TV Offal
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TV Offal was a short lived British television comedy sketch/archive series that ran on Channel 4, from October 1997, to June 1998, it was written and narrated by comedian Victor Lewis-Smith, who shared writing duties with Paul Sparks. The opening to each episode involved a guest appearance from Professor Stephen Hawking. It ran for only seven episodes (including the pilot), and is probably best known for first airing the uncensored Rainbow sketch on national television, as well as the "Gay Daleks" sketches.
The series covered generally obscure, rare, and offensive excerpts of television footage from numerous media archives, usually accompanied by Lewis-Smith's biting commentary and cynical approach to what was being shown. Lewis-Smith used a variety of categories on the show to accompany a particular selection of programme footage. These categories were the most regular on the show.
Honest Obituary: A humorous look at the death of either a current or generally obscure celebrity personality's "demise" followed by a satirical account of his/her contributions to the viewing public (which usually derails them) before revealing the exaggerated cause of death. The first few lines of the obituary are a list of very harsh criticisms, usually followed by "his/her critics, however, were less kind". The deaths are usually announced using a piece of dubbed dialog of the celebrities name over an ITV News segment taken from the day Princess Diana died, so the newsreader in the footage always sounds and looks bitter and traumatized.
Kamikaze Karaoke: Usually involves Lewis-Smith imitating various musicians to interpret how they sound "to him", usually mocking them in the process
Assassination Of The Week: This segment usually had two parts, with one part leading to the commercial breaks, challenging the viewer to depend on their memory to guess the outcome of a genuine assassination attempt aired on the show, and the second part resolving the outcome and whenever or not the victim survived or was killed. Victor's answer was not always truthful.
Bad TV Logos Of The Week: A piece mocking the most under budget and mismanaged of obscure television studios, produced by students or otherwise.
Fantasy Programme Of The Week: A "What If..." segment pondering aloud what certain celebrities would be doing if they chose a different action to affect the outcome of their productions, ranging from Roy Walker creating dirty versions of Catchphrase (a commentary on the infamous "Snake Charmer" outtake) to Richard Baker being drunk on the last night of the proms (which of course...he wasn't)
The Pilots That Crashed: Rare and unaired pilots produced for possible series. Included such gems as "The Development of the Test Card" and "It'll All End In Tiaras", which seemingly took great stride in mocking the British monarchy and wanting to see the Queen Mother dead.
The Gay Daleks: A series of crass interactions between two gay Daleks, traveling in a space/time machine called "The Turdis" (a play on the TARDIS), during the sketches, the pair treat their relationship with an argumentative, tense approach which often is ridden with their addressing relationship problems, crude bickering, and finally becoming so turned on by their arguing, that they begin to orgasm, leading to a variation of the classic Dalek catchphrase "Exterminate", now "Exsperminate".
The show would close with Lewis-Smith prank calling a variety of people with initial good graces, before becoming more and more rude as the conversation continued.
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