Editing TVGoHome

{{Short description|Defunct parody website}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{primary sources|date=November 2017}}
'''TVGoHome''' was a [[website]] which parodied the [[television]] listings style of the [[United Kingdom|British]] magazine ''[[Radio Times]]''. It was produced fortnightly from 1999 to 2001, and sporadically until April 2003, by [[Charlie Brooker]].<ref name="digital spy">{{cite news |last1=Eames |first1=Tom |title=The best of Charlie Brooker's TVGoHome |url=https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/a803531/tvgohome-the-very-best-of-charlie-brooker-spoof-listings/ |accessdate=2 January 2019 |work=Digital Spy |date=4 August 2016}}</ref> The site now exists only in archive form. TVGoHome columns also appeared for a short time in ''[[Loaded magazine|Loaded]]'' magazine, sometimes edited from their original web version.

The website gained a cult following, partly due to its tie-up with the technology newsletter ''[[Need To Know (newsletter)|Need To Know]]'', and its use of strong language, surreal imagery and savage satire reminiscent of the work of [[Chris Morris (satirist)|Chris Morris]]. Indeed, Morris himself contributed on occasion, under the pseudonym 'Sid Peach'.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Brooker|first1=Charlie|title=FULL SESSION - The Alternative MacTaggart: Charlie Brooker|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK8i2mRxX3s|website=YouTube|date=31 August 2012 |publisher=Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival|access-date=14 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160512120756/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK8i2mRxX3s|archive-date=2016-05-12|url-status=live}}</ref> Regular targets for ridicule were the ''[[Daily Mail]]'', [[Mick Hucknall]] of [[Simply Red]], and the TV presenters [[Rowland Rivron]] and [[Nicky Campbell]]. TVGoHome's most consistent target, however, was fictional. [[Nathan Barley]], an ex-public-school media wannabe living off his parents' wealth, had his life chronicled in a fly-on-the-wall documentary series (in the TVGoHome universe) entitled simply 'Cunt'. Detailing Barley's comfortable life in the now gentrified area of formerly working class [[Westbourne Grove]] in west London, the programme essentially mocked the "new media" scene and its population of self-obsessed, middle-class web designers, DJs and magazine producers, their obsessions with absurd fashions and gadgetry, their inevitably feeble and derivative attempts at creativity, and their tireless efforts to embody the cutting edge of urban cool. A spinoff book of the same title was later released featuring old and new material.

Brooker has cited the increasing absurdity of [[reality television]] as one of the main reasons he stopped writing TVGoHome. The ideas for real life shows such as ''[[Touch the Truck]]'', in which contestants must continually touch a truck for 24 hours in order to win the truck as a prize, were the kind of idea that at one point would only have existed as an absurd satirical creation of Brooker's website. Now that they were becoming a reality, Brooker felt it was probably time to stop.<ref>{{cite news|title=At home with TVGoHome|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1513423.stm|website=BBC News|date=29 August 2001|access-date=8 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170731092838/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1513423.stm|archive-date=2017-07-31|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 2006, Brooker began a regular column in ''[[The Guardian]]'', featuring new TVGoHome listings.

