Ah, TV Offal. Victor Lewis-Smith's late-nineties love letter - and poison pen letter - to telly, it holds a special place in my heart as something that I love on a very deep level indeed. (See also: old ITV startups, Bottom, and a fat man who works for Radio 1 who we probably shouldn't talk about.) Sadly, rights issues mean that a DVD release is impossible - hell, even a repeat of the show had to be a Best Of, as some of the material was only cleared for broadcast once - but there are some clips on YouTube, and at least one version of a high-quality homemade DVD doing the rounds.

But this isn't a love-fest for the show as such - although I should probably write one at some point. No, this is something altogether more specific - an examination of the linking jingles in the show. Created by the wonderful JAM Creative Productions, it's often mentioned that the cuts are like old Radio 1 jingles - but whilst they're done by the same company, none of the jingles were originally created for Radio 1... or, for that matter, TV Offal itself.

So, where do they come from? In fact, each jingle was created for a different American radio station - TV Offal uses a variety of different jingles, from many different packages, created years apart. (A 'package' means simply: one complete set of jingles that a station ordered.) New lyrics were written by VLS, and then the jingles were resung with the new lyrics. In radio, resinging existing jingles with new lyrics is extremely common practice - indeed, with the exception of one custom package, every single jingle Radio 1 used throughout the 80s was a resing of jingles originally sung for American stations. (For that matter, the jingles that TV Offal uses were not only used by the original radio station that commissioned it - they were also resung for radio stations across the US, and some UK stations too.)

Which means, all this leaves an audience who have heard TV Offal's jingles over and over again... but have never heard the original sings for the US radio stations. Wouldn't it be interesting to compare the two? (At this point, you're supposed to shout yes, or sod off somewhere else.) And so here they are: the original sings of each jingle, and then the TV Offal resings:

A few notes, then. As anyone who has seen the show is aware, whilst I've only included the Rantzen version here, the 'It's Nice' song was sung for a different celebrity each episode, with completely different lyrics - the full list of victims were: David Attenborough, Chris Evans, Lloyd Grossman, Esther Rantzen, Carol Vorderman, and Dale Winton. The pilot is slightly different, as it doesn't focus on a celebrity - but instead, the concept of selling God, complete with slightly dodgy edit in the middle. Whilst I love the celebrity songs, I actually think the God version is one of the strongest - the show could easily have kept going with more general concepts, rather than being focused on specific celebrities. ("#It's nice selling God, especially when you're almost dead...")

Anyone interested in influences on the show should note that the "It's nice" refrain - that pretty much symbolises TV Offal - wasn't created by the show at all. The very original version of the jingle as given above - a lovely, warm image song singing the praises of Detroit - uses the words "#It's nice in Detroit...", and indeed the entire package is simply called 'It's Nice'. And so, jingles created for an American radio station directly influenced one of the main recurring sketches of a late-night Channel 4 comedy show. The world is a strange place.

What's interesting is how VLS mucked around with the songs slightly in the edit - to take but one example, the broadcast version of the Rantzen song has numerous (extremely funny) sound effects added, sometimes with the song being extended slightly to fit them in. The biggest change, however, is with the very amusing line "Geraldo but with more facial hair" - this is gone entirely in the broadcast version, to be replaced with the - to be fair, equally amusing - clip of: "I'd just like to say, your programme stinks!"

On a similar note, the version of 'Assassination of the Week' here is slightly different to that broadcast - the "Bang!" chant was replaced with actual machine gun noise. (I like both versions equally, but it's interesting to ponder why VLS changed it - perhaps he wanted a harder edge to what is one of the nastiest - in a good way - parts of the show.) There's also an alternate version of the Kamikaze Karaoke jingle, with the singers going out-of-tune (sadly, my copy of this is in storage at the moment, but I'll upload it when I get a chance) - I never figured out whether this was a genuine outtake, or something done entirely deliberately so that VLS could make an amusing remark and tell the singers to do it again. ("Pay you enough...")

Anyway, I could rattle on for ages - the jingles themselves could be endlessly discussed, but I'll postpone my immense jingle rant for now. (You'll have to put up with it at some point though. Look, stop deleting that bookmark. STOP IT.) But suffice to say that I love both versions of each jingle equally - the original versions work brilliantly as radio jingles (and sound gorgeous) - and then VLS took them, and made them work in a different context... but equally brilliantly. Both sets of work showcase people at the very top of their game. And, in the end, both sets of jingles work in the same way - on a practical level, as identification (whether it's for a radio station or a sketch), and for setting the right tone for what follows.

But also as wonderful, hugely fun mini-songs in their own right.

A huge thank-you to everyone who helped with this article on Jinglemad, especially Dave Nightingale (who came up with the initial list of cuts), David Barras, and Robin Blamires.