Charlie Brooker
Charlie (Charlton) Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is a British comedy writer and cartoonist. His humour tends to be savage and profane, with some surreal elements. Currently, however, he is perhaps better known for his slightly more subdued, yet highly acclaimed TV review columns for the Guardian newspaper. He is one of four creative directors of the comedy production company Zeppotron.
Raised in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell and schooled in Wallingford, Brooker's early work was as a writer and cartoonist for Oink!, a comic produced in the late-1980s. He later resurfaced in PC Zone magazine in the mid-1990s. Aside from games reviews, his output included the comic strip Cybertwats and a column entitled "Poo Corner", later renamed "Sick Notes", where Brooker would insult anyone who wrote in to the magazine and offered a fifty pound prize to the "best" letter.
In February 1998, one of Brooker's one-shot cartoons caused the magazine to be pulled from the shelves of many British newsagents. The cartoon was entitled "Helmut Werstler's Cruelty Zoo" and professed to be an advert for the aforementioned theme park, which the creator, a comical Teutonic psychologist, had created in order that children can take their violent impulses out on animals rather than humans. This was accompanied by photoshopped pictures of children smashing the skulls of monkeys with hammers, jumping on a badger with a pitchfork, and chainsawing an orang-utan, among other things. The original joke was supposed to be at the expense of the Tomb Raider games, known at the time for the sheer number of animals you could kill. The original title, "Lara Croft's Cruelty Zoo", was changed for copyright reasons; this meant that the cartoon's intended object of humour was not realised.
From 1999 to 2002 he penned the satirical TVGoHome website, a regular series of mock TV schedules published in a format similar to that of the Radio Times, consisting of a combination of savage satire and surreal humour. A print adaptation of the site was published by Fourth Estate in 2001. A TV sketch show based on the site was broadcast on UK digital station E4 the same year.
In 2001, Brooker was one of several writers on Channel 4's controversial Brass Eye special on the subject of paedophilia.
Brooker currently writes an irreverent TV review column entitled "Screen Burn" for The Guardian newspaper's Saturday entertainment supplement The Guide. A compilation of these columns, also called Screen Burn, has also been published. Since the Autumn of 2005, he has also been writing a regular series of columns in G2 on Fridays called "Supposing", in which he free-associates on a set of vague what-if themes.
On October 24, 2004, he wrote a column on George W. Bush and the forthcoming 2004 US Presidential Election which concluded:
- John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley, Jr. - where are you now that we need you? [1]
The flippant remark was picked up by the Drudge Report, which ran it as a headline. The matter was immediately referred to the Secret Service in Washington DC, who allegedly contacted both Drudge and Brooker over what was regarded by critics of the comment as an illegal (in the U.S.) incitement to murder the President. The Guardian quickly withdrew the article from its website and published and endorsed Brooker's apology. [2]
Brooker was the co-writer (along with Chris Morris) of the sitcom Nathan Barley, broadcast in 2005. The same year, he was also on the writing team of the Channel 4 sketch show, Spoons, produced by Zeppotron.
Brooker recently wrote and presented Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe on BBC4. The three-part series contained reviews of current shows, as well as process stories and commentary on how television is produced. Brooker's style was funny and caustic, though he was nonetheless sincere in his comments. The programme was broadcast on Thursday 2 March 2006 to Thursday 16 March 2006 at 22:30.
Publications
- TV Go Home, Charlie Brooker, 2001 (ISBN 1841156752)
- Unnovations, Charlie Brooker, 2002 (ISBN 1841157309)
- Screen Burn, Charlie Brooker, 2004 (ISBN 0571227554)