Every Alan Partridge Project Ranked From Worst To Best
9. On The Hour/The Day Today
For one of UK comedy’s most beloved characters, Alan Partridge’s roots are pretty humble. When developing iconic radio comedy On The Hour, Armando Iannucci asked Steve Coogan to come up with a sportscaster’s voice. From this, Alan Partridge was born.
Like Knowing Me Knowing You, the Partridge of On The Hour and TV adaptation The Day Today is not the fully fledged character, but he’s a key part of one of British comedy’s finest ever ensembles. The Chris Morris-led collective created daring programming that remains vital to this day.
The early days of Partridge produced some iconic moments for the character, not least his round up of the 1994 World Cup. Coogan bellowing platitudes over a sequence of goals is both an incisive and efficient cutdown of sports broadcasters, and one of the most quotable pieces of Partridge ever made.
While Alan was merely a piece of the puzzle here, it was obvious that there was something in this character, for once one of the less ludicrous people involved. Plucked from the surreal world of Morris and Iannucci, Alan could rise to even greater heights.