The Day Today

The Day Today is a British comedy television show that parodies television news and current affairs programmes, broadcast from 19 January to 23 February 1994 on BBC2. It was created by Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris and is an adaptation of the radio programme On the Hour, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 9 August 1991 and 28 May 1992 and was also written by Morris, Iannucci, Steven Wells, Andrew Glover, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, David Quantick, and the cast. For The Day Today, Peter Baynham joined the writing team, and Lee and Herring were replaced by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews. The principal cast of On the Hour was retained for The Day Today. The Day Today is composed of six half-hour episodes and a selection of shorter five-minute slots recorded as promotional trailers for the longer episodes. The series won many awards including Morris winning the 1994 British Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. All six episodes are available on BBC DVD, having previously been issued on VHS. Format Each episode is presented as a mock news programme, and the episodes rely on a combination of ludicrous fictitious news stories, covered with a serious, quasi-professional attitude. Each episode revolves around one or two major stories, which are pursued throughout the programme, along with a host of other stories usually only briefly referred to. In addition, the programme dips into other channels from time to time, presents clips of fictitious upcoming BBC programmes, and conducts street interviews with members of the public, in a segment titled Speak Your Brains. The programme frequently comments on other programmes, most often a spoof soap opera called The Bureau, set in a 24-hour bureau de change, incorporating clichéd soap opera-style plots, which apparently produces and airs 2,000 episodes between the first and third episodes of The Day Today and becomes a hit in Italy. The programme also contains clips from a spoof documentary series called The Pool, featuring a public swimming pool and its neurotic staff, Morris' character explaining that The Day Today has funded a documentary on every public building in the country. The final episode features reports from the fictitious documentary The Office, which follows office workers as they go on a retreat with an efficiency expert. Other non-news segments of the programme include the occasional "physical cartoons" of current events set in the studio.