. The scene taking place in a radio station alone will qualify that statement. That's a very good thing, by the way. But that's not all! It also ticks the following boxes:

People turned to nothing but dust, which is therefore collected in their shoes, which obviously survive the blast? Box ticked.


Middle-class Valley Girls toting semi-automatic weaponry in an out-of-character manner? Box ticked.


A cheerleader with big hair and a fuck you attitude? Box ticked.


A 1980s radio station building consisting of many dark rooms and pink/blue neon? Box ticked.


Latex zombies? Box ticked.

A gang of stockroom boys who decide to all go mental apeshit gun crazy after being left on their own for about twelve hours? Box ticked.

Evil scientists, including a sexy not-that-evil-after-all one in a jumpsuit and leg warmer combo? Box ticked.

Better than both 28 Days Later and late 80's ITV sitcom Not With A Bang that did at least have Josie Lawrence in it, we suppose? Box very much ticked.

Criminally, it's not available on DVD, although excellently that's because they've managed to lose the original print of the film (we're not sure who 'they' are, presumably the Atlantic Releasing Corporation). And we'd thought only the BBC in the 1950s and 1960s ever did that sort of thing. Luckily for society, Sci-Fi are showing it on Friday 22nd September at 10pm. Set that Sky+ box now.

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Excellent Adult Swim News

Tom Goes To The Mayor is currently showing as part of Bravo's Adult Swim strand. This is excellent news, as we mentioned in the headline just up there.

"This is the sound of my voice."

It's a wonderful barely animated show (with occasional live action bits) about a well-meaning man (Tom) and an eccentric mayor (Mayor). To put the humour into perspective, it's produced by Bob "Mr Show with Him and David" Odenkirk, and includes cameo appearances by both of Tenacious D, Jeffs Goldblum and Garlin, David "Mr Show with Bob and Him" Cross and Official BrokenTV Pin-up Sarah Silverman.

There don't seem to be any full episodes knocking around on YouTube (we say blame for the lackadaisical standards of internet piracy lately should be directed at Tony Blair), so you'll have to take our word for it by dipping into Bravo's Adult Swim coverage and hoping you come out with a handful of Tom Goes To The Mayor as opposed to, say, Robot bloody Chicken. Because it's not as if you can use the EPG to tell what's going to be on when, the clots. Bah. And where's Harvey Birdman?

Mind you, they've got repeats of Arrested Development and Life On Mars, so they're not all bad. This is a bit of a rubbish update, isn't it? Sorry everyone.

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BrokenTV's Belated Tribute To Patrick Allen

1927-2006

For the benefit of those who didn't know (quite likely, as most newspapers didn't really mention it), Patrick Allen recently passed away. In case you're not sure who he is (you might be one of the people who still stumble across this site looking for information on Miff Daniels*, for instance), he owned the most iconic voiceover voice of the last thirty years.

(*While we're still Googleranked highly for the gormless berk, we may as well make a running gag out of it.)

After going from various jobbing actor roles (including Dial M for Murder, Hitchophiles), he was picked to narrate the UK Governments infamous (not to mention shit-scary) Protect and Survive films, and as such could very well have been the last voice ever heard on British television. Luckily for his burgeoning career as a voice-over artist (oh, and the entirety of the world's population), it wasn't (mark you, it's not a bad way to go out), and he soon ended up re-recording some of his shit-scary lines for the best record Frankie Goes To Hollywood ever did. From there, he turned up as the announcer for the first, underrated series of Blackadder, making a very welcome appearance as an actual actor in the final episode.

After several years of advert voiceover work, most famously occasionally in-vision for Barratt Homes (man, we need to get a YouTube clip up for that), he turned up as announcer for seminal comedy shows Vic Reeves' Big Night Out, and The Smell Of Reeves and Mortimer (in vision for a pre-episode-one promo for the former, and a great episode of the latter, minutae fans!). From that point on, his iconic delivery was used for all manner of (we wish we could think of a better phrase than this...) hip and groovy voiceover work, probably including TFI Friday, we shouldn't wonder.

Latterly, he became known as 'The Voice of E4', even making an excellent on-screen appearance in a promo for E4 Music's output, and Christian O'Connell's XFM Breakfast Show (and his Virgin Radio Show, but that was a bit rubbish, and reduced Patrick to promoting their many EVIL CORPORATE SPONSORS).

