Janet and John - Parodies

Parodies

The radio and television broadcaster Terry Wogan regularly satirised the series on his BBC Radio 2 show Wake Up To Wogan by reading out stories clearly based on the premise of the original Janet and John books, but deriving humour through euphemism and innuendo. Despite the obvious implied meaning, the stories' true meanings were never discussed, partly due to the morning timeslot of the show when children may be listening.

The author of the stories is a frequent listener and contributor known as 'Mick Sturbs', whose real name is Kevin Joslin. The stories are based around the supposed adventures of newsreader John Marsh and his wife Janet. Five CDs of the recordings have been made available for the charity Children in Need and have raised a substantial amount of money. A book of the scripts, 'See John Run', was released in October 2009, again supporting Children in Need. John is portrayed as a simpleton and fop whose adventures land him in hot water with Janet as they always contain heavy doses of innuendo and often result in Terry, John and Traffic Totty Lynn Bowles dissolving into uncontrollable laughter.

Rona Munro's daughters were not involved in the rewriting of Janet and John by Star Kids. They were directors of James Nisbet & Co; the company sold the copyright of JJ to Star Kids, and the rewriting was carried out by Star Kids. The daughters' first sight of the rewriting was after publication.