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- Big YES in episode 2
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* BigYes: an almost-authoritarian "Yes!" by Chris Morris right after the headlines of Episode 2.
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* CrazyPrepared: The only possible explanation for the existence of the Pocket Shepherd, a small device which can be used to [[ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext command a sheepdog to fly a helicopter in the event of the pilot having collapsed after looking at his watch]].
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* ShoutOut: Gratuitously offensive sitcom ''[[ShowWithinAShow Them Next Door]]'' is a clear homage to ''Series/LoveThyNeighbour'' with the rampant racism turned UpToEleven.
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* SoundtrackDissonance: In-universe as a lively organ tune is used to end the televising of a ''live hanging''.
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** And from the World Cup review:
-->'''Alan Partridge''': The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the pudding, in this case, is a football.
-->'''Alan Partridge''': The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the pudding, in this case, is a football.
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* OverlyLongGag: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob1rYlCpOnM In 1982,]] ''someone'' died."
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* OverlyLongGag: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob1rYlCpOnM In 1982,]] 1980,]] ''someone'' died."
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** Also Beverley Smax talking about bullying in the Church of England:
-->'''Beverley Smax''': If you mention the Church of England to most people, they immediately think of the sacraments and the holy blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. But to many within the Church, there is another ritual: the ritual of the Bullying Ritual.
-->'''Beverley Smax''': If you mention the Church of England to most people, they immediately think of the sacraments and the holy blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. But to many within the Church, there is another ritual: the ritual of the Bullying Ritual.
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* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Alan is commentating on the TourDeFrance when a team car enters the frame with spare bikes strapped to the roof.
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* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Alan is commentating on the TourDeFrance UsefulNotes/TourDeFrance when a team car enters the frame with spare bikes strapped to the roof.
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Despite its acclaim, the show is still best known for bringing Creator/SteveCoogan's Alan Partridge, the socially inept presenter, to TV; he later appeared in a number of spin-off projects, the most well-known of which are ''Series/KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' and ''Series/ImAlanPartridge''. It was followed by ''Series/BrassEye'', a pseudo-spinoff written entirely by Morris that used some of the same characters but this time punctured the PrimeTimeNews format.
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Despite its acclaim, the show is still best known for bringing Creator/SteveCoogan's Alan Partridge, the socially inept sports presenter, to TV; he later appeared in a number of spin-off projects, the most well-known of which are ''Series/KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' and ''Series/ImAlanPartridge''. It was followed by ''Series/BrassEye'', a pseudo-spinoff written entirely by Morris that used some of the same characters but this time punctured the PrimeTimeNews format.
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* HeliumSpeech: In a parody of the IRA broadcast ban during UsefulNotes/TheTrouble, a Sinn Féin is required to inhale helium when being interviewed on-air.
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* HeliumSpeech: In a parody of the IRA broadcast ban during UsefulNotes/TheTrouble, UsefulNotes/TheTroubles, a Sinn Féin member is required to inhale helium when being interviewed on-air.
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* HeliumSpeech: In a parody of the IRA broadcast ban during UsefulNotes/TheTrouble, a Sinn Féin is required to inhale helium when being interviewed on-air.
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* StylisticSuck: The live-action editorial cartoons by "Brandt", which are all [[SoUnfunnyItsFunny unbelievably bad]].
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* StylisticSuck: The live-action editorial cartoons by "Brandt", "Brant", which are all [[SoUnfunnyItsFunny unbelievably bad]].
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* WittyBanter
* ZanyScheme:
* ZanyScheme:
to:
*
%%* ZanyScheme:
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** BadBoss: Hennety.
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** TakeThisJobAndShoveit: The staff walk out after Hennety pisses them off once too many times.
---->'''Alex''': Me too, and I don't even work here!
---->'''Alex''': Me too, and I don't even work here!
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** DeusAngstMachina: Guy, who never tires of reminding everybody that he's gay. This trope takes off in episode 3, when Guy is beaten to a pulp in the street for being gay, and then fired from The Bureau afterwards, also for being gay.
to:
** DeusAngstMachina: Guy, who DrivenToSuicide: Angie deliberately overdoses on pills and blames it on Hennety.
** DrugsAreBad: Angie takes an overdose of some drug and dies in episode 2, in her bureau booth no less, blaming Hennety in her suicide note. Also a variation of MurderTheHypotenuse.
---->'''Hennety''': I never thought I'd say this, but...pull down the blinds! ''I'm closing the bureau!'' For an hour.
** DysfunctionJunction: All the characters are screwed up in some way or another.
** HaveIMentionedIAmGay: Guy never tires of reminding everybody that he's gay. This trope takes off in episode 3, when Guy is beaten to a pulp in the street for being gay, and then fired from The Bureau afterwards, also for being gay.
** DrugsAreBad: Angie takes an overdose of some drug and dies in episode 2, in her bureau booth no less, blaming Hennety in her suicide note. Also a variation of MurderTheHypotenuse.
---->'''Hennety''': I never thought I'd say this, but...pull down the blinds! ''I'm closing the bureau!'' For an hour.
** DysfunctionJunction: All the characters are screwed up in some way or another.
** HaveIMentionedIAmGay: Guy never tires of reminding everybody that he's gay. This trope takes off in episode 3, when Guy is beaten to a pulp in the street for being gay, and then fired from The Bureau afterwards, also for being gay.
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** DrugsAreBad: Angie takes an overdose of some drug and dies in episode 2, in her bureau booth no less, blaming Hennety in her suicide note. Also a variation of MurderTheHypotenuse.
---->'''Hennety''': I never thought I'd say this, but...pull down the blinds! ''I'm closing the bureau!'' For an hour.
** DysfunctionJunction: All the characters are screwed up in some way or another.
---->'''Hennety''': I never thought I'd say this, but...pull down the blinds! ''I'm closing the bureau!'' For an hour.
** DysfunctionJunction: All the characters are screwed up in some way or another.
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Not a background event.
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** During the [[GallowsHumour Elvis-themed execution]], a US Marine can be heard singing Elvis lyrics to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner.
--> '''Marine:''' ''"Are you lonesome to-night?/love me tender hound-dog/blue suede shoes, jailhouse rock..."''
--> '''Marine:''' ''"Are you lonesome to-night?/love me tender hound-dog/blue suede shoes, jailhouse rock..."''
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* ThePhilosopher: Parodied by Jaques-'Jaques' Liverot, the French commentator. He sits in a dark corner of the studio, chain-smoking, and never offers any insights at all. At best we get a one-line pseudo-profundity. At worst he will ask a potentially interesting question and then stop. Basically, he's a TakeThat to modern French postmodernism.
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** Business correspondent Collaterlie Sisters and her endlessly unhelpful currency-exchange graphics, including the Currency Cat, the Currency Kidney, the Currency Susan and the International Financial Arse.
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* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The DVD includes the pilot episode, which was filmed in a very different style to the show proper. The lighting and set dressing resembled a generic television sketch comedy of the period, and the "Chris Morris" character was and over-enthusiastic but likeable rather than the satanic monster that he became. Ultimately the production team overhauled almost everything between the pilot and the first episode, although a few of the filmed inserts were used in the series.
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* GrowingTheBeard: The DVD includes the pilot episode, which was filmed in a very different style to the show proper. The lighting and set dressing resembled a generic television sketch comedy of the period, and the "Chris Morris" character was and over-enthusiastic but likeable rather than the satanic monster that he became. Ultimately the production team overhauled almost everything between the pilot and the first episode, although a few of the filmed inserts were used in the series.
