Funny / John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme

• The intervention for Winnie the Pooh.
• The first interview sketch, where the host (as yet unnamed, a fact she is already annoyed about) admits from the start all she'll say afterwards is "go on" and "tell me more". The subject? A book on things to do before you're thirty. The man being interviewed comes to a Heel Realization partway through.
• The Archers, as it sounds to people who don't usually listen to The Archers, "but, you know, sometimes it’s on".
  Man Who Always Sounds Jolly: Hullo! Look who's turned up again!
  Cosily Wry Woman: It's one of the Men Who Always Sound Tired.
  Man Who Always Sounds Tired: 'Fraid so, like a bad penny. Hello, one of the Men Who Always Sounds Jolly, one of the Cosily Wry Women, which is all of them, except... except two.
  • The sketch has the Man Who Always Sounds Tired recounting his dilemma, namely he and his brother are arguing over putting a box on a table, and since this is The Archers, this will take forever. "So you can guarantee that any time you accidentally listen to this in the next six months, we will all still be going on about Andrew and his sodding box." The studio audience goes wild at this one.
  • Season 2, episode 2 brings it back: "And now on Radio 4, unbelievably, it's time to accidentally hear a bit of The Archers again, even though you could swear it's only been about two hours since it was last on..."
    Insufferably Wry Woman: What have you been or up to so tiredly, or had I better not ask?
    Man Who Always Sounds Tired: Well, you can ask, it just won't be in any way interesting.
  • Having killed a minute with inane banter, the Man says it's probably time to go.
    Insufferably Wry Woman: Oh, must you go? I think one of The Women With an Accent is just making coffee.
    (sound of door opening)
    Woman With an Accent: That's right, 'ere I am with some coffee! (sound of spoon being swirled) Which you can hear if you don't believe me!
    Man Who Always Sounds Tired: Hello there, One of the Women With an Accent. You'd think that would make you easy to tell apart from the others, but as it turns out, no.
  • Season 3 brings it back again, with the Men Who Sound Tired getting a hard start of banging the wooden objects, soothing a testy cow so you know they're outside, recounting every minute details of the previous scene, and talking with one of the Very Posh People.
    Man Who Always Sounds Tired: Oh, it's one of the posh people. I thought they killed you off?
    Posh Man: No. They killed off the Very Posh Man, but there's still half a dozen or so of us Fairly Posh People knocking around, with all the inexplicable Scots and Geordies. Anyway, I was just passing on my way from somewhere else to a third location and saw you working or possibly having a drink.
    Testy cow: Mmmmmooooo!
    Man Who Always Sounds Tired: There, there, steady on, girl.
    Posh Man: Thank you - working.
  • As the scene ends, the Very Posh Man takes off on a tractor, despite having supposedly walked into the scene.
  • It returns in season 6, episode 3, "as your mother in-law is helping you do the dishes, so there's realistically no way you can avoid accidentally listening to The Archers." However, the announcer reassures viewers that one of the cast is a psychopath, "and it's perked things up no end".
• The warning against the Grand Romantic Gesture
  MEN. DON'T TRY TO BE CLEVER. THE MEN IN THESE STORIES WERE HAPLESS IDIOTS, BUT SO ARE YOU. THEY ALL TRIED TO BE ORIGINAL, TO THINK DIFFERENTLY. DO NOT DO THIS. BE UNORIGINAL, THINK SAME-ILY. THE ACCEPTABLE ROMANTIC GESTURES ARE IN ORDER: FLOWERS, DINNER, PRESENTS OF SOMETHING SHE MENTIONED AGES AGO AND THEN FORGOT ABOUT. A PROPOSAL SHOULD BE SOMEWHERE NICE, WITH A RING, PRIVATE ENOUGH FOR HER TO SAY NO IF SHE WANTS TO. MEN ONLY GET AWAY WITH ANY VARIATION ON THESE IN HOLLYWOOD MOVIES, AND THAT'S BECAUSE THE SAME PERSON GETS TO WRITE WHAT HE DOES AND WHAT SHE THINKS ABOUT IT. YOU DON'T GET TO DO THAT. SO STICK TO THE STUFF THAT WORKS. AND ALWAYS KEEP THE RECEIPT.
• The Storyteller sketch for season 2, episode 4, where he goes wood-spotting in Epping, and is warned by the creepy innkeeper not to go out that night, for it is the night after Walpurgisnacht, when the Devil is abroad.
  Storyteller: Wait, I thought you said this was the night after Walpurgisnacht.
  Innkeeper: Yes, the night after the Devil is abroad... and is jet-lagged!
  • The storyteller goes out anyway, only to find spiders weaving pentagrams and an owl played by Carrie Quinlan warning him... until she breaks character to complain about her role. So the storyteller just "shoots" the owl and presses on. He then runs into a woman proclaiming to be the Devil, who asks if he noticed the warning signs.
  Storyteller: No, no warnings. Just some curious freaks of nature and a stroppy actress.
  Carrie Quinlan: (from offstage) I played Ophelia!
  Devil: Bloody owls.
• Season 4, episode 6's Storyteller sketch has him invited to Krupenstein Castle by Dr. Krupenstein to see the doctor's newest invention, which they believe is definitely only for mankind's benefit and is 90% sure it's not evil. On arrival he's met by a strange, hunched creature. Not Krupenstein, as so many people mistakenly believe, but not what the Storyteller thinks.
  Storyteller: You're Krupenstein's creature!
  Man: ... no, I'm her husband. Darling, the Englishman's here! He's very rude!
• Season 7 episode 1: Sigmund Freud phoning his mother to talk about the release of his new book, not getting why Mrs. Freud might be so upset.
  Mrs. Freud: It was hard for me to follow. A lot of it was very technical.
  Freud: But not all of it.
  Mrs. Freud: No. Not all of it. Some parts were very clear.

