Harry Hill's TV Burp
Genre	Comedy
Created by	Harry Hill
Written by	Harry Hill Paul Hawksbee Daniel Maier Brenda Gilhooly David Quantick Joe Burnside Madeleine Brettingham Richard Easter Andrew Collins (2001) Ian Pattison (2001) Magda Archer (2002-2003) Chris Addison (2002) Stuart Kenworthy (2002) John Moloney (2002) Dave Thompson (2002)
Presented by	Harry Hill
Composer	Steve Brown
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	15
No. of episodes	161 (plus 5 specials)
Production
Executive producer	Harry Hill
Producers	Patricia McGowan (2001) Nick Symons (2002–2006) Spencer Millman (2007–2012)
Production locations	Teddington Studios (2001–2009) BBC Television Centre (2009–2012)
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	23 minutes
Production company	Avalon Television
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	22 December 2001 (2001-12-22) – 7 April 2012 (2012-04-07)
Related
TV Burp (Australian TV series) You Cannot Be Serious! Harry Hill's Alien Fun Capsule Harry Hill's World of TV

Harry Hill's TV Burp (also known as just TV Burp) is a British television comedy programme, produced Avalon Television, and written and hosted by comedian Harry Hill. The series ran for 12 seasons between 2001 and 2012 on ITV. Each episode sees the host take a humorous look back at the previous week of programming on British television from a range of shows aired on terrestrial and digital channels.

The show's format combined elements of clip show highlights with comedic sketches and parodied scenes, and on occasion involved noted television personalities and actors of the time, alongside minor extras and real-life people. Clips featured on the show were often drawn from preview tapes that both Hill and his production team viewed in the days leading up to an episode; the most common clips coming from soap dramas and popular factual series. TV Burp proved award-winning for ITV, and spawned several DVDs, including several specials for Comic Relief.

Format

Comedy created from clips is usually acquired from outside of the context of their original programme and with only limited information about the scene given, as the focus of the show's treatment is often on the unintentional humour which can be picked out from the scene they show - from something that is spoken out by a character or a real-life person, something humorous that happened in the clip, or something pointed out by the host - which can usually be accompanied by a spoof scene or sketch that often involves the host performing alongside a character from the scene, a guest performer, or a stand-in actor portraying a character from the show or a notable figure in the media.

An example of this can be that a portion of the original scene is shown, before it cuts to the spoof scene, whereupon the host jumps into the scene and gets involved in a slapstick fight with the people from the show. All studio segments shown on the programme, usually feature the host commenting lightheartedly or sarcastically about the actual intended content of the programme, and sometimes involves him using props that are based upon those from the clips shown, sometimes being mock-ups of actual items from the original programme, while sketches and spoof scenes can range from mock-ups of behind-the-scenes actions, or based upon something mentioned in a clip.

Production

Following a successful pilot broadcast on 22 December 2001, a series was commissioned, starting on 14 November 2002. Production of an episode often involved Hill and his programme's associate writing team, including Brenda Gilhooly, Paul Hawksbee, Daniel Maier, Joe Burnside, David Quantick and Madeleine Brettingham, watching significant amounts of television, much on preview tapes. Throughout Series 1 to 9, the show was recorded before a live audience in Studio 1 of Teddington Studios, South-West London, but from Series 10 to the final episode of Series 15, recording was relocated to BBC Television Centre in Studio 4. The first two series of the show were broadcast within a late night slot on Thursdays, with Series 1 being the only series not to feature clips from the BBC's EastEnders; Hill was required, during the series, to accompany his comments on the British soap with either crude animation, courtroom-style sketches or staged comic re-enactments of scenes from the show. Whilst the show was well received, the scheduling was criticised due to the family-friendly humour, leading to the third series receiving a teatime repeat slot on Sundays. Starting from the fourth series, the show moved to a Saturday teatime slot, and then later to a Saturday primetime slot.

