Mock the Week is a British topical celebrity panel game hosted by Dara Ó Briain. The game is influenced by improvised topical stand-up comedy, with several rounds requiring players to deliver answers on unexpected subjects on the spur of the moment.
Social & External
The people behind it
Hugh Dennis
Self
Dara Ó Briain
Self - Host
Baddiel and Skinner unplanned was a free-form talk show hosted by British comedians/personalities David Baddiel and Frank Skinner and produced by Avalon Television. Its concept was developed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and had a run in the West End at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 2001. The show features the two hosts sitting on a couch on-stage and responding to questions from the audience — at times rather seriously, but usually with bizarre digressions into satirical comedy. An audience member is chosen as "Secretary" and has the job of keeping a note of the topics covered on a white board. In practice, the personality of the secretary will also prompt many jokes — usually at his or her expense. At the end of the show, Skinner asks either the secretary or the audience to choose between two song books, and to pick a page number between 1 and 20. This process determines which song is performed by the duo, sung by Skinner with Baddiel accompanying him on piano. Topics of discussion are wholly mandated by the audience and have ranged from discussions of the war against Iraq and other political events to comments on the latest plot twists of popular soap operas and the Atkins diet. Skinner's Catholicism and Baddiel's Jewish faith are also occasional targets of humour.
Disillusioned after a long career at Sunshine Desserts, Reginald Iolanthe Perrin endures a midlife crisis and fakes his own death. Returning in disguise after various attempts at finding a 'new life', Perrin gets his old job back and finds nothing has changed. He is eventually found out, and later finds success with a chain of junk shops. However, it becomes so successful that he feels he has created a monster and decides to destroy it.
Family-based sitcom set in the capital of British Pakistan - Sparkhill, Birmingham. Citizen Khan follows the trials and tribulations of loud-mouthed, tight-fisted, self-appointed community leader Mr Khan and his long suffering family, wife Mrs Khan and daughters Shazia and Alia.
Lee Mack wrangles a team of scientists and celebrity guests to find the truth behind the trivia on this bizarrely educational panel show.
A British sketch comedy series with the shows being composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines.
A British television comedy series, written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Following an initial pilot episode in January 1976, it ran for two subsequent series of five and three episodes in October 1977 and October 1979 respectively. Each episode had a different setting and characters, looking at a different aspect of British culture and parodying pre-World War II literature aimed at schoolboys.
Roddelpraat, the place where Jan Roos and Dennis Schouten tell you the latest gossip every Wednesday with a good sense of humor.
Hilarious, totally-irreverent, near-slanderous political quiz show, based mainly on news stories from the last week or so, that leaves no party, personality or action unscathed in pursuit of laughs.
Shooting Stars is a British television comedy panel game broadcast on BBC Two as a pilot in 1993, then as 3 full series from 1995 to 1997, then on BBC Choice from January to December 2002 with 2 series before returning to BBC Two for another 3 series from 2008 until its cancellation in 2011. Created and hosted by double-act Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, it uses the panel show format but with the comedians' often slapstick, surreal and anarchic humour does not rely on rules in order to function, with the pair apparently ignoring existing rules or inventing new ones as and when the mood takes them.
Hollywood Squares is an American panel game show, in which two contestants play tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The "board" for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants. The stars are asked questions by the host, or "Square-Master", and the contestants judge the veracity of their answers in order to win the game. Although Hollywood Squares was a legitimate game show, the game largely acted as the background for the show's comedy in the form of joke answers, often given by the stars prior to their "real" answer. The show's writers usually supplied the jokes. In addition, the stars were given question subjects and plausible incorrect answers prior to the show. The show was scripted in this sense, but the gameplay was not. In any case, as host Peter Marshall, the best-known "Square-Master" and the man in whose honor the show's first announcer, Kenny Williams, actually "coined" the term, would explain at the beginning of the Secret Square game, the celebrities were briefed prior to show to help them with bluff answers, but they otherwise heard the actual questions for the first time as they were asked on air.
Casper & Mandrilaftalen was a Danish cult TV program aired on DR2 in 1999.
The fortunes of a former chat show host who is reduced to a lowly slot on Radio Norwich. Alan Partridge is divorced, living in a travel tavern, and desperate for a return to television.
Goodness Gracious Me is a BBC English language sketch comedy show originally aired on BBC Radio 4 from 1996 to 1998 and later televised on BBC Two from 1998 to 2001. The ensemble cast were four British Indian actors, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia. The show explored the conflict and integration between traditional Indian culture and modern British life. Some sketches reversed the roles to view the British from an Indian perspective, and others poked fun at Indian stereotypes. In the television series most of the white characters were played by Dave Lamb and Fiona Allen; in the radio series those parts were played by the cast themselves. The show's title and theme tune is a bhangra rearrangement of a hit comedy song of the same name. The original was performed by Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren reprising their characters from the 1960 film The Millionairess. The show's original working title was "Peter Sellers is Dead", but was changed because the cast generally liked Peter Sellers. In her 1996 novel Anita and Me, Syal had referred to British parodies of Asian speech as "a goodness-gracious-me accent". One of the more famous sketches featured the cast "going out for an English" after a few lassis. They mispronounce the waiter's name, order the blandest thing on the menu and ask for twenty-four plates of chips. The sketch parodies often-drunk English people "going out for an Indian", ordering chicken phall and too many papadums. This sketch was voted the 6th Greatest Comedy Sketch on a Channel 4 list show.
