Brass Eye begins on Channel 4

JAN 29 1997

Chris Morris's Brass Eye parodied current-affairs television so exactly that it induced public figures to endorse invented causes on camera. In the drugs episode, Bernard Manning and Noel Edmonds warned viewers about a fictitious drug called 'cake', and the MP David Amess was persuaded to record a warning about it, later raising the substance in Parliament. The series established the celebrity-endorsement trap as a satirical form.