People are voting emotionally.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

'Not The Nine O'Clock News' set the ball rolling for alternative comedians when it first arrived in 1979. As was the case with 'The Young Ones' after it, the impact 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' had on viewers was unbelievable. Nothing like it had been seen before on British television, not at least since the arrival of 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' a decade earlier.It was a satirical show, and by that I mean much of the humour concerned topical issues of the day. The first episode kicked off with John Cleese as Basil Fawlty from 'Fawlty Towers' introducing the show as a 'tatty revue'. In the cast for the first series were Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson ( wife of Scots comedian Billy Connolly ), Mel Smith and Chris Langham. The first series was patchy at best though it went down well enough to be awarded a second series a year later, with Griff Rhys Jones replacing Chris Langham.One of my favourite sketches featured a hilarious spoof of 'That's Life' entitled 'That's Lies!' which featured Stephenson as Esther Rantzen ( ''this has got nothing to do with us!'' ). Another item saw Mel Smith on a woman's doorstep claiming to be collecting for charity on behalf of deaf karate experts. ''We don't give to charity!'' says the woman before closing the door on him, to which he kicks the door down and then enquires: ''Pardon!''. The best of all featured Mel Smith as a professor being interviewed on behalf of his experiences on living with a gorilla called Gerald ( which was Rowan Atkinson in costume ).PROFESSOR: When I caught Gerald in the jungle in 1968, he was completely wild! GERALD: Wild? I was absolutely bloody livid! 'Not The Nine O'Clock News' was not in my view a classic show but it certainly had its fine moments and its influence on later shows such as 'Naked Video' and 'Spitting Image' cannot be ignored. Pamela Stephenson, apart from appearances on 'Saturday Live', did not do another comedy show though Rowan Atkinson moved into sitcom with 'Blackadder' while Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones stuck together for the long running 'Alas Smith & Jones'.

When I went to school in Denmark the greatest joy was to recite the surreal dialog from the team behind Not the Nine o'clock News with my mates. Granted, some of the more malicious jokes must have appealed more to the younger audience than grown-ups with true knowledge of famine and war - but on the whole - it was the greatest introduction to British society and language usage next to Monty Python. Some of the gags were so classical - I've never forgotten them: The court sketch with the judge and the lawyers arguing over how to prenounce "alibi" or the smash-hit-music-video "Good video - shame about the song - oh oh" with the title repeated again and again while all effort was put into making a state of the art video worthy of MTV. I do hope that the DVD will be released in Denmark too - it's classic fun from the eighties! :0D

What a pity that the comment that is visible on the front page puts down one of the best sketch shows of the 1980s and completely misses the point. It reminds me of the time when someone wrote to 'Points of View' to complain about the racism in 'Goodness Gracious Me' after the 'Indian teenagers visit Britain' and 'Going for an English' sketches. As the writer of the comment was Scottish I wonder if he finds 'Chewin' the Fat' offensive to people with throat cancer! Not the Nine O' Clock News was equally capable of hilarious comedy and biting satire. I remember Rowan Atkinson's monologue as an alien with a faulty translator being the first thing that ever made me laugh uncontrollably, long after the sketch had ended; The series' songs were clever parodies of such pop stars of the time as Sheena Easton, Blondie, Kate Bush and Motorhead; and the 'Gerald the Gorilla' sketch was superb. There was also excellent satire as well, directed at police racism (the 'Constable Savage' sketch), religious outrage over 'Monty Python's Life of Brian' (the 'Life of Christ' sketch) and patronising Hollywood attitudes to issues in other countries (the 'Hollywood Salutes Lech Walesa' sketch). Perhaps our negative reviewer found the 'Coca Cola' sketch offensive to fat people instead of a comment on the fact that a so-called 'cool' drink is actually fattening and unhealthy. It's a pity that this series is only available on 2 'Best of' DVDs (why the hell do the BBC do that?) as it was the launchpad for the careers of Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones, all of whom are still entertaining us (to a greater or lesser degree) today. And furthermore it shows us that Pamela Stephenson was a talented comedienne who need not have given up performing (though to her credit she has achieved a great deal in the years since her 'retirement'). A much-missed gem.

This show was practically compulsory viewing for teenagers and students in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It introduced the British public to Griff Rys-Jones, Mel Smith, Pamela Stephenson and Rowan Atkinson. Chris Langham was in the first season but seemed to get replaced by G R-J after that.It consisted of a series of sketches, some purely comedic, others with political overtones. The pizza parlour worker, played by Rowan Atkinson, sneezing on the pizza and declaring "Extra mozzarella" is the former, the close-up of a yobbish Griff R-J talking about him and his mates picking on some black blokes "because we 'ate 'em, right?" and the camera gradually pulling away during the monologue to show he's a uniformed policeman would be the latter.Some great writing (Clive Anderson, Andy Hamilton, a pre-"Four Weddings and a Funeral" Richard Curtis), go-for-it acting and sketches that hit frequently enough to forgive the ones that didn't. The sketch with the trendy lefty social worker declaring the only way to deal with young men who misbehaved was to "cut their goolies off" is still a classic, as is Gerald the talking gorilla.