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While the subjects of the stories were absurd, the methods used to tell them were dead-on parodies of British news tropes at the time, from nonsensical graphs and pointless computer animations to newscasters creating tortuous metaphors and wordplay to add credibility to their stories. It still holds up surprisingly well today, partly because they had five months to create six episodes and so could really go overboard on creating pompous and overlong computer animations for the most trivial of reasons, which years later ''real'' news programmes would begin do every day as computer power increased. Especially memorable characters included anchor "[[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gvyX-CwHpAQ Chris Morris]]", who had an unquenchable lust for News with a capital "N" and a sneering demeanour that was blatantly ripped off of British journo Jeremy Paxman; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3RpFPCDgeI4 Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan]], who made up for in tenacity what he lacked in... everything else; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5gHorOt6KKw Alan Partridge]], inept sportscaster; and American correspondent [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DO9jGsgPTsk Barbara Wintergreen]], who was forever reporting on the multiple executions of killer Chapman Baxter.
to:
While the subjects of the stories were absurd, the methods used to tell them were dead-on parodies of British news tropes at the time, from nonsensical graphs and pointless computer animations to newscasters creating tortuous metaphors and wordplay to add credibility to their stories. It still holds up surprisingly well today, partly because they had five months to create six episodes and so could really go overboard on creating pompous and overlong computer animations for the most trivial of reasons, which years later ''real'' news programmes would begin do every day as computer power increased.
Especially memorable characters included anchor "[[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gvyX-CwHpAQ Chris Morris]]", who had an unquenchable lust for News with a capital "N" and a sneering demeanour that was blatantly ripped off of British journo Jeremy Paxman; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3RpFPCDgeI4 Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan]], who made up for in tenacity what he lacked in... everything else; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5gHorOt6KKw Alan Partridge]], inept sportscaster; and American correspondent [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DO9jGsgPTsk Barbara Wintergreen]], who was forever reporting on the multiple executions of killer Chapman Baxter.
Especially memorable characters included anchor "[[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gvyX-CwHpAQ Chris Morris]]", who had an unquenchable lust for News with a capital "N" and a sneering demeanour that was blatantly ripped off of British journo Jeremy Paxman; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3RpFPCDgeI4 Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan]], who made up for in tenacity what he lacked in... everything else; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5gHorOt6KKw Alan Partridge]], inept sportscaster; and American correspondent [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DO9jGsgPTsk Barbara Wintergreen]], who was forever reporting on the multiple executions of killer Chapman Baxter.
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Despite its acclaim, the show is still best known for bringing Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, the socially inept presenter, to TV; he later appeared in a number of spin-off projects, the most well-known of which are ''Series/KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' and ''Series/ImAlanPartridge''. It was followed by ''Series/BrassEye'', a pseudo-spinoff written entirely by Morris that used some of the same characters but this time punctured the PrimeTimeNews format.
to:
Despite its acclaim, the show is still best known for bringing Steve Coogan's Creator/SteveCoogan's Alan Partridge, the socially inept presenter, to TV; he later appeared in a number of spin-off projects, the most well-known of which are ''Series/KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' and ''Series/ImAlanPartridge''. It was followed by ''Series/BrassEye'', a pseudo-spinoff written entirely by Morris that used some of the same characters but this time punctured the PrimeTimeNews format.
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* SoUnfunnyItsUnfunny: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCPRqmMsKYI The "Brant, Physical Cartoonist" sketches.
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* TheDanza: Chris Morris as Chris Morris.
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* SoUnfunnyItsUnfunny: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCPRqmMsKYI The "Brant, Physical Cartoonist" sketches.
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* TheQuietOne: David Schneider's facial expressions can be so funny that he doesn't need to say much to go with them, particularly evident in the shows SoapWithinAShow "The Bureau". This was probably the reason why he plays a mime in an episode of KnowingMeKnowingYou.
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* TheQuietOne: David Schneider's facial expressions can be so funny that he doesn't need to say much to go with them, particularly evident in the shows SoapWithinAShow "The Bureau". This was probably the reason why he plays a mime in an episode of KnowingMeKnowingYou.Series/KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge.
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* SpinOff: The show spawned two direct spin-offs, ''Series/BrassEye'' and ''KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'', starring Chris Morris and Alan Partridge respectively. Both shows feature other minor news reporters reappearing from ''The Day Today'' (such as Ted Maul who shows up in ''Brass Eye''). ''KMKYWAP'' features the entire cast of ''TDT'' minus Morris, but ''Brass Eye'' is by far the more closely related spin-off and SpiritualSuccessor.
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* SpinOff: The show spawned two direct spin-offs, ''Series/BrassEye'' and ''KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'', ''Series/KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'', starring Chris Morris and Alan Partridge respectively. Both shows feature other minor news reporters reappearing from ''The Day Today'' (such as Ted Maul who shows up in ''Brass Eye''). ''KMKYWAP'' features the entire cast of ''TDT'' minus Morris, but ''Brass Eye'' is by far the more closely related spin-off and SpiritualSuccessor.
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** ''KMKYWAP'' remained on the BBC, while Morris took ''Brass Eye'' over to Channel 4 to [[BitingTheHandHumor bite their hands instead]]. Morris eventually turned up in KMKYWAP's own spin-off, ''ImAlanPartridge'', as posh twat Peter Baxendale-Thomas.
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** ''KMKYWAP'' remained on the BBC, while Morris took ''Brass Eye'' over to Channel 4 to [[BitingTheHandHumor bite their hands instead]]. Morris eventually turned up in KMKYWAP's own spin-off, ''ImAlanPartridge'', ''Series/ImAlanPartridge'', as posh twat Peter Baxendale-Thomas.
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Despite its acclaim, the show is still best known for bringing Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, the socially inept presenter, to TV; he later appeared in a number of spin-off projects, the most well-known of which are ''KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' and ''ImAlanPartridge''. It was followed by ''Series/BrassEye'', a pseudo-spinoff written entirely by Morris that used some of the same characters but this time punctured the PrimeTimeNews format.
to:
Despite its acclaim, the show is still best known for bringing Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, the socially inept presenter, to TV; he later appeared in a number of spin-off projects, the most well-known of which are ''KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' ''Series/KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' and ''ImAlanPartridge''.''Series/ImAlanPartridge''. It was followed by ''Series/BrassEye'', a pseudo-spinoff written entirely by Morris that used some of the same characters but this time punctured the PrimeTimeNews format.
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The brainchild of a number of British comedians including ChrisMorris and Creator/ArmandoIannucci, ''The Day Today'' was a critically-acclaimed satire of every aspect of British TV news shows. The show's M.O. was to present meaningless reports such as the London Underground infested with horses, or the IRA planting bombs inside stray dogs, in an absolutely deadpan style so that anyone channel-hopping would not be sure for a split second if what they were watching was real.
to:
The brainchild of a number of British comedians including ChrisMorris Creator/ChrisMorris and Creator/ArmandoIannucci, ''The Day Today'' was a critically-acclaimed satire of every aspect of British TV news shows. The show's M.O. was to present meaningless reports such as the London Underground infested with horses, or the IRA planting bombs inside stray dogs, in an absolutely deadpan style so that anyone channel-hopping would not be sure for a split second if what they were watching was real.
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Cutting... the circle that is this link!
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The brainchild of a number of British comedians including ChrisMorris and Creator/ArmandoIannucci, ''TheDayToday'' was a critically-acclaimed satire of every aspect of British TV news shows. The show's M.O. was to present meaningless reports such as the London Underground infested with horses, or the IRA planting bombs inside stray dogs, in an absolutely deadpan style so that anyone channel-hopping would not be sure for a split second if what they were watching was real.
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The brainchild of a number of British comedians including ChrisMorris and Creator/ArmandoIannucci, ''TheDayToday'' ''The Day Today'' was a critically-acclaimed satire of every aspect of British TV news shows. The show's M.O. was to present meaningless reports such as the London Underground infested with horses, or the IRA planting bombs inside stray dogs, in an absolutely deadpan style so that anyone channel-hopping would not be sure for a split second if what they were watching was real.
