Brass Eye
Brass Eye is a British satirical television series parodying current affairs news programming. A series of six episodes aired on Channel 4 in 1997, followed by special episode, "Paedogeddon", in 2001. The series was created and presented by Chris Morris, directed by Michael Cumming and written by Morris, David Quantick, Peter Baynham, Jane Bussmann, Arthur Mathews, Graham Linehan and Charlie Brooker.
Overview
Brass Eye satirises media portrayal of social ills, in particular sensationalism and moral panics, and is a sequel to Morris's earlier spoof news programmes On the Hour and The Day Today. It stars Morris, Doon Mackichan, Gina McKee, Mark Heap, Amelia Bullmore, Simon Pegg, Julia Davis, Claire Skinner, John Guerrasio, Hugh Dennis and Kevin Eldon.Originally planned as a spin-off from The Day Today, the pilot was passed on by the BBC. Channel 4 commissioned a new pilot. The name Brass Eye mixes together the titles of two current affairs shows,.
Original series (1997)
; "Drugs"The second episode, "Drugs", has been described by Michael Gossop as illustrative of the ease with which anti-drug hysteria can be evoked in the United Kingdom. In the opening scene of this episode, a voiceover tells viewers that there are so many drugs on the streets of Britain that "not even the dealers know them all". An undercover reporter asks a purportedly real-life drug dealer in London for various fictitious drugs, including "Triple Sod", "Yellow Bentines" and "Clarky Cat", leaving the dealer puzzled and increasingly irritated until he asks the reporter to leave him alone. He also explains that possession of drugs without physical contact and the exchange of drugs through a mandrill are perfectly legal in English law.
One drug mentioned was a fictitious drug called "Cake", described as being from Czechoslovakia, despite the country no longer existing when the episode was screened. The drug purportedly affected an area of the brain called "Shatner's Bassoon", while also giving them a bloated neck due to "massive water retention", a "Czech neck", and was frequently referred to as "a made-up drug" during the show. Other celebrities such as Sir Bernard Ingham, Noel Edmonds, and Rolf Harris were shown holding the bright-yellow cake-sized pill as they talked, with Bernard Manning telling viewers a fictitious story about how one girl regurgitated her own pelvis, and recounting that "one young kiddy on Cake cried all the water out of his body. Just imagine how his mother felt. It's a fucking disgrace".
David Amess, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Basildon, was fooled into filming an elaborate video warning against the dangers of this drug, and went as far as to ask a question about "Cake" in the UK Parliament, alongside real substances khat and gamma-hydroxybutyric acid. In response, the Home Office minister incorrectly identified the fictitious drug "Cake" as a pseudonym for the hallucinogenic drug methylenedioxybenzylamphetamine.
; "Sex"
Morris posed as a talk show host who took a starkly discriminatory attitude in favour of those with "Good AIDS" over those with "Bad AIDS".
"Paedogeddon!" special (2001)
A special one-off edition of the show aired four years after the series had ended. Originally scheduled to broadcast on 5 July 2001, it was delayed as Channel 4 were unhappy with the timing in connection to the disappearances of 15-year-old Danielle Jones in June and 11-year-old Bunmi Shagaya in early July. It eventually aired on Thursday 26 July 2001, and was repeated the following day.It tackled paedophilia and the moral panic in parts of the British media following the murder of Sarah Payne, focusing on the name-and-shame campaign conducted by the News of the World in its wake. This included an incident in 2000 in which a paediatrician in Newport had the word "PAEDO" daubed in yellow paint on her home. News of the World's then Editor Rebekah Brooks would years later discuss this campaign at the Leveson Inquiry.
To illustrate the media's knee-jerk reaction to the subject, various celebrities were duped into presenting fatuous and often ridiculous pieces to camera in the name of a campaign against paedophiles. Gary Lineker and Phil Collins endorsed a spoof charity, Nonce Sense,, with Collins saying, "I'm talking Nonce Sense!" Tomorrow's World presenter Philippa Forrester and ITN reporter Nicholas Owen were shown explaining the details of fictional "Hidden Online Entrapment Control System", or HOECS computer games, which online paedophiles were using to abuse children via the internet.
