Harry Hill's TV Burp

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Harry Hill's TV Burp

Genre	Comedy Entertainment
Starring	Harry Hill
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of series	6
No. of episodes	48
Production
Producer(s)	Nick Symons (2002-2006) Spencer Millman (2007-present)
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ITV1
Original run	December 22, 2001 (pilot), November 14, 2002 – Present
Links

Harry Hill's TV Burp is a British television comedy programme, produced by Avalon Television for ITV1, and is hosted by the comedian Harry Hill. The show presents a satirical look at the previous week's television, including extracts from TV shows with added sketches, observational voice-overs, and guest appearances.

This type of format was pioneered by the US E! network's Talk Soup and subsequently The Soup but on a smaller scale.

It is based on clips of the previous week of programming, showing lines of dialogue that can be twisted out of context, unusual set layouts and actions performed on the shows. The show premiered with a pilot on December 22, 2001, which is available to watch on Avalon's website. The pilot contained many of the common elements that remain on the show to the present day, now in its' sixth series, such as "TV Highlight of the Week" and the pre-break "fight".

Following the success of the pilot, a full series was commissioned, starting on November 14, 2002. Five subsequent series have followed, one in 2003, two in 2004, one in 2006, and one in 2007 which was a longer run than usual, consisting of thirteen episodes instead of six to eight. Hill also hosted a segment of the show near the start of the 2005 edition of Comic Relief, broadcast on March 11 that year. A Christmas special was aired on December 30, at 7:30pm, the most prominent slot the show has had to date. The latest series began on on January 20, 2007 in its usual Saturday early-evening slot.

Series' 2 and 3 were originally shown in a late-night slot on Thursdays and Fridays respectively. This received criticism from many, as it was very family-friendly humour, and called for it to be broadcast earlier. Series 3 saw a repeat showing in a Sunday tea-time slot. Series' 4 and 5 saw Burp broadcast on a Saturday tea-time slot - although now, from being criticised for being shown too late, some feel that its new slot was too early, and deserved a prime-time evening slot. Series 6 was given a boost following Hill's successful narration of You've Been Framed.

The show is very unlikely to ever be released on DVD because the use of multiple TV clips, from many different sources, would cause enormous and expensive copyright clearance problems. Also, as it records current televisual events, it dates very quickly.

Although Hill does most of the writing himself, Brenda Gilhooly, Paul Hawksbee, Dan Maier (Goal!) and David Quantick also help write the weekly show.

[edit] Common elements

Edited shots in which Harry 'appears' in a show (sometimes as himself, sometimes as a character from the said show) to do something, usually an action which the original character did in the show itself or attacking a character that has annoyed him. Sometimes, edited shots of the real characters from the said TV programme are put in or Harry Hill narrates a clip to sound like the actors are saying it, e.g. the mice from Bagpuss say "You should look at her face!" and the doll replies "Am I bovvered? Does my face look bovvered?"
"TV Highlight of the Week" which is a segment of a show showing a very mundane event such as throwing out some sour milk, exhaling, spraying disinfectant or serving tea. If a TV Highlight of the Week is not made, there is usually a variation, such as "Most Inadvertently Funny Title Sequence of the Week," "TV High Voice of the Week," "Least Amount of Sick Produced When Being Sick of the Week," or "Voice Over Highlight of the Week" with the same jingle that TV Highlight of the Week has.
Pre-advertisement 'fights' that attempt to determine which of two people or things related to the week's television are "best", such as "Babies or Cats" (from The Apprentice), "White Rat or Brown Rat" (from a nature programme) and "Mars or a Carcass" (from Life on Mars and The Bill) or even Jesus and Hitler.
At the end of every show, one of the "stars" comes back to sing a song. For example, in the pilot episode, Bruce Jones sings Rhinestone Cowboy after Harry gave him a pet horse.
Other running gags which usually are specific to each series. Such as, "Celebrity Big Brother Round-Up" or pretending to be the banker on the other end of the phone on Deal or No Deal.

[edit] Trivia

Hill, a fan of the British singer Morrissey, has also used songs of Morrissey in the show on at least two occasions. TV Burp used to have a segment called "Ouija Board, Ouija Board", which was introduced by the Morrissey song of the same name. Also, in the 2006 series, Hill jokingly changed the theme tune of the popular soap opera Eastenders to "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths, Morrissey's former band who is also a good friend of Hill.
Hill used members if the audience to sit behind his desk for his latest series to put on his website. The first to do so was one Ali Brice.