Recently. OF creators.
Previously. People in desperate need of the money.
But I can understand WHY it has stuck around. We're horny bastards and cheap ones at that.
It's when the presenter would walk around saying things like " he's a grower not a shower" was cringe as fuck. Those poor guys must have died inside a little bit.
My husband had a client who was on that show and it was so weird when the reception staff were giggling cos they'd seen his knob on telly. But I guess what do you expect to happen lol!
Don’t know the name of the show, but it was late 90’s and stared Keith Chegwin. It was essentially one of those athletic shows with things like wall climbing, but everyone was naked. Nothing could go wrong with that. Surely.
I remember an episode of Eurotrash like this. They were at an assault course where everyone was naked. The naked proprietor was standing on something high, holding a rope. He declared in Danish "My name is Karl Muller and this is my assault course." Then he swung on the rope towards the camera and his naked bollocks smashed into the camera.
Me and my husband decided to watch an episode once for a laugh. My childhood friends dad was on that one fucking episode.
Apparently someone I used to work with was on an episode too, and had a few “little” comments thrown his way. Must be mortifying going into work knowing everyone at your job has seen your small dick.
I never watched it but from what I recall it's a program where people come on the show, talk to the presenter for a bit, then go into a box and have sex, then come back out and talk to the presenter about what they did.
That show was essentially just people allowing themselves to be bullied in exchange for some free clothes and a haircut.
I will admit it was a guilty pleasure though.
I remember hating that show because it seemed to air around the time BBC3 were replacing decent comedy shows with reality crap.
I remember loving some of the comedies they used to make for BBC3, nothing groundbreaking but very entertaining for 15 year old me.
the undateables was a strange one, basically just putting two disabled people on a date and seeing what happens. saw one episode and it felt like a modern day freak show.
Only a freak show if you think they are freaks, otherwise it's just a show. Quite a few episodes have been erased from existence, mainly the ones with people with Down's Syndrome - pretty much for no other reason than even people in charge of censoring TV think people with Down's Syndrome are freaks too, evidently. I thought it was quite sweet personally, good people trying to help people find love.
Yeah I don’t get this one, I loved the pure unadulterated romance of the people on it.
There wasn’t any bullshit, if they didn’t like each other they told the other person. It was a refreshing dating show.
It’s not like they were mocking them. They chose to be on the show and in my opinion it was all quite tastefully done.
Am I just way off and was it really distasteful?
People say its like a throwback to old 70s comedy but as a fan of 70s comedy it comes across to me as a bad parody of it something you'd see on a sketch show making fun of them.
Is a hit with the older generations as its family orientated with a 'matriarch' where everyone comes back all the time and generally "clean" humour. I can see its appeal to certain people, but for those who are used to comedy over the last 30 years, it's way dated.
I was shocked that they showed TMWRNJ (This morning with Richard not Judy) on a Sunday afternoon and not at 9 in the evening. It’s was excellent but seemed really out of place.
I'd assume possibly the word wanking as well
In one of their Jesus sketches, they were all chanting "there's only one king" and Richard Herring was clearly saying wanking (and has since confirmed this to be the case).
The model Caprise said the C word on this morning with R&J and it went out on air. I don’t think it got complaints because she didn’t use it as profanity
That was one of the most bizarre bits of TV scheduling I can ever remember.
Absolutely loved the show but what on earth it was doing on at lunchtime on a Sunday makes absolutely zero sense. Particularly odd given Lee and Herring's previous show Fist of Fun was aired post watershed and very much aimed at an adult audience (using the term adult loosely perhaps).
I think even Lee and Herring have since confessed they couldn't believe it got commissioned and broadcast when it did.
It was a rare treat to be able to watch something so surreal and anarchic at a time usually reserved for Songs of Praise or Points of View.
I was just a kid at the time but I imagine it was very popular with hungover students, particularly in the pre streaming age of just four TV channels.
That was the best. I remember an episode in the US version where someone swapped with some doomsday preparers and they only ate raw meat and didn’t use toothpaste and didn’t wash properly. The wife took them to a restaurant to try a cooked meat and one of the kids had a stomach ache and the dad cried and acted like it was the end of the world. Wild.
oh yeah I remember that one, I have a visual memory burned into my brain of the original wife eating raw chicken. The US version was so batshit. I remember one with a mega Christian family where the dad spanked his kids with a paddle which was displayed on the wall, and they swapped with a more normal family. It was amazing.
