Not the Nine O'Clock News

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"

This show was so funny. I especially liked the toilet sketch involving the assistant and the weird bloke trying to design a bathroom for the weird bloke and all he ever puts in it is a toilet. that was the best sketch ever.

De niro 2001, you really need to lighten up, not all the sketches involved plane crashes. Only about 2 or 3 did. the rest of the sketches were just funny things about everyday life. The humour isn't in the plane crash, it's how they edited together two completely different news stories and made them look relevent. People weren't sitting at home saying "Hahahaha look at those people on that plane dying". The thing is, if they did have to acknowledge the fact those people died, they would have done it in a funny sketch anyway. like they did when they had complaints about a (stuffed) hedgehog being run over. for god sake it was stuffed. they didn't ask the local nature reserve for a fresh hedgehog to run over but anyway they then did an apology the following week involving them saying "We probably exibited less pain to hedgehogs per-say than whoever it is who goes around stuffing them". Anyway, sorry about all this writing but this show was just great and i'll love it forever. Overall 10 out of 10.

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.

I have recently been watching the repeats of NOT THE NINE O'CLOCK NEWS and I've really enjoyed them. I didn't see them the first time around, but I really enjoy the range of subjects that this comedy show embodies. These include music gags, political humour and a whole lot more! The stars include Rown Atkinson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhyss-Jones and if you are a fan of any of these people I would advise you to check out this show. Very enjoyable with a great cast. 8/10

When I went to school in Denmark the greatest joy was to recite the surreal dialog from the team behind Not the Nine o'clock News with my mates. Granted, some of the more malicious jokes must have appealed more to the younger audience than grown-ups with true knowledge of famine and war - but on the whole - it was the greatest introduction to British society and language usage next to Monty Python. Some of the gags were so classical - I've never forgotten them: The court sketch with the judge and the lawyers arguing over how to prenounce "alibi" or the smash-hit-music-video "Good video - shame about the song - oh oh" with the title repeated again and again while all effort was put into making a state of the art video worthy of MTV. I do hope that the DVD will be released in Denmark too - it's classic fun from the eighties! :0D