Something that seems to have been missed in the (despressingly few) tributes paid to Sir Patrick Allen (as he should have been known) is his most recent contribution to the World Of Excellent Pop Music, this time for Danish noise merchants Lazyboy**. Their 2004 opus Lazyboy TV (which BrokenTV liked before you, we're going to inappropriately add at this point) featured spoken word vocals from a number of well-known UK and US voice talent, most notably including Mr Patrick Allen, who popped up on several tracks on the album which you really all should go out and buy, right this instant.

(**Known as Lazy B for the 2006 re-release of their single, as it seems the sofa manufacturer of a similar name to their proper title insisted they make the change. Perhaps lots of people purchased their album (which we liked before you, remember), mistaking it for a reclining armchair. For flip's sake.)

As part of BrokenTV's ongoing public service remit (and not just because we've finally found it on an old hard-drive chucked into our IcyBox), we've uncovered the pop video for Lazyboy's ace single 'Inhale Positivity', which features the last time Sir Patrick Allen ever lends his voice to an excellent pop single, and thrown it at the now-blocked-from-BrokenTV's-workplace's-servers YouTube.

We implore you watch it now, and heed the words of Sir Patrick. RIP.

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Lazy Idiot Journalist Thinks Of Fifty Television Programmes He Doesn't Like, Then Writes Them Down

As our ever vigilant readers may be aware, the Radio Times has paid John Naughton some money to hand in a list of the fifty worst programmes ever shown on British television. Presumably, he'd then forgot about it until an hour before his deadline, and ended up cobbling together a list from all the other Worst TV Show Ever lists, throwing in a few random shows from the schedules to stir up a bit controversy. We're assuming that's what happened, as the list is gnashingly bad and wrong. Lets take a look at some of his choices, and look at why they shouldn't be there (and, going against tradition with Worst TV Ever lists, we've actually seen the shows we're talking about), and offer some alternative suggestions while we're at it.

Remember, the ones we're suggesting aren't neccessarily the worst TV shows ever made (apart from Balls of Steel, obv), as we wouldn't have tuned in for shows that are obviously going to be terrible, because we're not stupid.

8 Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends (1984-1991)
Massively popular with it's target audience (BrokenTV's Mark X remembers a ten-child clamour to see the first episode on his ninth birthday), internationally successful (even Mr C Montgomery Burns has been known to list it amongst his favourite shows), and led to a (admittedly useless) semi-live-action movie. Hardly the eighth worst programme ever.

Replace it with...
Balls Of Steel (2005-)
Or, Trigger Happy-Slapping TV, as it's known in our house. Television for cunts, by cunts. The worst thing ever transmitted on Channel Four, and given the competition for that accolade over the years, that's some achievement.

11 Heil Honey I'm Home! (1990)
We've seen the first episode of this, and do you know what? It's not that bad. Basically, it's a Viz comic strip, but on telly. It certainly could never have lasted longer than half a dozen episodes, but given it was a micro-budget sitcom on BSB, much better than could be expected. And we still really want to see any episode of Up Yer News! with Lee and Herring in.

Replace it with...
The Girl In The Cafe (2005)
You know, we'd never have realised that massive global poverty was a bad thing, until Richard Curtis put on his special directing hat and patronised BBC One viewers into a coma. Thanks, Rich.

15 Breakfast Time (1983-1989)
Aah, you would have expected him to say TV-am, wouldn't you? Aah.

Replace it with...
RI:SE (2002)
RI:SABLE, more like. It was pretty rubbish to begin with, but when they tried to revamp it to stop the rot, they drafted in Iain Lee and Someone Off Big Brother as hosts. Why they couldn't simply show repeats of The Channel Four Daily, we're not sure.

17 OTT (1982)
BrokenTV has finally had the opportunity to watch this recently (very probably unlike pretty much everyone to nominate it as one of the worst TV shows ever), and you know what? It's perfectly watchable, in the sense that it was truly something that had never been done before that point of TV history. Some of it doesn't work at all now, such as jokes where the punchline is Lenny Henry being black, but the majority of it is knowingly corny knockabout fun. In a nutshell, what Soccer AM would be like if they could swear, wasn't about football, and was transported magically back to 1982. And as a special bonus, it'd be a version of Soccer AM that didn't feature bloody Kasabian every other week.