Capital Radio DJ Neil "Doctor" Fox told viewers that "paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than they do with you and me", adding "Now that is scientific fact—there's no real evidence for it—but it is scientific fact". At one point, bogus CCTV footage was shown of a paedophile attempting to seduce children by stalking the streets while disguised as a school.
Lineker described paedophile text slang, stating that "P2PBSH" translates to "pipe-to-pipe bushman; code for two paedophiles having sex with each other while watching children from a shrub" and "BALTIMORA" translates to "I'm running at them now with my trousers down". Labour MP Syd Rapson related that paedophiles were using "an area of internet the size of Ireland". Richard Blackwood stated that internet paedophiles could make computer keyboards emit noxious fumes to subdue children, subsequently sniffing a keyboard and claiming that he could smell the fumes, which made him feel "suggestible". Blackwood also warned watching parents that exposure to the fumes would make their children "smell like hammers". Other notable figures appearing as themselves were Sebastian Coe, Michael Hames, Andy McNab, Kate Thornton, Barbara Follett MP and Gerald Howarth MP.
Morris reported that convicted child murderer Sidney Cooke had been sent into space to keep him away from children. Prior to the launch, an eight-year-old boy had been placed on board the spaceship with Cooke by mistake, with a spokesman saying "this is the one thing we didn't want to happen".
During the programme, the studio was "invaded" by a fictional militant pro-paedophile activism organisation called "Milit-pede", and the programme appeared to suffer a short technical disturbance. When it returned, presenter Chris Morris confronted a spokesman, Gerard Chote, who had been placed in a pillory, asking if he wanted sex with Morris's six-year-old son. Hesitantly, the spokesman refused, apologetically explaining "I don't fancy him". The episode won a Broadcast award in 2002.
''Oxide Ghosts: The Brass Eye Tapes'' (2017)
In 2017, Cumming released a 60-minute film of unbroadcast material from the making of Brass Eye between 1995 and 1997. The film is intended to mark the 20th anniversary of the series's original broadcast and includes scenes previously edited from the series due to time constraints or legal difficulties. It includes extended or alternative versions of scenes that made the final cut, together with humorous outtakes. Cumming narrates the film and details his first meeting with Chris Morris and the difficulties involved in making the series. Comedy website Chortle described the film as "a thoughtful, curiously touching time capsule which pays fulsome tribute to, and certainly never cheapens, the spirit of the original show".The film premiered at the Pilot Light TV festival in May 2017 and toured to perform at selected UK cinemas throughout 2017. Each performance was followed by a Q&A with the director. It toured again in 2022. Cumming said that the film will only be shown at such public events and can't ever be released commercially, for rights and legal reasons.
Episodes
Series 1 (1997)
Special (2001)
Controversies
Postponement
The series had originally been scheduled to air in November 1996, but was postponed and ultimately aired in January 1997. According to Channel 4, this delay was to ensure that broadcasting standards were met, amid fears that some of the series' pranks might violate the Independent Television Commission's code on hoaxes. Two days before airing, the show had been denounced by Tom Sackville, a minister at the Home Office, who criticised "this waste of Home Office time", referring to the programme's 'Cake' hoax which involved Sackville and MP David Amess.The Guardian reported that the postponement was the subject of internet speculation on at least 112 different websites, which featured conspiracy theories that Channel 4 had given into pressure from the Home Office, or that the programme had been pulled by the then chief executive of Channel 4, Michael Grade, owing to the negative effect it might have had on the channel's upcoming campaign against privatisation. In January 1997, it was announced that the series would be broadcast, and would begin airing later in the month. After airing, the programme attracted complaints from MPs David Amess and Sir Graham Bright concerning their appearances on the show involving 'cake', which were held up by the Independent Television Commission. The commission also went "out of its way" to praise the series as "amusing and innovative".
While the ITC's television code included a provision that "contributors must be made aware of the format and purpose of programmes", the response to the complaints clarified that "The Commission had no criticism of the overall programme concept. It acknowledged that risks were attached to making innovative programmes and felt that Channel 4 should not be discouraged for that reason from seeking to make such programmes. It proposed to take no further action against Channel 4."