An offbeat look at current events, often by dubbing over news video with farcical commentary.An offbeat look at current events, often by dubbing over news video with farcical commentary.An offbeat look at current events, often by dubbing over news video with farcical commentary.
- Nominated for 1 Primetime Emmy
- 14 wins & 30 nominations total
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A now-forgotten series that was based on a British news parody, "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (1979).
NNTN was a fierce reaction to the goofy Americanism founded by Ronald Reagan and the weird policies and attitudes of that time. When Reagan left office, they even made a "tribute" to him in a special.
NNTN used news clips and warped them into biting satire. When NNTN was on, it was deadly.
It also launched the careers of Rich Hall (who left the show and made "guest appearances" thereafter) and Stuart Pankin.
Maybe someday HBO will re-air the series, or re-release it on video, or perhaps a network like Fox will syndicate it. It's a pity, because NNTN has more perspective on that shameful decade than most real news services.
How can you tell a real fan of the show? They'll know what a Sniglet is.
NNTN was a fierce reaction to the goofy Americanism founded by Ronald Reagan and the weird policies and attitudes of that time. When Reagan left office, they even made a "tribute" to him in a special.
NNTN used news clips and warped them into biting satire. When NNTN was on, it was deadly.
It also launched the careers of Rich Hall (who left the show and made "guest appearances" thereafter) and Stuart Pankin.
Maybe someday HBO will re-air the series, or re-release it on video, or perhaps a network like Fox will syndicate it. It's a pity, because NNTN has more perspective on that shameful decade than most real news services.
How can you tell a real fan of the show? They'll know what a Sniglet is.
So argued Stuart Pankin and Lucy Webb about Certs, a sponsor for a "Crossfire"-type show hosted by these two obstreperous jabber-jaws who were too busy lambasting each other's opinion to allow their guest (a meek Washington insider played by Danny Breen) to get a word in.
Why only two other user comments so far? Nobody else remembers this program, the "Daily Show" of its time? I have about a half-dozen episodes of "NNTN" I taped years ago off HBO. I was just a kid then so I didn't really get the political satire (what were the Iran-Contra hearings all about? What's so funny about Margaret Thatcher?) but loved the commercial parodies: An aspirin spot, with the shaky-cam, zoom-crazy, A. D. D.-edited style of early MTV; a travelogue promoting Middle East tourism, featuring bombed-out cities and a jingle called "Come to Lebanon"; a promo for a Lifetime-esqe domestic drama about some way-obscure illness (poly-malabsorption?), with Anne Bloom and Mitchell Laurance reciting banal, melodramatic dialogue ("Dammit, Brad! You know I can't eat butter!"); a PSA featuring Webb as a mother so frustrated with the risks inherent with seemingly healthy foods that she goes back to the basics ("Lard: It's what's for dinner") and concoctions she's read nothing negative about (like marshmallows soaked in blue food coloring); and one poking fun at the countless, minutely different types of sanitary napkins flooding the market ("Here's an Ultra-Regular-Thin-Maxi-Thin-Lite-Lite, for jury duty"). One risqué skit hawked a condom carrying case to eliminate telltale "Ring Around the Rubber" from a man's wallet. And another ad recommended one pharmaceutical after another to curb the side effects of the drug you were taking to curb the side effects of another. ("Doesn't Stamforex cause night blindness and fever blisters?" "Of course it does, that's why you need Glycane D...") And so on. (Don't forget to use Washital to swallow all those pills.) Then there was Backseat Driving School, which needs no explanation.
Its "interview" segments were clever, too. One edited quotes from a Marilyn Quayle Q&A session with Larry King (the dotted background reveals the source) to make it appear she was answering questions from Webb about an adulterous affair. (What ever happened to her, anyway? She was hilarious! Lucy, I mean, not Marilyn.) Another had Henry Kissinger pitching a political drama to Pankin's movie exec, who tosses the script in the wastebasket and suggests adding more sex and violence next time. Every episode found plenty of fodder in the Reagan-Bush era (though I can just imagine what the writers would have done with Clinton), and even if a lot of it went over my head, "NNTN" was probably the root of my aversion to the Republican party. For which I'm grateful.
And then there were Sniglets, words that should be in the dictionary but aren't. Like "destinesia," which is when you forget what you came into a room for, and "cinemuck," the sticky combination of cola, candy, and popcorn on the floors of movie theatres. I suppose Rich Hall was, in a way, a proto-Seinfeld, since "spongeworthy" and "double-dipping" are more recent and popular examples.
Rarely does a comedy series remain funny to the end, so "NNTN" wasn't the same when it went live and the original cast (Bloom, Breen, Pankin, and Webb) was replaced with Tom Parks, Annabelle Gurwitch and a couple others who've never been heard from again. I've got one of these eps but can't remember a thing about it. Not good.
That's about all I can recall now. Would like to watch all the episodes I've got -- some titles are "Not Necessarily the Year in Review" and "NNTN Inside Entertainment," which are from '87 or '88 -- but I'm between VCRs right now. The tapes aren't gonna last much longer, so a DVD set, please, HBO.
(And now that I'm old enough to appreciate it, I want to rent "Tanner '88" ['cause we all know the time is always right to mock politicians]...too bad it's not on DVD, either.)