  Mrs. Freud: What did your clever neurologist friends think?
  Freud: (scoffs) I don't care about them. I care about you.
  Mrs. Freud: Yes. Yes, that came across.

  Mrs. Freud: Siggy, these things you say everybody wants.
  Freud: Yes?
  Mrs. Freud: Are they things... you want?
  Freud: Well, the whole point is they are things everybody wants, subconsciously. Me, you-
  Mrs. Freud: No. No! Not me!
  Freud: No, but in the subconscious-
  Mrs. Freud: NO. Not anywhere. It's very important you understand that. Not at all, not me, no!
  Freud: Mother, I must say I'm surprised at your reaction.
  Mrs. Freud: Yes, yes, well. Now we have both been surprised.
  Freud: Goodbye, Mummy! I love you!
  Mrs. Freud: I like you too.

• The Patsy Straightwoman sketch where she's interviewing a gnu, who corrects her (and by extension, the audience) on the correct pronunciation of "gnu", only for Carrie and John to break character. Then all of a sudden song breaks out.
• John's story about how he fell for clickbait, and the lead in.
  John: I have not been eating bananas the wrong way all this time. I've been eating them with my mouth. If that's the wrong way, I don't want to be right.

  John: I don't need One Weird Tip to Get Rid of My Belly Fat. (audience laughs) Studio audience, don't betray me to the radio audience. Don't listen to them, radio audience. I am very svelte.
• The Teddy Bear Annual Conference.
  Bears: Eat the humans, eat the humans!
  Man: Did they say "eat the humans"?
  Conference personnel: What can I tell you, sir? You're in for a big surprise.
• The Storyteller sketch for series 7, episode 1 begins with him being asked for a biscuit:
  Storyteller: No, you cannot have the biscuit without hearing the story. I don't care if you no longer want the biscuits, you've started me off now.
• Due to the BBC announcer getting mixed up, Prime Minister's Questions and Gardener's Question Time act like one another - resulting in the PM politely and calmly taking questions from constituents, and gardeners shouting to be heard over the booing of the audience as she tries condemning loamy soil.
  Announcer: I could try for a third time, but to be honest, I prefer them like this.
• The "Sad Donkey" sketch.
• The Storyteller doing a murder mystery, starting with the butler turning out to actually be an undercover inspector... and it just gets sillier from there.
• The keeper of insects and the zoo, and his lament about his lot in life (since people only go to insect exhibits because they're trying to overcome a phobia).
  Insect keeper: NO-ONE GOES TO THE ZOO BECAUSE OF THEIR FEAR OF PANDAS! IT'S JUST ME!
• The weather report, acknowledging that even if you're trying to pay attention, it just turns to mush.
• The show taking self-awareness to potentially fatal levels by parodying itself.
  John: (forced) Wow, Simon, are you breaking the fourth wall or something?! This is remarkable!
  Simon: (equally forced) MMM!
• "The Incredibly Boring Leaving Do of 2017" - and it's catchy.
• The Caper sketch paying off the joke about the security feature of a wolf that hasn't been fed, pointing out one little flaw in the plan.
  Thief: What you've got there is a wolf skeleton being poked with a stick. As an art form it's provocative, but as a security feature...
• The punchline to the 'lasagna' sketch, where the so-called lasagna is clearly a Victoria sponge:
  So this bet of yours that you could go for a year without cake...
• "October Revolution" imagines how Red October might have gone had Vladimir Lenin tried to organise it in the e-mail age.
  Subject: Revolution
  Hi guys! Comrade Lenin here. Just a quick reminder that it's revolution time again, the 25th of next month. So, er, you should all have this information already, but just to recap, we're meeting at 9:45 by the battleship Aurora in Petrograd, then going on to the Winter Palace later. Bring banners, but no guns, and twenty rubles for the kitty.
