The Bugle

The Bugle
Presentation
Hosted by	John Oliver, Andy Zaltzman
Genre	News, Comedy
Language	English
Updates	Weekly
Production
Audio format	Stream, MP3, AAC
Publication
Original release	14 October 2007

The Bugle, the alpha and omega of weekly news podcasts, hosted by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, and distributed by TimesOnline. Most of the time, Oliver is based in New York and Zaltzman in London.

New episodes of The Bugle are recorded midweek and released on Fridays with related material appearing on the Times Online website.

Description

From the official description: “Based respectively in a penthouse turret in metropolitan New York and a small lair in South London, John Oliver (The Daily Show, Political Animal) and Andy Zaltzman PhD FRCS FRS KBE ARBSM BMus LVO DIC KG (also Political Animal, The Now Show, Bremner, Bird & Fortune), with their combined height of 3.59 metres, will together canoe through the murky swamp of big stories, small stories and assorted hogwash that inundates our daily world. Curiously, when measured with the imperial system they register a combined height of 12 feet. Scientists speculate that this is because their love of this system causes them both to physically swell in its presence. Comprising news, sport, comment, analysis, other stuff, and our unique audio crossword, The Bugle is the newspaper of the future, before the future actually happens.”

History

The Bugle was first created in 1907, but wasn't first heard until October 2007 due to the fact that podcasts weren't invented until much later. Early wax cylinder recordings of the show were recently found in Texas, Liverpool, Shanghai, and Sydney, but these episodes are too controversial to be released today, due to Andy and John's inexplicable decision to record each show in blackface. The original name of the satirical news show was "Andy, John and friends," but it was changed after it was discovered that they had no friends. They settled on "The Bugle" after a computer programmer realized that when the first episode is converted into code, it resembles a trumpet like instrument. While their first podcast attracted little notice from the world, The Bugle has been steadily growing in popularity among 17 to 86 year olds due to its winning combination of childish humor, world news and its award winning "Hotties From History" section.

Born "Andrea" in 1969, Andy Zaltzman received a successful sex change operation in 1998. He had second thoughts two years later, becoming a woman again, before having yet another surgery in 2006 to settle on the androgenous happy medium we know and love today. Zaltzman was a founding member of English pop band the Housemartins. Zaltzman and the group parted ways in 1986 just prior to the band's pre-Christmas number one, Caravan of Love. Although Zaltzman refuses to discuss the split, fans maintain that his contribution of mime was under-appreciated by the band and fans, who often mistook his passionate solos for the gaps between album tracks.

Andy shot four scenes for the latest Batman film playing the Joker's partner in crime, however these scenes were sadly left on the cutting room floor after the Director deemed Andy's appearence too shocking for mainstream cinema.

John Oliver won Olympic Gold in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games after being drafted into the Swedish womens volleyball team, they won by 3 points to 0 against Andorra. John also wrote a cookbook "2,362 Ways to Dice an Aubergine" which reached 92 in the Ukrainian hard back charts. It is now available at all second hand books shops and certain car boot sales on the A42.

Although a widely known fact that John was born in Birmingham, it is not so well known that he is actually made entirely of chocolate and was brought to life with the helpful magic of a singing and dancing cricket named 'Jiminy'.

The show was almost ended in February 2006 when Andy and John had a argument over a sandwich[1]. They attempted to end the show and part different ways but when they presented this to The Times they discovered that the original contracts they signed when they started the show legally binds there friendship and made either of them leaving the show impossible. But to this day it's been said you can heard the resentment in both Andy and John's voices

In episode 41, in response to a listener e-mail, Andy gave a call to arms for all Bugle listeners to add one lie to the Bugle's Wikipedia page: "No facts allowed."

Controversy

In episode 39, it was revealed that John Oliver not only came from the same continent as the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, but has shamelessly stood by as more than one billion people have died during his lifetime. The same episode also exposed the fact that Andy Zaltzman lives in London, the same city where the Communist Manifesto was written just a short 160 years before his birth. In addition, he has been accused of being a Crimean Warfare Fetishist. It was unclear for a time whether John and Andy would be allowed to continue the Bugle after these startling facts were revealed.

In a separate controversy, neither Andy nor John has ever denied charges that they like to harm baby elephants. No evidence has been found to date to disprove this shocking accusation, and their silence on the matter has made even their most die hard fans begin to question their innocence.

In 2006 the Bugle was nominated for preservation by the US Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. The nomination was roundly rejected, severely impairing relations between the USA and Britain and leading both to invade Canada.