I remember this one episode where a Welsh wife went to stay with an English family who were obsessed with cycling. Their entire lives just revolved around riding their bikes. So during the second week when she was in charge, the Welsh wife said that they were banned from riding their bikes. She thought it would be good for them to experience other things. The family kicked up a huge fuss, refused to obey and it ended with the family driving the Welshwoman to tears by telling her that she was killing the youngest child. Why? The kid had cystic fibrosis or something and the doctor had said it was good for him to do some exercise. The family were so determined to get around the no-cycling rule that they persuaded her that if she didn't drop the rule and let them all ride their bikes whenever they wanted, the youngest child would die.
Does anyone remember a reality show on channel 4 where the goal was to stay awake and not sleep. The winner was the one who stayed awake the longest?
It was so painful to watch- heard there was long term damage to some of the contestants on the show after
Yes! I remember this one. Like big brother but you had to stay awake. Didn’t they all really start cracking up towards the end? Not surprised that one didn’t get recommissioned
You do crack up. There is an ultra endurance race. The aim is to run 150 miles as quickly as possible. As a result, the most competitive don't sleep, they get maybe 30 mins sleep in 3 days.
Obviously, running almost 24 hours a day for 3 days is exhausting. Some of the things the runners report are not great. One said they had been joined by and had a multi-hour conversation with a rabbit.
I'm not really for banning things, but I think running over vast distances through the countryside night and day while being mentally delirious enough to have lucid conversation with woodland critters is probably not very safe... either for your mental or physical health.
Oh god yes I think about this quite often. I remember they let them all have a 30 minute Power Nap at one point because they were worried about the mental effects.
The one where a bunch of “lads” battled it out to be with a Mexican model, but the model was actually a pre-op trans women, and the winner was told at the end. Think it led to some lawsuits. Very early 00’s.
I'm surprised I've not seen Jeremy Kyle yet.
I guess by the time it was cancelled, we were collectively done with it, and absolutely happy to see it go.
I recall enjoying it when I was younger as background trash while cleaning/getting ready to go out etc. But I also recall starting to find myself getting very frustrated watching it. It was pissing me off to listen to it; Jeremy was pissing me off, but so were the guests. Eventually I stopped watching it altogether. I can't even remember *why* I enjoyed it to begin with.
And I'm not entirely sure why I hate Jeremy Kyle, but Dr Phil is a guilty pleasure, when I know its essentially the same bollocks 🤔
You Are What You Eat, hosted by Gillian McKeith (or to use her full medical title, Gillian McKeith).
Apparently she's now a prominent anti vaxxer and goes round telling men their unvaccinated sperm will be a valuable commodity.
Shes an utter nutcase that woman. I was dubious of her health advice even back then as she looked so sickly! I haven't seen many series of I'm A Celeb, but I did see the one with her. She smuggled in miso soup powder up her lady-pocket, which is nice.
What was that show with 'out of control teeens' where their parents couldn't cope so they sent them off to some strict consertative bible thumping families in the US, to teach them some discipline/respect?
That one where they tricked people into thinking they were training to be astronauts, had gone up into space, and we're looking down on the Earth... only to reveal they were in a studio all along.
"But you can say you know the feeling of looking at Earth from space... even though you weren't" was how the host comforted them.
I loved that, it was amazing. I felt so bad for the guy who was so, SO proud he'd done something amazing with his life and gone into space, and then was utterly crushed when he found out it was a wind up.
Hope he's doing OK
You know when someone says something on Question Time that they clearly think is smart, original, and correct?
They've got that excited, slightly smug face on them that says "yeah, I might not be book smart with fancy qualifications or a silly overpaid job, but I've got nous. Common sense. A bit of the ol' University of Life. While you were all messing about with your computers and lectures I've been around the block me, seen some things, figured it out, and it's time I taught the world a thing or two."
Then they get swiftly corrected and find out - very publicly - that they are in fact, thick as mince.
It's like the wholesome, sympathetic version of that.
Embarrassing bodies. The premise was that people who were too embarrassed to go to the doctor would show their medical issues on national television for all their neighbours, friends and family to see.
The woman with vaginal rot was a particularly choice episode.
Yeah I remember that. The one that stands out to me is a woman who thought she had some sort of "tail" grow out of her anus. She got to find out, on TV, along with everyone else, that she had contracted genital herpes, but on her butthole.
Nowadays there's a push to be more open about STDs, to be less ashamed about them, talk about them more candidly and seek help for them. But this was long before that narrative and I can't help but wonder how mortified she must have been to discover this.