  Look forward to seeing you all there,
  Vlad
  • First, Mikhail Frunze says he can't make the Aurora meeting due to work issues, while Alexei Rykov says he has an early start the next day so may have to drop out after the Aurora, so they offer to "tag team" things, leading to the first of several juvenile That's What She Said contributions from Leon Trotsky.
  • Pavel Dybenko is confused over whether the revolution is scheduled for October or November thanks to the discrepancy between the Gregorian and Julian calendars (Trotsky jokes that "Julian Calendar" sounds like a hairdresser).
  • Meanwhile, Lev Kamenev somehow missed the part of Lenin's original e-mail about whether or not they needed to bring anything, and when Lenin repeats that they need to bring banners and twenty rubles, Pavel adds, "And, as Comrade Lenin forgot to say, GUNS! Obviously. Forget your own head next, Vlad! :)" Lev asks if banners will be provided since he doesn't have one, while Mikhail says he doesn't have a gun and doesn't like the idea of the revolution being an armed uprising, so he decides to bow out, sparking an outburst from Lenin about him "flouncing" out, which only serves to offend him.
  • Lev suggests that since there's so much confusion over details, perhaps they should postpone the revolution for a few months until they've pulled themselves together. At which point Grigory Zinoviev, whose "out of office" message has immediately followed every one of Lenin's e-mails up to this point, reveals that he isn't out of office when he agrees with Lev's suggestion. He explains to an annoyed Lenin that he puts the message on so he can get some work done.
  • A comment from Grigory about the chaos at "Tsar Nikolai's leaving do" reminds Pavel that he's having coffee with the ex-Tsar and asks if he should be invited. An outraged Lenin says that would be "massively awkward", but Pavel has already e-mailed the ex-Tsar an invitation. He asks Lenin to e-mail him to cancel, as he doesn't know the history; Lenin, his patience reaching breaking point, reminds Pavel that he was part of the history, before the e-mail chain breaks down as he screams at Grigory to take off his "out of office" notifier and Trotsky makes another That's What She Said quip about Lenin's use of the phrase "take it off".
  • At which point, we get a Framing Device reveal:
    Technician: And that's as far as we've run the simulation, but does that answer your question?
    Woman: Yes, I-I mean, it was more of an offhand comment than a serious question, but, but thank you, yes.
    Second woman: [whispering] What was your question?
    Woman: "How did anyone ever organise anything before e-mail."
• The Whale Translator sketch, helped by the whales sounding like they're stoned out of their gourds. And the fact they're stuck in an endless circle of pointing out they're whales.
• The Storyteller recounting how he revived Queen Victoria as a cyborg, even though a brain detached from the human body becomes dehumanized to the point of monstrousness ("I'm not saying I won't do it, I'm just saying when I'm done, look out! Things are gonna get monster-y!") Sure enough, she does, and goes on a rampage, starting by incinerating Londoners for not being as sad over Albert as they were her.
  Storyteller: And with that, the metallic robo-monarch lurched into the night! ... naturally, the job was done and I thought no more of it.
  • Finnemore tries to claim it might not have her, only to run into a problem.
    Albert Hush: She's... she's fairly distinctive, Finnemore. There aren't many nine foot robot monarchs running around London. Not since we captured Nicholas the Electro-Tzar.
• The story of the unfortunate Professor Beaumont, who once had the misfortune to assemble a dinosaur skeleton with the head in the wrong place, and whom the academic world has never allowed a moment's peace.

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