The programme features Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson, Mel Smith, and Griff Rhys Jones, as well as Chris Langham in the first series.
Initially, Lloyd and Hardie were considering doing a lampoon of current affairs programmes à la The Frost Report, with Rowan Atkinson portraying an old-fashioned host attacking liberal and/or modern trends.
Aside from Atkinson, the original cast comprised Christopher Godwin, John Gorman, Chris Langham, Willoughby Goddard, and Jonathan Hyde, and the first episode of a planned series was scheduled for 2 April 1979; this also featured Chris Emmett (impersonating Denis Healey), and Robert Llewelyn (impersonating Bob Hope).
As the programme was originally scheduled to air in the time slot occupied by Fawlty Towers, John Cleese was to have introduced the first episode in a sketch referring to a technicians' strike in progress at the time that hindered the production of the series, explaining (in character as Basil Fawlty) that there was no programme that week, so a "tatty revue" would be broadcast instead.
Basil's waiter Manuel, played by Andrew Sachs, also appeared at the end of the unaired episode, trying to get a joke about the Ayatollah's contact lenses.
Healey's and Hope's impressions were achieved by the use of "talking head" puppets, which in the mid-1980s would become a characteristic staple of Spitting Image, produced by Lloyd in its early series.
The first series was criticised for being "a poor mix of stand up, and a mild portion of sketches" and newspaper reviews referred to it as "extremely offensive" and that it "should not be allowed on TV".
[2] The second series of Not the Nine O’Clock News won the Silver Rose at the Montreux Festival and a BAFTA Award for Best Light Entertainment Programme in 1982.
For example, one spoof news element might include a routine announcement that NASA had once again announced a delay in the launch of its Space Shuttle owing to technical difficulties, as the screen showed the shuttle on its launch pad with oxygen streaming off the tanks, overlaid with the sound of a car engine turning over but not starting.
Skits could include scenes such as a group of rural Americans at a barbecue singing several minutes of comically implausible songs like "I'm prepared to believe that Nixon wasn't a crook; I'm prepared to believe Love Story's a readable book..." and finally concluding, "I believe that the devil is ready to repent; – but I can't believe Ronald Reagan is president.
"[4] A well-known sketch from the second season (1980) features Mel Smith as Professor Timothy Fielding, who brought a gorilla named Gerald (played by Atkinson) to a TV studio for an interview.
[5][6][7] [8] The programme is credited with bringing alternative comedy to British television: Lloyd once commented he wanted to do a "modern, working-class" comedy in contrast to other series of the time, such as The Two Ronnies, as well as attempting to replicate the satire boom of the early 1960s that launched the careers of John Cleese, Dudley Moore, Eric Idle, Tim Brooke-Taylor and others.
This also happened at a time that the magazine National Lampoon, The Second City troupes and Saturday Night Live became showcases of alternative comedy in North America.
[9] A documentary featuring the cast reminiscing about the making of the programme was shown on BBC Two on 28 December 2009,[10] before one of the 1995 compilation shows was aired (despite a "complete episode" being billed in television listings).
The main writers included Colin Bostock-Smith, Andy Hamilton, Peter Brewis, Richard Curtis, and Clive Anderson.
The series has rarely been repeated; eight re-cut and condensed (to make it "faster and funnier than ever"[13]) "episodes" made for a video edition in 1995 are shown instead.
Three vinyl albums were released at the time the series was screening, entitled Not the Nine O'Clock News, Hedgehog Sandwich, and The Memory Kinda Lingers.