Home > Brass Eye
Brass Eye is a UK television series of satirical spoof documentaries which aired on Channel 4 in 1997 and was re-run in 2001.The series was created by satirist Chris Morris, and written by, amongst others, Morris, David Quantick, Peter Baynham, Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan. It was conceived as a sequel to Morris's earlier spoof news programmes On The Hour and The Day Today, and satirised the media's portrayal of various social ills.
1 Original 1997 series
Brass Eye aroused considerable controversy when it was first broadcast, primarily because prominent public figures were fooled into pledging onscreen support for fictional, and often plainly absurd, charities and causes. David Amess, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Southend West, was fooled into filming an elaborate video warning against the dangers of a fictional Eastern European drug called Cake, and went as far as to ask a question about it in Parliament [1]. (The bright yellow cake sized pill (or, in the case of Bernard ManningBernard Manning is a famously politically incorrect British comedian who was popular in the 1970s. His material has been criticised as being both racist and sexist and he has not been seen on British television for several years. He still tours however, a, table size), which many featured celebrities held as they talked, purportedly affected an area of the brain called Shatner'sWilliam Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is an actor and writer who was born in Montreal, Quebec. Shatner is most famous for his starring role as Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise in the television show Star Trek from 1966 to 1969 and in seven BassoonThe bassoon is the tenor member of the woodwind family. Like the oboe it has a double reed and overblows an octave higher. It is considered to have a tone color similar to that of the human voice, particularly in the central and upper register. The bassoo.)
Other episodes dealt with the topics of science, animals, and infamously, sex. In one scene of the "Sex" episode, Morris categorised AIDSAIDS Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome sometimes written Aids is a human disease characterized by progressive destruction of the body's immune system. It is widely accepted that AIDS results from infection with HIV sufferers as those that have "Good AIDS" (from a contaminated blood transfusion), and those with "Bad AIDS" (through homosexuality).
Michael GradeMichael Grade (born March 8, 1946) is a British businessman and a distinctive figure in the field of broadcasting. He was born into a show business family. His father was the theatrical agent Leslie Grade, and his uncles were the impresarios Lord Lew Grad, then chief executive of Channel 4, repeatedly intervened to demand edits to episodes of Brass Eye, and rescheduled some shows for sensitivity. This interference outraged Morris, who responded by inserting into one episode a subliminal message denigrating Grade in strong terms. As another insult to Grade, Morris supposedly wrote to Nelson MandelaNelson Rolihlahla Mandela OM (born 18 July, 1918) is a former President of South Africa, was one of its chief anti- apartheid activists, and was also an anti-apartheid saboteur and guerrilla leader. He is now almost universally considered to be a heroic f telling him that Grade campaigned for him to be kept in prison, and protested upon his release. He also wrote to musician Paul Simon, claiming that Grade always considered Art Garfunkel the more talented of the duo.