Features

• Ask an American- Every few episodes, the guest known only as 'The American' will appear on the show. He is portrayed as the stereotypical middle-class American; xenophobic, lazy, and ignorant. He is from New Jersey (supposedly- some fans have claimed he is from another part of the US or even from England) and often gets in heated debates with John, each twisting each others' logic in attempts to validate their points. He associates with New York City, but has yet to realize that most of New Jersey is New York City's dingle berry; much like how Canada is America's hat. The American hasn't made an appearance in several weeks, with no comment from either host as to a reason for his absence. There is much speculation to the identity of The American, many believe him to be former England international Cricket captain Ian Botham. Botham is currently serving as a tour guide in a giant shredded wheat breakfast cereal which correlates with his absence from the bugle adding further credibility to the The American Botham theory.

• Hotties From History- This feature began roughly around the time the show reached double digits. For several consecutive weeks, Andy had been mentioning his attraction to Florence Nightingale with progressively lewd language. This culminated with John calling Andy out on this, however it only provoked Andy into encouraging listeners to e-mail in other historical figures they were attracted to. Hotties From History was born. John was initially against the idea, but when Andy put a slideshow of the nominations onto the Bugle blog and John had watched it, he declared that he had become a 'total convert'. The ground rules for the contest are only that the nominee have been dead for roughly half a century- otherwise it would be creepy. At the end of each month, Andy announces the male and female nominations with the most votes, crowning them 'Mr. and Mrs. (Month). Some of the stranger nominations for the position have been Joanna the Mad, Tiresias, and the Toba Eruption. The latter led to a new rule that nominees "must be human."

• Audio Cryptic Crossword- Pioneered by Andy, this was a fan favorite. Towards the end of each show, Andy would give a space & direction in a crossword grid (available on the blog), followed by a clue. After a few weeks, John commented on how there was probably nobody actually doing the crossword, which Andy refuted forcefully. Each week, John would progressively declare his hate for the crossword in larger terms until it became a major divisive point between the hosts, each trying to rally support from fans in their favor (Andy receiving the majority). After the final clue was given in episode 29, John gave his opinion on the Crossword as a whole: "I see the glorious history of the Audio Cryptic Crossword as I see the glorious history of the Third Reich- a terrible idea that was rammed down peoples throats for far too long." Andy replied that he agreed with the Third Reich comparison, but for different reasons: It was "a triumph for persistence, doggedness, and the value of standing up to pressure from the other side of the Atlantic." The following week when a listener named Elliot sent an e-mail stating firmly that he was extremely glad the Crossword was over, Andy retorted that "people were glad when the war was over, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the greatest part of British history." The hosts have come up with several ideas for segments to fill up the space once occupied by the crossword, but none have lasted more than a couple weeks.

• The Bugle Blog- Andy periodically updates a segment on the Times Online website with extra e-mails, information on the Bugle, and downloadable versions of the past few episodes.[2]This section has been known to be forgotten by Mr Zaltzman for many reasons including, Cricket,Shiny Objects,the Olympics, his child,tiredness and Grapes

• Bugle Forecast- At the end of each show, the hosts will make a prediction about the following week. It started out as simply the weather, but has branched out to topics as diverse as the results of the U.S. Open and the number of squirrels to be killed on the world's roads in the following week.

• Impala-Bugle Conflict- As of August 15th, 2008 known Impala hater Andy Zaltzman declared war on the Impala Nation. In Episode 40, Andy was describing an example of insensitively letting your child know a pet has died, using an impala for the hypothetical pet in question. During the anecdote, Andy described an impala's neck as "stupid", among other insults. The following week, a representative for impalas worldwide, Ignatius Impala, responded to Andy by informing him that in the upcoming Impala Uprising he would be second in line to be hunted down (after lions). Andy then declared war on impalas, saying he would eat any impala he came across. He tried to recruit John into helping him in the war, but John refused, protecting the neutrality the impalas granted him.

• MC-Hammer Lyrics- On a few occasions John has quoted MC-Hammer to apologize to Mike Gravel and heckle Alfred Lord Tennison, the great-great-grandfather of hardcore Gangsta rap.

Andy Zaltzman Memorial Misinformation Section

***This Section Has NO FACTS WHATSOEVER***

• America has a secret world-spanning empire. Slogan: "The sun never sets on McDonalds and Coke."

• John Oliver's last name is actually "The Apostle." After writing the book of Revelation, the Lord decided to drop him off in the early 21st century to pursue his dreams as a British comedian.

• 17 people, 14 Hippos and a small South American village were destroyed as a direct result of issue 36 of the Bugle. This lead to the Pope and many other fictional characters calling for the Bugle to be banned.

• Andy Zaltzman is credited by many people who like sitting close to, but not directly touching carpets as the true inventor of the beanbag. In 1984 he became tangled in a painful legal battle with Jimmy Saville who himself claimed to have invented the popular chair alternative.

References

¹The Bugle Blog

External links

• The Bugle Homepage