History Series / NotTheNineOClockNews

* [[pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DoubleEntendre Double Entendre]]: In 'The Swedish Chemist' Mel Smith wishes to purchase a deodorant. Rowan Atkinson asks "Ball, or aerosol?" and he replies, "Neither, I want it for my armpits."

* BigotWithABadge: A sketch called "Constable Savage" features a Chief Inspector giving a dressing-down to a police officer who has repeatedly arrested the same man on a variety of ludicrous charges, culminating in him being held for "possession of curly hair and thick lips". He tells Savage "There's no place on my force for officers who use their position to uphold their bigotry! I'm transferring you to the Special Patrol Group!"

* CarFu: The truckers in the "I Like Trucking" song (a parody of then-common Yorkie chocolate bar adverts) keep a tally of their casualties on the side of the cab. [[EatTheDog They're particularly fond of hedgehogs]].

-->'''Smith''': Well, my team and I have really concerned ourselves fundamentally with a statistical analysis of soccer violence as a whole, in tandem with and related to a psycho-chemical and, broadly speaking, a behavioural analysis of over a thousand individual soccer hooligans. And we've come to the inevitable conclusion that the one course of action that the authorities must take, is to cut off their goolies.[[note]]Goolies=testicles.[[/note]]

-->'''Atkinson''': I don't think we got any "gramophones" here, granddad.

* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: Gerald the gorilla explains he and the professor live together, "but not in the Biblical way". Doesn't stop their arguing getting a bit domestic later on...

* PowersuitMonkey: Gerald the Gorilla

* StereotypeReactionGag: Inverted by Gerald the Gorilla, who makes the stereotypical claims against himself first "I suppose you think I spend all my money on peanuts and carpet cleaner". The interviewer denies thinking this, only for Gerald to confirm "Well I do spend about 95% of it on that."

** Subverted with the Chilean Milk Marketing Board (a TakeThat against the government of the time), with the gov't agents varying between stereotypical German and Italian accents (with the occasional use of ElSpanishO).

* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: Gerald the gorilla explains he and his friend live together, "but not in the Biblical way." Doesn't stop their arguing getting a bit domestic later on...

* IntellectualAnimal: Gerald the Gorilla.

-->'''Rowan:''' When I caught Gerald in '68,
-->'''Gerald:''' Wild? I was absolutely livid."

* IntellectualAnimal: Gerald the Gorilla. "Wild? I was absolutely livid."

* MsFanService: Pamela Stephenson, often in her underwear and fully nude in one sketch.

* SpiritualSuccessor: The series was hailed as the natural successor to ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'', due to its Footlights-originating castmembers, anarchic humour and satirical edge. In fact, Creator/JohnCleese even recorded [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdbXNREYVtk an intro for the series]].

[[TheEighties 1980s]] British comedy SketchShow which starred and launched the careers of Creator/MelSmith, Griff Rhys Jones, Creator/RowanAtkinson, and Creator/PamelaStephenson[[note]]Stephenson would later become a cast member with ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' for the show's tenth season from 1984 to 1985[[/note]]

* AttackOfThePoliticalAd:
** Parodied with a political ad sketch attributed to the Conservative Party. It 'proves' extravagant spending by the Labour Party through an interactive narrator who instructs a man to do silly things in his bathtub in a particularly convoluted analogy for the economy. It ends with the man having his arms cut off to "cut down on spending".
** Another one, this time for Labour, resembled a movie trailer for the trainwreck of a final term for Harry Wilson, with the slogan "Labour is... never bothering to say ''you're'' sorry".
** Rowan Atkinson sits in front of a brightly-painted background reading a fairy tale in which "the wicked witch died" and everyone lived happily ever after, the end. Cue the narrator: "This has been a party political broadcast on behalf of the Social Democratic Party."

* Snootyports: In one of the episodes a GagDub of a televised golf tournament's announcer makes it seem like what's being shown is really a dumb trousers contest.

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Foreign viewers may not realise that the "Get a TV licence--it's cheaper than a funeral" parody (in which the TV Licensing Authority hunts down and murders people who don't pay their TV licence fee) is only a ''slight'' exaggeration of the real [=PIFs=] it was based on, and indeed ones that came later on were even more extreme, almost indistinguishable from the parodies.

* GenreKiller: Professional darts boomed in TheSeventies and TheEighties as a very unlikely spectator sport - but one that could fill conference venues and draw millions of spectators on TV. It became a theatrical spectacle along the lines of pro wrestling or a big boxing bout - especially when two big-name heavyweights were slugging it out for a title. And then [=NTNO'CN=] came along with a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHnBppccI0o skewering parody]]. [[Series/AlasSmithAndJones Mel Smith and Gryff Rhys-Jones]] aided by an over-the-top commentator voiced by Creator/RowanAtkinson, pointed out that the reason ''why'' big name darts players were heavyweights was that... well, they ''were'' [[FatSlob heavyweights]]. The parody made drinking the center of the sport, with a little actual darts going on in the background. The uneasy realization started to set in... ''Why are we watching extremely fat men smoking, drinking, and occasionally throwing a dart at a board?'' The sport faltered as a TV phenomenon and has never really recovered.