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''Digitiser'' was a
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s magazine that was broadcast on
Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
in the UK between 1993 and 2003. It originally billed itself a
"The World's Only Daily Game Magazine"
The page was launched on 1 January 1993 on page 370 of the Teletext service on
ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
before transferring over to
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 ...
later that year. It was updated daily except on Sundays, apart from a nine-month period in 2002 when it went to three days a week, weekends and holidays. It was followed by up to 1.5 million viewers at times. The magazine was notable for its surreal and risqué humour as well as its games coverage. Digitiser was advertised on the back of multiple issues of the multi-platform video game magazine Electric Brain. ''Digitiser'' was created by writers Paul Rose and Tim Moore who went by the pseudonyms Mr Biffo and Mr Hairs. They wrote it together for the first four years while Rose wrote more or less solo for the remaining six in a freelance capacity.


History

''Digitiser'' frequently courted controversy, inspiring criticism both from outside groups and Teletext's own editorial team, who viewed the writers as troublemakers but were unable to axe them due to the magazine's popularity. Pages were often altered without the writers' knowledge, with sub-editors sometimes deleting entire frames of reviews for fear of missing a risqué joke. On one occasion, a sub-editor, who shortly afterwards was promoted to editorial director of the company, rang Rose to insist he remove a "disgusting" reference to "fingering the index". When Rose pointed out that it was a play on "index finger", and that it had not even dawned on him that it might be considered rude, the up-and-coming sub-editor is alleged to have fallen silent for a few seconds, before insisting that it was still deliberately provocative, and should be deleted. A similar confrontation occurred over a reference to "The three Rs", during which sub-editors believed that - despite Biffo's amused protests to the contrary - the "Rs" part of the phrase was meant to sound a bit like "arse", rather than a reference to the famous educational principle. Campaigns were even waged to have ''Digitisers writing team fired - both within Teletext by its editorial minions, and beyond (by disgruntled
Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
,
Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, r ...
,
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
, or
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
fans, not to mention the staff of
Mean Machines ''Mean Machines'' was a multi-format video game magazine published between 1990 and 1992 in the United Kingdom. Origins In the late 1980s '' Computer and Video Games'' (''CVG'') was largely covering the outgoing generation of 8-bit computers l ...
and Official Nintendo magazines - whom ''Digitiser'' frequently poked fun at). Such reactions merely served to redouble Biffo's resolve to be controversial and edgy, and as he often wrote on the letters pages, ''Digitiser'' ''"hates everyone equally, man".'' For every person who hated ''Digitiser'', there were dozens more who loved it, both for its fair and unbiased judgements of games, its informed style, and its unique and often bizarre tone. Doubtless, Biffo's battles with his employers helped to give ''Digitiser'' a defiant, anti-establishment air. Things finally came to a head in 2002, when Teletext gained a new senior editorial team, who lost patience with Biffo's pushing of the envelope of what was acceptable on a mainstream text service. Even though they could not quite bring themselves to get rid of ''Digitiser'' and Biffo altogether, they ordered that the magazine be reduced to three days a week, and have all humour and character stripped from the pages. Despite massive evidence to the contrary, and being one of the most popular features sections on Teletext, Biffo has said since that he was told the reason for this was because the humour ''"excluded people"''. Another reason for the reduction to three days a week, and the removal of the Panel 4 feature at weekends, was the negative financial effects felt after the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
on
Teletext Ltd. Teletext Ltd was the provider of teletext and digital interactive services for ITV, Channel 4 and Five in the United Kingdom. Origins ''Teletext Ltd'' started providing teletext services for ITV and Channel 4 on 1 January 1993, replacing th ...
's core business of advertising air travel holidays. It seemed as if the "suits" had finally won, and with Biffo's screenwriting career taking off at the time, he could have chosen to walk away from it all. However, he chose to stay on, writing the pages anonymously, as it only took 45 minutes out of his working day. ''"Money for old rope,"'' he has said subsequently. The decision later backfired on Teletext, when ''Digitisers viewing figures plummeted to 400,000 per day from its peak of 1.5 million, and viewers spent the next nine months inundating the company with letters of complaint, demanding that Digitiser's humour and characters be restored. After thousands of emails and letters had poured into Teletext they were forced to go back on their previous decision, and asked Biffo to reinstate the humour, and return ''Digitiser'' to its daily glory. However, for Biffo the damage had been done, and his last shreds of faith in the company had been shattered. After Biffo handed in his notice in December 2002, he returned ''Digitiser'' to its earlier style for one final, four-month run as a thank you to the fans - which included a special ten-year anniversary celebration, complete with a glowing eulogy by author
Alex Garland Alexander Medawar Garland (born 26 May 1970) is an English writer and filmmaker. He rose to prominence as a novelist in the late 1990s with his novel '' The Beach'', which led some critics to call Garland a key voice of Generation X. He subsequ ...
. The lights finally went out on just over ten years of ''Digitiser'' on 9 March 2003. ''Digitiser'' was replaced by '' GameCentral'', which featured the same number of sub-pages, but none of the humour with then editor Tony Mott explaining "We're not Digitiser so get over it" to readers on the first edition.


