TV News

If hecklerspray were to say ‘reality TV’, what would you think?

Perhaps your mind would immediately vomit forth images of Celebrity Big Brother ‘winner’ Chantelle Houghton - a woman so fascinatingly stupid that the only thing she’d need to take into a nuclear bunker for entertainment would be a colouring book.

Or maybe you’d conjure all sorts of Gordon Ramsay-shaped thoughts - picturing him storming around in his overpriced kitchen, face crumpled into a scowl beneath his silly 1980s-lesbian haircut. Or you may find yourself thinking about whoever won I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here this year. We can’t remember who that was, and we’re frankly not too sure that whoever it was can either.

Yet occasionally something good drips through. Like the upcoming second series of Alan Sugar’s The Apprentice.

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My, my - hecklerspray would seem to have a Channel Four fascination today.

After taking a good long look at how the station apparently almost killed someone -  as well as lamenting the ‘celebrity status’ of Vaseline-faced should-be-working-at-Aldi-checkout womanchild Chantelle Houghton - we thought we’d round things off by showing you the brighter side of things.

Probably seen those adverts for new sitcom The IT Crowd, haven’t you? Probably thought to yourself: "If only I could see this before all my friends and talk to them about it in a vaguely superior tone, thus implying that I have some sort of ‘insider’ TV knowledge… boy oh boy, that would just about make my life utterly, utterly complete in every single way whatsoever."

Well, now you can.

Channel Four has put the first couple of episodes online - which means you can feast your eyes on them a whole two days before they’re aired. Sweet baby Jesus, just imagine …

Quick hecklerspray IT Crowd review: it’s alright. You know, in a Black Books sort of way. If you like that sort of thing. And Chris Morris is pretty funny.

Still - beats doing work, doesn’t it? So… plug your headphones into your computer, sit back, and if any of your colleagues ask what you’re laughing at, just tell them that you’re working on a particularly hilarious spreadsheet or something.

Note: this approach does not work while watching Naughty Teen Slumber Party Volume Seven. Just so you know.

Watch more:

The IT Crowd episodes

Channel Four spin-off station E4 is facing a little bit of criticism. Not for broadcasting drivel like The O.C and that programme where those models twat about on an island… oh, no. E4 is in hot water over the far more serious matter of someone nearly dying.

Or so it would seem.

The complaints all stem from E4 show Death Wish Live! Unfortunately, this wasn’t a must-see extravaganza featuring miraculously-reanimated Charlie Bronson wandering around South London and enacting bloody revenge on the criminal underworld.

No. It was actually a stunt by escapologist Jonathan Goodwin to free himself from a noose within thirty seconds. All very ‘impressive’… until the stunt went wrong and one of Jonny’s mates had to run in and cut him down.

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Fourteenth century Western Europe was a dreadful place. That fact can be attributed fully to the black plague that swept through her, decimating between 1/3 and 1/2 of it’s population in just two short years.

Sure, that particular affliction has been put under medical wraps, but these days we have a worse epidemic not so easily cured. Today’s pandemic started on ITV1 in the UK, calling itself Pop Idol. It was contagious too, quickly spreading through unknown means to first world countries the world around. The name changed with every infection, calling itself American Idol, Canadian Idol or Australian Idol to name some. Side effects included intense headaches, scabby inner ears, dry heaves and astronomical ratings.

Despite the obvious mental hazards, government owned TV in Ethiopia has decided it wants a piece of that action.  They intend to call it…wait for it…Ethiopian Idol.

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Oh, the poor old BBC.

Having finished last year apologising for broadcasting an advert featuring a scary Giant Face Monster, you’d have thought that the BBC would want to enter 2006 with a slightly less apologetic gait to it’s gander.

No such luck.

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Some people - god bless ‘em - are born without that all-important ’stay-away-from-danger’ gene. And none of these fools are more entertaining than crazy animal-handler Steve Irwin.

Irwin is, of course, famous for doddering around with a camera crew in tow, picking up strange slithery beasts that look like they might bite him and poking sticks at them (with a big wild-eyed expression as he does so). This is - bizarrely - gripping television of the highest order. Kind of like David Attenborough meets a five-year-old child on a Sunny Delight binge.

Recently, however, the manic TV exploits of Stevie-boy have found themselves crossing over into reality…

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Greek-loving, best friend cut-offing, one time goat-owning, rich dad-having, death threat-defying Hollywood socialite Paris Hilton is a part time defender of all that is just and true. Or so we’re told.

She’s just like a less chaste version of famed/maybe not-so-famed literary boy detective Encyclopedia Brown, all problem solving and whatnot.

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hecklerspray shudders to think what Channel Four have got lined up in the schedules for next year.

Another series of Balls Of Steel, maybe? More crucifyingly awful Hollyoaks late-night ’specials’? Jimmy Carr presents the Top Ten Bestest Ever Most Special Things In The Universe Times Infinity (‘Number Ten: Cheese! Number Nine: Glass! Number Eight: The Eurythmics!’)?

And - of course - another series of Big Brother.

Something which might not please regulatory board Ofcom and the thousands of people who complained about the last series. Apparently the whole Big Brother spazmo-circus was deemed to be "operating at the limits of acceptability."

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Here at hecklerspray towers, we thought we were the only ones terrified to death by that BBC Digital commercial.

You know the one - it features a godforsaken floating mass of disembodied heads combining to create one hideous whole, which then using its evil giant mouth to babble about how great the BBC is and everything.

The most disturbing aspect - and the part that made hecklerspray leap from the couch screaming "dear god, get the military on standby" - was that, towards the end of the advert, the satanic creation is quite clearly heading for the nearest city.

Turns out, however, that we weren’t the only ones upset by all of this.

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If there’s one thing that hecklerspray finds entertaining, it’s watching a bunch of deluded fools shamble into a room full of unforgiving critics and having their dreams torn and scattered apart like so much pathetic confetti.

This is why X Factor is so good - up until the point where they start concentrating on the ‘professional’ contestants and it becomes rubbish overnight (good only, in fact, for betting money on which gurning simpleton is going to win the contest, have a Christmas number one and then disappear into a Kwik-Save managerial role/alcoholism/Channel Five presenting.)

Thank the heavens for Dragon’s Den, then.

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Scientists have decided that Eastenders hard men The Mitchell Brothers are going to create an entire nation of violent psychopaths.

The Mitchell Brothers - played by gurning shaven hobbits Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden - are apparently among a group of television ‘role models’ who could all too easily influence the stupid children of today to grow up all twisted out of shape.

Just think. Little Johnny may be reading Harry Potter and collecting butterflies right now, but a couple of telly excursions into Albert Square and he’ll be driving into canals and growling sweaty threats at ladies in no time.

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Contestants on ITV’s upcoming pleb-beacon I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here have begun squabbling over their ill-gotten paychecks.

Apparently there are some discrepancies in the amount of wonga being dished out to each undeserving ’star’. Pram-faced ex-Atomic Kitten warbler Jenny Frost is presently top of the pile, with producers handing her a whopping £100,000 for her appearance.

Fellow jungle-goers, however, have found that their slices of the big money pie are looking a little less appetising…

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