2004: The Stupid Version is a satirical documentary written by Armando Iannucci

Armando Iannucci

Armando Giovanni Iannucci is a Scottish comedian, satirist, writer, director, performer and radio producer. Born in Glasgow, he studied at Oxford University and left graduate work on a PhD about John Milton to pursue a career in comedy....

, broadcast in two parts on BBC Three

BBC Three

BBC Three is a television network from the BBC broadcasting via digital cable, terrestrial, IPTV and satellite platforms. The channel's target audience includes those in the 16-34 year old age group, and has the purpose of providing "innovative" content to younger audiences, focusing on new talent...

 on New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...

 2004. The one-off programme is a parody of review programmes typically broadcast at New Year. It features edited footage from news and television series, as well as satire

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

s on the politics and fads of a year in which "only Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr

Andrew William Stevenson Marr is a Scottish journalist and political commentator. He edited The Independent for two years until May 1998, and was political editor of BBC News from 2000 until 2005....

 kept his dignity".

The documentary was shown again on BBC Two

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 on 29 January 2005, but has not been repeated since or released on DVD, although clips are available on the internet. Iannucci's 2006 series Time Trumpet

Time Trumpet

Time Trumpet is a six-episode satirical television comedy series which aired on BBC Two in 2006. The series was written by Armando Iannucci, Roger Drew and Will Smith in a similar manner to Iannucci's earlier one-off programmes 2004: The Stupid Version and Clinton: His Struggle with...

follows a similar format to The Stupid Version, reviewing events satirically from a future perspective.

Format

Iannucci himself narrated the content, but only appears on screen once to assess the aftermath of The Room Show, a spoof of the reality television

Reality television

Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...

 shows prevalent at the time, in which Ian McCaskill

Ian McCaskill

Ian McCaskill is a former BBC weatherman. His Scottish accent, manner of speech, and relentless enthusiasm for severe weather made him popular with viewers . He became the most imitated weather presenter in the UK...

, Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards

Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards

Michael Edwards , better known as Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, is a British skier who was the first competitor to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping...

 and a number of other minor celebrities were locked in a container (unfilmed) for 10 hours.

In particular, the show focuses on stories that made the headlines from 2004, for example the US presidential election

United States presidential election, 2004

The United States presidential election of 2004 was the United States' 55th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2004. Republican Party candidate and incumbent President George W. Bush defeated Democratic Party candidate John Kerry, the then-junior U.S. Senator...

, featuring edited footage showing George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 singing "New York, New York

Theme from New York, New York

"Theme from New York, New York" is the theme song from the Martin Scorsese film New York, New York , composed by John Kander, with lyrics by Fred Ebb. It was written for and performed in the film by Liza Minnelli...

" during a presidential head-to-head and a montage of election speeches emphasising the buzz-words used by Bush's campaign. In addition, the programme satirised politics in the UK, for example edits of Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 and Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

 both apparently contradicting one another, the favourite swear-words of Conservative politicians and the controversial Panorama

Panorama (TV series)

Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...

documentary "Where the Tits were Saddam's WMD?"

The programme also features a series of banal interviews interspersed with the clips, with the interviewees either misunderstanding or misinterpreting their content; "The Olympics – what was all that about?" In reality, these were actors Richard Ayoade

Richard Ayoade

Richard Ellef Ayoade is a British comedian, actor, writer and director best known for his role as Maurice Moss in The IT Crowd.Ayoade was born an only child to a Norwegian mother, Dagny , and a Nigerian father, Layide Ade Laditi Ayoade. Ayoade studied at St...

, Matthew Holness

Matthew Holness

Matthew Holness is an English comedian and actor from Whitstable in Kent. He attended Chaucer Technology School in Canterbury and read English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was vice-president of the Cambridge Footlights...

, Adam Buxton

Adam Buxton

Adam Offord Buxton is an English comedian and actor. With Joe Cornish, he forms one half of the duo Adam and Joe. The pair presented Adam and Joe on BBC 6 Music, whilst Buxton also presents his own show on 6 Music on Sundays, called Adam Buxton's Big Mix Tape, currently on hiatus.-Major work:His...

 and Stewart Lee

Stewart Lee

Stewart Lee is an English stand-up comedian, writer and director known for being one half of the 1990s comedy duo Lee and Herring, and for co-writing and directing the critically acclaimed and controversial stage show Jerry Springer - The Opera...

.

BBC television programmes spoofed included Johnny & Denise: Passport to Paradise, Hard Spell

Hard Spell

Hard Spell is a United Kingdom televised spelling bee programme for children between the ages of eleven and fourteen, presented by Eamonn Holmes, with Nina Hossain reading the words. It was first broadcast on BBC One in late 2004...

, The Weakest Link

The Weakest Link

The Weakest Link is a television game show which first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 14 August 2000 and will end its run in 2012 when its host Anne Robinson ends her contract. The original British version of the show airs around the world on BBC Entertainment...

and Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Titchmarsh

Alan Fred Titchmarsh, MBE DL is an English gardener, broadcaster and novelist. After working as a professional gardener and a garden journalist, he established himself as a media personality through appearances on gardening programmes...

's British Isles: A Natural History. Other notable edits include a world where every object was in the style of an iPod

IPod

iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...

, a dubbed News 24

BBC News 24

BBC News is the BBC's 24-hour rolling news television network in the United Kingdom. The channel launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17:30 as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989...

 interview with the editor of Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...

 and a parody of The Streets

The Streets

The Streets were a British rap/garage project from Birmingham, United Kingdom, led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Skinner and has included a myriad of other contributors most notably drummer Johnny Drum Machine, vocalist Kevin Mark Trail and the Italian-American beatmaker Leroy.The...

 song "Dry Your Eyes

Dry Your Eyes

"Dry Your Eyes" is a UK garage song written by English rapper The Streets for his second album A Grand Don't Come for Free . The song describes the persona trying to cope with his girlfriend breaking up with him. It was released as the album's second single on 19 July 2004...

".