Knowing Me, Knowing You... with Alan Partridge
Fake chatshow starring Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge (formerly the hopeless sports commentator on The Day Today), the pathologically smug, hopelessly neurotic and completely incompetent titular chatshow host. The format was the standard light-entertainment variety show. Alan would emerge to a bellow of "Ah-HAAAA!" (reflecting the ABBA song "Knowing Me Knowing You" that was the show's theme) and would introduce and interview guests, music acts and variety performances.
However, the show was a savage and razor sharp mockery of the clichés, shortcomings and failings of the poorer chat-shows on television, perfectly lampooning the egocentric and smarmy hosts, bored and inappropriate guests, shallow and inane questions, and the overload of kitsch and cheesy set-pieces that abounded. And in the centre was Alan, utterly egocentric, convinced that he was the master of ceremonies but hopelessly out of his depth, completely lacking in charm, talent or sense of professionalism, and always completely losing what little control of his guests and employees he had managed to scrape together by the end of the episode ("... and on that bombshell...").
Guests would openly insult him, acts that he claimed were excellent (but had most likely never even seen) bombed hopelessly, and strange variety performances were the order of the day. One such performance was the live re-creation of the 1936 British Women's Olympic Hurdle team victory by the elderly surviving members of that team in an 'Olympic Stadium' that was little bigger than a child's sandpit.
Intensely popular in the real world, in Alan Partridge's fictional world the show naturally haemorrhaged viewers and was eventually cancelled when Alan shot a guest dead live on air. Given a chance to redeem himself in a Christmas Special (Knowing Me, Knowing Yule With Alan Partridge), he mucked that up something special as well when he punched the Chief Commissioning Editor of BBC Television. With a turkey. Live on television. Needless to say, his career at The BBC was finished, and when audiences next saw him in I'm Alan Partridge, it was as the hopeless failure he was always destined to be.
Based on a radio show of the same name, the TV series reusing many of the jokes and characters.
- Acting for Two: Most of Alan's guests were played by the same troupe of people (Rebecca Front, Patrick Marber, Doon Mackickan, David Schneider). The same troupe along with Steve Coogan all performed similar roles in the show's precursor, The Day Today.
- Borscht Belt: Alan interviewed Borscht Belt style comedian in the Las Vegas episode of the radio show. This being Alan, he failed to get most of the comedian's humour and then told an offensive Jewish joke.
- British Brevity: possibly only one season was ever planned, but at any rate they knew that the subsequent Christmas special would be the last episode, and made this a central part of the comedy.
- Bullying a Dragon: Either to or by Alan, it usually doesn't end pretty either way.
- Christmas Special: Knowing Me, Knowing Yule.
- Crapsack World: The show itself. While Alan is obviously awful, many of the guests are either rather horrible and egocentric people themselves and who enjoy winding Alan up for the laughs, or nice people who Alan somehow manages to offend and provoke an argument with until they end up becoming just as nasty with him as he is with them. Forbes McAllister is probably the most ghastly:
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Alan Partridge: "Are you entirely motivated by hatred?" |
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- Digging Yourself Deeper
- Dropped a Bridget On Him
- Enemy Mine: Alan and his house band, led by Glenn Ponder. At the end of one episode, Alan fires Glenn live on the air for not inviting him to a staff party which he had invited everyone else (included that week's guests) to. The next week, Alan reveals that Glenn filed a court injunction preventing his dismissal... and then goes on to do his weekly "light banter with the band" segment with a man who does not want to play along.
- Failure Is the Only Option:
- Hypno Fool
- Karma Houdini: A lot of the people on the show are suggested to get away with their outrageous behavior on air (though granted we never hear about them or their careers again). While Alan is shown to become a failure later on, it's still kinda off scale to some of the stuff he commits on his show.
- Misaimed Fandom: In-universe; although most of the lyrics aren't played, Alan's choice of "Knowing Me, Knowing You" by ABBA is questionable, since the lyrics depict a relationship that's falling apart and "this time we're through!" Of course, given Alan's interactions with most of his guests, on another level this is perfectly appropriate.
- Product Placement: This was mocked by Alan's constant, feeble attempts at placing 'subtle' placements for sub-standard products throughout his show. As his show (both real-life and fictional) was broadcast on the BBC, which being a public broadcaster has strict guidelines about that kind of thing, this often got him into a lot of trouble in the show. It was a key plot point in the Christmas Special, as he vainly attempted to plug Rover cars under the watchful eye of his boss.
- Reckless Gun Usage: Alan Partridge once accidentally shot an obnoxious food critic in the heart with an antique dueling musket on live television. It is this (coupled with his later punching of a BBC programming executive in the face with a turkey) that ended his TV career.
- Running Gag: Pay attention to the size of Alan's signature on the "Knowing Me, Knowing You" sign as each episode passes.
- By the final episode, the main theme song is rewritten to squeeze in "With Alan Partridge" after every "Knowing Me, Knowing You".
- Alan mimes attacking the audience with a different weapon each week, with the level of mimed violence increasing with each episode. And the name of Glenn Ponder's house band always changes.
- Screwed by the Network: In the show's reality, a major contributing factor to the failure of Knowing Me, Knowing You was due to it being scheduled against the ten o'clock news.
- Sort of splits since his show is suggested to have failed for perfectly normal and logical reasons, rather than repeated insulting and abusing (and at one point even killing) his guests and numerous other foul ups that should have earned Alan a long term prison sentence.
- Smarmy Host: Alan.
- Sound to Screen Adaptation: The show originated on BBC radio before its television incarnation.
- Special Guest: Subverted; in the first appearance, Alan promised an appearance by Roger Moore - who, of course, didn't show up. This had repercussions, as Alan angrily insulted him on air the next week's show (calling him a "towel thief")... and the week after that, following a (fictional) injunction by Moore's lawyers, was forced to apologise on air. The other guests who appeared were fictional.
- Played straight in the Christmas special, in which Mick Hucknall really did appear.
- Stealth Parody: The radio show, which did not have a laugh track.
- Talk Show: A spoof. And how.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Alan.