Why only two other user comments so far? Nobody else remembers this program, the "Daily Show" of its time? I have about a half-dozen episodes of "NNTN" I taped years ago off HBO. I was just a kid then so I didn't really get the political satire (what were the Iran-Contra hearings all about? What's so funny about Margaret Thatcher?) but loved the commercial parodies: An aspirin spot, with the shaky-cam, zoom-crazy, A. D. D.-edited style of early MTV; a travelogue promoting Middle East tourism, featuring bombed-out cities and a jingle called "Come to Lebanon"; a promo for a Lifetime-esqe domestic drama about some way-obscure illness (poly-malabsorption?), with Anne Bloom and Mitchell Laurance reciting banal, melodramatic dialogue ("Dammit, Brad! You know I can't eat butter!"); a PSA featuring Webb as a mother so frustrated with the risks inherent with seemingly healthy foods that she goes back to the basics ("Lard: It's what's for dinner") and concoctions she's read nothing negative about (like marshmallows soaked in blue food coloring); and one poking fun at the countless, minutely different types of sanitary napkins flooding the market ("Here's an Ultra-Regular-Thin-Maxi-Thin-Lite-Lite, for jury duty"). One risqué skit hawked a condom carrying case to eliminate telltale "Ring Around the Rubber" from a man's wallet. And another ad recommended one pharmaceutical after another to curb the side effects of the drug you were taking to curb the side effects of another. ("Doesn't Stamforex cause night blindness and fever blisters?" "Of course it does, that's why you need Glycane D...") And so on. (Don't forget to use Washital to swallow all those pills.) Then there was Backseat Driving School, which needs no explanation.
Its "interview" segments were clever, too. One edited quotes from a Marilyn Quayle Q&A session with Larry King (the dotted background reveals the source) to make it appear she was answering questions from Webb about an adulterous affair. (What ever happened to her, anyway? She was hilarious! Lucy, I mean, not Marilyn.) Another had Henry Kissinger pitching a political drama to Pankin's movie exec, who tosses the script in the wastebasket and suggests adding more sex and violence next time. Every episode found plenty of fodder in the Reagan-Bush era (though I can just imagine what the writers would have done with Clinton), and even if a lot of it went over my head, "NNTN" was probably the root of my aversion to the Republican party. For which I'm grateful.
And then there were Sniglets, words that should be in the dictionary but aren't. Like "destinesia," which is when you forget what you came into a room for, and "cinemuck," the sticky combination of cola, candy, and popcorn on the floors of movie theatres. I suppose Rich Hall was, in a way, a proto-Seinfeld, since "spongeworthy" and "double-dipping" are more recent and popular examples.
Rarely does a comedy series remain funny to the end, so "NNTN" wasn't the same when it went live and the original cast (Bloom, Breen, Pankin, and Webb) was replaced with Tom Parks, Annabelle Gurwitch and a couple others who've never been heard from again. I've got one of these eps but can't remember a thing about it. Not good.
That's about all I can recall now. Would like to watch all the episodes I've got -- some titles are "Not Necessarily the Year in Review" and "NNTN Inside Entertainment," which are from '87 or '88 -- but I'm between VCRs right now. The tapes aren't gonna last much longer, so a DVD set, please, HBO.
(And now that I'm old enough to appreciate it, I want to rent "Tanner '88" ['cause we all know the time is always right to mock politicians]...too bad it's not on DVD, either.)
HBO should release this show on DVD. I remember it and was a fan back in the day. It was a hit or miss affair, but it hit often enough to be pretty funny (though not as funny as the BBC version, "Not the Nine O'clock News"). There were some really hilarious bits on the show and a lot of great comedy writers got their start there, like, Al Jean (of the Simpsons) and Conan O'Brien. I definitely liked the original cast the best but there were even a few funny bits in the later years too. It'd be funny to see just how the politics of the day were made fun of -- because even though the show wasn't great at the time it was probably the best political satire on television. Remember, this was during the extremely lean years for Saturday Night Live when they were just limping along. So NNtN provided all the best Reagan jokes. It sucked that during the Reagan/Bush years, which were ripe for satire and jokes, that SNL was so weak then. I mean, can anyone even recall who was the great Reagan impressionist during those years? During the 70s we remember Dan Ackroyd doing Nixon and Carter, and Chevy doing Ford. In the late 80s/early 90s Dana Carvey made his Bush impression famous. And during the 90s there were two great Clinton impersonators, Phil Hartman and Daryl Hammond. But during the 80s who was the great Reagan impressionist? What a lame cast that was. Anyway, Not Necessarily the News should definitely be released on DVD, not only for the comedy but as a time capsule of political humor.
10Syndog
Political satire of today has much to learn from Not Necessarily The News. The humor is generally steeped in topical humor pertaining to the politics of the Regan White House era, yet there are no golden calves, as they're not afraid to poke silly fun at both sides of the political aisle. They focus on being funny, rather than remaining politically correct.
Some of the highlights are Mitchell Laurance in his Phil Noir sketches, Rich Hall with his sniglets, and the many and sundry "commercials" the entire crew put together to break up the news stories. All of it wrapped up in a mock-up of serious newscasting. Brilliant stuff!
Some of the highlights are Mitchell Laurance in his Phil Noir sketches, Rich Hall with his sniglets, and the many and sundry "commercials" the entire crew put together to break up the news stories. All of it wrapped up in a mock-up of serious newscasting. Brilliant stuff!
I found bunch of old episodes from the 1982-1985 era, which was the time during which I watched this show and hadn't seen it since. Does it age well? No, but I've seen worse. It is a fun journey back in time, though, and makes you realize just how little there was going on politically in those days compared to now. I mean, it's 1983 and they are still making jokes about Nixon! Anyways, it was fun watching these things again, but they are destined for oblivion.
Did you know
- TriviaRich Hall left in 1984 to star in Saturday Night Live (1975), but he only remained on that show for one season. He gradually returned to this show, making guest appearances before he was reinstated as a regular cast member.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Television: Comedy (1988)
- How many seasons does Not Necessarily the News have?Powered by Alexa
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