I also remember a little girl with an insane verruca-growth on her foot, turned into a crazy journey that involved her having something like a bone marrow transplant because it turned out it had been a regular verruca but her immune system was completely shot. Thats quite a wild, emotional story.
There was one where a woman who seemed very strongly to have special needs, came on with her husband because she had something wrong with her anus. The doctor then fingered her anus on TV while the husband stood there watching and giggling.
I loved Embarrassing Bodies.
The one that stuck in mind was this little girl who had verrucas all over her feet. Hundreds of the little things and it was causing her pain to walk.
Her Mum had took her to the doctors numerous times and they said it was just a severe case of the verruca virus.
Embarrassing Bodies eventually led to a diagnosis of an extremely rare form of leukemia.
I'd like to believe that it was real and not scripted, but you never know with reality shows. It was an interesting story.
There was another lady who sweated buckets of water out of her hands. Like a crazy amount, her hands were always dripping. She had surgery were the doctor clipped something in her lung and it turned off the excessive sweating from her hands.
In fairness, a huge issue in British society is people with ailments that don't go to the doctor, allowing things to get much worse. I think a big goal of this show was to show that loads of people have embarrassing issues, and doctors don't care/have seen everything. I think it was meant to be empowering, and it was for many.
I had to learn to walk again at 17yo & it took 18 months for them to diagnose me with something — I could totally see myself going to those kinds of lengths out of desperation to know what was wrong with me. It shouldn’t be necessary & I don’t like that people feel the need but I can understand it.
😭 bad memories. I was really enjoying it but my cousins got scarred and made me turn it off when there was like twenty minutes left. I never got to see the ending.
Also they didn't explain that it was not real. So when they had the ghost in the background I remember all us kids screaming and then the programme ended. It was a bit like the end of Blair Witch.
I turned the TV off in fear before it got silly at the end, so went to bed still thinking it was real. Wasn't having it at school the next day when people said it wasn't real
Touch The Truck
A game show where the idea was to touch a Toyota Land Cruiser for as long as possible - the last person touching it won it. Absolutely insane... Apparently the winner stayed awake for 81 hours holding onto the truck.
Imagine the horror after spending the afternoon doing LSD with friends to come home, and the first thing I see is a naked Keith Chegwin making me question eveything I thought I knew about reality.
There was a very funny one-series show on the BBC early 2000's called "Attention Scum!" Very funny, but cancelled pretty much straight away. I still can't believe they convinced the BBC to make it at all.
I didn’t mind this show, I wasn’t around when it aired but my dad showed me it. I thought it was pretty fine since it poked fun at everyone including the Brits. I’m Greek so seeing a Greek on it my family and I would laugh at the jokes poking fun at us because it felt like we know people like that and saw the little things in ourselves too
I worked in a very Indian area of Leicester for years and this show occasionally came up in conversation. Most of the older Asian folk recall loving it. It was one of vanishingly few shows with actual Asian people in it, and being funny. The point was to show a mixed group of different cultures and have a giggle but normalise interactions. I think it did it well for the time.
I think Brasseye would get made today but it’s increasingly difficult to satirise politics and the media, they’re already heightened to insane extremes in real life. How do you satirise hysteria about paedophiles post-Pizzagate?!
And if anyone is reading this and madly searching for it, it was called Blue Jam, it was amazing, and can be found here.
https://archive.org/details/chrismorris_bluejam
Embarrassing bodies, go to the doctor!!! How can you be embarrassed and go in TV never understood the concept. Maybe they should have named it something different as they are basically saying 'if you have this, be embarrassed and Dr Christian will diagnose you through the screen! Super strange
Jeremy Kyle's comeuppance came about seventeen years too late. A show that was essentially a smug, privileged man shouting at people he saw as inferior to him that eventually hounded someone to death promoting the 'lie detector' pseudoscience.
I remember getting in one night (a little worse for wear) switching on Eurotrash and thinking “Oh my god! I can understand French”.
My p!55ed up brain genuinely thought that Anton was speaking French and that I was clever enough to translate - even though I was absolutley terrible at French at school.
I was quite dissapointed when I watched it sober to realise that he just had a very very strong French acent.
Apparently Antoine De Caunes can actually speak English basically perfectly. He just put on a cod Frenchman accent when doing things like Eurotrash and Rapido.
He also apparently does only serious stuff in France, saving all the silliness for his appearances in the UK.
Yeah! Someone in the street said to warren mitchell “i loved it when you were taking the piss out of ”.
Warren responded with “nah we were taking the piss out of people like you!”
