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Harry Hill's TV Burp
Format	Comedy Entertainment
Presented by	Harry Hill
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of series	6
No. of episodes	51
Production
Producer(s)	Nick Symons (2002-2006); Spencer Millman (2007-present)
Running time	30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ITV
Original run	December 22, 2001 (pilot), November 14, 2002 – present
External links
IMDb profile

Harry Hill's TV Burp is a popular British television comedy programme, produced by Avalon Television for ITV, and is hosted by the comedian Harry Hill. The show presents a satirical look at the previous week's television, including extracts from TV shows with added sketches, observational voice-overs, and guest appearances.

This type of format was pioneered by the US E! network's Talk Soup and subsequently The Soup but on a smaller scale.

It is based on clips of the previous week of programming, showing lines of dialogue that can be twisted out of context, unusual set layouts and actions performed on the shows. The show premièred with a pilot on December 22, 2001, which is available to watch on Avalon's website. The pilot contained many of the common elements that remain on the show to the present day, now in its sixth series, such as "TV Highlight of the Week" and the pre-break "fight".

Following the success of the pilot, a full series was commissioned, starting on November 14, 2002. Five subsequent series have followed, one in 2003, two in 2004, one in 2006, and one in 2007 which was a longer run than usual, consisting of thirteen episodes instead of six to eight. Hill also hosted a segment of the show near the start of the 2005 and 2007 editions of Comic Relief, broadcast on March 11 and March 17 in those years respectively. The series also has Christmas Specials that are usually aired around Christmas. The latest series began on on January 20, 2007 in its usual Saturday early-evening slot.

Series 2 and 3 were originally shown in a late-night slot on Thursdays and Fridays respectively. This received criticism from many, as it was very family-friendly humour, and called for it to be broadcast earlier. Series 3 saw a repeat showing in a Sunday tea-time slot. Series' 4 and 5 saw Burp broadcast on a Saturday tea-time slot - although now, from being criticised for being shown too late, some feel that its new slot was too early, and deserved a prime-time evening slot. Series 6 was given a boost following Hill's successful narration of You've Been Framed.

The show is very unlikely to ever be released on DVD because the use of multiple TV clips, from many different sources, would cause enormous and expensive copyright clearance problems.

Although Hill does most of the writing himself, Brenda Gilhooly, Paul Hawksbee, Dan Maier (Goal!) and David Quantick also help write the weekly show.

There was a Christmas special of the show aired on Christmas Day 2007; it was confirmed during the show that the next series will start on 12th Janurary 2008.

• Pre-advertisement 'fights' that attempt to determine which of two people or things related to the week's television are "best", such as "Babies or Cats" (from The Apprentice), "White Rat or Brown Rat" (from a nature programme) and "Mars or Meat" (from Life on Mars and The Bill) or even Jesus and Hitler.
• "TV Highlight of the Week" which is a segment of a show showing a very mundane event such as throwing out some sour milk, exhaling, spraying disinfectant or serving tea. If a TV Highlight of the Week is not made, there is usually a variation, such as "Most Inadvertently Funny Title Sequence of the Week," "TV High Voice of the Week," "Least Amount of Sick Produced When Being Sick of the Week," "Most Inappropriate Excitement at Seeing a Bath of the Week" "Voice Over Highlight of the Week" or "Not Very Good Banner of the Week" with the same jingle that TV Highlight of the Week has.
• Through the 2003/4 series however, for most of the second half of the series he would have 'Extra Of The Week', which had a completely different jingle, and while it was originally meant to highlight good extras in soaps, it became a replacement of TV Highlight for its duration.
• At the end of every show, one of the "stars" comes back to sing a song. For example, in the pilot episode, Bruce Jones sings Rhinestone Cowboy after Harry gave him a pet horse.
• Edited shots in which Harry 'appears' in a show (sometimes as himself, sometimes as a character from said show) to do something, usually an action which the original character did in the show itself or attacking a character that has annoyed him. Sometimes, edited shots of the real characters from the said TV programme are put in or Harry Hill narrates a clip to sound like the actors are saying it, e.g. the mice from Bagpuss say "You should look at her face!" and the doll replies "Am I bovvered? Does my face look bovvered?"
• Other running gags which are usually specific to each series, such as "Celebrity Big Brother Round-Up" or pretending to be the banker on the other end of the phone on Deal or No Deal. Every now and again, Harry or someone from the TV programme gets a box of Cadbury 'Crunchies' and Harry Hill would then turn to the camera and say "CRUNCHIES!!" in a big, fat, imitating way (this joke is very rare and has only appeared once or twice). Another occasional joke is that he will mention The Mustard Shop in Norwich whenever Norwich is mentioned.

• Hill, a fan of the British singer Morrissey, has also used songs of Morrissey in the show on at least two occasions. TV Burp used to have a segment called "Ouija Board, Ouija Board", which was introduced by the Morrissey song of the same name. Also, in the 2006 series, Hill jokingly changed the theme tune of the popular soap opera EastEnders to "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" by The Smiths.
• Hill used members of the audience to sit behind his desk for his latest series to put on his website, the first being one Ali Brice.

Harry Hill's TV Burp has been nominated for Best comedy entertainment programme at the 2007 British Comedy Awards.^[1]

• Harry Hill's TV Burp at itv.com
• Harry Hill's TV Burp at the Internet Movie Database
• Harry Hill's official site
• Avalon Television's website (Contains the full pilot of TV Burp, amongst other programmes.)
• Harry Hill Fansite - Unofficial Fansite for Harry Hill