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Moving to Trivia tab.
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* ActingForTwo: The Day Today is essentially a sketch show cleverly disguised as a news programme, with a core troupe of actors playing multiple different roles in each sketch/news report.
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* TheDanza: Chris Morris, who plays anchorman Chris Morris. It's difficult to tell whether Chris Morris is a character or a real-life person. This trope is continued in spin-off ''Series/BrassEye''.
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* GrowingtheBeard: The DVD includes the pilot episode, which was filmed in a very different style to the show proper. The lighting and set dressing resembled a generic television sketch comedy of the period, and the "Chris Morris" character was and over-enthusiastic but likeable rather than the satanic monster that he became. Ultimately the production team overhauled almost everything between the pilot and the first episode, although a few of the filmed inserts were used in the series.
to:
* GrowingtheBeard: GrowingTheBeard: The DVD includes the pilot episode, which was filmed in a very different style to the show proper. The lighting and set dressing resembled a generic television sketch comedy of the period, and the "Chris Morris" character was and over-enthusiastic but likeable rather than the satanic monster that he became. Ultimately the production team overhauled almost everything between the pilot and the first episode, although a few of the filmed inserts were used in the series.
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* LifeImitatesArt: As previously mentioned, The Day Today had five months to create six episodes, allowing their computer graphics designers (the graphics design department of ITN, one of Britain's main TV news and content providers, who relished the opportunity to parody their usual work) to spend much longer than they could on daily news to create The Day Today's abundance of computer generated charts and diagrams. The design philosophy was to imagine what graphics the most megalomaniac news editor would request if not under the time constraints of daily news production. Years later, as computer power increased and cost decreased, these time constraints were much less of a barrier, meaning that real daily news programmes started looking rather a lot like The Day Today. What this says about the prevalence of real megalomaniac news editors is open to interpretation.
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** RecycledScript: Episode 4 is a rehash of Episode 1, just different characters cheating on each other. Hennety even has almost identical lines:
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** RecycledScript: [[invoked]] Episode 4 is a rehash of Episode 1, just different characters cheating on each other. Hennety even has almost identical lines:
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[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TheDayToday.jpg]]
->''"The headlines tonight: Portillo's Teeth Removed to Boost Pound, Exploded Cardinal Preaches Sermon from Fishtank - and 'Where Now' For Man Raised by Puffins?"''
The brainchild of a number of British comedians including ChrisMorris and Creator/ArmandoIannucci, ''TheDayToday'' was a critically-acclaimed satire of every aspect of British TV news shows. The show's M.O. was to present meaningless reports such as the London Underground infested with horses, or the IRA planting bombs inside stray dogs, in an absolutely deadpan style so that anyone channel-hopping would not be sure for a split second if what they were watching was real.
While the subjects of the stories were absurd, the methods used to tell them were dead-on parodies of British news tropes at the time, from nonsensical graphs and pointless computer animations to newscasters creating tortuous metaphors and wordplay to add credibility to their stories. It still holds up surprisingly well today, partly because they had five months to create six episodes and so could really go overboard on creating pompous and overlong computer animations for the most trivial of reasons, which years later ''real'' news programmes would begin do every day as computer power increased. Especially memorable characters included anchor "[[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gvyX-CwHpAQ Chris Morris]]", who had an unquenchable lust for News with a capital "N" and a sneering demeanour that was blatantly ripped off of British journo Jeremy Paxman; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3RpFPCDgeI4 Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan]], who made up for in tenacity what he lacked in... everything else; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5gHorOt6KKw Alan Partridge]], inept sportscaster; and American correspondent [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DO9jGsgPTsk Barbara Wintergreen]], who was forever reporting on the multiple executions of killer Chapman Baxter.
Occasionally the show would break for a parody of MTV, sensationalist American news or tedious British soap operas, but its primary focus was on skewering the news media.
Despite its acclaim, the show is still best known for bringing Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, the socially inept presenter, to TV; he later appeared in a number of spin-off projects, the most well-known of which are ''KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' and ''ImAlanPartridge''. It was followed by ''Series/BrassEye'', a pseudo-spinoff written entirely by Morris that used some of the same characters but this time punctured the PrimeTimeNews format.
----
!!This show provides examples of:
* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLuaqNoxjro John Fashanu.]]
* ActingForTwo: The Day Today is essentially a sketch show cleverly disguised as a news programme, with a core troupe of actors playing multiple different roles in each sketch/news report.
* AllLoveIsUnrequited: Chris likes to hit on travel correspondent Valerie Sinatra every chance he gets, to which she's [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation either totally oblivious about or too professional to deal with on camera]].
* AttractiveBentGender: Morris as Sukie Bapswent in [=RokTV=].
* BlackComedy:
** For reasons left unexplained, Chris despises business correspondent Collaterlie Sisters with a passion.
--->'''Chris Morris''': That's an incredible coincidence Alan, because last week Collaterlie Sisters, you were involved in a car crash in which you were the only survivor! Only because you landed in somebody's stomach.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURUCL-yun4 "Sorted"]], in which two insufferable young presenters demonstrate how to give a corpse [[TheFunInFuneral a DIY burial]], certainly qualifies.
* BRollRebus: Click Ting Stamps.
* BritishBrevity: The show launched the television careers of Chris Morris, Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci. It was a paradigm shift in British television comedy that influenced almost everything that followed - the "dark" comedy movement grew directly from it - and it introduced a host of comedy actors who would become ubiquitous in subsequent years. All in just ''six'' thirty-minute episodes (plus an unbroadcast pilot and six five-minute mini-episodes).
* BrokenRecord: At the end of a few episodes, the final note of the show's closing theme music starts skipping.
* ButtMonkey: Hapless economics correspondent Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan, who is repeatedly shamed and humiliated by Chris Morris live on air for his incompetence.
-->'''Chris Morris''': Peter, you're lying in a news grave, do you know what's written on your headstone?
-->'''Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan''': News.
* CanonDiscontinuity: American serial killer Chapman Baxter, sitting on Death Row, who reappears in new reports from ''The Day Today's'' affiliate station in America in almost every episode with an ever increasing body count to his name, despite being repeatedly executed.
* CatchPhrase: Alan's forced, wooden and utterly unconvincing "I'm Alan Partridge!" which of course went onto become the title of his own spin-off show.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Alan is commentating on the TourDeFrance when a team car enters the frame with spare bikes strapped to the roof.
-->'''Alan Partridge''': And I don't know what this man is playing at! No way! ''Surely'' the judges must come down like a ton of bricks on that. Carrying bikes on the top of a car is ''not'' a sportsmanlike way to run this race.
* CouchGag: Each episode ends with a pan out as the studio lights dim on Chris. Instead of sitting there awkwardly shuffling his papers like most contemporary news anchormen, Chris embarks on a variety of strange activities each episode, such as:
** Rolling up his sleeve to inject heroin into his arm.
** Prostrating himself in front of the newsdesk as if it was a religious altar.
** Taking off his wig to reveal a massive mane of long, blond hair.
* CouldThisHappenToYou: The "Chopper of Doom" incident of 1992, where Lindsey the sheepdog successfully pilots an out-of-control helicopter away from a field of small children, with the aid of a shepherd at the control tower.
-->'''Reporter''': If this happened to you, would you know what to do? Your chances would be considerably improved if you made sure someone on the ground had one of these. It's a pocket shepherd, it costs just £59. A small price to pay for the gift of a functioning body that works properly.
