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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The Day Today on DVD

22:54 / 09.05.04

From the We3 thread in the Comics section:

cube: No, jam festivals, they're rubbish.
Dogs are great. You can make lots of money auctioning them.

CameronStewart: I just got my Day Today dvd this morning...

cube: Sebastian Coe was on R4 Today this morning, shall we start a new thread? Not got the DVD, what's the Sep 11 sketch like?

So here's the new thread.

The Sept. 11 sketch (audio only, as is all the new material) is pretty good, though nothing really original. It's the standard Chris Morris/Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan bit - Morris, reporting on the 9/11 disaster, goes over live to P.O'H who's in Manhattan for a trade conference. P.O'H cheerfully talks about the conference with no mention of the terrorist attacks, and indeed claims to be in the restaurant on the 107th floor, enjoying a cappuccino. Morris forces P.O'H to turn on a television set and see that the buildings have come down - "I think you'll find that the Windows On The World restaurant no longer offers a particularly good view of New York, Peter...as it's in the basement." As usual, P.O'H is forced to admit that he's nowhere near it, as he overslept. Ho ho.

Other new material includes two audio discussions between Morris and Alan Partridge, and a "cast reunion" which is apparently the start of a commentary track involving the cast all improvising in character, which ends abruptly, presumably when everyone realized it wasn't very funny.

The programme itself, though, is still as funny as it once was, so it's worth the money for that alone. I've had terrible second-gen vhs copies for years so I nice shiny dvd set is great.

23:17 / 09.05.04

I haven't seen this for years. New material you say? Hmm..

I love the moment in the ‘War’ episode where Morris, having deliberately steered a live television debate into a declaration of war, turns to the camera with this grinning, leering face and says with obscene relish ‘Yes...it’s war!!’, and the whole studio suddenly scrambles into action with larger, more dramatic sets sliding into place and squads of reporters running around purposefully. I think I laughed and cried at the same time.

Uh, what else...Steve Coogan playing an Irish Republican politician who, thanks to Government broadcasting restrictions, has to inhale helium when he’s being interviewed ‘to subtract credibility from his statements’. Sharp as fuck, and funny too.

23:34 / 09.05.04

The whole War episode is once again relevant and still as clever and astute as it was during Gulf War 1.

The dvd includes the original 6 episodes, the 6 short "mininews" segments that they ran the evening before transmission every week, extended versions of "The Pool" and "The Office" spoof documentaries (which beat Ricky Gervais to the punch by a decade), the complete unaired Pilot (which contains a lot of the material that was eventually used in the broadcasts, but also a lot that didn't - and also features Morris without the use of a vat of hair-gel, in all his bouffant-haired glory), the disappointing "Bushwhacked" video-edit of G.W. Bush addressing the nation, and several hidden all-new audio sketches, about 5 of them at current count. And the menu screens alone had me in stitches.

14:16 / 10.05.04

A decade on, and it remains a thing of great joy.

The WAR sequence is so spot-on that I fear a lot of news reporters could do with being shown it and pointed out that what they now do seriously was being poked fun at 10 years ago. They should hang their heads in shame. “This is Suzanna Gekkaloys, with her contribution to history” indeed.

And Hennarty’s role in the Bureau appears to have been the template for Martin Kemp’s entire EastEnders performance.

Only noticed it watching it last week (the shame), but Cameron, had you noticed how, as you see the clamped homeless people in Ep6, The Bureau goes by on a truck (complete with fighting cast) in the background ?

Not too convinced about the subtitles, or maybe it’s just my filthy mind, but I was never under the impression that Fur-Q was shouting ‘Cop! Bitch!” at the start of Uzi Lover.

The new stuff’s so-so, isn’t it ? But the pretension of the animated menus is fab, as is the ludicrousness of the newsdancer on the Mininews menu. And though I’d always loved the over-the-top graphics, I was impressed even more to hear the folks talking about them on the “Po-faced commentary” bit.

Worth every penny, even if there seem to have been a few changes for legal reasons (Madonna instead of Cher on Rok-TV, and the chap singing during the Elve-cution).

14:32 / 10.05.04

>>>Only noticed it watching it last week (the shame), but Cameron, had you noticed how, as you see the clamped homeless people in Ep6, The Bureau goes by on a truck (complete with fighting cast) in the background ?<<<

Yep. Didn't see it for a while but caught it on one of my many viewings on VHS...

There's a terrible, unintentionally-funny Canadian soap called Train 48, about the passengers on a daily commuter train. Total unity of location, the programme never leaves the confines of the passenger car of this train, and all the characters have their little storylines and it gets increasingly ridiculous as they try to weave in plots concerning marriage and long-lost siblings and so on. It *IS* The Bureau. Morris is a televisiprophet.

>>>Not too convinced about the subtitles, or maybe it’s just my filthy mind, but I was never under the impression that Fur-Q was shouting ‘Cop! Bitch!” at the start of Uzi Lover.<<<

I was always pretty sure it was "Cunt! Bitch! Cunt Bitch Motherfucker!" but with sfx placed overtop to subtly obscure them. I haven't watched any of it with subtitles but I wouldn't be surprised if they were mis-transcribed all over the shop.

The new material is so-so, but I did like the Alan Partridge bits and the 9-11 sketch. The rest is kind of yawn.

17:18 / 10.05.04

Always nice to see Minnie Driver getting a cameo, though. No, hold on, that's not right.
Always a laugh to see how woeful Minnie Driver's first cameo was. That's it...

08:31 / 12.05.04

Train 48 sounds oddly compelling, I wonder if we’ll ever get it in the UK (assuming I haven’t missed it) ?

And my reading of the Fur-Q lyrics was exactly the same as yours. Uh-huh-huh-huh !

09:11 / 12.05.04

I always thought it was Cock -Bitch...