Television mockumentary Reflexivity, satire and a call to play Craig Hight Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distrihuted in the United States exclusivcly hy Pal grave Macmillan Contents List of figures page Vlll Preface XI Acknowledgements XIII Introduction Part I Defining mockumentary I Mockumentary discourse: a call to play 15 2 The mockumentary across media 44 Part II Mockumentary in televisual space 3 The televisual space 73 4 Television and the real: documentary traditions and hybrid forms 102 5 Television realism, drama-documentary and dramatic verite 134 6 Comedic traditions: satire, sitcom and comedy verite 166 Part III Television mockumentary series 7 Experimenting with mockumentary forms 197 R Surveillance and discipline: fake news and mock-reality TV 224 9 Mockusoaps: people and places 253 Conclusion 289 Filmography 294 Bibliography 31() Index 324 Figures 1 L. M. Kit Carson introduces his experiment to discover the 'truth' of his life through film, from David Holzman's Diary (1967), a mockumentary film that anticipated the emergence of autobiographical documentary page 29 2 A photograph of a hunting party in the Black Hills of Burkittsville, Maryland, one of the many 'documents' which Curse of the Blair Witch (1999) used to present the historical mythology of the Blair Witch 60 3 Presenter Tim Brinton introduces an investigative report into an apparent global conspiracy with implications for the future of humanity, in the classic television mockumentary hoax Alternative 3 (1973) 93 4 A digital camera rides along with an on-duty police officer, a familiar scene from the long running prototypical American reality programme Cops (1989-) 119 5 The morning roll-call sequence from The Police Tapes (1977), the raw and compelling video documentary that inspired the creators of Hill Street Blues (1981-87) 146 6 Fictional candidate Jack Tanner (Michael Murphy, second from right) encounters real candidate Pat Robertson (far right) during the 1988 US Figures ix presidential elections, in an early episode of Robert Altman and Garry Trudeau's playful satire Tanner '88 (1988) 149 7 Eric Idle offers a sociological explanation for delinquent grandmothers in a parody of BBC reporting from Monty Python s Flying Circus (1969-74) 170 8 Chevy Chase playing anchorperson in the influential fake news segment 'Weekend Update' from the first season of Saturday Night Live (1975-) 174 9 An uncharacteristically serious Hawkeye (Alan AIda) interviewed by Clete Roberts for his perspective of the Korean War, from the black and white mockumentary episode that ends the fourth season of M.A.S.H. (1972-83) 189 10 The sophisticated pastiche of television news presentation from the popular American news satire The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1996-) 212 11 Taxi driver Keith Barret (Rob Brydon) adjusts his dashboard mounted camcorder in the first series of Marion & Geoff (2003) 219 12 Steve Coogan as the clueless sports reporter Alan Partridge, in a 'live' segment from the seminal British mockumentary series The Day Today (1994) 228 13 Niecy Nash, one of the ensemble cast who play incompetent members of the fictitious Reno Sheriff's Department in Comedy Central's Cops parody, Reno 9Jl! (2003-) 241 14 Central characters Julian (John Paul Tremblay) and Ricky (Robb Wells) from the Canadian Trailer Park Boys (2001-), the longest running mockumentary television series 248 15 Teenage narcissist 'Ja'mie King', one of the five characters Chris Lilley plays in the Australian mockumentary series We Can Be Heroes: Finding the Australian of the Year (2005) 265 x Figures 16 Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow) tries to put on a brave face after yet another personal disaster, in a video diary sequence from the highly reflexive mockusoap The Comeback (2005) 276 17 Manager David Brent (Ricky Gervais) cannot hide his smugness in an interview sequence from the original British version of mockusoap The Office (WOl-ffi) ~o 18 Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) and Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) play out the tentative, perpetually frustrated romance at the centre of the early seasons of the American version of The Office (2005-) 285 All illustrations are screen grabs from DVDs.