* CrapsackWorld: Set in contemporary Britain, where bombdogs are set off by the IRA, dentists are forced into illegal, backdoor operations on the streets, motorways collide with each other and the Queen and the Prime Minister have a massive fight at Buckingham Palace. Subverted in episode 3 during the fight between John Major and the Queen, when the Government interrupts all TV channels to play a special crisis propaganda video. The video depicts lawyers and businessmen skipping and playing hide and seek, police officers smoking marijuana with the general public and small children with lighters rushing to a man's aid to light his cigarette, effectively portraying Britain as [[CloudCuckooLander Cloud Cuckoo Land]].
-->'''Narrator''': This, is Britain, and everything's alright. Everything's alright. It's okay. It's ''fine''.
* CreditsGag: A few -- for example, "Bootsie Collins" [''sic''] randomly appears in the first episode's credits. In the second episode, George Clinton was apparently the "thrift funnel".
* TheDanza: Chris Morris, who plays anchorman Chris Morris. It's difficult to tell whether Chris Morris is a character or a real-life person. This trope is continued in spin-off ''Series/BrassEye''.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: [=RokTV=] presenter Harfynn Teuport's description of the controversy sparked by a gangsta rapper Fur-Q and his performances of his song "Uzi Lover",
-->'''Harfynn Teuport''': During the stage version of the song, in the live show, he kills five people on the stage, during the stage show, live, as it's performed!
* DistractedByTheSexy: Alan Partridge interviews an attractive female showjumper in her changing room and she behaves as though she isn't on camera, even casually taking off her bra while discussing her own performance. Alan ''is'' paying attention, but...not to what she's actually saying.
-->'''Alan Partridge''': When, when, when you, how do you ride a horse?
* FeigningIntelligence: Sports commentator Alan Partridge never has any clue about anything he ever reports on, but nobody else ever appears to notice, as he is good at mincing his words. On the other hand, economics correspondent Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan is just as inept but is incapable of concealing it, so he's constantly torn to pieces for it by Chris, live on air.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
** Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan can be seen getting knocked unconscious by a single punch in the background of a live-scene news report.
** ''The Day Today'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW9jcKsLSfQ Newsdancer.]]
** In Episode 5, after a clip of an episode of ''[[SoapWithinAShow The Bureau]]'' showing the cast and their Bureau de Change traveling on the back of a flatbed truck, the same vehicle can be seen passing through in the background of a following news segment on "clamping" homeless people.
** During the [[GallowsHumour Elvis-themed execution]], a US Marine can be heard singing Elvis lyrics to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner.
--> '''Marine:''' ''"Are you lonesome to-night?/love me tender hound-dog/blue suede shoes, jailhouse rock..."''
* GoingForTheBigScoop: Susanna Gekkaloys, reporting live from the war zone, says "We're under strict instructions not to leave the vehicle, but to drive on through." She then immediately stops her jeep, gets out, runs over to a nearby house, kicks the door down, shoots the first person she sees and interviews everyone else.
* GrowingtheBeard: The DVD includes the pilot episode, which was filmed in a very different style to the show proper. The lighting and set dressing resembled a generic television sketch comedy of the period, and the "Chris Morris" character was and over-enthusiastic but likeable rather than the satanic monster that he became. Ultimately the production team overhauled almost everything between the pilot and the first episode, although a few of the filmed inserts were used in the series.
* GuyOnGuyIsHot: Alan seems to be susceptible to this, judging from his bizarre attempt at boxing commentary.
-->'''Alan Partridge''': Thank goodness actually they're wearing gloves, because I've witnessed bare knuckle boxing in a barn in Somerset about three years ago, and it was a sorry sight to see men goading them on in such a barbaric fashion. And I'm rather ashamed to say I was party to that goading, two men fighting as I saw in the barn that night, naked as the day they were born and fighting the way God intended. Wrestling at points - I don't know if you've seen ''Women In Love'', that marvellous scene by the fire. It kind of resembled that.
* InherentlyFunnyWords: The UK crisis propaganda video, which showcases the quintessentially British towns of Wabznasm and Manford Thirty-Sixborough.
* IntrepidReporter: Parodied with war correspondent Susanna Gekkaloys, who's so intrepid that she not only carries a gun but shoots a random civilian with it.
* IsThisThingStillOn: Morris can occasionally be overheard making cutting remarks about the other presenters during their reports, especially Collaterlie Sisters.
--> '''Chris:''' ''Take her off the monitor, I don't want to see her face.''
* {{Jerkass}}: Chris Morris, who uses unnecessarily hardcore Paxman-type interview tactics (normally reserved for shady politicians) on good-natured jam-festival organizer Janet Breen, slaughtering her and reducing her to tears live on set.
-->'''Chris Morris''': How '''dare''' you come on this programme and say ''"Hey look at me, I'm raising fifteen hundred pounds for the homeless"!?'' You could make more money sitting outside a tube station with your hat on the ground, even if you were twice as ugly as you are which is '''very''' ugly indeed!
* KentBrockmanNews: Pretty much every example from that trope write-up.
* KillThePoor: One segment focuses on how London police are clamping down on homelessness - ''literally'' - with tyre clamps. Any homeless person found asleep or motionless after 9pm is clamped and forced to stay where they are upon waking up. They are later prosecuted and punished.
* LifeImitatesArt: As previously mentioned, The Day Today had five months to create six episodes, allowing their computer graphics designers (the graphics design department of ITN, one of Britain's main TV news and content providers, who relished the opportunity to parody their usual work) to spend much longer than they could on daily news to create The Day Today's abundance of computer generated charts and diagrams. The design philosophy was to imagine what graphics the most megalomaniac news editor would request if not under the time constraints of daily news production. Years later, as computer power increased and cost decreased, these time constraints were much less of a barrier, meaning that real daily news programmes started looking rather a lot like The Day Today. What this says about the prevalence of real megalomaniac news editors is open to interpretation.
* {{Metaphorgotten}}: The dialogue is written almost entirely in this.
-->'''Donald Bethl'hem''': Tension here is very high, Chris - the stretched twig of peace is at melting point. People here are literally bursting with war. This is very much a country that's going to blow up in its face.
* MoodWhiplash: "IT'S WAR! ... but first the weather..."
* MundaneAfterlife: According to the report on near-death experiences, Heaven is an open plan office, where God has a "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps" sign.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: the title credits, theme tune and inter-story "stings" are massively overblown for comedy effect. The theme tune got more and more overblown as the series progressed.
* NewAgeRetroHippie: Rosie May, [[GirlsWithMoustaches bearded]] host of the "Enviromation" segment, dresses like a cult member and usually claims to have a special link to nature in her sign-off (e.g. "my milk is green").
* NewsParody: Faux News variation.
* NoodleImplements: A small turtle and a plastic tube are alleged to "have a range of fifty feet and can bring down a helicopter".
* OverlyLongGag: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob1rYlCpOnM In 1982,]] ''someone'' died."
* POVCam: Parodied. The premise of a documentary special called [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgJn3155WBU#t=17m12s "Cam Fam"]] involves a family which agreed to have cameras "implanted into their faces to give us a unique view of British family life."
* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: Chris Morris as grotesque gangster rapper (and Ice T parody) [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar Fur-Q]] and his chart-smashing single "Uzi Lover".
-->'''Fur-Q:''' Uzi like a metal dick in my hand / Magazine like a big testicle gland / Bitch wanna try it / I said 'Keep her quiet!' / Shove it up her motherfuckin' ass and fry it.
* PungeonMaster: Barbara Wintergreen's reports from America are absolutely rammed with them, in typical American newscaster style.
-->'''Barbara Wintergreen''': At this fallopian factory, people come for a credit card conception. The price includes labour and delivery, and there's a hefty surcharge, on the discharge.
-->'''Barbara Wintergreen''': Meanwhile, Baxter's fried-to-be is making the last minute preparations for her impending ending.
