The headlines tonight: NATO annulled after delegate swallows treaty, car drives by window in town and Leicester man wins right to eat sister. Those are the headlines! Now fact me till I fart!
I was 13 when this life-changing show came on TV. Reaching a small audience on BBC2 at night, The Day Today was a parody of the distinctly British way of News programming, exaggerating all the usual idiosyncrasies and formalities. My granddad made me suffer the News every night when I was a kid so I really got the sense of humor that this show layed on so thickly.
Chris Morris is your utterly, utterly deadpan Anchorman delivering lines like '"I'm so sorry", yells exploding cleaner' to perfection. Alan Partridge (my first introduction to this popular character) is the sports presenter who hasn't a clue how to commentate or appeal to his audience, Peter O'Hanarha-hanrahan is the dunderhead foreign correspondent, Colaterie Sisters does the business news and Valerie Sinatra takes care of the roads in The Day Today Travel Tower a mile above the centre of London. There's also Sylvester Stewart doing the weather but explaining it with cryptic double-meanings that no one could ever figure out. Example 'Thunder and lightning about the volume of a Thin Lizzie concert.' Crazy one-off reporters such as Jonathan Sizz, Eugene Fraxby, Donnald Beth'le'Hem, Harfynn Teuport and Suzanna Geckaloyce are all equally as good despite their small amount of air time.
But the best of them all, without a doubt, is the hard-as-fock, the man without fear, the terrifyingly important mean machine Ted Maul. Always sent out to scope the most dangerous stories (such as a commuter train full of businessmen who have turned into barbarians because of track delays), Ted demands you pay attention and scares you into accepting the facts with his frighteningly authoritative voice. He's just so great, I cannot describe.
There was also several stories by American reporter Barbera Wintergreen with her horribly blown-out NTSC color. Barbera mostly reported on the many, many deaths of American serial killer Chapman Baxter, who always got the chair but actually died on it in various different ways (an electric toilet, while stuffing himself with cheeseburgers).
Without a single duff story, The Day Today is infinitely funny and endlessly quotable. Back in 1994, we never had MP3 players or sound-clips on the internet, so I actually made mix tapes of all the best bits (really hard to choose) and memorised practically every episode from beginning to end. To this Day (today) I still remember it all. Why haven't I bought the DVD yet? And remember, fact times importance equals NEWS!
