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

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

JustAsItSounds — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:46:22 -0800

On The Hour - available for download now The 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

By: munchingzombie

munchingzombie — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:53:14 -0800

You just made my day. Thank you.

By: redteam

redteam — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:13:07 -0800

(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.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:13:45 -0800

Thanks for the clue; never heard of any of this before. Sounds really funny so far.

By: JustAsItSounds

JustAsItSounds — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:34:57 -0800

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"

By: NailsTheCat

NailsTheCat — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:46:14 -0800

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."

By: stammer

stammer — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:57:56 -0800

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.

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:39:13 -0800

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.

By: Damn That Television

Damn That Television — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:40:04 -0800

On The Hour is better than Colbert and Stewart, and I watch/love both basically every night.

By: JustAsItSounds

JustAsItSounds — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:57:00 -0800

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..."

By: droplet

droplet — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:00:03 -0800

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!

By: the christopher hundreds

the christopher hundreds — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:00:10 -0800

Is it still too early for this?

By: Lukenlogs

Lukenlogs — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:28:14 -0800

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!

By: TheDonF

TheDonF — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:02:06 -0800

Nice. I dug our Brass Eye on DVD over the weekend; I'd forgoten just how good that was. Cake, anyone?

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:51:41 -0800

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"

By: Lentrohamsanin

Lentrohamsanin — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:15:58 -0800

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

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:10:37 -0800

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.

By: dng

dng — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:33:48 -0800

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

By: mandal

mandal — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:56:55 -0800

Chris Morris messes with talk show The Time, The Place.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:06:42 -0800

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.

By: YoungAmerican

YoungAmerican — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:02:07 -0800

On the Hour is one of the greatest things in the world.