* TheQuietOne: David Schneider's facial expressions can be so funny that he doesn't need to say much to go with them, particularly evident in the shows SoapWithinAShow "The Bureau". This was probably the reason why he plays a mime in an episode of KnowingMeKnowingYou.
* RunningGag: Lots of repeated sketches:
** Weatherman Sylvester Stuart and his vague, confusing weather reports.
** Travel correspondent Valerie Sinatra's reports always make mention of an on-going traffic jam on the M11.
** Sports correspondent Alan Partridge's totally abject lack of knowledge of even basic sports.
--->'''Alan Partridge''': This is Sportsdesk, I'm Alan Partridge. And it's a special desk of sport now, as we look back, on some of the sporting highlights, of the last sporting season. So lie down, relax, and let the sports commence!
** American correspondent Barbara Wintergreen's constant reports on serial killer Chapman Baxter, who is executed at least four times throughout the series and whose kill count somehow increases between each execution.
* SinisterMinister: Reverend Bobby Sky, a Catholic priest and reformed bully from Coventry, who speaks out on bullying within the Catholic Church.
-->'''Bobby Sky''': A young deacon was being inordinated, then during the inordination ceremony, we would hum during his sermon, so we would be going "Mmmmmmmmmmmm" and he would be trying to speak, not knowing who was humming.
-->'''Beverly Smax''': How many of you were humming?
-->'''Bobby Sky''': About two hundred of us.
* SoapWithinAShow: ''The Bureau'', a cheesy, overly-dramatic soap opera set in a bureau-de-change, focused around the bureau's cashiers and their evil boss, the Essex wide-boy Jack Hennety. Various clips of the drama are reported on in ''The Day Today'', as the soap apparently goes from being the most popular programme in Europe, to plummeting out of the ratings and being forced to tour [[BritainIsOnlyLondon Outer England]] on the back of a truck. It is generally accepted that it's a spoof of Eldorado, an extremely lame, failed BBC soap opera set on the Costa del Sol. It manages to spoof all of the following soap opera clichés (such as the ridiculous emphasis on relationships) despite being set in a single, very small room and only having six minutes of airtime over the entire series:
** BackFromTheDead: Angie somehow comes back to The Bureau after committing suicide in episode 2.
** [[CrazyJealousGuy Crazy Jealous Girl]]: Maria, who assaults Angie after sussing out that she's sleeping with Maria's boyfriend Alex.
** DeusAngstMachina: Guy, who never tires of reminding everybody that he's gay. This trope takes off in episode 3, when Guy is beaten to a pulp in the street for being gay, and then fired from The Bureau afterwards, also for being gay.
---->'''Guy:''' Why did they do this to me? Just because I'm gay! I'm gay! I'm gay...
---->'''Hennety:''' WHAT!?
---->'''Maria:''' It's Guy, Mr. Hennety, he's been attacked!
---->'''Hennety:''' Yeah I know, what did you say?
---->'''Guy:''' ...I said I'm gay.
---->'''Hennety:''' ...You're fired!
** DrugsAreBad: Angie takes an overdose of some drug and dies in episode 2, in her bureau booth no less, blaming Hennety in her suicide note. Also a variation of MurderTheHypotenuse.
---->'''Hennety''': I never thought I'd say this, but...pull down the blinds! ''I'm closing the bureau!'' For an hour.
** DysfunctionJunction: All the characters are screwed up in some way or another.
** {{Jerkass}}: Hennety, who fires Maria in episode 1 for fighting with Angie, and then fires Guy in episode 3 simply for being gay.
** LondonGangster: Big Boss Jack Hennety, with his evil, heartless businessman demeanour and ridiculously exaggerated southern Essex accent. Also a LargeHam.
---->'''Hennety:''' This is supposed to be a high-class bureau-de-change, not some two-bit Punch and Judy show on the seafront at Margate!
---->'''Guy:''' It's alright Mr. Hennety, it's okay now, it was just a little misunderstand-
---->'''Hennety:''' Shaaaat it!
** LongRunner: Chris Morris reports that the show has magically reached its 2000th episode, which equates to seven and a half years of airtime.
** LoveTriangle: Alex cheats on Maria with Angie at first, then the show hints Hennety and Maria have something going on, then finally, Angie cheats on Alex with Hennety, effectively creating a Love Square. Guy also confesses his [[LoveConfession True Love]] for Maria in the same final episode, despite being gay.
** ManipulativeBastard: Hennety somehow manages to shag Angie, after she blames him for her suicide attempt in episode 2.
** PrimeTimeSoap: Replaced the BBC's 9 o'clock news.
** RecurringRiff: Awesomely-lame theme tune!
** RecycledScript: Episode 4 is a rehash of Episode 1, just different characters cheating on each other. Hennety even has almost identical lines:
---->'''Hennety:''' I'm trying to run a high-class bureau-de-change, not some two-bit nipple peep show in Rio de Janeiro!
** SayMyName: Hennety's awkward, unexplained cries to Maria after she storms out in the wake of Guy's sacking.
---->'''Hennety:''' Maria! Mariaaa-aa-aa-aa!
* SoundEffectBleep: In Episode 4, while Peter Goodwright rants about bombdogs, one goes off each time he swears.
* SoundToScreenAdaptation: First began as ''On the Hour'' on BBC Radio Four.
* SpinOff: The show spawned two direct spin-offs, ''Series/BrassEye'' and ''KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'', starring Chris Morris and Alan Partridge respectively. Both shows feature other minor news reporters reappearing from ''The Day Today'' (such as Ted Maul who shows up in ''Brass Eye''). ''KMKYWAP'' features the entire cast of ''TDT'' minus Morris, but ''Brass Eye'' is by far the more closely related spin-off and SpiritualSuccessor.
** ''KMKYWAP'' retains in-universe continuity, with Alan Partridge ''somehow'' ascending from sports correspondent to prime-time chatshow host.
** ''KMKYWAP'' remained on the BBC, while Morris took ''Brass Eye'' over to Channel 4 to [[BitingTheHandHumor bite their hands instead]]. Morris eventually turned up in KMKYWAP's own spin-off, ''ImAlanPartridge'', as posh twat Peter Baxendale-Thomas.
* SpontaneousHumanCombustion: A headline story at the beginning of Episode 4 is introduced, "'I'm so sorry', yells exploding cleaner."
* StylisticSuck: The live-action editorial cartoons by "Brandt", which are all [[SoUnfunnyItsFunny unbelievably bad]].
* SurveillanceStationSlacker: Keith Mandemant, the pool supervisor, who seems to spend most shifts solving word puzzles instead of watching the monitors.
* TalkingHeads: Weatherman Sylvester Stuart, who we never ever see below the neck for a variety of reasons. In one episode, he hints that he's actually dead.
* TimeDilation: In the "War" episode, reporter Susanna Gekkaloys runs out of the studio to go and report "from the interior of the fight" and a few minutes later she's already filed her first report about an entire day of events on the battlefield. Also, even though war is declared live on an evening news programme, Donald Bethl'hem reports that one side claimed victory on the morning of the same day.
* {{Understatement}}:
-->'''Chris Morris''': This is huge history happening, isn't it?
-->'''Spartacus Mills''': Oh it's bigger than that Chris, it's large!
* TheUnintelligible: Business correspondent Collaterlie Sisters, whose reports on the state of the economy make as much sense as the business reports on any given news channel.
-->'''Collaterlie Sisters''': On now to the money markets, and the international finance arse. And there you can see that the U.S. and Japanese cheeks started off with a gap of 2.4, but increased trading forced the two together to form a unified arse at around lunchtime, which held for the rest of the day. In summary then-- [calmly] Oh NO. ... Chris?
* VoxPops: Morris goes around questioning hapless members of the public on topics such as, "What should the letter of the law be?" (The person chose the letter "J".)
