Bring back the joyful madness that was Harry Hill’s TV Burp
t’s terrible being part of the ‘not-as-good-as-it used-tobe’ brigade.
Things change, things move on, get over it.
But this week I’ve been having a trip down memory lane with the family by rewatching Harry Hill’s TV Burp.
The show ran for 11 years from 2001-12 and in my house as the kids grew up, it was the jewel of Saturday night TV.
Very few comedies manage to appeal to kids and adults of all ages, but every week Harry Hill in his trademark giant collar and specs pulled off the impossible.
From spoof sketches, knowing asides to camera to weird ‘fights’ between someone dressed as a toaster and someone dressed as a shark, the show mocked, ridiculed and demolished the week’s TV in a half hour of gleeful anarchy.
If you want to relive this wondrous time, just have a look on YouTube where hours and hours of TV Burp reside, still interestingly watched by thousands of people.
Going back to that place is strange.
Not just the show itself which has the look and feel of the pre-HD 2000s - but the subject matter.
Long-forgotten soap characters and story lines are mercilessly teased by Harry’s selective clip editing.
It was a world where talent shows like X Factor reigned supreme - The TV Burp spoof version was called ‘The K
Factor: So you think you can knit’.
And the new kid on the broadcasting block was BBC3, desperately trying to target hip and trendy reality and drama programmes at 16-34-year-olds.
BBC3 is still at it of course, knocking out such gems as The Fast and the Farmerish (young farmers racing tractors) and back in 2009 its big offering was . . . Young Butcher of the Year.
This was, ahem, meat and drink to Harry Hill who stripped it of any dignity it
Imight have had by showcasing the bit where a young butcher constructs a ‘Viking long boat’ out of a rack of lamb, some offal and an aubergine.
Other ridiculous noughties shows getting the TV Burp drubbing included BBC 3’s Freaky Eaters (which featured someone addicted to Yorkshire Puddings or chips, prompting Harry to shout ‘chippy chips’ while gurning), Snog Marry, Avoid and Muslim Driving School.
This was the kind of TV you couldn’t make up and for a master satirist like Harry it was like shooting fish in a bucket.
To add to the insanity, Harry would be frequently attacked by a shark puppet, invite viewers to spot a knitted character in real shows throughout the week and regularly bring out a ventriloquist dummy version of Alan Sugar when discussing clips from The Apprentice.
Like any good satire, the targets of the show actually wanted in on the joke.
This reached its height when he got everyone on TV sets across all the networks, from Daytime to Ricky Gervais to Bake Off, to say the phrase “ear cataracts” (a reference to an odd line in Emmerdale).
Often Harry would be cleverly edited into scenes from the top shows, such as the time he performed an elaborate parkour during a chase in
The Bill, or tied Jamie Oliver’s shoelaces together while he’s bish-bash-boshing up a recipe.
Jamie Oliver’s stock in trade patter was also edited together at one point to become a house music rave track, which I suspect Jamie loved.
But for my money the ultimate mickey take of them all was when Harry was lampooning some longforgotten BBC3 rappers competition show and a young artist singing: “I love to play my bongos in the morning”.
One one level smutty and suggestive - on another just plain silly - it was an oftrepeated phrase on TV Burp and in my household to this day.
Apparently Harry Hill found the pace of creating weekly TV Burp shows after 10 series just too much and he even gave an interview to say he suffered from PTSD when it all finished.
He’s certainly not done anything anywhere near as funny ever since, which is a real shame.