The writers

The founding writers of ''Digitiser'' were Mr Biffo (Paul Rose) and Mr Hairs (Tim Moore) who, as Biffo himself says, only began working on it in order to "amuse ourselves and get free games". Hairs was fired by Teletext in May 1996, and Biffo continued to write the bulk of the magazine solo, apart for occasional, part-time contributors, who helped him out with the letters, tips, and charts pages. These temporary assistants went by the names Mr Cheese, Mr Udders and Mr Toast. ''Digitiser'' also ran a weekly opinion column, written by various guest writers, usually prominent members of the games journalist community (such as
Violet Berlin Violet Berlin (born 2 January 1968) is a British television presenter, producer and script writer for films, games and immersive experiences, best known for her pioneering coverage of innovative technology and video games. Career Berlin first ...
and Stuart Campbell).


Recent news

In their 10 December 2006 episode, ''
videoGaiden ''VideoGaiden'' is a Scottish computer games television show that was broadcast by BBC Two Scotland. Its creators and presenters, Robert Florence ("Rab") and Ryan Macleod, were responsible for the internet-distributed videogaming show '' Consolev ...
'' inducted ''Digitiser'' into their videoGaiden Time Capsule with the aid of
Colin Baker Colin Baker (born 8 June 1943) is an English actor who played Paul Merroney in the BBC drama series '' The Brothers'' from 1974 to 1976 and the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series '' Doctor ...
in his outlandish ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
'' outfit, and the song "
Lavender ''Lavandula'' (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World and is found in Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, and from Europe across to northern and easte ...
" by Rose's favourite band,
Marillion Marillion are a British rock music, rock band, formed in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in 1979. They emerged from the post-punk music scene in Britain and existed as a bridge between the styles of punk rock and classic progressive rock, becomin ...
.


