Rupert Allason Socks

On 29 December 1992, the original BBC Radio 4 version of Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge broadcasts its fifth episode, in which Alan interviews actor Conrad Knight and his wife Sally:

ALAN: There was a particularly bad one in Spy Magazine, which simply changed one of the words of the title in your book, they changed the first two letters of the word 'gent' and left the last two... So it was something in L.A.

KNIGHT: And I immediately sued Spy Magazine.

SALLY: Sadly, he lost the case.

ALAN: In fact, you set a legal precedent, because you're one of the few people who can now be referred to in print as that thing, without fear of litigation.

KNIGHT: That's absolutely right, Alan. But no other medium, just print.

ALAN: Right. So I couldn't call you that...

KNIGHT: No. But you could fax me it.

ALAN: Or, indeed, scribble it down on a piece of paper and hold it up to your face.

KNIGHT: That would be perfectly legal, yes. And people do do that.

Ghost in the Magazine

On 4 October 1996, Have I Got News for You returns for its twelfth series. For some reason, several listings magazines incorrectly report the guest panellists will be David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, which the show feels compelled to address, showing the above clipping with the following joke:

"Good evening and welcome to 'Have I Got News for You', and we apologise to the millions of viewers who have tuned in expecting our guests to be the two stars of the hugely popular series 'The X-Files'. This information appeared in several newspapers and magazines, and yet no-one seems to know quite how it happened."

My purpose here today, however, is not to find out how that happened. (I don't think Anderson or Duchovny were even in the country at the time!) Two weeks later, for the third episode, the following call-back happens:

"Good evening and welcome to 'Have I Got News for You', and apologies to the millions of viewers who may have read that this week's guests were to be Lord Lawson and Mark Little, as I'm afraid they are."

One week later, the fourth show opens thusly:

"Good evening and a special hello to those of you who may have read in the current edition of TV Quick that this week's guests are Father Christmas and Rupert the Bear. So, welcome to the show, I'm Jemima Puddle-Duck."

Putting aside the revelation that HIGNFY only had one publicity image to use at the time... surely this is someone at TV Quick trying to keep the joke going for another week? (That might seem the obvious conclusion, but it's never mentioned on the show.) I wondered what the Radio Times listing for this episode said... and it doesn't mention either guest, indicating that information was not yet known and the editors of TV Quick weren't actually leaving that out just for the sake of the joke, they just decided to do the joke in absence of actually having the information available. Thereby creating a very odd non sequitur to anyone not watching old repeats in sequence, or who just happened to read the listing in isolation.

The Scoop Scoop Song

"Tonight on BBC One, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton return in 'Have I Ripped Off the News Quiz for You'..."

-- Graeme Garden, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue

You are more likely than not aware that Have I Got News for You is a television adaptation of Radio 4's own long-running news quiz, The News Quiz. It is far from unique in this regard, although it has had notably more success than other panel games that made the leap from sound to screen.

Have I Got Major Political Upheaval for You

28 September 1990: The first ever episode of Have I Got News for You is broadcast on BBC Two.
28 November 1990: Margaret Thatcher leaves office, twelve days after the first series of HIGNFY has finished its run. The show's official board game later invites fans to "draw their own conclusions".

"Put In A Questionable Way..."

For this week: anomalies and points of interest I have found whilst looking at old Radio Times listings for The News Quiz.

Have I Got Graphs for You

Have I Got News for You has now been running for 27 years, making it a panel show you can make some graphs from. So let's have a go.

First of all, every guest presenter ever (not including repeat appearances):

Next, all guest presenters sorted by occupation, including repeat appearances:

And finally, every MP who has ever appeared on the show sorted by how prolific they are (only includes appearances by sitting MPs, so does not count any appearances made after they were an MP, MSPs or MEPs):

There'll probably be some more of these at some point in the future. Heaven help us.

Have I Got Radio Times Listings for You

Way back in the 1990s, the producers of TV programmes used to get to write their own synopsises for episodes that would be used in the Radio Times. This was particularly interesting when it came to comedies. Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, writers of Red Dwarf, liked to slip in extra jokes: here’s a good one from the original broadcast of “White Hole”, and one from “Better than Life” that subsequently ended up adapted for use in an episode the following year. David Renwick, writer of One Foot in the Grave, deliberately submitted highly misleading descriptions; the ‘unlikely love affair’ described in the synopsis for the first showing of “The Exterminating Angel”, is in fact Margaret trying to set up Mr Swainey on a date, whilst Victor ‘taking to the road’ refers to his new job as a chauffeur.

Whilst having a good laugh at some of these, I thought: What about non-scripted comedy shows – more specifically, panel shows? Did the producers of those ever think to muck about with their listings in such a way? So I trawled through the BBC Genome for every mention of Have I Got News for You it had, and here’s what I found.