''TV Offal'' is a satirical British television comedy sketch/archive series that ran on
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
from October 1997 to June 1998. It was written and narrated by comedian and writer
Victor Lewis-Smith, who shared writing duties with Paul Sparks. It ran for seven episodes (including the pilot), and is probably best known for first airing the
uncensored Rainbow sketch on national television, as well as the "Gay Daleks" sketches.
The series covered generally obscure, rare or offensive excerpts of television footage from numerous media archives, usually accompanied by Lewis-Smith's biting commentary and cynical approach to what was being shown. Lewis-Smith used a variety of categories on the show to accompany a particular selection of programme footage. The show was also characterised by its musical score of campy
jingles
A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...
introducing the regular segments. These were produced in the 1980s style by the
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
-based radio ID company
JAM Creative Productions
JAM Creative Productions, Inc., is an American company that produces radio jingles, promo music for television, and commercial jingles for advertisers. It has made more radio jingles than any other jingle company and has become part of American ...
.
The programme was made by
Associated-Rediffusion
Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion London, was the British ITV franchise holder for London and parts of the surrounding counties, on weekdays between 22 September 1955 and 29 July 1968. It was the first ITA franchisee to go on air, ...
, the name of a TV company formerly serving the London area from 1955 to 1964 (and continuing as ''Rediffusion London'' until 1968). Lewis-Smith bought the name for his own production company when he discovered that it was dormant.
TV Offal has never been fully repeated, although a "best of" series entitled ''TV Offal Prime Cuts'' was aired in November 1999.
Regular segments
The opening to each episode involved an imitated guest appearance from Professor
Stephen Hawking, who's often shown conversing with either Lewis-Smith or one of the gay Daleks (who's convinced he's really
Robert T. Ironside and so pesters Hawking for an autograph).
Honest Obituary
A satirical look at the death of either a current or generally obscure celebrity personality's "demise" followed by a satirical account of their contributions to the viewing public (which usually derails them) before revealing the exaggerated cause of death. The first few lines of the obituary are a list of very harsh criticisms, usually followed by "
is/hercritics were less kind". The deaths are usually announced using a piece of dubbed dialogue of the celebrity's name, mixing into BBC News footage of newsreader (
Michael Buerk
Michael Duncan Buerk (born 18 February 1946) is a British journalist and newsreader. He presented BBC News from 1973 to 2002 and has been the host of BBC Radio 4's ''The Moral Maze'' since 1990. He was also the presenter of BBC One's docudrama ...
) saying "... who died today" in a bitter and traumatised manner. (From the news reports broadcast on the day that
Princess Diana
Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997) was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of King Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William and Harry. Her ac ...
died.) Obituaries included
Noel Edmonds
Noel Ernest Edmonds (born 22 December 1948) is an English television presenter, radio DJ, writer, producer, and businessman. Edmonds first became known as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg before moving to BBC Radio 1 in the UK. He has presente ...
,
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948), is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, ...
,
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, (born 6 October 1939), is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is best known for his work with ITV as editor and presenter of ''The South Bank Show'' (1978–2010), and for the BBC Radio 4 documenta ...
,
Nigel Kennedy
Nigel Kennedy (born 28 December 1956) is an English violinist and violist.
His early career was primarily spent performing classical music, and he has since expanded into jazz, klezmer, and other music genres.
Early life and background
Kenn ...
,
Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist, game show host and writer who specialises in Driving, motoring. He is best known for the motoring programmes ''Top Gear (2002 TV series), Top Gear'' an ...
,
Vanessa Feltz
Vanessa Jane Feltz is an English television personality, broadcaster, and journalist. She has appeared on various television shows, including Vanessa (British TV series), ''Vanessa'' (1994–1998), ''The Big Breakfast'' (1996–1998), ''The Vane ...
,
Two Fat Ladies
''Two Fat Ladies'' was a British cooking programme starring Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright. It originally ran for four series and twenty-four episodes, from 9 October 1996 to 28 September 1999, being produced by Optomen Televis ...
and
Jeremy Beadle
Jeremy James Anthony Gibson-Beadle MBE (12 April 1948 – 30 January 2008) was an English television presenter, radio presenter, writer and producer. During the 1980s he was a regular face on British television, and in two years appeared ...
.
Kamikaze Karaoke
Usually involves Lewis-Smith imitating various musicians to interpret how they sound "to him", usually mocking them in the process.
Assassination of the Week
This segment usually had two parts, with one part leading to the commercial breaks, challenging the viewer to depend on their memory to guess the outcome of a genuine assassination attempt aired on the show, and the second part resolving the outcome and whenever or not the victim survived or was killed ("did they live or are they worm food?"). Those featured were
Inejiro Asanuma and
Luis Donaldo Colosio
Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta (; 10 February 1950 – 23 March 1994) was a Mexican politician, economist, and Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) presidential candidate, who was assassinated at a campaign rally in Tijuana during the Mexic ...
