On the Hour: Now on CD and MP3

I’ve gushed in the past about Chris Morris, the brilliant British satirist whose series “The Day Today” and “Brass Eye” are two of the funniest television shows of the past twenty years. They’re news parodies — a bit like the Daily Show, only even funnier. As in many of the best Daily Show bits, the target is the media, not current events. The team behind the shows devolves jargon into nonsense, sports into mental retardation and drama into absurdity. The result is absolutely amazing.

The Day Today and Brass Eye were preceded by a no-less-brilliant radio program, called On the Hour. It’s probably the funniest audio comedy I’ve ever heard, and now it’s available on CD and MP3 for the first time, more than 15 years after it first aired.

You can buy each season of the show in a 4-CD box set from the label re-releasing them, Warp Records. Both On the Hour, Vol. 1 and Volume 2 are available on Amazon for $29 each, as well. The real deal, though, is in iTunes, where you can get each series for $11.99:
On the Hour Vol. 1 (iTunes)

On the Hour Vol. 2 (iTunes)

If you don’t believe me, there’s also a podcast of (very) short clips from the show, which will run for the duration of this month. Here’s an iTunes link, and here’s the feed.

Below: Prince Edward’s Head, a quick commercial from the show.

And Alan Partridge on Badminton: