Sunday 27 September 2015

TV Eats Itself


Way off topic warning. But remember, if you want pure, unadulterated Sideburn motorcycle coverage, you simply need to buy the magazine. You keep buying it, we'll keep making it. Pick a cover from those on the side that catches your eye and fill your boots.

So, back in the early-2000s, acerbic newspaper columnist, turned TV series writer, Charlie Brooker (a big favourite of mine) wrote a website called TV Go Home. It was a fictional TV listings magazine (like Radio Times or TV Times) but all the shows were preposterous often cynical mash-ups reflecting the increasingly desperate formats of shows filling up the expanded UK schedules (until the 1982, the UK only had three TV channels, now we have nearly 500).

TV Go Home's short descriptions were, and remain, hilarious, but now British shows are making TV Go Home seem like the minutes of a sober brainstorming session in a TV production company. Example 1:

Singing in the Rainforest
Send seminal Madchester band to the Panama rainforest to perform in the baking sun and see how the local tribe react.

For real.

I didn't see the programme, but it looks oddly heartwarming from this trailer and I've always liked the Mondays. G

4 comments:

Mick P said...

Quite incredible. I'm still waiting for them to make 'Mick Hucknall's Pink Pancakes'. For those unfamiliar with TV Go Home, do yourselves a favour:
http://www.tvgohome.com/

Kirk said...

And just when I thought it couldn't get much more bizarre in the inane world of mass media entertainment- that happens. Really? A lot of drugs done in the 2000 are coming home to roost in the brain cells of now respectable (ish) media types it seems.

capnsimo said...

Mad for it....

Unknown said...

Couldn't help but imagine the locals at the end saying "We like him, but what does the one you call "Bez" actually do in the band?"