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YMMV / Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge

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  • Adaptation Displacement: Few remember the radio series, which is arguably even funnier than the TV show. You might find it on YouTube.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: '300K or we'll take it to Sky'. 16 years later, Alan has a series with the satellite broadcaster.
  • Strawman Has a Point: Of a sort. Usually, Alan's guests are either generally nice people, or better informed/more intelligent than him, serving to highlight his ignorance and rudeness. However, in the fourth episode, a French troupe of clowns and an English fashion designer are among Alan's guests. While Alan certainly is still as rude and bigoted as ever (and becomes downright racist by the end), he's also not entirely wrong. The clown performance is simply miming over the top sex acts and violence, and the fashion designers outfits are very silly and impractical. The audience may find themselves sympathising with Alan's viewpoint, even if he still expresses it in an offensive way.
  • Values Dissonance: The interview with trans woman Danielle Forrest in episode 2. On the one hand, Alan is clearly shown to be at fault for being bigoted and small-minded; everyone else on set knows who Danielle is and is perfectly comfortable with her. On the other hand, it hits a lot of marks - the Unsettling Gender-Reveal, Alan's attraction to Danielle being played for laughs, his rather spiteful use of her original name - which might now seem in bad taste.
  • The Woobie: Alan lapses into this at times, especially when things go wrong that simply aren't his fault. Then he opens his mouth...
    • Let's face it, almost any guest that isn't as big a swine as Alan doesn't deserve what they go through on the show. It's especially hard not to feel for Joe Beazley as he comprehensively screws up his big break.
    • The scene in the Christmas Episode where Alan desperately begs Tony Hayers not to cancel his show and brings up the fact that his wife left him on Christmas Day does help the viewer feel momentarily sorry for him, since it's one of the clearest insights into how desperately unhappy and lonely he is deep down. Of course, the fact that he's also going around punching people with a bird stuck on his fist might temper some of this sympathy.

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