Never Mind the Buzzcocks is a comedy panel game show with a pop and rock music theme. The show is infamous for its dry, sarcastic humour and scathing, provocative attacks on the pop industry.
A topical comedy show, mixing stand-up with sketches and impressions, starring David Baddiel, Robert Newman, Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt.
Adam Hills, one of Australia's favourite comedians and winner of Edinburgh's Best of the Fest award, is joined by two team captains, comedian and actor Alan Brough and radio breakfast announcer Myf Warhurst, as well as brave personalities who enjoy having long forgotten embarrassing stories laughed about on national television. Two teams go head to head as they sing, shout and delve deep into the recesses of their collective minds to help earn their team an extremely inglorious victory.
2DTV is a British satirical animated television show that was broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom from March 2001 to December 2004. Lasting a total of five series and thirty-three episodes, 2DTV became the successor of popular 80's TV series Spitting Image, and the predecessor of 2008 ITV satirical animation Headcases.
Agents Richard Bullit and Douglas Riper must hunt down a serial killer targeting high-profile YouTubers.
Flesh-eating baby-boomers get a taste for teenagers in Ben Wheatley's darkly comic, outlandishly gory, zombie-horror satire.
A crazy comedy about three rather strange parish priests exiled to Craggy Island, a remote island off the Irish west coast.
Four panelists must determine guests' occupations - and, in the case of famous guests, while blindfolded, their identity - by asking only "yes" or "no" questions.
A spoof of the British news — including ridiculous stories, patronising vox pops, offensively hard-hitting research and a sports presenter clearly struggling for metaphors. Adapted from Radio 4 series 'On the Hour'.
Classic sketch comedy show satirising the news and culture of the late 70s and early 80s which introduced Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Pamela Stephenson.
The free world is in danger, and only one man can help. Jack Decker has sworn to defend America from foreign terrorists regardless of which spineless president is in charge. This is Decker: The Series.
A zany sketch comedy featuring many wacky characters hosted for kids and by kids.
In this cult parody of cop dramas, replete with farce and sight gags, Lieutenant Frank Drebin and his fellow officers from Police Squad bungle their way though crime investigations.
This partially unscripted comedy brings viewers into the squad car as incompetent officers swing into action, answering 911 calls about everything from speeding violations and prostitution to staking out a drug den. Within each episode, viewers catch a "fly on the wall" glimpse of the cops' often politically incorrect opinions, ranging from their personal feelings to professional critiques of their colleagues.
The Carol Burnett Show is an American variety/sketch comedy television show starring Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway. It originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 278 episodes and originated from CBS Television City's Studio 33. The series won 25 prime time Emmy Awards, was ranked No. 16 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time in 2002 and in 2007 was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All Time."
An American sketch comedy television program hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.
The big-collared comic gives his own spin on TV clips from recent programmes, plus contributions from a set of regular characters
A British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s, combining surreal sketches and situation comedy.
Spitting Image is an award winning British satirical puppet show, created by Peter Fluck, Roger Law and Martin Lambie-Nairn. The series was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Independent Television over 18 series which aired on the ITV from 1984 to 1996. The series was nominated and won numerous awards during its run including 10 BAFTA Awards, including one for editing in 1989, and even won two Emmy Awards in 1985 and 1986 in the Popular Arts Category. The series featured puppet caricatures of celebrities famous during the 1980s and 1990s, including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and fellow Tory politicians, American president Ronald Reagan, and the British Royal Family. The Series was the first to caricature the Queen mother.
French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring comic duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act.
Two "Internetainers" (Rhett & Link) go far out and do the weirdest things, giving you a daily dose of casual comedy every Monday-Friday.
An anthology comedy series featuring a line up of different celebrity guest stars appearing in anywhere from one, two, three, and four short stories or vignettes within an hour about versions of love and romance.
The Dick Van Dyke Show centers around the work and home life of television comedy writer Rob Petrie. The plots generally revolve around problems at work, where Rob got into various comedic jams with fellow writers Buddy Sorrell, Sally Rogers and producer Mel Cooley.
When a Cincinnati radio station switches from sedate music to top-40 rock 'n' roll, its staff of oddball characters is forced to switch gears quickly. New programming director Andy Travis brings in a new DJ named Venus Flytrap to work with the station's burned-out veteran, Dr. Johnny Fever. Neurotic newsman Les Nessman, eager beaver Bailey Quarters, sleazy salesman Herb Tarlek, blonde bombshell Jennifer Marlowe, who serves as the station's ultra-capable receptionist, and station manager Arthur Carlson, whose domineering mother owns WKRP, round out the eccentric bunch.
A British comedy television series with turns of phrase and elaborate wordplay, written by and starring former Cambridge Footlights members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.