(both killed),
Park Chung-Hee
Park Chung-hee (, ; 14 November 1917 – 26 October 1979) was a South Korean politician and army general who served as the dictator of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979; ruling as an unelected military strongman from 1961 ...
(who survived but whose wife
Yuk Young-soo
Yuk Young-soo (; 29 November 1925 – 15 August 1974) was the wife of the 3rd South Korean president Park Chung-hee and the mother of the 11th South Korean president Park Geun-hye. She was killed in 1974 during an attempted assassination of ...
was killed in the attempt),
Imelda Marcos
Imelda Romualdez Marcos (; born Imelda Remedios Visitacion Trinidad Romualdez; July 2, 1929) is a Filipino politician who served as the First Lady of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, wielding significant political power during the dictator ...
(who survived),
John F Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
(who was killed but whom Lewis-Smith said had survived in a fictitious "what really happened" segment) and
Prince Charles
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...
(who survived but whom Lewis-Smith said was killed in an equally fictitious segment). In between the setting of the question and the reveal of the answer, viewers were usually treated to a bizarrely outdated television advertisement, such as an ad for the
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
produced in about 1960 (using the slogan "the Daily Mirror backs the young!" and ridiculing the "old guard" of British society) and an advert for the now discontinued
Diocalm. The section was dropped from one episode when ''TV Offal'' instead used the original break titles from an episode of ''
The Golden Shot
''The Golden Shot'' is a British television game show produced by ATV for ITV between 1 July 1967 and 13 April 1975, based on the German TV show '' Der goldene Schuß''. It is most commonly associated with host Bob Monkhouse, but three other ...
'' during a piece satirising the game show.
Crappy TV Logo of the Week
A piece mocking the most under budget and mismanaged of obscure television studios, produced by students or otherwise.
Fantasy Programme of the Week
A "What If..." segment pondering aloud what certain celebrities would be doing if they chose a different action to affect the outcome of their productions, ranging from
Roy Walker creating dirty versions of
Catchphrase
A catchphrase (alternatively spelled catch phrase) is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through word of mouth and a variety of mass ...
(a commentary on the infamous "Snake Charmer" outtake) to
Richard Baker being drunk on the
Last Night of the Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert H ...
("which of course...he wasn't" claimed a sarcastic Lewis-Smith whilst introducing the segment).
The Pilots That Crashed
Rare and unaired pilots produced for possible series. Included such gems as "The Development of the Test Card", "Tubby the Tumour" and "It'll All End In Tiaras", a satire on monarchy. However, most of the programmes featured in this segment were not genuine pilots; the Test Card one was a self-produced video sold to Test Card enthusiasts, and both "Tubby the Tumour" and "It'll All End In Tiaras" were deliberate spoofs created for TV Offal by Victor Lewis-Smith.
The Gay Daleks
A series of interactions between two
Michael Portillo
Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo (; born 26 May 1953) is a British journalist, broadcaster and former politician. His broadcast series include railway documentaries such as ''Great British Railway Journeys'' and '' Great Continental Railway Journ ...
obsessed, gay
Daleks
The Daleks ( ) are a fictional extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial race of mutants principally portrayed in the British science fiction on television, science fiction television programme ''Doctor Who''. They were conceived by write ...
, travelling in a space/time machine called "The Turdis" (a play on the
TARDIS
The TARDIS (; acronym for "Time And Relative Dimension In Space") is a fictional hybrid of the time machine and spacecraft that appears in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'' and its various spin-offs. Its exterior ap ...
and "turd", a countable noun for a piece of
faeces
Feces ( or faeces), known colloquially and in slang as poo and poop, are the solid or semi-solid remains of food that was not digested in the small intestine, and has been broken down by bacteria in the large intestine. Feces contain a relati ...
), during the sketches, the pair treat their relationship with an argumentative, tense approach which often is ridden with their addressing relationship problems, crude bickering, and finally becoming so turned on by their arguing, that they begin to orgasm, leading to a variation of the classic Dalek catchphrase "Exterminate", now "Exsperminate". In the pilot episode, dubbed clips from the 1979 serial ''
Destiny of the Daleks
''Destiny of the Daleks'' is the first serial of the 17th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 1 September to 22 September 1979. The story introduces ...
'' were used. A later attempt at reviving the Gay Daleks as an animated series was blocked by the
Terry Nation
Terence Joseph Nation (8 August 19309 March 1997) was a British screenwriter and novelist. Especially known for his work in British television science fiction, he created the Daleks and Davros for ''Doctor Who'', as well as the series '' Survivo ...
Estate.
Satirical Song in the '80s Genre
Each episode would contain a song about a celebrity, with the exception of one song about 'Selling God'. "Its nice being
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The tune itself was always the same, but the lyrics were changed depending on the celebrity. The song would always end with the line: "..but now we must stop as our lawyer says that
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