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 a 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, and Graham Linehan. Charlie Brooker would write for the 2001 special, which was directed by Tristram Shapeero.
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 (1991–92) and The Day Today (1994). 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 (then called Torque tv™) 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, (Brass Tacks and Public Eye) and is a euphemism for anus.
Each episode of the show has a similar structure, with Morris posing as various interviewers, campaigners and broadcasters as well as some of the subjects of the interviews. These segments are intercut with celebrities appealing on behalf of various nonprofit organizations with bizarre names and acronyms as well as fake news footage from various international broadcasters. Heavy use of elaborate graphical effects is used throughout.
Original series (1997) "Animals"
The first episode, which uses much of the material filmed for the pilot centers on man's relationship with animals. In this episode Morris portrays a spokesperson from the "World Organization For Decreasing Captive Animal Problems" (W.O.F.D.C.A.P) which incorporates another organization, "Against Animal Anger And Auto-causal Abuse Atrocities in Zoos" (A.A.A.A.A.A.Z) who are trying to raise awareness of the plight of Karla, an elephant in a zoo in Germany and "Zoochosis" a condition which drives zoo animals insane. Jilly Cooper, Paul Daniels, Wolf, Britt Ekland, and Alexandra Paul appear either by phone or on video. Nicholas Parsons appears reading a poem supposedly written by Desmond Morris, while Carla Lane appears in a studio segment.
"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 (Morris) 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. Morris poses as a campaigner from a pair of organizations, "Free The United Kingdom From Drugs" (F.U.K.D) and "British Opposition to Metabolically Bisturbile Drugs" (B.O.M.B.D) and seeks celebrities to appear on camera appealing to the public to be wary of Cake. The drug purportedly affected an area of the brain called "Shatner's Bassoon" (altering the user's perception of time), 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" (i.e. a designer 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.
A pink version of the Cake pill can be seen during the opening credits, and director Michael Cumming explained it was a prop that Talkback had in the office from its previous appearance in an episode of Smith and Jones.
"Science"
The episode opens with an extract from "Future Imperfect?" – a Brass Eye Science Format in which Morris (in character as Paul Trott) and Eve Pollard warn the public against the dangers of weapons research causing birth defects, including one woman giving birth to an enlarged testicle approximately two feet in length. The episode sees science (represented by a test tube of blue liquid) in a courtroom trial for "going too far". A clip from a fake Australian science documentary talks of two mice "giving birth to a second" and scientists "blowing up" (destroying) "a fortnight". A fake American informercial is shown promoting a gymnasium implant for pregnant women. The episode is interspersed with "Good Science" and "Bad Science" segments hosted by Tania Bryer in which "vertical farms" are promoted to save space.
Another segment focuses on heavily indebted people being offered nominal sums for growing organs on their bodies. Various celebrity contacts are found in the Psion 3a personal organizer of one of the accused doctors including Jas Mann (who can be contacted via Vivian Stanshall) and Michael Jackson. This episode sees the campaign from the "Global Ensortium For A First World Initiative On Scientific Practice" (G.E.F.A.F.W.I.S.P) who enlist Richard Briers, Nick Owen, Steven Berkoff, Lynne Franks, Jenny Powell and Caesar the Geezer to make an appeal video focused on the dangers of "heavy electricity" hitting a Sri Lankan village.
"Sex"
Morris posed as a talk show host who took a starkly discriminatory attitude in favour of those with "Good AIDS" (e.g. from a contaminated blood transfusion) over those with "Bad AIDS" (caught through sexual activity or drug abuse).
"Decline"
This episode focuses on religion and moral decline. A play based on The Yorkshire Ripper is also highlighted, with Sutcliffe apparently being allowed out of prison to rehearse. The mid-episode commercial break is also interrupted by a fake newsflash from Channel 4 News with Doon Mackichan posing as a newsreader who announces that Clive Anderson has been murdered by Noel Edmonds.
This episode was heavily edited before broadcast and featured the infamous "Grade is a cunt" flash flame subliminal message. The DVD release adds much of the missing material back to the episode.
"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, (pronounced "nonsense"—"nonce" being British slang for people convicted or suspected of molestation or sexual crimes), 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 (pronounced "hoax") 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.Channel 4 defends 'sick' satir', BBC News Online, 28 July 2001
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".McCartney, Jenny, "Are there no limits?", The Daily Telegraph, 29 July 2001
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 (played by Simon Pegg), who had been placed in a pillory, asking if he wanted sex with Morris's six-year-old son (actually a child actor). 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".