Replace it with...
Hardwicke House (1986)
Another notorious show that BrokenTV has recently viewed for the first time since original transmission. Pulled due to viewer outrage after just two episodes, surely this would be one of the most dangerous and thrilling programmes ever broadcast on ITV since, ooh, OTT? Crikey, no. It stank the room out. The writers had fallen into the trap of being 'shocking' (i.e. not very shocking at all, really) as opposed to being 'any good'. You know, like the second series of Nighty Night.

18 George and Mildred (1976-1979)

"Ooh, blimey."

[Whaps John Naughton across the snout with a rolled-up newspaper] No. Idiot journalist. This is clearly amongst the best of ITV's sitcom output (which contains more gold than anyone ever gives them credit for), as the repeats on Paramount 2 will confirm. Just the thought of George Roper muttering "oh, crikey" to himself is enough to reduce BrokenTV to a fit of giggles. Not only was there an American version of the series (which, of course, was a spin-off from Man About The House - see, they can work), but we'd say it could just as easily have been the inspiration for the mighty Married... With Children. Only without the children, obv. Even the 1980 movie version was utterly great, with George inadvertently getting mixed up with gangsters (which would be a bit of a rubbish idea, only it involved George "Crikey!" Roper, which automatically made it into an excellent premise). Also, BrokenTV used to have a massive crush on Sheila "Ann Fourmile" Fearn. Still does, actually. Still, if it was on ITV, and it was on in the 1970s, and wasn't Rising Damp, it *must* be rubbish. Eh, John?

Replace it with...
Green, Green Grass (2005)
How not to do a spin-off. It doesn't help when the main character had previously been restricted to saying something sarcastic to Delboy in the Nag's Head, allowing Del to make a snappy comeback quip to roars of approval from Denzil, Mickey et al. Still, we suppose it did provide a little bit of TV history, as surely the least popular prime-time sitcom ever to be shown on Christmas Day BBC One.

25 Eurovision Song Contest (1956-)
28 The Edinburgh Military Tattoo (1952-)
They've been running for over fifty years, and are still popular enough to make it onto our screens. Possibly, the Radio Times are a bit annoyed that other countries are obviously also treating Eurovision like a bit of a laugh ("We are the winners" etc), so they can't feel quite as high and mighty as they were by sneering at it.

Replace them with...
Anything With Patrick Kielty In It, Ever
It's a little known fact that Patrick "Tesco Value Chris Evans" Kielty hasn't actually been on British television for over 47 years, it just feels like it.

31 Family Fortunes (1980-2002)
Gngh. Massively popular, much of it has passed over into popular culture (for better or worse), everyone was wowed by the impressive Babbage back when it began (much better than the Supermatch Game-esque rotating boards of Family Feud), and the original host was Sir Boob Monklouse. What's not to like? "Fortunes is security, Les."

Replace it with...
The People Versus (2000)
Where the viewers can send in their questions to ask the contestants. If your question can't be answered correctly, you get to come on the show as a contestant. Basically, a product of ITV's 'throw enough gameshow formats at the wall, and see if any of them stick', with the word 'stick' representing the phrase 'flog to American networks'. It wasn't very good, and should never be confused with the excellent The People Versus Jerry Sadowitz.

34 French and Saunders (1987-2004)
Sigh. Never mind it being massively popular, or French and Saun-ders (pop-a-dilly-oh*) being one of the best double acts of the last twenty years. Because the last series was a bit rubbish, John has decided that dispels the previous five series of general greatness. Granted, there was the occasional sketch where French and/or Saunders were made to look like a famous celebrity (a comically fat version of such, in many cases), and that's supposedly enough of a joke to last for the next five minutes, but most of their output was of a very high standard, such as the running sketch where they broke into the BBC to try and blag a pay rise and nick Victoria Wood's BAFTA. Even the 2003 Christmas Special was one of the best shows of that festive period, all the more surprising considering the title referenced Love Actually.

(*F.A.O. Paramount, UK Gold or the BBC: Finally repeat the first series of this, so anyone who isn't me might be able to get that reference.)

Replace it with...
Double Take (2001)

England footballers, doing their hair. This

would have used up three minutes of your life.