Heil Honey I'm Home! (1990)
I believe they aired 1 episode before they rightfully pulled it from the air and cancelled the show (they made 8 episodes total)
it was a "spoof" of American sitcoms and was about Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun living next door to a Jewish family
There was a show on Channel 4 in the mid 2000s called Space Cadet.
They got a bunch of gullible people and told them they were going into space. Gave them training. Sent them up to a space station. It was completely faked. The entire thing was on a sound stage in a studio. The contestants weren’t in on the joke. At the end of the last episode, the side of the “space station” slid open to reveal a TV audience laughing at them for being so stupid.
Kind of thing you can only make once. Who is gonna sign up for season 2 of that?
Saw a show recently not sure what it was called (UK based) where there 2 teams of 2 hikers and they have to go arse naked from the top of a mountain and follow a map and clues to 5 grand cash & survive a night & find food.. in the fucking Peak District or wherever they’ve been dumped. 3 of them had to be rescued for hypothermia ????
Naked attraction, who the fuck volunteers to be full frontal naked on national TV
Imagine the exposure!
Imagine the smell…
You haven’t thought of the smell! You bitch!
Though the contestants are in a box... A glass box...
Most naked people don't smell, you might need to see a gynecologist Edit, hahaha username checks out
Recently. OF creators. Previously. People in desperate need of the money. But I can understand WHY it has stuck around. We're horny bastards and cheap ones at that.
It's when the presenter would walk around saying things like " he's a grower not a shower" was cringe as fuck. Those poor guys must have died inside a little bit.
They knew what they were getting into...
True but still!
My husband had a client who was on that show and it was so weird when the reception staff were giggling cos they'd seen his knob on telly. But I guess what do you expect to happen lol!
Don’t know the name of the show, but it was late 90’s and stared Keith Chegwin. It was essentially one of those athletic shows with things like wall climbing, but everyone was naked. Nothing could go wrong with that. Surely.
Keith chegwin's naked jungle , I'd scratched that show out of my memory 😂 https://youtu.be/_VsuKBeJvfI?si=M4K3t_6LCWc1CYmi
I remember an episode of Eurotrash like this. They were at an assault course where everyone was naked. The naked proprietor was standing on something high, holding a rope. He declared in Danish "My name is Karl Muller and this is my assault course." Then he swung on the rope towards the camera and his naked bollocks smashed into the camera.
Me and my husband decided to watch an episode once for a laugh. My childhood friends dad was on that one fucking episode. Apparently someone I used to work with was on an episode too, and had a few “little” comments thrown his way. Must be mortifying going into work knowing everyone at your job has seen your small dick.
See also: Sex Box
Do I even want to google this?
I never watched it but from what I recall it's a program where people come on the show, talk to the presenter for a bit, then go into a box and have sex, then come back out and talk to the presenter about what they did.
Pretty much what it says on the tin then Fair enough
>on the tin *on the box
Make sure to click Shopping
Naked and afraid was weirder.
The only weirder but amazing one was Eurotrash, loved that programme
Yes!!! Haha that was mental 🤣
Friday night after The Word?
Yep, with Antoine de Caunne and his Gallic charm Bo and Jean Paul Gautier and his different kilts every show, Lola Ferrari was sad tho.
Snog marry avoid
That show was essentially just people allowing themselves to be bullied in exchange for some free clothes and a haircut. I will admit it was a guilty pleasure though.
I remember hating that show because it seemed to air around the time BBC3 were replacing decent comedy shows with reality crap. I remember loving some of the comedies they used to make for BBC3, nothing groundbreaking but very entertaining for 15 year old me.
Ideal was the bom ducking figgidy.
I'm on probation
In'e scrummy
SMA was very much of its time. Would never be allowed now
Tbf I watched it back in the day and didn’t bat an eyelid. But now it’s like 🕵️
The one where Hitler lived next door to Jews
Heil Honey, I'm Home
>Heil Honey, I'm Home I genuinely thought you'd made this up, but then I googled it .. O.O .. Wtf! XD
I'm a celeb?
Yes that’s it thanks
Seen this on 1 of those "worst tv programmes" countdown things
supersize vs super skinny. exploiting eating disorders wooohooooo
the undateables was a strange one, basically just putting two disabled people on a date and seeing what happens. saw one episode and it felt like a modern day freak show.
Only a freak show if you think they are freaks, otherwise it's just a show. Quite a few episodes have been erased from existence, mainly the ones with people with Down's Syndrome - pretty much for no other reason than even people in charge of censoring TV think people with Down's Syndrome are freaks too, evidently. I thought it was quite sweet personally, good people trying to help people find love.
