The Day Today - Democratic Underground

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Thu Jul-28-05 04:44 AM
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The Day Today

Just a thread to reminisce about one of the best satires ever.

Here are some quotes:

MORRIS: The Headlines tonight:
Portillo's teeth removed to boost pound,
Exploded cardinal preaches sermon from fish tank,
And where now for man raised by puffins?

--------------

MORRIS: Just time to have a quick look at tomorrow's headlines. (He picks up the next morning's papers.)
"Aristocrat's dung saves village from flood", that's in the Mail,
Today - "Drowned Italian wins Eurovision",
the Express go with "Lord Mayor's pirhouette in fire chief wife decapitation", grisly but gripping,
the Sun, "Robin Cock",
the Daily Star, "Feel my nose and put my specs there roars drunken Major".
That's it, that's The Day Today on the day that Boris Yeltsin told the world how he milked Mrs Thatcher.

(Shot of Yeltsin with a sleeve rolled up, holding out his hand in a fist.)

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From the infamous War episode:

(Morris manages to bait a Hong Kong cabinet minister and the Australian foreign minister into a war)

MORRIS: Well gentlemen, it seems we have little option now but to declare war immediately!

CRASTE: This - this is quite impossible, I couldn't possibly take such a decision without referring to my superior, Chris Patten, and he's in Hong Kong!

MORRIS: Good, because he's on the line now via satellite. Mr Patten - what do you think of the idea of a war now?
(Patten nods his head absently.)

MORRIS: I'll take that as a yes!

CRASTE: Very well, it's war!

HAWTRY: War it is!
(Behind Bethl'hem, a shell explodes.)

BETHL'HEM: That's it, Chris - it's war! War has broken out - this is a war!

MORRIS: That's it! Yes - it's war!
(The normal blue studio lighting changes to a blood red. A wall of huge letters spelling 'WAR' is illuminated. Technicians pour in and start turning the studio into a media command centre. Craste and his desk are hurriedly wheeled away.)

MORRIS: From now on, The Day Today will be providing the most immediate coverage of any war ever fought. On the front line and in your face, Donald Bethl'hem.

MAN WITH GLASSES: Standing by, Douglas Hurd.

MORRIS: The Day Today smart bombs have nose-mounted cameras, this is smart bomb Steven (goes to a monitor showing in-flight cruise missile footage), and that is Susanna Gekkaloys.

GEKKALOYS: I'll be reporting from inside the fight! (She races off)

MORRIS: Like some crazy Trojan! And keeping an eye on everything that's going on out there, at The Day Today news pipe, Douglas Trox!
TROX: Chris!

MORRIS: But first, the weather from Sylvester Stuart.
(Stuart is wearing a large cardboard collar with the British Isles drawn on it, which he rotates for each region.)

STUART: And now the weather, starting in the south-east, where the sun should plop through after a dull start, a bit like having your hand sewn back on after a farming accident. Let's revolve the weather collar now 70 degrees to the Midlands, where I was first bereaved. And there'll be a large cack of heavy cloud covering the area, but it should stay dry enough for you to dance outside until our lord Beelzebub calls upon us. Now, if we revolve the throat circle back to the West Country, and you can see there'll be several gits of bad weather across most of the sky. Some rain, but no more severe than soft porn. In summary then, and that's all the weather.

MORRIS: Back to the war, and in the front line at Eastmanstown, our reporter Donald Bethl'hem. Donald, what's the latest?

BETHL'HEM: As I swilled the last traces of toothpaste from my mouth this morning, a soldier's head flew past the window, shouting the word 'victory'.

MORRIS: Seems to be a lot of action behind you there - have you seen any fighting yourself?

BETHL'HEM: Today I saw the body of an old woman on the ground - she was lying in a pool of her own tomatoes.
(There is an explosion behind him - he gets the shrapnel in his back and collapses, twitching.)

MORRIS: Thank you, Donald. Earlier today, I've been down among the fighting myself. This is my report.
(Assorted shots from Bosnia, etc, appear.)