You know, the one where people who look a bit like famous people do things that the famous people themselves might not do in grainy monochrome. The idea worked in it's original incarnation (i.e. photographs), as it only took a split second to 'get' what was going on, and if you were amused by the sight of a Svenalike in Union Flag pants, that was a bonus. Dragged out for half an hour of screen time, each idea was expected to stand up on it's own over several minutes, which got tremendously boring rather quickly. Add the fact that agency lookey-likeys can't actually act very well, and that lots of them were pretty poor lookey-likeys in the first place (especially the Bush and Blair models), necessitating lots of blurry, out-of-focus camerawork, and you're left with a programme that was a major let down. Of course, that didn't stop the Radio Times endlessly gushing over it. But they do the same over Green Wing, which pretty much devalues that currency.

36 Eldorado (1992-1993)
Except, for the final year of the show, it was actually really good, was picking up lots of viewers, and was only cancelled once Alan Yentob decided that appeasing the tabloids was more important than listening to viewers.

Replace it with...
Night and Day (2001-2003)
As pointed out in the excellent Off The Telly, ITV ordered 240 episodes of this soap opera, with the USP of being on at 5.05pm three days a week, with an 'adult' episode on weekly at 10.20pm. Ooh, edgy. Except, of course, it wasn't. Nobody bothered watching it, and before long it was restricted to a single omnibus outing once per week, in an increasingly embarressing timeslot, sometimes as late as 1am. Ah, the folly of trying to 'do' middle-class soap operas.

41 Origami (1968)
We're willing to bet actual cash money that John Naughton has never actually seen any more of this programme than the clip shown in Channel Four's 100 Moments From TV Hell. It was daytime television, in the Britain of 1968. It was hardly going to be Man Alive, was it? And it'd probably be preferable to the endless Make Your House Worth Slightly More Than It Is Now programmes of space year 2006.

Replace it with...
Julie Birchall on Chavs (2005)
"Hi, I'm Julie Birchall. You know chavs? Well, I like them, and I'm going to pretend I am one. YOU DIDN'T EXPECT ME TO HAVE THAT OPINION, DID YOU?"

That's all we can bear to pick apart for now, but the rest of the list is equally shoddy - The Good Old Days (1953-1983)? It had Kenneth Williams in it! And it only lasted for THIRTY YEARS. How can it possibly be worse than, say, The Book Group?

Of course, we could buy a copy of Radio Times to try to understand his reasoning behind each choice. We could do that. But, as we'd previously stated, we're not stupid.

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BrokenTV's Top Nine Titles Of Foreign Versions Of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Yes, nine.

9. Be A Millionaire! (Hungary)
This reminds us of Tommy Vance's "stop being poor!" soundbite from The Chris Morris 1FM Show.

8. Do You Want To Be A Billionaire? (Romania)
Wow! Oh, it's in Romanian lei, and therefore a measly €28,000. Aw.

7. It's Good To Be A Millionaire (Slovenia)
Just in case you thought it might be rubbish, or something.

6. Who Wants 500 Billions? (Turkey)
Wow! Oh, in Turkish lira. How much? €230,000? Aw.

5. Who Will Become the Owner of 10 Million? (India)
More quiz programmes should use this sort of title. "Who Is Good Enough At Darts Or Answering Questions To Win A Half-Share Of A Speed Boat?" We've actually seen a bit of this while flicking around the back-end of Sky's EPG. They gave the presenter a big cake, for some reason.

4. Who Deserves To Be A Millonaire? (Chile)
How wonderfully polite. We're not sure if each contestant has to prove their moral fibre before getting anywhere near the fastest finger first round, but we think they should.

3. The Postal Code-Millionaire (Sweden)
Sounds like it might be a 1988 Channel Four documentary about the bloke who invented postcodes, and who gets 0.00001p every time you write one on an envelope. It isn't though, it's combined with Sweden's postal code lottery. Whatever that is.

2. Quiz $ Millionaire (Japan)
Only the fact that it isn't called 'Super Happy Millionaire Win Get!!!' stops this from claiming the top spot.

1. Super Rich Person (Taiwan)
Excellent.

Look, we know mentioning ...Millionaire is hardly topical, but we were researching a proper update, and stumbled across the list of titles. Okay?

