''2004: The Stupid Version'' is a satirical documentary written by

Armando Iannucci Armando Giovanni Iannucci (; born 28 November 1963) is a Scottish satirist, writer, director, producer and performer. Born in Glasgow to Italian parents, Iannucci studied at the University of Glasgow followed by the University of Oxford. St ...

, broadcast on

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes for a 16 to 34-year-old target aud ...

New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve refers to the evening, or commonly the entire day, of the last day of the year, 31 December, also known as Old Year's Day. In many countries, New Year's Eve is celebrated with dancing, eating, drinkin ...

2004. The one-off programme is a parody of review programmes, which are typically broadcast at New Year. It features edited footage from news and television series, as well as

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

s on the politics and

fad A fad, trend, or craze is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation, or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short time period. Fads are objects or behaviors tha ...

s of a year in which "only

Andrew Marr Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and presenter. Beginning his career as a political commentator at ''The Scotsman,'' he subsequently edited ''The Independent'' newspaper from 1996 to ...

kept his dignity". The documentary was shown again on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

on 29 January 2005, but has not been repeated since or released on DVD, although clips are available on the internet. Iannucci's other series ''

Time Trumpet ''Time Trumpet'' is a six-episode satirical television comedy series which aired on BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the B ...

'' (2006) follows a similar format to ''The Stupid Version'', reviewing events satirically from a future perspective.

Format

Iannucci himself narrated the content, but only appears on screen once to assess the aftermath of ''The Room Show'', a spoof of the

reality television Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

shows prevalent at the time, in which

Ian McCaskill Ian McCaskill (born John Robertson McCaskill; 28 July 1938 – 10 December 2016) was a Scottish meteorologist and television and radio presenter, who frequently presented weather forecasts on the BBC. Early life McCaskill attended Queen's Par ...

Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards Michael David Edwards (born 5 December 1963), better known as Eddie the Eagle, is an English ski jumper and Olympian who in 1988 became the first competitor to Great Britain at the Olympics, represent Great Britain in ski jumping at the Winter ...

and a number of other minor celebrities were locked in an (unfilmed) container for ten hours. In particular, the show focuses on stories that made the headlines from 2004, for example the

US Presidential Election The election of the president and vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not directl ...

, featuring edited footage showing

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

singing “

New York, New York New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

” during a presidential head to head, and an montage of election speeches emphasising the buzz words used by Bush's campaign. In addition, the programme satirised politics in the United Kingdom, for example, edits of

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

and

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...

apparently contradicting one another, the favourite swear words of politicians in the Conservative Party, and the controversial documentary by ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek language, Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any Obtuse angle, wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography (panoramic photography), film, seismic image ...

'', "Where the Tits were

Saddam Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until his overthrow in 2003 during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He previously served as the vi ...

's WMD?” The programme also features a series of banal interviews interspersed with the clips, with the interviewees either misunderstanding or misinterpreting their content; "The Olympics – what was all ''that'' about?” In reality, these were actors

Richard Ayoade Richard Ayoade ( ; born 23 May 1977) is a British comedian, actor, writer, director and presenter. He played the role of socially awkward IT technician Maurice Moss in Channel 4 sitcom ''The IT Crowd'' (2006–2013), for which he won the 2014 Br ...

Matthew Holness Matthew James Holness (born 1975) is an English comedian, director, author, plus actor. He is known for creating and portraying the fictional horror author Garth Marenghi. Early life and education Born in Whitstable, Kent, Holness became a fa ...

, Adam Buxton and

Stewart Lee Stewart Graham Lee (born 5 April 1968) is an English comedian. His stand-up routine is characterised by repetition, internal reference, and deadpan delivery. Lee began his career in 1989 and formed the comedy duo Lee and Herring with Richard ...

. Television programmes by the BBC which were spoofed included ''Johnny & Denise: Passport to Paradise'', ''

Hard Spell ''Hard Spell'' is a United Kingdom televised spelling bee programme for children between the ages of eleven and fourteen, presented by Eamonn Holmes, with Nina Hossain reading the words. It was first broadcast on BBC One in late 2004. Heats were h ...

'', ''

The Weakest Link ''Weakest Link'' (also known as ''The Weakest Link'') is a television game show which The Weakest Link (British game show), first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 14 August 2000 and originally ended on 31 March 2012 when its host ...

'' and

Alan Titchmarsh Alan Fred Titchmarsh (born 2 May 1949) is an English gardener, broadcaster and writer. After working as a professional gardener and a horticultural journalist, he became a radio and television presenter and a novelist. Early career Alan Fred T ...

's ''British Isles: A Natural History''. Other scenes included a world where every object was in the style of an

iPod The iPod is a series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices that were designed and marketed by Apple Inc. from 2001 to 2022. The iPod Classic#1st generation, first version was released on November 10, 2001, about mon ...

, a dubbed News 24 interview with the editor of

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

and a parody of the song by

The Streets The Streets is an English musical project led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Skinner (musician), Mike Skinner. The project was founded in the early 90s, while Skinner was still a teenager; however, no music would formally eventuat ...

, “ Dry Your Eyes” (featuring Buxton as the protagonist).

References

External links

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{{Armando Iannucci BBC television comedy 2000s British satirical television series British English-language television shows