Time Trumpet is a satirical show released by Armando Iannucci that was released in 2006. The show is a parody of the Talking Heads type of show. Set in 2031, it is a retrospective documentary that has celebrities look back at the increasingly bizarre events at the turn of the 21st Century. Each episode would also usually have a theme around it (e.g the Olympics, Binge Drinking in Britain) and is based on Iannucci's previous works, Clinton: His Struggle with Dirt and 2004: The Stupid Edition.
This show contains the following tropes.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The documentary is set in 2031, twenty-five years after the airing of the show. From what we see of the future, cloning exists, meat is a source of energy and it's possible to turn yourself into a centaur.
- Blackface: One of the shows under David Cameron ("The Black and Asian Minstrel Show"), uses this trope. It's noted to have had the best of intentions but has done more harm than good as a result.
- Blood on the Debate Floor: The tension between Blair and Brown is interpreted by the documentary as them physically fighting each other in several shots.
- Body Horror: Charlotte Church once vomited so vigorously, she turned herself inside out. Later in the same episode, David Beckham is revealed to have had a vagina stitched onto his arm.
- Candid Camera Prank: In episode 6, Justin Lee Collins tells Sebastian Coe that the 2012 Olympics was actually a prank by him for The Friday Night Project, actually having gone to Paris instead. Coe and the nation... don't take it very well and start braying for his blood.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Tom Cruise is certainly a bit... out there in this show. For instance, in one episode, he claims he is "pound for pound the world's strongest man"
- Corporate Warfare: Episode 4 has one brief sketch focusing on a war between Denmark and Tesco.
- Deadline News: Occurs in Episode 5. Whilst discussing how death was everywhere at the time, it cuts to the BBC News presenters talking about natural disasters. Cue a large flood crashing down on them and cutting off the news report.
- Exty Years from Publication: The documentary is set exactly 25 years from the airing of the show.
- Funny T Shirt: Two people try to promote their novelty t-shirts on Dragons' Den, with the one seen on-screen being one with "Old And Breathless" at the front and "Not" at the back.
- Incredible Shrinking Woman: Honey, I Shrunk Martha Kearney, a revamp of Newsnight, featured a significantly smaller Martha Kearney, complete with Helium Speech.
- It's Been Done: A Dragons' Den portion features two men who are showing off their newest development... a cake shield. They are told by one of the presenters that he has one of these at his house.
- Mockumentary: The show is a fictional documentary from 2031 which is about what life was like at the turn of the century from those who lived through it.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Sebastian Coe has this reaction when he kills Collins, to the point that he actively seeks out policemen so that he would get thrown in jail.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: The British National Party, who hate Blacks and burn down the houses of those who don't agree with their policies. They actually make it into Government by the end of the Series.
- Product Placement: Played for Laughs. Apparently, the BBC will eventually relax their product placement rules. This leads to such incidents such as MullerRice getting a lot of focused shots on an episode of Spooks, Songs of Praise advertising Kellogg's products in their hymns, and KP insisting that the sound of cracking peanuts be heard in the opening of University Challenge.
- Running Gag: The episodes would usually end with the documentary catching up with Tom Cruise, who would make increasingly bizarre claims.
- Show Within a Show: Being a documentary that evaluates the cultural impact of the early 21st Century, this is a given. Some key examples include Rape An Ape, Painting A Wall, and Splicy Slicey.
- Spin-Off: One of the sketches of the show was later spun off into an Irish TV show, Soupy Norman, which ran for one season in 2007.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: The death of Geoff Hoon in 2009 was this, with everyone celebrating loudly in response to his death. There was even a New Year's Eve-style countdown to it.
- Vocal Dissonance: The Girl With The Voice Of Boris Johnson, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
