Notable Coverage
The programme features extremely surreal news items. Examples include:
- Reports that explosive-packed terrorist dogs were being released in London by the IRA. These "bomb dogs" wreak havoc, and prompt the British police to begin executing any dog on sight. This story is accompanied by a clip of Steve Coogan impersonating a Gerry Adams-esque Sinn Féin leader, spouting rhetoric while inhaling helium to detract credibility from his statement. This was a satirical comment on broadcasters' responses to the law at the time, which prevented any Sinn Féin spokesperson from being heard in radio and television; their words would instead be dubbed by an actor speaking in a neutral tone of voice.
- Coverage of a long-running feud between John Major and the Queen. The feud culminates in physical fighting between the two in Buckingham Palace, videoed by a secret reporter who comments on "loud swearing voices", "the sounds of bodies falling against furniture", and the "Prime Minister leaving with bleeding legs". Early coverage of the incident worsens the situation, and prompts Morris' character to air a propaganda reel reserved for national emergencies; film consisting of a sequence of bizarre scenarios set against a backdrop of patriotic British music (the middle section of Jupiter by Gustav Holst), in a baffling effort to boost British national solidarity. The feud ultimately ends with the Queen and her entourage marching on Downing Street to beat up John Major, and after the close of the incident, the Royal Mail issues a commemorative stamp featuring the Queen and John Major kissing.
- Coverage of an ongoing rail crisis, following a train trapped on the tracks in Hampshire. Trapped by a jammed signal post, the stranded train rapidly becomes the scene of anarchy and paganism, its passengers reverting to an animalistic state.
- In the fifth episode, Morris provokes a war between Hong Kong and Australia, and much of the episode revolves around the resulting conflict. Subsequent reports of the war, delivered from "Eastmanstown in the Upper Cataracts on the Australio-Hong-Kong border", are humorously blown out of proportion. At the end of the episode, a false advertisement features a three-tape VHS set of the war produced by The Day Today, featuring footage of the war and its origins, set against a backdrop of inappropriate pop music, a parody of tabloid television's tendency to "dumb down" stories and present serious events in a light-hearted manner.
Other bizarre stories included a report of two French boys who break into the Roman Catholic Church's computer databanks in order to change the Catholic catechism; an urgent report that the British pound had been stolen; reports of wild horses disrupting the London Underground; and reports that Crete had been kidnapped by Libya and that Japan had manufactured sixteen identical Japans.
Read more about this topic: The Day Today
Famous quotes containing the word notable:
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)