"Man is Only 90% Water, but On The Hour is 100% News"

November 17, 2008 7:46 PM

On The Hour - available for download nowThe radio precursor to TV's The Day Today - both brainchildren of Comedy's 11th funniest man (ahead of Peter Sellers and Bill Hicks), Chris Morris and Armando Iannucci - is now available for download via iTunes and Warp Records (via DRM-free Bleep). On The Hour also saw the first appearance of Steve Coogan as the hapless sports reporter, Alan Partridge who made regular appearances in "On the Hour" and "The Day Today" before being spun off into the TV shows: "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and "I'm Alan Partridge"

Other work by Morris include: Brass Eye, (Blue) Jam, My Wrongs #8245 - 8249 & 117 and Nathan Barley

posted by JustAsItSounds (20 comments total)

You just made my day. Thank you.
posted by munchingzombie at 7:53 PM on November 17, 2008

(ahead of Peter Sellers and Bill Hicks)

I'm still amazed at how popular Bill Hicks is in the UK. Maybe even more popular (at least proportionally?) than here in the USA. Well, I'm not equating the two, but I should have you Brits know that Benny Hill was HUGE here.

Anyway - any time Brass Eye is mentioned I feel it is my responsibility to link to PAEDOGEDDON.
posted by redteam at 8:13 PM on November 17, 2008

Thanks for the clue; never heard of any of this before. Sounds really funny so far.
posted by not_on_display at 8:13 PM on November 17, 2008

I'm not equating the two, but I should have you Brits know that Benny Hill was HUGE here.

Well, there's no accounting for taste ;) Thank Ahura Mazda that Russ Abbott never leaked across the pond.

Paedogeddon was condemned in the house of Commons by a bandwagon-jumping MP who later admitted she'd never seen it, IIRC. You may be interested in an earlier Chris Morris media furore, sparked shortly after the death of Princess Di with his BishopSlips broadcast, at the end of one of the last episodes of Jam. It was pulled off air half-way through by a nervous BBC technician - just after the line "we pray together as they discharge their members into her Majesty"
posted by JustAsItSounds at 8:34 PM on November 17, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Fantastic news. I have the series (and indeed the two Radio 4 Alan Partridge series--far better than the television show) on audio cassette but have no cassette player.

And further Morris brouhaha, that brought about another ban from Radio 1, was his insinuation that Michael Heseltine had died:

"And if there's any news of Michael Hesteltine's death in the next hour we'll be sure to let you know."
posted by NailsTheCat at 8:46 PM on November 17, 2008

Just so any undecideds know: this is probably the greatest radio comedy series of all time. Roughly 90% of the people who worked on it were geniuses, and, for every single one of them, this is the best thing they ever worked on. It is worth paying for.
posted by stammer at 8:57 PM on November 17, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

No praise is high enough for this series. Thanks for this. Well worth paying for. It's like an English, surreal version of an Ur-Colbert, except not at all.

Blue Jam is also pretty fantastic, by the by, like Cronenberg by way of Joe Frank. Warp used to have an album of Blue Jam's best-of, but apparently that's out of print...oh well, no matter. You're better off listening to the sketch-song-sketch-song format of the actual shows for that. Also, Nathan Barley was hideously underrated. No show with a finale inspired by The Tenant can be all bad. Or the bit with the cat and the scissors.

Basically, in general, I like things, and those are all things. Also reminds me that I haven't seen Dead Set yet.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:39 PM on November 17, 2008

On The Hour is better than Colbert and Stewart, and I watch/love both basically every night.
posted by Damn That Television at 9:40 PM on November 17, 2008

Chilled.cream.org has torrent links of Blue Jam. The quality leaves a bit to be desired, recorded direct from the radio I believe, but the dark genius still shines through.

"...pulling an infinte misery-jumper over your head, but you can never get out..."
posted by JustAsItSounds at 9:57 PM on November 17, 2008

Even when doing a sitcom, as he did playing the CEO on The IT Crowd, Chris Morris is fantastic. His exit from the first series was done in a way that made me think, "Molto perfecto!"

I've been happily Cook'd and Bomb'd for years!
posted by droplet at 10:00 PM on November 17, 2008

Is it still too early for this?
posted by the christopher hundreds at 10:00 PM on November 17, 2008

Wow, just spent the last 20 minutes watching clips. How did this show never pop up on my radar? Hilarious.

"Ummm... Shiiiiiiit! Did you see that?" cleared my tear ducts and gave me a decent ab' workout. I can't even read the words in the preview box without busting up laughing now.

THANKS!
posted by Lukenlogs at 10:28 PM on November 17, 2008

Nice. I dug our Brass Eye on DVD over the weekend; I'd forgoten just how good that was. Cake, anyone?
posted by TheDonF at 11:02 PM on November 17, 2008

There's a free sample download at the Guardian

Oh and soooo much I could link to, but this comes straight to mind.... "I'm the pool supervisor, the night supervisor"
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:51 AM on November 18, 2008

You may be interested in an earlier Chris Morris media furore, sparked shortly after the death of Princess Di with his BishopSlips broadcast, at the end of one of the last episodes of Jam.

It was the last episode of the first series of Blue Jam, and the episode was ended prematurely, but two more series followed.

/Morris geek
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 4:15 AM on November 18, 2008

Brilliant, brilliant show.

...is now available for download via iTunes and Warp Records (via DRM-free Bleep)

It's a shame you can't wrap downloads up and give them to your friends as Christmas presents, otherwise I'd have bought at least four copies. Silly modern Warp.
posted by jack_mo at 5:10 AM on November 18, 2008

It's a shame you can't wrap downloads up and give them to your friends as Christmas presents, otherwise I'd have bought at least four copies. Silly modern Warp.

Its available on CD, too
posted by dng at 5:33 AM on November 18, 2008

Chris Morris messes with talk show The Time, The Place.
posted by mandal at 5:56 AM on November 18, 2008

Its available on CD, too

Oop, silly me. I clicked around Bleep for ages looking for it to no avail, even though I know Bleep is a download shop.
posted by jack_mo at 8:06 AM on November 18, 2008

On the Hour is one of the greatest things in the world.
posted by YoungAmerican at 4:02 PM on December 1, 2008