Regular characters

Regular characters appeared on the service both to fill up space left by short reviews and letters, and also to flesh out the content provided by the writers. The Man With a Long Chin (later renamed The Man) - The Man kept a regular diary in which he would detail the job he had been doing that week, before (usually) getting fired at the end of the week. One of The Man's jobs saw him working in a burger bar. He was eventually fired when he replaced the toilet paper with gloves from the lost property box, and someone froze to death in the toilet. The Man's Daddy (later renamed Daddy) - a bizarre ant/elephant creature who declared himself to be a famous comedian. His jokes tended to be disjointed, usually relying on a nonsense answer or a far-fetched pun. His jokes included: ''Question. Why did Superman wear his pants outside his trousers? Answer. Because he was a pervert.'', ''Question.: What do you call a dog wearing a policeman's hat? Answer: PC Dog-hat'' and ''Question.: What do you say if there is a seed in your pie and a man in your yard? Answer: "Seed pie leave now". ''
Mr. T Mr. T (born Laurence Tureaud, May 21, 1952), is an American actor. He is known for his roles as B. A. Baracus in the 1980s television series ''The A-Team'' and as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film ''Rocky III''. He is also known for his ...
- A take on Mr. T from
The A-Team ''The A-Team'' is an American action-adventure television series that ran on NBC from January 1983 to March 1987 about former members of a fictitious United States Army Special Forces unit. The four members of the team were tried by court marti ...
, who would dispense worldly advice, while warning kids to stay away from his bins. His distinctive vocal style was brought across by the use of capitalisation of entire words in a sentence. Phoning Honey - Would phone up stores in order to make prank calls, and present the transcript for readers' perusal. Fat Sow - Presented the news page, and began every article with a wild insult, and a demand that the reader stop whatever they are doing to pay attention to the rant. Rose allegedly received a written warning when Teletext's editors deemed Fat Sow's comment "What's the matter lads - too fat and stupid to get into the army?" as "Grossly offensive towards security guards". Zombie Dave - A reanimated corpse who appeared on the news page and punctuated the items with comments written in the manner of the shambling dead. This was frequently used as an excuse to get rude comments screened on the family-friendly service, such as when he described
Tomb Raider ''Tomb Raider'', also known as ''Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'' from 2001 to 2008, is a media franchise that originated with an action-adventure video game series created by British gaming company Core Design. Formerly owned by Eidos Interactive, th ...
's
Lara Croft Lara Croft is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the video game franchise ''Tomb Raider''. She is presented as a highly intelligent and athletic British archaeologist who ventures into ancient tombs and hazardous ruins around th ...
as a "thrr brrrd wrrz thrr tttrrrdz" kind of sound. Insincere Dave - A send-up of fanboys, marketing staff and ultra-positive reviewers; in particular the over enthusiastic Dave Gibbons who at that time was the games reviewer for the BBC
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...
service. Dave would comment briefly on the news items of the day in an overly optimistic and enthusiastic fashion. Famously, any spare space on the line his comments occupied would be filled with exclamation marks, further emphasising his "sincerity." Example: on a story about a pink casing accessory for the
Dreamcast The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, N ...
, Dave commented that, "Now your DC can be in the pink!!!!!!!". Very occasionally, a more deadpan Dave would appear: on a story regarding Microsoft's intention to ensure that the
Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...
marketing budget outweighed
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
's
PS2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia o ...
expenditure, Dave remarked that, "Money is the most important thing." Dave's comments were usually preceded by a rather acid take on the day's gaming events, adding a further element of juxtaposition to Dave's enthusiasm. The Snakes - A pair of beatboxing snakes, which would argue in a manner similar to that of
Ali G Alistair Leslie Graham, better known as Ali G, is a satirical fictional character created and performed by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. A faux-streetwise poseur from Staines, Ali G speaks in rude boy-style Multicultural London English a ...
(but pre-dating him by some years). Led to the catchphrase "I Cuss You Bad", along with the use of the word "Skank". BW - A faceless quizmaster, who was a bizarre parody of Bamber Boozler, quizmaster of Teletext quiz Bamboozle, often appearing to be nude. Gossi the Dog - Perhaps ''Digitiser''s most controversial character, Gossi hosted a regular gaming gossip page. On one occasion, the
Broadcasting Standards Commission The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers ...
upheld a complaint about the Gossi page, which alluded to Gossi's master thrashing the talking cartoon dog with a belt. Gossi's page also led to the dismissal of Tim Moore, who - while Rose was away on paternity leave - printed an unsubstantiated rumour about a fellow games journalist Dave Perry. Teletext's editors allegedly used the absence of Rose (who remained useful to the company for his graphic design abilities), and the journalist's complaint, as an excuse to fire Moore. Doctor Derek Doctors - A sinister megalomaniac, whom Biffo and Hairs secretly removed from air, after a concerned mother rang to say she found him "Perverted and disgusting". Chester Fisho - Chester gave views on the news of the day laced with masses of sexual innuendo.


Mock advertisements

During Teletext's 16-year run, many of its subpages would have adverts inserted on the last page. ''Digitiser'' decided to create their own spoof adverts as a result. One of the most notable was for a fictional German music compilation called ''Rock Meister!'', which included stereotypical German words as in "Rock dir night mit ROCK MEISTER!!", instead of the official "Rock der nacht!" as the advertisement was poking fun of stereotypes made at the German language, alongside stating the compilation is "Musik fur dir LONGHAIRS!". Artists on the compilation were listed as
Roxette Roxette was a Swedish pop rock duo, consisting of Marie Fredriksson (vocals and keyboards) and Per Gessle (vocals and guitar). Formed in 1986, the duo became an international act in the late 1980s, when they released their breakthrough second a ...
(although they came from Sweden) and The Scorpions, while "NOT A REAL GERMAN ADVERT" was placed at the top left of the screen instead of the usual "NOT AN ADVERT". This was done as a viewer contacted Teletext over a previous spoof believing it to be real.


Reveal button

The reveal button was a feature that was made heavy use of on ''Digitiser''. Pressing this key on your television remote made some previously hidden text appear, sometimes with a blinking effect. Typical jokes would tell you to press reveal to see what a certain character thought of your letter, or a news item, and you would be presented with a surreal non-sequitur, such as a man shouting " Swayze!" The weekend edition would often feature a full-length "story," told through "Reveal-O"s (as they were often called - see "Digi-Speak") on every page. The most controversial "Reveal-O" appeared right at the end of ''Digitisers life, on the final page of the final letters section. It purported to be a picture of "the real Turner The Worm (a cartoon character from
Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
also created by Rose) being sick". Pressing the reveal button then uncovered an image that many have likened to a recently ejaculated penis. The end-of-year quiz featured lizard like creatures pointing to the correct answer with its tongue when the button was pressed.