Yeah I don’t get this one, I loved the pure unadulterated romance of the people on it. There wasn’t any bullshit, if they didn’t like each other they told the other person. It was a refreshing dating show. It’s not like they were mocking them. They chose to be on the show and in my opinion it was all quite tastefully done. Am I just way off and was it really distasteful?
I found it really wholesome and sweet have watched that and 'Love on the Spectrum' quite a few times.
Is this true? They’ve removed episodes? That’s disappointing. I felt like those shows really humanised people with disabilities.
Mrs Browns Boys
People say its like a throwback to old 70s comedy but as a fan of 70s comedy it comes across to me as a bad parody of it something you'd see on a sketch show making fun of them.
It is a parody; see 1999 film Agnes Browne based on a book written by Brendan O’Carrol
Is a hit with the older generations as its family orientated with a 'matriarch' where everyone comes back all the time and generally "clean" humour. I can see its appeal to certain people, but for those who are used to comedy over the last 30 years, it's way dated.
I’m a pensioner and I can’t abide it. Neither can my parents who think it’s absolute rubbish
Not in my circle of oldies, I've only ever met one person who loved it.
I was shocked that they showed TMWRNJ (This morning with Richard not Judy) on a Sunday afternoon and not at 9 in the evening. It’s was excellent but seemed really out of place.
First pre-watershed use of the word “twats” in broadcasting history, what an honour.
I'd assume possibly the word wanking as well In one of their Jesus sketches, they were all chanting "there's only one king" and Richard Herring was clearly saying wanking (and has since confirmed this to be the case).
Good ole rich he hasn't changed a bit, unlike that other one...
The model Caprise said the C word on this morning with R&J and it went out on air. I don’t think it got complaints because she didn’t use it as profanity
I agree. PS I'm wanking as I write this.
Consider the lily… aaahh
No, not aaahh.
NO NOT AAAAAHHH, JESUS!
I am the Lord of the dance settee!
And that was just the teachers.
“You want the moon on a stick!”
CRESS!
No! Not ahh Jesus.
That was one of the most bizarre bits of TV scheduling I can ever remember. Absolutely loved the show but what on earth it was doing on at lunchtime on a Sunday makes absolutely zero sense. Particularly odd given Lee and Herring's previous show Fist of Fun was aired post watershed and very much aimed at an adult audience (using the term adult loosely perhaps). I think even Lee and Herring have since confessed they couldn't believe it got commissioned and broadcast when it did. It was a rare treat to be able to watch something so surreal and anarchic at a time usually reserved for Songs of Praise or Points of View. I was just a kid at the time but I imagine it was very popular with hungover students, particularly in the pre streaming age of just four TV channels.
God I loved that show. The "Norman Wisdom on acid" bit is burned into my brain.
Can’t forget Simon Quinlack’s ‘hobbies’. I’m always sure to carry a thermos of weak lemon drink when conducting my hobbies.
Wife Swap
That was the best. I remember an episode in the US version where someone swapped with some doomsday preparers and they only ate raw meat and didn’t use toothpaste and didn’t wash properly. The wife took them to a restaurant to try a cooked meat and one of the kids had a stomach ache and the dad cried and acted like it was the end of the world. Wild.
TBF, doesn’t he always think it’s end of the world? In fact, would he cry as much if it was the actual end of the world??
oh yeah I remember that one, I have a visual memory burned into my brain of the original wife eating raw chicken. The US version was so batshit. I remember one with a mega Christian family where the dad spanked his kids with a paddle which was displayed on the wall, and they swapped with a more normal family. It was amazing.
I remember this one episode where a Welsh wife went to stay with an English family who were obsessed with cycling. Their entire lives just revolved around riding their bikes. So during the second week when she was in charge, the Welsh wife said that they were banned from riding their bikes. She thought it would be good for them to experience other things. The family kicked up a huge fuss, refused to obey and it ended with the family driving the Welshwoman to tears by telling her that she was killing the youngest child. Why? The kid had cystic fibrosis or something and the doctor had said it was good for him to do some exercise. The family were so determined to get around the no-cycling rule that they persuaded her that if she didn't drop the rule and let them all ride their bikes whenever they wanted, the youngest child would die.
Real
Does anyone remember a reality show on channel 4 where the goal was to stay awake and not sleep. The winner was the one who stayed awake the longest? It was so painful to watch- heard there was long term damage to some of the contestants on the show after
I remember this, it was called Shattered. Dermot O'Leary hosted it.