Due to the inclusion of a large amount of material to which ITV and Avalon do not hold the rights, repeats of past TV Burp episodes were rare outside immediate broadcast repeats. However, in 2009, The Best of TV Burp was introduced, which featured clips from previous episodes, while additionally, new episodes were also made available to view online on the ITV Player service after original transmission.^[1] As of 7 April 2012, 24 'Best of TV Burp' episodes have been aired, in addition to a Best of Christmas TV Burp episode on 25 December 2010, featuring clips from previous Christmas episodes of the show. On 28 October 2011, Cartoon Network began airing a similar format (along with Shark Infested Custard), in which they took past episodes of the series and edited segments together to make the series more child-friendly, but did not record new segments for this version, with the exception of the trailer.

Following months of speculation, Hill confirmed to his studio audience at the taping of the final episode of Series 15 that it would be his last.^[2] In October 2013 Gold began airing re-runs of the show starting with the third series.^[3] The titles of the show were briefly featured as part of London 2012's opening ceremony.

Criticism

In 2007, Ofcom ruled that TV Burp had breached guidelines by including clips of a Bear Grylls programme which featured Grylls eating a frog and cooking a turtle; Ofcom ruled that the clips were 'inappropriately scheduled' given the offence they could potentially cause viewers when taken outside the context of the whole Grylls programme.^[4]

In 2008, "The Best of TV Burp 3" included footage originally broadcast in 2004, which lampooned Sky reality series The Real Mrs Robinson. ITV and Avalon were not aware that two of the participants in the programme had died between the original broadcast and the 'Best of'. However, Sky's licence to use the footage made no mention of this, and the participants were not referred to by their full names in the footage, restricting TV Burp's ability to research the case ahead of putting the programme to air. After complaints were made to ITV and Ofcom, the programme was voluntarily re-edited such that the segment was removed from all further broadcasts. Ofcom did not uphold a complaint made by relatives of the deceased, stating that whilst it recognised that the broadcast of the footage would have been distressing to the family, the manner of the broadcast did not breach the broadcasting regulations.^[5]

A 2016 broadcast on Dave, of an episode originally screened by ITV in December 2008, featured a comedic review of a Channel 4 documentary about Thomas Beatie. UKTV had edited out around a minute of the segment ahead of broadcast, but much of the skit remained. Complainants felt the treatment was offensive to the transgender community; Ofcom ruled the complaints had been resolved by way of UKTV voluntarily cutting the entire section on Beatie's film, preventing it from future broadcast on their channels.^[6]

Reception

TV Burp received positive feedback from critics and viewers; Mark Lawson from The Guardian said it was "The freshest and most original show in mainstream television."^[7] In 2008, visitors to the British Comedy Guide website voted TV Burp as the "Best British TV Panel Show/Satire of 2008".^[8] Viewing figures for the show in its primetime slot were considerably high and achieved a considerable share of the audience - Series 8 averaged 6.1 million viewers during its run, taking an average share of around 25.1% of the audience for its timeslot, compared to Series 14 and 15 which averaged 4.9 million viewer and an average audience share of 19.3%. One of its highest-rated episodes, achieved 8 million viewers and took a 32% audience share.^[9]

Awards and nominations

In 2007, Harry Hill's TV Burp was nominated for Best Comedy Entertainment Programme at the 2007 British Comedy Awards,^[10] while in 2008, it won two British Academy Television Awards for Best Entertainment Performance (for Harry Hill) and Best Entertainment programme, and in 2009 won Harry Hill another BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance.

Transmissions

Merchandise

As per repeats, it was initially thought that a DVD release of TV Burp would be unlikely. However, a DVD titled Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold was eventually released in November 2008. Three other DVDs have since been released, as detailed below, with additional content from the show.^[11] A complete series-by-series release still appears unlikely. A TV Burp book was also released in 2009.

Hill, Harry (8 October 2009). Harry Hill's TV Burp Book. Ebury Press. ISBN 978-0-09-193224-4.^[12]

See also

• The Soup, a similar show in the US

Footnotes

References

External links

• Harry Hill's TV Burp at IMDb
• Harry Hill's TV Burp at British Comedy Guide