MORRIS: There's something about the way these people move that tells you they are a nation at war. Look into their eyes, and you can read the words 'I have a reservation at the restaurant of death'. It's a messy bistro, with a bad name for soiling its customers' clothes. We've seen only one napkin in four days. (Someone waves a white flag from a window) People here are confused, spending most of their time running about like idiots. Earlier today, we met a family who thanks to this war now have no home. A war which they feel anyway has nothing to do with them.
(A child and his mother speak. Morris translates.)

CHILD: This is not our war. We are being forced to swallow the rotten egg of an angry political goose.

MORRIS: That boy is now a war orphan. One more victim of what they call here the 'desert confetti'. I have a child about his age myself. When I phoned him ten minutes ago, I told him to move out of the house to make room for his new brother.
(Back in the studio. Morris strides about purposefully, lit by red lights.)

MORRIS: Back live now, progress on The Day Today smart bomb - Jonathan! Get rid of Hurd! Thanks!
(Hurd vanishes from a monitor, replaced by a bomb's eye view of the war zone.)

MAN WITH GLASSES: Well, Chris, as you can see there's the missile, cruising at around 2000 per second trying to locate the target the soldier it's aimed at - there's the soldier, it goes in through the mouth, down through the oesophagus, into the stomach and there's the explosion. (The camera enters the gob of a surprised trooper before the picture turns to static)

MORRIS: Absolutely bang! That's The Day Today bringing you another tear on the face of the world's mother! Alan! Sport!

PARTRIDGE: Thanks, Chris. And now some late night soccer results. I'm Alan Partridge - this is division two. Hull Paragraph 5, Portsmouth Bubblejet 1. Sheffield Hysterical 3, Chunky Norwich 1. Richmond Artithmetic versus Nottingham Marjorie match postponed due to bent pitch. Good night.

MORRIS: Susanna Gekkaloys has broken through to the front line - this is her contribution to history.

GEKKALOYS: This is the very heart of the conflict - the men here have been fighting non-stop for three days. We drove in at night, straight into the middle of a rocket battle. The air now is thick with what they call here the 'electric cornflakes'. We're under strict instructions not to leave the vehicle, but to drive on through.
(Gekkaloys immediately stops her Jeep and jumps out.)

GEKKALOYS (V.O): With no cover, we immediately ran across open space to a nearby house.
(Gekkaloys kicks the door down, races inside and shoots one of the occupants.)

GEKKALOYS (V.O.): We found an injured man, and did our best. There are always casualties in war. There was a family sheltering in the back room. We had no tongue in common, but through the universal language of mutual need (Gekkaloys yells at a terrified woman who is trying to force her out) I knew she was saying "Come, set your equipment up in our refuge, the world must see this mess".
GEKKALOYS: These brave people are now sleeping, but they know that tomorrow, our aerials and transmitters could make this house a prime target. Chris.

(Morris, with a different haircut, is somehow in the studio and on the battlefield at the same time...)

MORRIS: Back to the war now, and in the noise and heat of what they call here the 'flying scissorbeans', there is no optimism - or at least wasn't until just two minutes ago, when we received these pictures of a miracle from the front line, less than a mile from where I'm standing. (A flaming body hurtles across the frame behind him)

MORRIS (V.O.): This was the scented rose in the bumgut of Satan, for here at 7.13 precisely, the fighting stopped. Soldiers, who moments earlier had been shooting each others' teeth out, put down their guns and joined in peaceful commune. Some played games, or like these men, planned a musical. The reason for this calm lay inside a shed, for here, the massed forces of two world powers were unified by nothing more than the distress of a cat stuck on a high shelf. No-one knows how it got there, but these brave fighting men, moved by the simplicity of the animal's plight, decided to forget their differences and try to get it down. (Various soldiers rescue the cat and cuddle it) But even as the men celebrated, their heads were blown clean off, for somebody, nobody knows who, had filled the cat with nitro-glycerine.