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Before They Were On Telly

So, another series of Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe is over, but not before an entertaining look at American television. It would have been better if he'd showed that focus group some of 'our' good programmes, like Life On Mars or Peep Show, but that wouldn't have served the purpose of getting to see a load of bemused Americans in a room, we suppose.

But never mind all of that, we've found the letter he had published in Your Sinclair in 1986. And here it is, mirrored from the excellent World Of Spectrum.

Yup, it is the very same Charlie Brooker, the artwork is in the same style as his strips for Oink! comic. So, not only is he carving out a living being a much better TV version of BrokenTV before we were even a twinkle in the Blogger New Account Registration Form's eye, but he also had to go and get a letter printed in YS about five years before BrokenTV did (and a much better letter, obviously). We dread to think what he'll pre-emptively beat us to next.

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Test Yourself: Are You Excellent?

Find out with BrokenTV's super quiz!

1) Been watching [adult swim] on Bravo?

a) "No. What's that, then?"

b) "Yes, now and then. Man, that Robot Chicken is something!"

c) "Yes, but I wish they hadn't had that technical fault throughout what seemed like one of the best, most gloriously silly episodes of animated comedy ever produced. Man, I wish I could see it in full without waiting an unspecified amount of time for a repeat, especially as Bravo's EPG only uses an all-encompassing programming listing of '[adult swim]' for the entire strand, so I might end up having to watch Stripperella by mistake".

How Did You Do?

Mostly a's
It's a mostly excellent two-hour nightly strand of the best bits from (US) Cartoon Network's strand of the same name. It is on from midnight to 2am on Bravo, on Sky Digital. In case you're not sure how much you're supposed to like each programme contained therein, keep a peeper on alert for BrokenTV's Premier League of Adult Swim shows, which we've just thought of doing.
0 Points.

Mostly b's
Good for you, although we're not too keen on the self-satisfied smugness and reliance on jokes appealing to the sort of people that go on internet message boards to say things like "LMFAO! That is totally RANDOM!" in a non-ironic fashion. Season two seems slightly better, mind.
1 Point.

Mostly c's
Yeah, we noticed that as well. Still, thanks to the MAJESTIC DISREGARD FOR INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW that is YouTube, we can post a link that makes it all better. All of you 'a' and 'b' lot should check this out as well.



100 Points.

HOW DID YOU FARE?

Over 99 points.
You are excellent, well done.

Under 2 points.
Watch the YouTube clip, watch [adult swim] for at least a week, then re-take the test.

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Hey, sometimes you have to dip into commerical radio, because someone's spilled Russell Brand all over 6Music

At the moment, every ten bloody minutes on commercial radio there's a terrible, terrible advert that goes along the lines of:

Teen one: Do you want one of these drugs I've got here?

Teen two: No. N. O. Not now. Not tonight Josephine. Our survey said: BAHBAH! Nyet! [continues like this for about six years]

I've always dashed over to the radio to switch channels, out of the room, or jumped out of a moving vehicle every time I've heard it so far, so I'm not sure what the advert is for. The only logical explanation I can think of is that it's part of some kind of pro-drugs campaign, and that anyone who says 'no' when offered a cocaine is an annoying shit.

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Beavers, Faggots and Lesbians

There's a title to get the hit counter spinning. Time for some YouTubey goodness from the 1980s.

Beavers

Kenneth Kendall announces his fondness for Beavers. That is to say, an estate agent by the name of Beavers. Why, what did you think we'd meant?



Please note: BrokenTV claims no responsibility for what might happen if you dial 100 and ask for 'Beavers' in space year 2006.

Faggots

An advertising campaign from the 1980s for a meat product that shares a name with an American slang term for gay men. If Richard Littlejohn is reading this, why not try rewatching the clip lots of times, trying to pin down any hidden secret homosexualist recruitment agenda?



Lesbians

If it's OUTRAGIOUS ATTACKS ON TRADITIONAL FAMILY VALUES you're after, you can't say fairer than a fledgling Channel Four. You can almost hear the distant gnashing of Mail-readers teeth from here, not to mention a nation of adolescent males making a mental note of the time and channel. A screening of A Question Of Love, a drama about "one woman's love for another woman" while raising a family, advertised on ITV before a screening the Cook/Moore Hound of the Baskervilles. The clip also features a snatch (steady) of the in-vision TVS continuity announcer.



More japes next time!

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