CNNNN

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CNNNN
CNNNN-Title-card.jpg
CNNNN title card
Genre News satire
Directed byMark Fitzgerald
Bradley J. Howard [1]
Starring Craig Reucassel
Chris Taylor
Charles Firth
Andrew Hansen
Julian Morrow
Chas Licciardello
Dominic Knight
Anna Skellern
Composers Andrew Hansen
Dominic Knight
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons2
No. of episodes19
Production
Executive producers Andrew Denton
Mark Fennessy
Running time25 minutes
Production companies Zapruder's Other Films
Crackerjack Productions
Original release
Network ABC TV
Release19 September 2002 (2002-09-19) 
14 November 2003 (2003-11-14)
Related

CNNNN (Chaser NoN-stop News Network) is a Logie Award winning Australian television program, satirising American news channels CNN and Fox News. It was produced and hosted by comedy team The Chaser.

Contents

CNNNN's slogan was "We Report, You Believe.", a parody of Fox News' slogan "We Report, You Decide."

In April 2004, CNNNN won a Logie Award for Most Outstanding Comedy Program, an award that was shared with Kath & Kim . [2]

Overview

The program was presented as a "live" feed from a fictional 24-hour news channel, anchored by Craig Reucassel and Chris Taylor. Each episode had a theme which carried through the episode, examples (from the DVD) included:

Season 1

#Main StoryOriginal airdate
1"Terror Alert"19 September 2002 (2002-09-19)
CNNNN covers continual changes to the terror alert level.
2"Terrorthon"26 September 2002 (2002-09-26)
CNNNN holds a terrorthon to encourage countries to pledge towards the war on terror.
3"Peace Crisis"3 October 2002 (2002-10-03)
CNNNN covers the current peace crisis.
4"Saddam Assassination / Make A Fortune Foundation"10 October 2002 (2002-10-10)
CNNNN covers calls for the assassination of Saddam.
5"Telstra Triumph"17 October 2002 (2002-10-17)
6"Tilt Australia"24 October 2002 (2002-10-24)
CNNNN aims to reduce the water-shortage crisis in inland Australia by tilting the entire continent to drain the water from the Eastern seaboard. Radio announcer Alan Jones was duped by the Chaser team live on air for believing this concept.
7"Lunchgate"31 October 2002 (2002-10-31)
A businessman accidentally leaves his lunch at home and is pursued by police and the media in an O. J. Simpson style chase and becomes a suspected terrorist.
8"Raid Rage / Melbourne Cup"7 November 2002 (2002-11-07)
CNNNN covers a string of ASIO terrorism raids.
9"Forty Years of CNNNN"14 November 2002 (2002-11-14)
CNNNN celebrates forty years on air.

Season 2

#Main StoryOriginal airdate
10"Fungry's on Trial"21 August 2003 (2003-08-21)
Fungry's is sued by an obese person.
11"CNNNN Launches in Iraq"28 August 2003 (2003-08-28)
CNNNN launches a 24-hour news desk in Iraq.
12"Saint Donald Bradman"4 September 2003 (2003-09-04)
CNNNN covers an outbreak of Bradman related miracles.
13"Cadman for PM"11 September 2003 (2003-09-11)
CNNNN beats up a comment by minor Australian politician Alan Cadman as a leadership challenge against Prime Minister John Howard.
14"The Eddie McGuire Virus"18 September 2003 (2003-09-18)
CNNNN is infected by the Eddie McGuire Virus.
15"Harry M Miller"25 September 2003 (2003-09-25)
CNNNN hunts for Harry M Miller, lost in snowfields, to get his exclusive survival story.
16"Shush for Bush"2 October 2003 (2003-10-02)
US President George W. Bush is visiting Australia for 24 hours, and is believed to want to sleep the entire visit. CNNNN exhorts Australia to be quiet so the President can sleep properly.
17"Space"9 October 2003 (2003-10-09)
CNNNN follows the launch of Space Shuttle Icarus.
18"Animal Farm"16 October 2003 (2003-10-16)
The Chaser "reality show" Animal Farm is a send-up of Big Brother. CNNNN covers the controversy when one of the contestants dies, but is not removed from the house.
19"Packer Health Crisis"23 October 2003 (2003-10-23)
Live updates on the health of Australian businessman Kerry Packer.

Cast members

The roles of other members of the Chaser team included:

Regular features

Other regular features of the program included:

Legacy

A DVD containing five of the episodes from the 2003 series of CNNNN (Lunchgate, Cadman for PM, Shush for Bush, Animal Farm, and Packer Health Crisis), as well as highlights from the fake advertising breaks, was released in November 2004.

In September 2005, Chaser News Alert started running on the ABC's digital TV station ABC2, shown every Thursday night at 7:55 pm. Chaser News Alerts are also shown on the ABC's Broadband website.

After CNNNN, The Chaser went to its next project The Chaser's War on Everything , which premiered on 17 February 2006 and featured similarly topical comedy to CNNNN.

CNNNN previously aired repeats on 7mate. The episodes retained their original endings with the ABC logo.

See also

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Reucassel</span> Australian writer and comedian

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References

  1. "CNNNN: Chaser Non-Stop News Network (TV Series 2002–2003) - IMDb". IMDb .
  2. "List of 2004 Logie Winners". Sydney Morning Herald Website. 19 April 2004.