* WeatherReport: Presented by Sylvester Stuart, usually at inappropriate moments in an episode. Stuart always appears as a floating head and describes his forecasts completely in confusingly drawn-out metaphors and similes:
-->'''Sylvester Stuart:''' Starting in the south-east...Devon and Cornwall should have some fairly heavy and prolonged showers, a bit like jagged metal piercing old flesh. The Midlands now...it'll be warm at first but turning cocky later, at around twelve, and there should be some cloud around in the shape of a whore. In Scotland now...thunderstorms in the evening but the sun should come through later, so it'll be a bit like being woken up in the night by strange men shining powerful torches in your eyes. In summary then? Dispassionate. And that's all the weather.
* WittyBanter
* ZanyScheme:
** Alan Partridge's soccermeter, an intensely confusing device causing Partridge to make a fool of himself trying to demonstrate how it works.
** Sylvester Stuart's intensely confusing weather reports, the tour-de-force being episode six, where Sylvester's head is the ball inside a pinball machine with a weather map of the United Kingdom inside it.
----
->''"The headlines tonight: Portillo's Teeth Removed to Boost Pound, Exploded Cardinal Preaches Sermon from Fishtank - and 'Where Now' For Man Raised by Puffins?"''
The brainchild of a number of British comedians including ChrisMorris and Creator/ArmandoIannucci, ''TheDayToday'' was a critically-acclaimed satire of every aspect of British TV news shows. The show's M.O. was to present meaningless reports such as the London Underground infested with horses, or the IRA planting bombs inside stray dogs, in an absolutely deadpan style so that anyone channel-hopping would not be sure for a split second if what they were watching was real.
While the subjects of the stories were absurd, the methods used to tell them were dead-on parodies of British news tropes at the time, from nonsensical graphs and pointless computer animations to newscasters creating tortuous metaphors and wordplay to add credibility to their stories. It still holds up surprisingly well today, partly because they had five months to create six episodes and so could really go overboard on creating pompous and overlong computer animations for the most trivial of reasons, which years later ''real'' news programmes would begin do every day as computer power increased. Especially memorable characters included anchor "[[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gvyX-CwHpAQ Chris Morris]]", who had an unquenchable lust for News with a capital "N" and a sneering demeanour that was blatantly ripped off of British journo Jeremy Paxman; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3RpFPCDgeI4 Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan]], who made up for in tenacity what he lacked in... everything else; [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5gHorOt6KKw Alan Partridge]], inept sportscaster; and American correspondent [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DO9jGsgPTsk Barbara Wintergreen]], who was forever reporting on the multiple executions of killer Chapman Baxter.
Occasionally the show would break for a parody of MTV, sensationalist American news or tedious British soap operas, but its primary focus was on skewering the news media.
Despite its acclaim, the show is still best known for bringing Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, the socially inept presenter, to TV; he later appeared in a number of spin-off projects, the most well-known of which are ''KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'' and ''ImAlanPartridge''. It was followed by ''Series/BrassEye'', a pseudo-spinoff written entirely by Morris that used some of the same characters but this time punctured the PrimeTimeNews format.
----
!!This show provides examples of:
* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLuaqNoxjro John Fashanu.]]
* ActingForTwo: The Day Today is essentially a sketch show cleverly disguised as a news programme, with a core troupe of actors playing multiple different roles in each sketch/news report.
* AllLoveIsUnrequited: Chris likes to hit on travel correspondent Valerie Sinatra every chance he gets, to which she's [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation either totally oblivious about or too professional to deal with on camera]].
* AttractiveBentGender: Morris as Sukie Bapswent in [=RokTV=].
* BlackComedy:
** For reasons left unexplained, Chris despises business correspondent Collaterlie Sisters with a passion.
--->'''Chris Morris''': That's an incredible coincidence Alan, because last week Collaterlie Sisters, you were involved in a car crash in which you were the only survivor! Only because you landed in somebody's stomach.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURUCL-yun4 "Sorted"]], in which two insufferable young presenters demonstrate how to give a corpse [[TheFunInFuneral a DIY burial]], certainly qualifies.
* BRollRebus: Click Ting Stamps.
* BritishBrevity: The show launched the television careers of Chris Morris, Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci. It was a paradigm shift in British television comedy that influenced almost everything that followed - the "dark" comedy movement grew directly from it - and it introduced a host of comedy actors who would become ubiquitous in subsequent years. All in just ''six'' thirty-minute episodes (plus an unbroadcast pilot and six five-minute mini-episodes).
* BrokenRecord: At the end of a few episodes, the final note of the show's closing theme music starts skipping.
* ButtMonkey: Hapless economics correspondent Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan, who is repeatedly shamed and humiliated by Chris Morris live on air for his incompetence.
-->'''Chris Morris''': Peter, you're lying in a news grave, do you know what's written on your headstone?
-->'''Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan''': News.
* CanonDiscontinuity: American serial killer Chapman Baxter, sitting on Death Row, who reappears in new reports from ''The Day Today's'' affiliate station in America in almost every episode with an ever increasing body count to his name, despite being repeatedly executed.
* CatchPhrase: Alan's forced, wooden and utterly unconvincing "I'm Alan Partridge!" which of course went onto become the title of his own spin-off show.
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Alan is commentating on the TourDeFrance when a team car enters the frame with spare bikes strapped to the roof.
-->'''Alan Partridge''': And I don't know what this man is playing at! No way! ''Surely'' the judges must come down like a ton of bricks on that. Carrying bikes on the top of a car is ''not'' a sportsmanlike way to run this race.
* CouchGag: Each episode ends with a pan out as the studio lights dim on Chris. Instead of sitting there awkwardly shuffling his papers like most contemporary news anchormen, Chris embarks on a variety of strange activities each episode, such as:
** Rolling up his sleeve to inject heroin into his arm.
** Prostrating himself in front of the newsdesk as if it was a religious altar.
** Taking off his wig to reveal a massive mane of long, blond hair.
* CouldThisHappenToYou: The "Chopper of Doom" incident of 1992, where Lindsey the sheepdog successfully pilots an out-of-control helicopter away from a field of small children, with the aid of a shepherd at the control tower.
-->'''Reporter''': If this happened to you, would you know what to do? Your chances would be considerably improved if you made sure someone on the ground had one of these. It's a pocket shepherd, it costs just £59. A small price to pay for the gift of a functioning body that works properly.
* CrapsackWorld: Set in contemporary Britain, where bombdogs are set off by the IRA, dentists are forced into illegal, backdoor operations on the streets, motorways collide with each other and the Queen and the Prime Minister have a massive fight at Buckingham Palace. Subverted in episode 3 during the fight between John Major and the Queen, when the Government interrupts all TV channels to play a special crisis propaganda video. The video depicts lawyers and businessmen skipping and playing hide and seek, police officers smoking marijuana with the general public and small children with lighters rushing to a man's aid to light his cigarette, effectively portraying Britain as [[CloudCuckooLander Cloud Cuckoo Land]].
-->'''Narrator''': This, is Britain, and everything's alright. Everything's alright. It's okay. It's ''fine''.
* CreditsGag: A few -- for example, "Bootsie Collins" [''sic''] randomly appears in the first episode's credits. In the second episode, George Clinton was apparently the "thrift funnel".
* TheDanza: Chris Morris, who plays anchorman Chris Morris. It's difficult to tell whether Chris Morris is a character or a real-life person. This trope is continued in spin-off ''Series/BrassEye''.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: [=RokTV=] presenter Harfynn Teuport's description of the controversy sparked by a gangsta rapper Fur-Q and his performances of his song "Uzi Lover",
-->'''Harfynn Teuport''': During the stage version of the song, in the live show, he kills five people on the stage, during the stage show, live, as it's performed!