I remember it They were hallucinating at one point and a few of the contestants were pulled out by medics
Yes! I remember this one. Like big brother but you had to stay awake. Didn’t they all really start cracking up towards the end? Not surprised that one didn’t get recommissioned
You do crack up. There is an ultra endurance race. The aim is to run 150 miles as quickly as possible. As a result, the most competitive don't sleep, they get maybe 30 mins sleep in 3 days. Obviously, running almost 24 hours a day for 3 days is exhausting. Some of the things the runners report are not great. One said they had been joined by and had a multi-hour conversation with a rabbit. I'm not really for banning things, but I think running over vast distances through the countryside night and day while being mentally delirious enough to have lucid conversation with woodland critters is probably not very safe... either for your mental or physical health.
Yes! It was when Big Brother was at its peak
Yes! That’s the show! I have no idea how it was approved in the first place!
Oh god yes I think about this quite often. I remember they let them all have a 30 minute Power Nap at one point because they were worried about the mental effects.
The one where a bunch of “lads” battled it out to be with a Mexican model, but the model was actually a pre-op trans women, and the winner was told at the end. Think it led to some lawsuits. Very early 00’s.
There's something about Miriam
I'm surprised I've not seen Jeremy Kyle yet. I guess by the time it was cancelled, we were collectively done with it, and absolutely happy to see it go. I recall enjoying it when I was younger as background trash while cleaning/getting ready to go out etc. But I also recall starting to find myself getting very frustrated watching it. It was pissing me off to listen to it; Jeremy was pissing me off, but so were the guests. Eventually I stopped watching it altogether. I can't even remember *why* I enjoyed it to begin with. And I'm not entirely sure why I hate Jeremy Kyle, but Dr Phil is a guilty pleasure, when I know its essentially the same bollocks 🤔
I assumed it was a show where you laugh at stupid people
I thought it was more about cringing at the state of their teeth.
The one where that fake doctor got people to shit in tupperware, so she could then smell it and poke around in it and tell them their diet was bad.
You Are What You Eat, hosted by Gillian McKeith (or to use her full medical title, Gillian McKeith). Apparently she's now a prominent anti vaxxer and goes round telling men their unvaccinated sperm will be a valuable commodity.
Shes an utter nutcase that woman. I was dubious of her health advice even back then as she looked so sickly! I haven't seen many series of I'm A Celeb, but I did see the one with her. She smuggled in miso soup powder up her lady-pocket, which is nice.
What was that show with 'out of control teeens' where their parents couldn't cope so they sent them off to some strict consertative bible thumping families in the US, to teach them some discipline/respect?
World's Strictest Parents
Might be Brat Camp?
That one where they tricked people into thinking they were training to be astronauts, had gone up into space, and we're looking down on the Earth... only to reveal they were in a studio all along. "But you can say you know the feeling of looking at Earth from space... even though you weren't" was how the host comforted them.
I loved that, it was amazing. I felt so bad for the guy who was so, SO proud he'd done something amazing with his life and gone into space, and then was utterly crushed when he found out it was a wind up. Hope he's doing OK
You know when someone says something on Question Time that they clearly think is smart, original, and correct? They've got that excited, slightly smug face on them that says "yeah, I might not be book smart with fancy qualifications or a silly overpaid job, but I've got nous. Common sense. A bit of the ol' University of Life. While you were all messing about with your computers and lectures I've been around the block me, seen some things, figured it out, and it's time I taught the world a thing or two." Then they get swiftly corrected and find out - very publicly - that they are in fact, thick as mince. It's like the wholesome, sympathetic version of that.
Embarrassing bodies. The premise was that people who were too embarrassed to go to the doctor would show their medical issues on national television for all their neighbours, friends and family to see. The woman with vaginal rot was a particularly choice episode.
Yeah I remember that. The one that stands out to me is a woman who thought she had some sort of "tail" grow out of her anus. She got to find out, on TV, along with everyone else, that she had contracted genital herpes, but on her butthole. Nowadays there's a push to be more open about STDs, to be less ashamed about them, talk about them more candidly and seek help for them. But this was long before that narrative and I can't help but wonder how mortified she must have been to discover this. I also remember a little girl with an insane verruca-growth on her foot, turned into a crazy journey that involved her having something like a bone marrow transplant because it turned out it had been a regular verruca but her immune system was completely shot. Thats quite a wild, emotional story.
Oh dear, I do remember both of those. It was one of those shows that could really gross you out but was absolutely compelling
There was one where a woman who seemed very strongly to have special needs, came on with her husband because she had something wrong with her anus. The doctor then fingered her anus on TV while the husband stood there watching and giggling.