== Recurring programmes ==
* ''Cunt'', a fly-on-the wall series featuring [[Nathan Barley]], a "new media" type kept housed and up to date with the latest pointless technological gadgets through constant parental financial support. Barley is depicted as being of absolutely no value to society, with no morals and even less intelligence, and having many friends (all of whom are exactly like him). On one occasion he attempts to let his girlfriend down over a 6-month period, ultimately ending in his once confident, happy girlfriend being [[Mental Health Act 1983|sectioned]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tvgohome.com/valentine-2002.html|title=valetine's day 2002|work=tvgohome.com|access-date=4 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303230419/http://www.tvgohome.com/valentine-2002.html|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=live}}</ref> He is subject to almost pathological levels of hatred from the writer of the billing of the show.
* ''Daily Mail Island'', a reality TV show where several normal people are deposited on an island and not allowed access to any media other than the right-wing, strongly conservative ''[[Daily Mail]]'' newspaper, leading to them becoming progressively more irrational and brutal as the series progresses — for example, tying teenage lovers together with sacks on their heads and beating them,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tvgohome.com/1102-2000.html|title=1102-2000|work=tvgohome.com|access-date=4 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303180621/http://www.tvgohome.com/1102-2000.html|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=live}}</ref> or sealing a teenager caught masturbating into a coffin filled with broken glass and dog faeces and throwing it over a cliff<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tvgohome.com/0704-2000.html|title=0704-2000|work=tvgohome.com|access-date=4 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170237/http://www.tvgohome.com/0704-2000.html|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=live}}</ref> — and their language devolving into rhetorical questions and sarcastic snorts.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tvgohome.com/2502-2000.html|title=2502-2000|work=tvgohome.com|access-date=4 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303170642/http://www.tvgohome.com/2502-2000.html|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=live}}</ref>
* ''Get Hen!'', a bizarre interactive programme in which home viewers fire lightguns at a dancing hen inserted into various pieces of film.
* ''Mick Hucknall's Pink Pancakes'', in which [[Mick Hucknall]] of [[Simply Red]] fame presses his testicles against various transparent surfaces, including shop windows, glass coffee tables and Chinese riot shields. Briefly succeeded by ''Mick Hucknall's Spud Tip Challenge'', in which he quite simply balanced a baby new potato on the end of his penis.
* ''Ricky's Luck'', a drama featuring [[Ricky Butcher]] encountering appallingly bad luck in just about everything he does. The title is also likely a play on ''[[Tucker's Luck]]'', a spin-off of the children's series ''[[Grange Hill]]''.
* ''Patrick Kielty's Streets of Fundom'', where [[Patrick Kielty]] performs various completely meaningless actions while roaming the streets of Britain, such as wearing a Viking helmet, climbing onto the back of a man dressed as a cartoon Hitler and then letting off party poppers each time he passes an elderly woman.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tvgohome.com/3011-2001.html|title=3011-2001|work=tvgohome.com|access-date=4 October 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202065713/http://www.tvgohome.com/3011-2001.html|archive-date=2016-12-02|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Television==
The TVGoHome format itself, or elements derived from it, have featured within several television comedy and entertainment programmes.

A ''TVGoHome'' comedy sketch show was produced in 2001, consisting of six half-hour episodes broadcast on [[E4 (channel)|E4]], later compiled into a smaller number of 'highlights' shows for broadcast on [[Channel 4]]. It was written by Brooker, among others, and directed by [[Tristram Shapeero]], who also directed the controversial ''[[Brass Eye]]'' [[Paedogeddon|special on paedophilia]]. The sketches included new material and skits based on previous TVGH entries.

A spin-off from TVGH was ''Unnovations'', based on a parody of the Innovations catalogue; this was turned into a TV sketch/sitcom series, broadcast on [[UK Play]] in 2001-02; since that channel's demise, it has not been repeated.

A [[sitcom]] entitled ''[[Nathan Barley]]'', based on a character first featured within ''TVGoHome'' columns, was co-written by Brooker with [[Chris Morris (satirist)|Chris Morris]], and was broadcast in February 2005.

Brooker's 2009 Channel 4 TV-themed panel review show ''[[You Have Been Watching]]'' features TVGH-style spoof listings pages in its opening title sequence.

==Publications==
* ''TV Go Home'', Charlie Brooker, 2001 ({{ISBN|1-84115-675-2}})

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20030408060057/http://www.tvgohome.com/ TVGoHome.com] (archived)
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060525210430/http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/comedy_circuit/beyond_the_web.html Channel 4 microsite] (archived)
*[http://pzat.meep.org/cunt/ A ''Cunt'' Compendium]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050206020223/http://www.trashbat.co.ck/ ''Nathan Barley''] TV show site (archived)
*[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/charliebrooker Charlie Brooker's Guardian column archive]

{{Charlie Brooker}}

[[Category:British comedy websites]]
[[Category:Defunct websites]]
[[Category:Television series created by Charlie Brooker]]
[[Category:Television series by Banijay]]
[[Category:Television series about television]]
[[Category:2001 British television series debuts]]
[[Category:British television sketch shows]]
[[Category:2001 British television series endings]]
[[Category:E4 (TV channel) comedy]]
[[Category:British English-language television shows]]