* DistractedByTheSexy: Alan Partridge interviews an attractive female showjumper in her changing room and she behaves as though she isn't on camera, even casually taking off her bra while discussing her own performance. Alan ''is'' paying attention, but...not to what she's actually saying.
-->'''Alan Partridge''': When, when, when you, how do you ride a horse?
* FeigningIntelligence: Sports commentator Alan Partridge never has any clue about anything he ever reports on, but nobody else ever appears to notice, as he is good at mincing his words. On the other hand, economics correspondent Peter O'Hanraha-Hanrahan is just as inept but is incapable of concealing it, so he's constantly torn to pieces for it by Chris, live on air.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
** Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan can be seen getting knocked unconscious by a single punch in the background of a live-scene news report.
** ''The Day Today'' [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW9jcKsLSfQ Newsdancer.]]
** In Episode 5, after a clip of an episode of ''[[SoapWithinAShow The Bureau]]'' showing the cast and their Bureau de Change traveling on the back of a flatbed truck, the same vehicle can be seen passing through in the background of a following news segment on "clamping" homeless people.
** During the [[GallowsHumour Elvis-themed execution]], a US Marine can be heard singing Elvis lyrics to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner.
--> '''Marine:''' ''"Are you lonesome to-night?/love me tender hound-dog/blue suede shoes, jailhouse rock..."''
* GoingForTheBigScoop: Susanna Gekkaloys, reporting live from the war zone, says "We're under strict instructions not to leave the vehicle, but to drive on through." She then immediately stops her jeep, gets out, runs over to a nearby house, kicks the door down, shoots the first person she sees and interviews everyone else.
* GrowingtheBeard: The DVD includes the pilot episode, which was filmed in a very different style to the show proper. The lighting and set dressing resembled a generic television sketch comedy of the period, and the "Chris Morris" character was and over-enthusiastic but likeable rather than the satanic monster that he became. Ultimately the production team overhauled almost everything between the pilot and the first episode, although a few of the filmed inserts were used in the series.
* GuyOnGuyIsHot: Alan seems to be susceptible to this, judging from his bizarre attempt at boxing commentary.
-->'''Alan Partridge''': Thank goodness actually they're wearing gloves, because I've witnessed bare knuckle boxing in a barn in Somerset about three years ago, and it was a sorry sight to see men goading them on in such a barbaric fashion. And I'm rather ashamed to say I was party to that goading, two men fighting as I saw in the barn that night, naked as the day they were born and fighting the way God intended. Wrestling at points - I don't know if you've seen ''Women In Love'', that marvellous scene by the fire. It kind of resembled that.
* InherentlyFunnyWords: The UK crisis propaganda video, which showcases the quintessentially British towns of Wabznasm and Manford Thirty-Sixborough.
* IntrepidReporter: Parodied with war correspondent Susanna Gekkaloys, who's so intrepid that she not only carries a gun but shoots a random civilian with it.
* IsThisThingStillOn: Morris can occasionally be overheard making cutting remarks about the other presenters during their reports, especially Collaterlie Sisters.
--> '''Chris:''' ''Take her off the monitor, I don't want to see her face.''
* {{Jerkass}}: Chris Morris, who uses unnecessarily hardcore Paxman-type interview tactics (normally reserved for shady politicians) on good-natured jam-festival organizer Janet Breen, slaughtering her and reducing her to tears live on set.
-->'''Chris Morris''': How '''dare''' you come on this programme and say ''"Hey look at me, I'm raising fifteen hundred pounds for the homeless"!?'' You could make more money sitting outside a tube station with your hat on the ground, even if you were twice as ugly as you are which is '''very''' ugly indeed!
* KentBrockmanNews: Pretty much every example from that trope write-up.
* KillThePoor: One segment focuses on how London police are clamping down on homelessness - ''literally'' - with tyre clamps. Any homeless person found asleep or motionless after 9pm is clamped and forced to stay where they are upon waking up. They are later prosecuted and punished.
* LifeImitatesArt: As previously mentioned, The Day Today had five months to create six episodes, allowing their computer graphics designers (the graphics design department of ITN, one of Britain's main TV news and content providers, who relished the opportunity to parody their usual work) to spend much longer than they could on daily news to create The Day Today's abundance of computer generated charts and diagrams. The design philosophy was to imagine what graphics the most megalomaniac news editor would request if not under the time constraints of daily news production. Years later, as computer power increased and cost decreased, these time constraints were much less of a barrier, meaning that real daily news programmes started looking rather a lot like The Day Today. What this says about the prevalence of real megalomaniac news editors is open to interpretation.
* {{Metaphorgotten}}: The dialogue is written almost entirely in this.
-->'''Donald Bethl'hem''': Tension here is very high, Chris - the stretched twig of peace is at melting point. People here are literally bursting with war. This is very much a country that's going to blow up in its face.
* MoodWhiplash: "IT'S WAR! ... but first the weather..."
* MundaneAfterlife: According to the report on near-death experiences, Heaven is an open plan office, where God has a "You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps" sign.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: the title credits, theme tune and inter-story "stings" are massively overblown for comedy effect. The theme tune got more and more overblown as the series progressed.
* NewAgeRetroHippie: Rosie May, [[GirlsWithMoustaches bearded]] host of the "Enviromation" segment, dresses like a cult member and usually claims to have a special link to nature in her sign-off (e.g. "my milk is green").
* NewsParody: Faux News variation.
* NoodleImplements: A small turtle and a plastic tube are alleged to "have a range of fifty feet and can bring down a helicopter".
* OverlyLongGag: "[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob1rYlCpOnM In 1982,]] ''someone'' died."
* POVCam: Parodied. The premise of a documentary special called [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgJn3155WBU#t=17m12s "Cam Fam"]] involves a family which agreed to have cameras "implanted into their faces to give us a unique view of British family life."
* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: Chris Morris as grotesque gangster rapper (and Ice T parody) [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar Fur-Q]] and his chart-smashing single "Uzi Lover".
-->'''Fur-Q:''' Uzi like a metal dick in my hand / Magazine like a big testicle gland / Bitch wanna try it / I said 'Keep her quiet!' / Shove it up her motherfuckin' ass and fry it.
* PungeonMaster: Barbara Wintergreen's reports from America are absolutely rammed with them, in typical American newscaster style.
-->'''Barbara Wintergreen''': At this fallopian factory, people come for a credit card conception. The price includes labour and delivery, and there's a hefty surcharge, on the discharge.
-->'''Barbara Wintergreen''': Meanwhile, Baxter's fried-to-be is making the last minute preparations for her impending ending.
* TheQuietOne: David Schneider's facial expressions can be so funny that he doesn't need to say much to go with them, particularly evident in the shows SoapWithinAShow "The Bureau". This was probably the reason why he plays a mime in an episode of KnowingMeKnowingYou.
* RunningGag: Lots of repeated sketches:
** Weatherman Sylvester Stuart and his vague, confusing weather reports.
** Travel correspondent Valerie Sinatra's reports always make mention of an on-going traffic jam on the M11.
** Sports correspondent Alan Partridge's totally abject lack of knowledge of even basic sports.
--->'''Alan Partridge''': This is Sportsdesk, I'm Alan Partridge. And it's a special desk of sport now, as we look back, on some of the sporting highlights, of the last sporting season. So lie down, relax, and let the sports commence!
** American correspondent Barbara Wintergreen's constant reports on serial killer Chapman Baxter, who is executed at least four times throughout the series and whose kill count somehow increases between each execution.
* SinisterMinister: Reverend Bobby Sky, a Catholic priest and reformed bully from Coventry, who speaks out on bullying within the Catholic Church.
