Not Necessarily the News

I recall this show quite fondly. It could be said that this was HBO's first true foray into the kind of programming it is now so routinely associated(i.e. edgy,go-for-broke programming,freed of commercial constraints). An American treatment of England's "Not the Nine O'Clock News",this show premiered as a one hour special in late 1982,and then was trimmed to a half hour show that premiered monthly the following year,running routinely through much of the decade before dipping ratings,writer defections and massive cast changes(by 1989,the show had been re-configured and re-cast with less-than positive results)put the show down,first temporarily--running sporadically from 1988 on--to permanently by decade's end.

The summary line stems from the fact that this show,which weighed VERY heavily on current events of the day,would come off as too native to the era it was from,hence making this a negligible sell as a DVD and probably inspire blank looks from video store clerks not yet born or too young to remember the Reagan/Yuppie era. But upon reading the comment I saw on its IMDb site,it jogged my memory as to not only the events it covered but the conventions it parodied. And yes,when I come to think about it,it actually WAS an ancestor to "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report",picking on media conventions with great accuracy. So,with that in mind,I suppose it's got some timeless elements to it.

A collection of veteran character actors with great comic timing(Stuart Pankin,Audrie Neenan,DAnny Breen,Mitchell Laurence,Anne Bloom and Lucy Webb)along with a stand-up(Rich Hall)made a good "transparent" news team/stream of talking heads to fill up various news and faux ad segments. Toss in such once-rarely-used devices as doctored news reel B-roll and the invention of a lost nugget of pop culture known as the Sniglet(words for things that had previously no word for them),and you had the recipe for a show that took welcome--if sometimes somewhat tiresome--gags at targets that so richly deserve it.

If I run across this show on a DVD shelf,I may just have to buy it. Given the low demand,or even memory,of this show,that may not be all that likely.

HBO should release this show on DVD. I remember it and was a fan back in the day. It was a hit or miss affair, but it hit often enough to be pretty funny (though not as funny as the BBC version, "Not the Nine O'clock News"). There were some really hilarious bits on the show and a lot of great comedy writers got their start there, like, Al Jean (of the Simpsons) and Conan O'Brien. I definitely liked the original cast the best but there were even a few funny bits in the later years too. It'd be funny to see just how the politics of the day were made fun of -- because even though the show wasn't great at the time it was probably the best political satire on television. Remember, this was during the extremely lean years for Saturday Night Live when they were just limping along. So NNtN provided all the best Reagan jokes. It sucked that during the Reagan/Bush years, which were ripe for satire and jokes, that SNL was so weak then. I mean, can anyone even recall who was the great Reagan impressionist during those years? During the 70s we remember Dan Ackroyd doing Nixon and Carter, and Chevy doing Ford. In the late 80s/early 90s Dana Carvey made his Bush impression famous. And during the 90s there were two great Clinton impersonators, Phil Hartman and Daryl Hammond. But during the 80s who was the great Reagan impressionist? What a lame cast that was. Anyway, Not Necessarily the News should definitely be released on DVD, not only for the comedy but as a time capsule of political humor.

This was back in the day just around the rise of VHS/beta. SO HBO was still the premier channel to get latest release, which at that time was about three years after box release. This show did a lot of dubbing and re-editing so that political figures were saying comedic lines. The sniglet series was also hilarious, and Rich Hall wrote several books containing sniglets. For example, he gave a definition to the act of shaking out only two pills from a bottle, and defined the dirt that the vacuum cleaner can't get at the edge of the floorboard. There were also commercial parodies, one for a hearing aid which drowned out yelling wives and grandchildren. A great show and was not only ahead of its time compared to the daily show, but funnier, too.

I found bunch of old episodes from the 1982-1985 era, which was the time during which I watched this show and hadn't seen it since. Does it age well? No, but I've seen worse. It is a fun journey back in time, though, and makes you realize just how little there was going on politically in those days compared to now. I mean, it's 1983 and they are still making jokes about Nixon! Anyways, it was fun watching these things again, but they are destined for oblivion.

A now-forgotten series that was based on a British news parody, "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (1979).

NNTN was a fierce reaction to the goofy Americanism founded by Ronald Reagan and the weird policies and attitudes of that time. When Reagan left office, they even made a "tribute" to him in a special.

NNTN used news clips and warped them into biting satire. When NNTN was on, it was deadly.

It also launched the careers of Rich Hall (who left the show and made "guest appearances" thereafter) and Stuart Pankin.

Maybe someday HBO will re-air the series, or re-release it on video, or perhaps a network like Fox will syndicate it. It's a pity, because NNTN has more perspective on that shameful decade than most real news services.

How can you tell a real fan of the show? They'll know what a Sniglet is.