Headscratchers / I'm Alan Partridge

• I may regret asking this, but...what was in Alan's drawer?
  • Never explicitly said or proved, but given Alan's curiosity over Bankok Ladyboys mentioned in this, and other episodes, we can assume that it is pornography of this kind, or at least something very similar.
    • Word of God (writer Armando Iannucci) says it's a magazine called Fat Dutch Women on the Toilet.
  • "It's a big plastic cock. That Alan shoves up his bum. It's that simple!" - Steve Coogan, commentary track.
    • We may have to accept Steve Coogan's answer because he plays the character and is one of the writers...
• Why didn't Tony Hayers greenlight Monkey Tennis on the spot? I'd watch it.
  • Because it was being proposed by his arch-enemy? And because Alan gave no other information other than the name. I'd like to think that Tony went and made the series anyway just to screw with Partridge.
    • Well if they don't do it, Sky will.
    • Also, it's possible that the monkeys would be treated abusively to get them to play tennis, and animal rights activists would never allow that.
• It seems very unfair that Alan Partridge will be forever stigmatised as the man who shot a guest on air (albeit accidentally), whereas his former co-host on The Day Today started an actual war between Hong Kong and Australia just to provide an interesting story.
  • Though, unlike Alan, Christopher Morris is not a hapless, idiotic, and talentless dickhead.
  • That's almost the point — whilst Alan is every bit as cruel and bullying as Chris, and should therefore be perfect as a TV host, he completely lacks that all-conquering self-possession. Chris started that war on purpose, Alan would have started it by accident.
  • It's also pretty unclear how much of the stuff that happened on The Day Today also happened in the Alan Partridge universe. Certainly he presented the sports coverage for a news program, but something like the sixteen additional Japans seems a bit extreme for the more grounded world he found himself in afterwards.
    • The "autobiography" published a few years back treats The Day Today with broad strokes; Alan discusses working for the show as being one of his first prominent TV gigs, names a few fellow presenters, and describes a few low-key exploits, but some of the more extreme elements of The Day Today are excised.
• Rule of Funny aside, why doesn't Lynn just tell Alan to stuff it, and quit? Does she secretly enjoy being a combination of Butt-Monkey and Extreme Doormat? Alan certainly seems to need her a lot more than she needs him.
  • Combination of natural submissiveness, kindness and an awareness he would be helpless without her. She presents as a woman from an old-fashioned background who basically expects to be treated the way she is (with Alan being of a similar age and background, much as he likes to think otherwise).

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