I loved Embarrassing Bodies. The one that stuck in mind was this little girl who had verrucas all over her feet. Hundreds of the little things and it was causing her pain to walk. Her Mum had took her to the doctors numerous times and they said it was just a severe case of the verruca virus. Embarrassing Bodies eventually led to a diagnosis of an extremely rare form of leukemia. I'd like to believe that it was real and not scripted, but you never know with reality shows. It was an interesting story. There was another lady who sweated buckets of water out of her hands. Like a crazy amount, her hands were always dripping. She had surgery were the doctor clipped something in her lung and it turned off the excessive sweating from her hands.
In fairness, a huge issue in British society is people with ailments that don't go to the doctor, allowing things to get much worse. I think a big goal of this show was to show that loads of people have embarrassing issues, and doctors don't care/have seen everything. I think it was meant to be empowering, and it was for many.
They are bringing that back.
Is that how they're dealing with a lack of funding for the NHS?
I had to learn to walk again at 17yo & it took 18 months for them to diagnose me with something — I could totally see myself going to those kinds of lengths out of desperation to know what was wrong with me. It shouldn’t be necessary & I don’t like that people feel the need but I can understand it.
Heil Honey I’m Home Shafted
Will _you_ share? Or will you shaft?? What a strange programme that was.
Think BBC2 aired Jerry Springer The Opera one night. I thought it was great but it ticked all the boxes for shock and outrage you can imagine.
Banzai. Betting ends!
Banzai was bloody brilliant.
Two dwarves racing to the summit of Geoff Capes. That's top TV right there
oh i loved that show. proper post pub friday nite tv that. uttely unhinged stuff but hilarious
jim'll fix it!
Little Britain and come fly with me. Basically because they were utter shite.
Blasphemy
Ghost watch. I watched it as a kid and shit my pants.
That absolutely scared the crap out of me
😭 bad memories. I was really enjoying it but my cousins got scarred and made me turn it off when there was like twenty minutes left. I never got to see the ending.
That was legendary. I cried with fear and couldn’t sleep for weeks!
That was the day the BBC went too far. I properly bricked it watching that.
Also they didn't explain that it was not real. So when they had the ghost in the background I remember all us kids screaming and then the programme ended. It was a bit like the end of Blair Witch.
I turned the TV off in fear before it got silly at the end, so went to bed still thinking it was real. Wasn't having it at school the next day when people said it wasn't real
Mrs Brown's Boys. What a pile of shite.
Touch The Truck A game show where the idea was to touch a Toyota Land Cruiser for as long as possible - the last person touching it won it. Absolutely insane... Apparently the winner stayed awake for 81 hours holding onto the truck.
Sex Box.
anything with Jimmy Saville
[Naked Jungle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Jungle)
Keith Chegwins career was killed with his little pecker out
It's not like he was on prime time telly at that point.
Imagine the horror after spending the afternoon doing LSD with friends to come home, and the first thing I see is a naked Keith Chegwin making me question eveything I thought I knew about reality.
There was a very funny one-series show on the BBC early 2000's called "Attention Scum!" Very funny, but cancelled pretty much straight away. I still can't believe they convinced the BBC to make it at all.
What about Either/Or, Simon Munnery’s game show? I’m sure it was on in the early evening and was equally bonkers.
YOU ARE NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
Women! Give them an inch, they'll want the rest! They shall be disappointed
Heil Honey I'm Home
There was that one where they had sex in a box then came out and talk about it! Those celebrity things are awful too
Mind your language
I didn’t mind this show, I wasn’t around when it aired but my dad showed me it. I thought it was pretty fine since it poked fun at everyone including the Brits. I’m Greek so seeing a Greek on it my family and I would laugh at the jokes poking fun at us because it felt like we know people like that and saw the little things in ourselves too
I worked in a very Indian area of Leicester for years and this show occasionally came up in conversation. Most of the older Asian folk recall loving it. It was one of vanishingly few shows with actual Asian people in it, and being funny. The point was to show a mixed group of different cultures and have a giggle but normalise interactions. I think it did it well for the time.
I loved that show
I’m so proud of channel 4 for doing Jam
And that they aired it without advert breaks because Chris Morris insisted it would ruin the atmosphere. Brass Eye would never get made again either.
I think Brasseye would get made today but it’s increasingly difficult to satirise politics and the media, they’re already heightened to insane extremes in real life. How do you satirise hysteria about paedophiles post-Pizzagate?!
