Knowing Me Knowing You Comp Se

Before The Office made uncomfortable humour hip again, Knowing Me Knowing You was on British TV and quickly developed a cult following-enough to spawn several additional series and a one-off special. The show was created by talented comedian Steve Coogan for a BBC Radio 4 comedy show called On the Hour in 1993. This was successful enough to spawn Knowing Me in 1994 as Coogan and co-writer Armando Iannucci skewer British talk shows with its hopelessly inept host, Alan Partridge (Coogan). Like The Office's David Brent, Alan is a legend in his own mind. He's also an arrogant git who is useless at hosting a chat show.

Most people know Steve Coogan from either 24 Hour Party People or Coffee and Cigarettes-or, heaven forbid, Around the World in 80 Days-but his claim to fame in England came from Knowing Me. He is perfect as the selfish, self-absorbed Alan. Unlike David Brent, there is little redeemable about Alan but Coogan does give him a shred of sympathy and maybe even pathos. Coogan looks the part with his shellacked helmet of hair and has all of the chat show host mannerisms down cold. Alan wants desperately to be a big time talk show host but is unable to get any celebrities to come on and is therefore doomed to the margins. He is hopelessly and terminally unhip but doesn't seem to ever realize this fact. In some respects Alan is Rupert Pupkin from The King of Comedy if Scorsese had decided to make a TV show spin-off.

Some of the best moments of Knowing Me come when Alan loses his cool, like when Roger Moore fails to show up and the talk show host unleashes all of his frustrations on his guests after they complain and criticize him. Knowing Me is the kind of talk show we'd all like to see. In this day and age when talk shows are carefully scripted and staged, there is virtually no spontaneity anymore. And so, to see Alan insult and often lose control of his guests and, in the process, his show, is akin to driving by an accident: it is painful to watch but you can't look away.

The first disc features audio commentaries for all six episodes with writer/producer Armando Iannucci, actress Rebecca Front, writer Patrick Marber, actor Steven Brown and a couple of the "guests" from that particular episode. These are fairly amusing tracks that spend a lot of time slamming Alan (and rightly so). In fact, every commentary begins with Alan not being able to join the other participants because of some embarrassing ailment.

The second disc begins with "Festivalan" a.k.a. Know Me Knowing Yule made two years after the first season. Alan somehow survived the devastating last show of his first season for a Christmas special complete with ski lodge décor perfect for that faux-intimate feel that eventually degrades into a naked appeal on his part for a second season. Also included is an optional commentary by Iannucci, Marber, Front, Doon MacKichan, David Schneider and Steve Brown. There is lots of dry humour as they make fun of Alan once again.

"Originalan" features test footage shot for the pilot episode that was never aired and done for little money in order to see if the concept worked. This is the show in its infancy. Alan's hair looks even more artificial (if that's possible) with a glistening plastic sheen.

"Ruralan" features Alan rambling through the northern English countryside. He skips stones across a pond (and promptly loses his watch) while pontificating endlessly via voiceover.

"Alan Aid" sees Coogan reprise his character for three segments for the U.K. version of Comic Relief in 1995. As usual, Alan makes a mess of things and is even humiliated in one segment by some locals.

Finally, there is "Additionalan" that includes nine promos for the show, a stills gallery and biographical sketches for the cast and crew with one for Alan that is quite funny.

The reviewer, whom Virginia Bottomly described as 'that little turd' , has shown his alleged age. This series is ball-bouncingly funny and so successful in skewering the then-and-now trend for allowing no-talents to host their own shows, and fill them with mindless, untalented guests. Alan Partridge is the fore runner to characters such as David Brent in 'The Office', and Larry Saunders in 'the Larry Saunders show (Alan Partridge radio 4 show pre-dates LS by several years, fact fans). This series also sets up what might be the funniest sit-com in British TV - 'I'm Alan Partridge'. As for Marber and Co. Well they helped write it, and appear in the commentary. You little arse - go play with your batmobile.

Partridge is hysterical wherever he appears, and while I agree that KMKY isn't quite up to the hysteria of the later "I'm Alan Partridge", it's still superb. From eating the testicles of a bull to accidentally blowing away a guest with an antique pistol, Alan is constantly out of his depth and completely unaware of it. I've loved this programme since it first came out, I just wish Steve Coogan would revisit the character more often rather than appear in crap Disney movies. Alan Partridge is the man you love to hate, and nobody does it better than Steve Coogan. A-HA!

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