History Radio / JohnFinnemoresSouvenirProgramme

* FutureImperfect: One sketch in the last episode of Season 4 has a "lovingly restored" Tesco Metro, with a guide who explains that the shelves would have been restocked by small children called "shelf monkeys".

** The Storyteller sketch in the 2022 special is a Creator/JulesVerne parody, which begins with the Storyteller at his skateboarding club. He assumes that any problem the audience has with this is entirely because he's an old man, and reminds them that he ''said'' he was eighteen at the time.

* AnAesop: Spoofed with one sketch, namely; "If you're a mathematician, always make sure your sequences are established to ensure a unique response, but more generally, don't be a dick."

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* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Season 7 episode 2 has a man with an accent that starts off as an insane mix of cod-Italian and cod-Swedish, and just gets more incomprehensible from there.

* TurnInYourBadge: In a sketch about a ''store'' detective. He made his own badge.

* JustAStupidAccent: Spoofed in season 1, episode 2, when the cast do a sketch set in France, complete with ouuuraageous accents... except Simon Kane who tries pointing out this is offensive, and is promptly banned from the sketch by John. Simon gets his revenge at the end of the sketch, when he returns doing an accurate French accent. In series 5, episode 5, Simon likewise balks at the prospect of doing an Indian accent to play "Ranjit", John's interlocuitor in a sketch. John assures Simon that he doesn't have to do the accent, at which point Margaret says ''she'd'' do it, with John pointing out he knows she would and specifically kept her away from that sketch because of it.

* JustAStupidAccent: Spoofed in season 1, episode 2, when the cast do a sketch set in France, complete with ouuuraageous accents... except Simon Kane who tries pointing out this is offensive, and is promptly banned from the sketch by John. Simon gets his revenge at the end of the sketch, when he returns doing an accurate French accent.

* GilliganCut: Parodied in a sketch about a {{sitcom}} character [[WrongGenreSavvy trying to get by in real life]] (who also appeared in a sketch riffing on the trope RightBehindMe). He's asked to do something silly for charity, and outright refuses to do it. He then starts preparing to do it anyway, to the confusion of the other characters who've, naturally, [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome already arranged for someone else to do it]].

** In the MusicalEpisode, the fates of first two victims of the piano are described in detail in their own verses, [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers and then:]]

** One Storyteller sketch claims the story will chill the listener's marrow to the bone (to which the in-universe listener responds that the plate of marrow on the table isn't his). At the end of the episode, he asks them to check the marrow's condition, and it is indeed sufficiently chilled.

* AnAesop: Spoofed with one sketch, namely; "If you're a mathematician, always make sure your sequences are established to ensure a suitable response, but more generally, don't be a dick."

* ShoutOut: Three characters in a pub in 2208 discussing [[FantasticRacism racism against aliens]] order [[Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Gargle-Blasters]].

* LiteralMetaphor: The Storyteller assures his listener his story will chill them to their marrow... as in the marrow sitting right next to them.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: One Storyteller sketch has the narrator rescuing [[Franchise/SpiderMan Peter Parker]], who [[ShoutOut changes into a spider]] during the full moon, with a pizza takeaway pamphlet. Peter then points out that he doesn't have a phobia of historical inaccuracy by [[LampshadeHanging pointing at the pamphlet]].

* PromotedFanboy: InUniverse. We hear the life story of a boy whose lifelong dream is to become The Man Who Makes The Noise Of [[Series/DoctorWho The TARDIS]], and he goes to amazing extents to achieve this - even, after ''Doctor Who'''s cancellation in 1989, becoming the BBC Director General to get it UnCancelled, before stepping down from his post to go and work in BBC Wales's sound design studios. It's a shame that his TARDIS noise is just him going 'bwaaaaooaoooooooowowwwwww' into a microphone.

* JackassGenie: One who, in fairness, forewarns the woman receiving the wishes that he is one with larger scale wishes, and that in terms of general wish-to-satisfaction ratios, people are generally happiest with something like wishing for a fancy car. The woman wishes for world peace, and he complies. Very, ''very'' technically.

* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Invoked in the Storyteller's tale of twisted science - when shown a time machine in 1908, he immediately seizes upon the possibility of going back in time to kill the one person on whom everything bad in the world can be pinned... but since it's still only 1908, he can't think who that would be.

** In Episode 3, when Jerry is getting his COVID vaccination, he compares his instinct to shake hands to ''Film/DoctorStrangelove''. The nurse corrects him that the film is just called ''Film/DoctorStrange2016''.

* AnAesop: Spoofed with one sketch, namely; "If you're a mathemetician, always make sure your sequences are established to ensure a suitable response, but more generally, don't be a dick."