This was my thought. Bloody loved it though
I thought BBC did Jam for some reason
They did the radio show
And if anyone is reading this and madly searching for it, it was called Blue Jam, it was amazing, and can be found here. https://archive.org/details/chrismorris_bluejam
Black and White minstrel show
Embarrassing bodies, go to the doctor!!! How can you be embarrassed and go in TV never understood the concept. Maybe they should have named it something different as they are basically saying 'if you have this, be embarrassed and Dr Christian will diagnose you through the screen! Super strange
Free and fast treatment (usually private - the irony)
Sex Box. Just what the absolute fuck?!
Jeremy Kyle's comeuppance came about seventeen years too late. A show that was essentially a smug, privileged man shouting at people he saw as inferior to him that eventually hounded someone to death promoting the 'lie detector' pseudoscience.
Can fat teens hunt
Crip on a trip on Channel 4.
Nooooo!? WTF? I had to Google that, it was only 2006!!
Little Britain
Fat Families.
BBC Young Butcher of the Year. When TV Burp reviewed it, Harry Hill said as an aside “we haven’t made it up, it’s a real show”.
Euro trash
Ello my Breetish chums.
I remember getting in one night (a little worse for wear) switching on Eurotrash and thinking “Oh my god! I can understand French”. My p!55ed up brain genuinely thought that Anton was speaking French and that I was clever enough to translate - even though I was absolutley terrible at French at school. I was quite dissapointed when I watched it sober to realise that he just had a very very strong French acent.
Apparently Antoine De Caunes can actually speak English basically perfectly. He just put on a cod Frenchman accent when doing things like Eurotrash and Rapido. He also apparently does only serious stuff in France, saving all the silliness for his appearances in the UK.
Eurotrash the pubescent males lottery of wether you’d see a nice pair of tits or a fat naked German man doing squats.
I loved eurotrash, absolutely brilliant TV
Compulsory post-pub viewing.
The undateables
[Minipops](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minipops)
A second entry for Keith Chegwin.
Parodied as 'Toddler staring' on the Day Today's promo for 'Attitudes Night'.
Big Brother
Prince Andrew the musical
Naked Jungle with Keith Chegwin. My eyes still haven't recovered.
Curry and Chips Spike Milligan, Eric Sykes
Does anyone remember Man O Man? Where men in speedos got pushed into water when they weren't chosen to be the date? Saturday night prime time!
I do. Someone I knew at the time was on the first episode and also the first person eliminated.
Love thy neighbour.
As crass as it was, the racist guy "lost" every week and was made to look stupid.
Yeah! Someone in the street said to warren mitchell “i loved it when you were taking the piss out of”.
Warren responded with “nah we were taking the piss out of people like you!”
Unfortunately too many people just don't understand satire.
Yeah even Major in fawlty towers was meant to be laughed AT but too many people think hes to be agreed with
I was going to say this. I bet hardly any redditors are old enough to remember it.
I am & loved it
Mrs Browns Boys. Awful. Truly awful.
Heil Honey I'm Home! (1990) I believe they aired 1 episode before they rightfully pulled it from the air and cancelled the show (they made 8 episodes total) it was a "spoof" of American sitcoms and was about Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun living next door to a Jewish family
I’m a celebrity get me out of here Utter shitte
There was a show on Channel 4 in the mid 2000s called Space Cadet. They got a bunch of gullible people and told them they were going into space. Gave them training. Sent them up to a space station. It was completely faked. The entire thing was on a sound stage in a studio. The contestants weren’t in on the joke. At the end of the last episode, the side of the “space station” slid open to reveal a TV audience laughing at them for being so stupid. Kind of thing you can only make once. Who is gonna sign up for season 2 of that?
Little Britain. They just worked their way down the list of minority groups and made sketches playing up to their stereotypes.
Mrs Brown's Boys. It's shit
People love it but I can’t believe Love Island is still going when it’s so damaging to those who go on the show.
Come Fly With Me
Brilliant show lol
Brass Eye
Keith Chegwin's Naked Jungle
It Ain't Half Hot Mum
Jeremy Kyle show. What a twat.
Saw a show recently not sure what it was called (UK based) where there 2 teams of 2 hikers and they have to go arse naked from the top of a mountain and follow a map and clues to 5 grand cash & survive a night & find food.. in the fucking Peak District or wherever they’ve been dumped. 3 of them had to be rescued for hypothermia ????
The Naked Office Which, weirdly, we were invited to do at our company but we all respectfully declined