-->'''Bobby Sky''': A young deacon was being inordinated, then during the inordination ceremony, we would hum during his sermon, so we would be going "Mmmmmmmmmmmm" and he would be trying to speak, not knowing who was humming.
-->'''Beverly Smax''': How many of you were humming?
-->'''Bobby Sky''': About two hundred of us.
* SoapWithinAShow: ''The Bureau'', a cheesy, overly-dramatic soap opera set in a bureau-de-change, focused around the bureau's cashiers and their evil boss, the Essex wide-boy Jack Hennety. Various clips of the drama are reported on in ''The Day Today'', as the soap apparently goes from being the most popular programme in Europe, to plummeting out of the ratings and being forced to tour [[BritainIsOnlyLondon Outer England]] on the back of a truck. It is generally accepted that it's a spoof of Eldorado, an extremely lame, failed BBC soap opera set on the Costa del Sol. It manages to spoof all of the following soap opera clichés (such as the ridiculous emphasis on relationships) despite being set in a single, very small room and only having six minutes of airtime over the entire series:
** BackFromTheDead: Angie somehow comes back to The Bureau after committing suicide in episode 2.
** [[CrazyJealousGuy Crazy Jealous Girl]]: Maria, who assaults Angie after sussing out that she's sleeping with Maria's boyfriend Alex.
** DeusAngstMachina: Guy, who never tires of reminding everybody that he's gay. This trope takes off in episode 3, when Guy is beaten to a pulp in the street for being gay, and then fired from The Bureau afterwards, also for being gay.
---->'''Guy:''' Why did they do this to me? Just because I'm gay! I'm gay! I'm gay...
---->'''Hennety:''' WHAT!?
---->'''Maria:''' It's Guy, Mr. Hennety, he's been attacked!
---->'''Hennety:''' Yeah I know, what did you say?
---->'''Guy:''' ...I said I'm gay.
---->'''Hennety:''' ...You're fired!
** DrugsAreBad: Angie takes an overdose of some drug and dies in episode 2, in her bureau booth no less, blaming Hennety in her suicide note. Also a variation of MurderTheHypotenuse.
---->'''Hennety''': I never thought I'd say this, but...pull down the blinds! ''I'm closing the bureau!'' For an hour.
** DysfunctionJunction: All the characters are screwed up in some way or another.
** {{Jerkass}}: Hennety, who fires Maria in episode 1 for fighting with Angie, and then fires Guy in episode 3 simply for being gay.
** LondonGangster: Big Boss Jack Hennety, with his evil, heartless businessman demeanour and ridiculously exaggerated southern Essex accent. Also a LargeHam.
---->'''Hennety:''' This is supposed to be a high-class bureau-de-change, not some two-bit Punch and Judy show on the seafront at Margate!
---->'''Guy:''' It's alright Mr. Hennety, it's okay now, it was just a little misunderstand-
---->'''Hennety:''' Shaaaat it!
** LongRunner: Chris Morris reports that the show has magically reached its 2000th episode, which equates to seven and a half years of airtime.
** LoveTriangle: Alex cheats on Maria with Angie at first, then the show hints Hennety and Maria have something going on, then finally, Angie cheats on Alex with Hennety, effectively creating a Love Square. Guy also confesses his [[LoveConfession True Love]] for Maria in the same final episode, despite being gay.
** ManipulativeBastard: Hennety somehow manages to shag Angie, after she blames him for her suicide attempt in episode 2.
** PrimeTimeSoap: Replaced the BBC's 9 o'clock news.
** RecurringRiff: Awesomely-lame theme tune!
** RecycledScript: Episode 4 is a rehash of Episode 1, just different characters cheating on each other. Hennety even has almost identical lines:
---->'''Hennety:''' I'm trying to run a high-class bureau-de-change, not some two-bit nipple peep show in Rio de Janeiro!
** SayMyName: Hennety's awkward, unexplained cries to Maria after she storms out in the wake of Guy's sacking.
---->'''Hennety:''' Maria! Mariaaa-aa-aa-aa!
* SoundEffectBleep: In Episode 4, while Peter Goodwright rants about bombdogs, one goes off each time he swears.
* SoundToScreenAdaptation: First began as ''On the Hour'' on BBC Radio Four.
* SpinOff: The show spawned two direct spin-offs, ''Series/BrassEye'' and ''KnowingMeKnowingYouWithAlanPartridge'', starring Chris Morris and Alan Partridge respectively. Both shows feature other minor news reporters reappearing from ''The Day Today'' (such as Ted Maul who shows up in ''Brass Eye''). ''KMKYWAP'' features the entire cast of ''TDT'' minus Morris, but ''Brass Eye'' is by far the more closely related spin-off and SpiritualSuccessor.
** ''KMKYWAP'' retains in-universe continuity, with Alan Partridge ''somehow'' ascending from sports correspondent to prime-time chatshow host.
** ''KMKYWAP'' remained on the BBC, while Morris took ''Brass Eye'' over to Channel 4 to [[BitingTheHandHumor bite their hands instead]]. Morris eventually turned up in KMKYWAP's own spin-off, ''ImAlanPartridge'', as posh twat Peter Baxendale-Thomas.
* SpontaneousHumanCombustion: A headline story at the beginning of Episode 4 is introduced, "'I'm so sorry', yells exploding cleaner."
* StylisticSuck: The live-action editorial cartoons by "Brandt", which are all [[SoUnfunnyItsFunny unbelievably bad]].
* SurveillanceStationSlacker: Keith Mandemant, the pool supervisor, who seems to spend most shifts solving word puzzles instead of watching the monitors.
* TalkingHeads: Weatherman Sylvester Stuart, who we never ever see below the neck for a variety of reasons. In one episode, he hints that he's actually dead.
* TimeDilation: In the "War" episode, reporter Susanna Gekkaloys runs out of the studio to go and report "from the interior of the fight" and a few minutes later she's already filed her first report about an entire day of events on the battlefield. Also, even though war is declared live on an evening news programme, Donald Bethl'hem reports that one side claimed victory on the morning of the same day.
* {{Understatement}}:
-->'''Chris Morris''': This is huge history happening, isn't it?
-->'''Spartacus Mills''': Oh it's bigger than that Chris, it's large!
* TheUnintelligible: Business correspondent Collaterlie Sisters, whose reports on the state of the economy make as much sense as the business reports on any given news channel.
-->'''Collaterlie Sisters''': On now to the money markets, and the international finance arse. And there you can see that the U.S. and Japanese cheeks started off with a gap of 2.4, but increased trading forced the two together to form a unified arse at around lunchtime, which held for the rest of the day. In summary then-- [calmly] Oh NO. ... Chris?
* VoxPops: Morris goes around questioning hapless members of the public on topics such as, "What should the letter of the law be?" (The person chose the letter "J".)
* WeatherReport: Presented by Sylvester Stuart, usually at inappropriate moments in an episode. Stuart always appears as a floating head and describes his forecasts completely in confusingly drawn-out metaphors and similes:
-->'''Sylvester Stuart:''' Starting in the south-east...Devon and Cornwall should have some fairly heavy and prolonged showers, a bit like jagged metal piercing old flesh. The Midlands now...it'll be warm at first but turning cocky later, at around twelve, and there should be some cloud around in the shape of a whore. In Scotland now...thunderstorms in the evening but the sun should come through later, so it'll be a bit like being woken up in the night by strange men shining powerful torches in your eyes. In summary then? Dispassionate. And that's all the weather.
* WittyBanter
* ZanyScheme:
** Alan Partridge's soccermeter, an intensely confusing device causing Partridge to make a fool of himself trying to demonstrate how it works.
** Sylvester Stuart's intensely confusing weather reports, the tour-de-force being episode six, where Sylvester's head is the ball inside a pinball machine with a weather map of the United Kingdom inside it.
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