* BackhandedApology: Patsy Straightwoman goes up against the minister who has this as his ''job'', and then manages to force him into sincerely apologising like he means it.

** The entire text of the Storyteller segment in series 4, episode 5 is "Since you ask me for a tale of TimeTravel... you will find I have already told you one." He's referring to the Storyteller segment in the ''next'' episode. That segment is an even more elaborate example; [[spoiler: during the story it becomes clear that while travelling through time, the Storyteller and Dr. Croupenstein passed through several sketches earlier in the episode.]]

** After a sketch about how Pachelbel [[CreatorBacklash hates performing his Canon in D]], he's eventually dragged back and forced to play it, which just turns into a ''musical'' sketch about how much he hates it.

** Mr. Floofywhisker's can-opener for a horse in series 8 episode 4.

* GretzkyHasTheBall: Played straight in one sketch, and then mercilessly skewered in the following Backstage Sketch with Carrie and Margaret playing commentators on the sketch.

* JackassGenie: One who, in fairness, forewarns the woman receiving the wishes that he is one with larger scale wishes, and that in terms of general wish-to-satisfaction ratios, people are generally happiest with something like wishing for sportscars. The woman wishes for world peace, and he complies. Very, ''very'' technically.

-->'''John''': [Margaret] had wisely added the "Cabourn" early in her career, as it was clear that [[LampshadeHanging no-one would ever get very far in theatre with a name like]] Creator/MaggieSmith.

* YetAnotherChristmasCarol: The Storyteller sketch for season 2, episode 2, where a man called Chris Mascheer is shown what life will be like if he remains a workaholic who neglects his family. Unfortunately, his takeaway is he'll be CEO of the company he works at, and he's totally fine with the trade-off of his family despising him since being CEO was the goal all along. So the ghost of his friend, who is a lion, bites his head off.
* YouAnsweredYourOwnQuestion: A sketch in which John's character is distracted from his conversation with Carrie by what Simon and Margaret are saying, which leads to a conversation with Simon, which he excuses himself from to find out what Carrie and Margaret are talking about, which leads to a conversation with Margaret while Simon and Carrie are laughing uproarously. Eventually he asks them why, no matter how they split up, the conversation ''he's'' involved in is always the boring one. After an awkward {{beat}} he says "Right, yeah. Got it."

* TheirFirstTime: Newt and Susannah awkwardly discuss this; she describes it as "breaking his duck" (quite a straightforward [[UsefulNotes/{{Cricket}} sporting metaphor]] rather than the UnusualEuphemism it might sound), and when he awkwardly extends the metaphor to ask if it's her first time with a man she says it isn't.

* ConfirmedBachelor: No love interest is ever mentioned for Newt, and when wondering about how he'll explain his contribution to the war it's his former ''students'' he imagines asking him, rather than the more usual hypothetical children. A conversation with Gally in the last episode, while couched in period-appropriate euphemisms, more-or-less confirms that he's UsefulNotes/{{Asexual|ity}}.

* MistakenForGay: Newt, both by the Army who exclude him from serving as a result, and by Gally who assumed they "shared a family failing". He's actually UsefulNotes/{{Asexual|ity}}.

* ShaggyFrogStory: At the end of the Robo-Queen Victoria sketch, it turns out the Storyteller had misheard the sort of story being asked for.

* TakeThat: The Zoo sketch has the Storyteller suggest using a fly trapped in amber to revive dinosaurs, only for his boss to shoot him down because it would lead to disasters. [[Franchise/JurassicPark Four of them, in fact, each somehow worse than the last.]]

* {{Dissimilie}}:
** On taking a rocket ship to the moon; "At first it was like a trip in a hot air balloon, and after that it ''really'' wasn't."

* ItRunsOnNonsensoleum: The Storyteller sketch in the 2023 special takes the already scientifically dodgy giant Moon gun from ''Literature/AVoyageToTheMoon'', doubles the gunpowder to travel ''into'' the Moon, and on its return, stops dead forty feet above the Earth.

'''Simon:''' So what! What are you trying to prove? I mean it's not as if you knew [[UsefulNotes/ClassicalMythology the order of the Labours]] before you looked them up on Wikipedia, is it? Why don't we just say that with this sketch, we have established that you ''do'' have access to Wikipedia, but sometimes you ignore it for jokes. And that way, you won't have to do any of these paranoid, arse-covering little meta-sketches ever again.

-->'''Miss ''': I can tell you that you smoke two types of pipe, that you do not keep a valet but that your maidservant, or perhaps -- may I see your cuffs? -- ah, I beg your pardon, your housekeeper grows increasingly exasperated with you, and that you are reasonably adept upon the violin.\\