History Series / RussellHowardsGoodNews

''Russell Howard Good News'' was a satirical comedy standup programme presented by stand-up comedian Russell Howard, of ''Series/MockTheWeek'' fame, airing on [[Creator/TheBBC BBC Three]], then moving to BBC Two in 2014.

* BeliefMakesYouStupid: ZigZagged, Russell is an atheist and condescendingly refers to God as "the magic man". Depending on the subject and person, he'll use this trope to describe people who use faith to justify inhumane/idiotic ideas and or try to use faith to justify ignorance.

** On the other hand however Russell is very quick to act on egalitarianism when racists, homophobes and sexists make offensive protests and statements. Indeed, later episodes (and during the run of the ''Hour''), he nuances this a bit: he doesn't revel in his atheism (saying he's not a "happy atheist") and finds people who demean/put down others for their faith (cf. Creator/RickyGervais, for example) equally-problematic.

--> Put down the guns you redneck [[KissingCousins cousin]] [[PrecisionFStrike fuckers!]]

** Never compare yourself to someone on love island or on the internet, social media isn't everything.

* PoliceBrutality: The subject of a few stories. Case in point, one episode had a story where police used a taser on 'a blind man''.

* {{Corpsing}}: While Russell has a script and autocue at hand, it's not uncommon for him to break, and accidentally go [[LaughingAtYourOwnJokes laughing at his own jokes]], in which he'll either corpse pretty hard, or continue the joke momentarily to get more laughs.

** One that goes ''across seasons'' - after the gag about cutout animals used to reenact animal attacks got phased out, there's a story about a Japanese zoo training its staff to deal with a [[RhinoRampage Rampaging Rhino]] by having them go up against ''a papier-mache rhino''. At least this one's in 3D.

* {{Corpsing}}: The fact that everything's scripted here doesn't really prevent this.

* BerserkButton: Whenever the audience "aww"s at anything cute, Russell loses it. The only exception is if it's part of the uplifting segment at the end.

** American gun politics absolutely enrage him, particularly after a gun massacre, leading to this memorable remark:

** As of ''The Russell Howard Hour'', he mostly just seems to find American gun politics less infuriating, more exhausting and depressing.

* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: Invokes this toward Taiwanese news reports, which are just plain ''weird''.

* RealSongThemeTune: The original BBC ''Good News'' both begins and ends with an abridged version of {{Music/Kasabian}}'s "Fast Fuse". When it moved over to Sky-1 and became the ''Hour'', it was replaced by their more recent single ''"Ill Ray (The King)"''.