Pop Vultures

It is my contention that nobody does the satirical panel quiz show quite like the BBC. And to support my argument, I would like to draw your attention to Have I Got News For You and QI.

Have I Got News For You has been running for so long that I remember a time when I wasn’t allowed to watch it because it aired after 9pm. Specifically, it’s been going for 17 years now, and in all that time it hasn’t changed much. The two team captains, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, have been there the whole time. Angus Deayton hosted from 1990 to 2002, until he accidentally tripped over and slept with a prostitute while snorting cocaine and made the unforgivable error of letting the tabloid press find out about it. Since then, the show has used guest hosts, with varying degrees of success. But despite the changes, it’s still a laugh-out-loud, deliciously sneery review of the week in news and politics, constantly flirting with scandal and occasionally going too far into libel. There is no other show that can make me find all the dire things that are going on in the world quite so hilarious.

QI wins right from the start by having Stephen Fry present it, because I love Stephen Fry from the bottom of my heart and would happily watch half an hour of him reading the phone book. The fact that he prefers to spend his half an hour presenting a brilliantly funny and engaging panel quiz is just icing, really. As the programme’s name is short for ‘Quite Interesting’, teams are awarded points based on how interesting Fry finds their answers to his questions. It is thanks entirely to QI that I now know that the longest animal in the world is a bootlace worm, and that the language spoken by Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men is Oddle Poddle. And that’s the sort of knowledge a young woman shouldn’t try to make her way in this world without, I think you’ll agree.

So, there you have it. You can keep your Colbert Reports and your Daily Shows. For my satire all I need is Paul Merton and Ian Hislop competing with each other to see who can say the rudest thing about an MP and still get broadcast, and Stephen Fry being his deliciously intelligent and didactic self. If you somehow haven’t given these shows a look yet, I urge you to do so as soon as possible. I defy you not to love them.

Sadly, neither show can be viewed on U.S. television, as the networks seem to think that Americans will not be fascinated by the lives and loves of Lib Dem politicians. However, you can watch clips of HIGNFY on the show’s website or check out the first episode of QI below, featuring Fry’s onetime partner, Hugh Laurie, debating the size of the dwarf anteater.