Digi-Speak

A further element of ''Digitisers other-worldly charm was its unusual take on the
English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
. Often this amounted to little more than using "the" in unusual places or adding curious suffixes to existing words (including, but not limited to -uss, -O, -ston, -Oh! and -me-do), but occasionally invented whole new sounds using words that never been used in that context, such as " huss" becoming an exclamation of joy. Another very common ''Digitiser'' phrase was the expression " mess up". It was used to mean erring or failing, to rebuke or discredit a person's opinion ("You, sir, have messed up"), as an adjective meaning substandard or faulty ("messed-up animation"), and as a noun meaning any negative thing ("there are several mess-ups"). The phrase, like many others, was embraced by the readers who often used it in their letters. The author
Alex Garland Alexander Medawar Garland (born 26 May 1970) is an English writer and filmmaker. He rose to prominence as a novelist in the late 1990s with his novel '' The Beach'', which led some critics to call Garland a key voice of Generation X. He subsequ ...
was a ''Digitiser'' fan and named a chapter in his novel '' The Beach'' "Messed Up" in its honour. Using tramps as similes ("That's like putting lipstick on a dead tramp and calling it a supermodel"), the phrase ''moc-moc-a-moc'' and irrelevant sentences which read merely ''"And!"'' were all elements of the ''Digitiser'' lexicon. It was common practice for ''Digitiser'' to mock the names of contributors to its letters page. Generally, the more obvious the better (for example a reader with the surname "Major" could well find themselves being referred to as "
John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...
"). Notable bits of name-calling included ''Digitiser'' viewer Matt Gander being rechristened "non-shiny goose", and a Mr. Tedesco being called "Safedeway", alluding to supermarket chains
Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...
and
Safeway Safeway is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, d ...
.


Bubblegun.com

Bubblegun.com is a website that was established by Paul Rose, and featured contributions from several other writers. Touting itself as a Pop Culture version of ''Digitiser'', this site gained popularity around the last few years of ''Digitiser'', being named by Select magazine as one of the UK's top 10 "maverick websites". Though Paul Rose has not written for the site in over a decade, it remains as an archive run by its former designer, Steve Horsley. Though remaining unaffiliated with Rose - who has distanced himself from it - Bubblegun has featured new material from all-new contributors.


Digitiser 2000

In late 2014, Digitiser received an online revival of sorts with the launch of Digitiser2000.com, a website featuring a mixture of games news and reviews, articles and humour, in the traditional Digitiser offbeat style, and featuring many of the characters and features previously seen in the Teletext era of Digi. The content for the new site is largely written by Paul "Mr Biffo" Rose and was essentially self-funded at launch; Rose has since enabled a crowdfunding page through
Patreon Patreon (, ) is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a co ...
to enable readers to contribute towards the site's running costs (though the site's core content will remain freely available for all to view).


Mr Biffo's Found Footage

In 2017, Paul Rose successfully funded a Kickstarter campaign to bring together "Mr Biffo's Found Footage", a comedy/sci-fi montage series in the found footage style. The full series was released for free on YouTube weekly each Sunday, beginning on 10 September 2017 and ending on 22 October 2017.


Digitiser the Show

In 2018, a second Kickstarter campaign by Paul Rose was funded - over 1000 backers raised more than £44000 to create Digitiser the Show, a weekly six-part YouTube show featuring regular co-hosts Mr Biffo, Larry Bundy Jr, Octavius Kitten, Gameplay Jenny and Paul Gannon, and special guests from across the gaming community. Episodes also included appearances by various Teletext Digitiser characters in acted or puppet form, and the original Mr Hairs. A third Kickstarter campaign by Rose for a second series, titled ''Digitiser the Show: Level 2'', was also successful, with 980 backers pledging over £74000. The series will be hosted by Mr Biffo and Gannon, with appearances from Octavius and Bundy alongside other guests. The series is planned to be filmed throughout 2022 for release in early 2023 to coincide with Digitiser's 30th anniversary.


See also

*'' GameCentral'' *''
Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenu ...
''


References

{{Reflist


External links


Digitiser Vault
1993 in British television Defunct magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1993 Magazines disestablished in 2003 Online magazines published in the United Kingdom Teletext Video game magazines published in the United Kingdom