The unfunny bloke that was always on TV

It was a fart that started it. If it hadn't been for the fart he would never have made it on TV. 

Nobody ever found him funny, he wasn't funny, but someone in the audience for his first gig farted loudly, causing a smattering of laughter whilst he was on stage, and his fate was sealed.

The 'gig' was a late night 'Smoker' at his College. There would be no subsequent Footlights invitation for him, indeed he would not be asked to perform at the next smoker, it was generally agreed that his act stank, and that was nothing to do with the fart. But the Head of Comedy at the BBC had gone to the same College. She heard about the laugh from a friend at the College bar and booked him to fill vacancies on the numerous panel shows for the next two years. BBC comedy mostly consisted of panel shows. 

He counted up the invitations. 157 shows, a mix of TV and radio, and he counted up the fees he would make, much more than he could ever have made as a lawyer, the profession he was training for, it was an absurd amount of money. So he became the unfunny bloke that's always on the TV. In the street, he was continually mistaken for Marcus Brigstock and Ranesh Ramanathan, or one of the other unfunny blokes that is always on TV. Nobody liked him, nobody thought he was funny, but it didn't matter, he was block booked, and when the first two years of bookings ran out he was simply written back in as a familiar face. 

And then suddenly everything changed. He was on 'Have I got some bigoted opinions for you', a popular celebrity-based quiz, and was commenting on the latest clip of the Prime Minister behaving like an idiot. The PM, who wasn't the most functioning individual, was trying to don a blue hat for a photo shoot and failing the practical test of putting a hat on his head. The 'comedian' said something almost-funny about wearing a red hat, before a PM-backing toady joked that 'we've all done that' and the show carried on with it's usual mix of bigotry and additional bigotry.  

But nobody noticed, for they were still thinking about the red hat comment. For although the PM was a horrible, useless, selfish man, so stupid he was incable even of putting a hat on his head, this was the first time anything had been said against him on the national media. The comment wasn't edited out, as a million previous jokes had been by much better comedians who were now life-banned from the BBC, because nobody in the studio audience laughed and the editorial team dismissed it as yet another unfunny line uttered by the unfunny bloke that was always on TV. 

But when the show was broadcast the comment resonated. It reflected the sheer idiocy of the prime minister, and as such it didn't matter that the comment wasn't funny, the PM was the joke himself, the halfwit who couldn't manage to put a hat on his head without falling over. In no time at all the clip became the most-watched in the history of the internet. Wearing a red hat became a symbol of protest and in no time at all everyone was wearing a red hat. 

The comedian was no longer mistaken for Marcus Brigstock or Ranesh Ramanathan. He was no longer one of those unfunny people who was always on TV, he was now seen seen as a comedian, even though, of course, he was still not funny. 

The BBC tried to ban the comedian from future panel shows, but other celebrities refused to fill his slots. And there were far too many slots to fill. Many years too late the BBC realised the error of having a completely unfunny man on virtually every episode of every single panel show simply because he went to the same College as the Head of BBC comedy and had been onstage during humorous flatulation.

The comedian started to wear a red hat to every panel show, which won him masses of applause every moment he was on screen. He still wasn't funny, but now he was unfunny whilst wearing a red hat, which was radical and contrary.

The PM, feeling the heat of the first negative coverage he had received, tried to show his human side and was carefully filmed performing everyday tasks like walking the dog (which lasted one photo op and was never seen again), holding his latest love child (which lasted one photo op and was never seen again) and opening his own mail.  

This latter exercise proved fatal, as unused to opening letters, or indeed doing anything himself since he was first mollycoddled by nanny as a useless mewing infant, he managed to cut off his own head with the paper knife. And his left leg. And the arm he was holding the paper knife in.  

The choice of the next PM was easy. The comedian was elected on a landslide, the whole country united in red-hatted jubilation. 

Shortly afterwards the new PM took a call from the leader of the bigger, more competent, more heavily armed neighbouring country. It was just  friendly congratulatory call, or so it was intended, and if the new PM hadn't decided to tell a joke then everything would have been fine, there wouldn't have been a war, millions wouldn't have died. But the PM had spent his life telling unfunny jokes and had yet to learn that there are some situations where humour (especially unfunny humour) is not the appropriate approach.