Newsjack rejects series 20 Page 4

Trying to improve my gag-writing. Had no luck with this series of NJ so far. If anyone wants to critique the following, go for it (my apologies now for any naffness):

BREAKING NEWS:

1. A Ryanair passenger was filmed making a racist tirade. Calls that he should be punished by being locked in a confined space with minimal food were dropped, since he's already been on a Ryanair flight. (This one is possibly the worst of the bunch)

2. This year's Oscars caused a stir - because it was so boring, I wandered off to make a coffee.

3. Taylor Swift gives an impromptu performance at an engagement party, making it the first time anyone's been engaged during a Taylor Swift concert.

NEWSJACKIPEDIA:

1. Anti-vax Movement: A name that'd be more realistic if they swapped the V for an F.

2. The World's Biggest Bee: An exciting rediscovered specie, that's generated a lot of buzz.

3. Green Fingers: The reason I still don't want a high-powered job in retail.

GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK:

1. It's been a good week for the homeless as a new hotline for homeless people has been launched.
It's been a bad week for the homeless as the hotline will only accept calls from land lines.

2. It's been a good week for Trevor Noah as he got to perform jokes at this year's Oscars.
It's been a bad week for Trevor Noah as none of his jokes were as big as the one where Green Book won best picture.

3. It's been a good week for people needing transplants as a new law makes it far easier to receive body parts.
It's been a bad week for Jeremy Corbyn as now it's even easier for people to give him the finger.

Evening all. Very late to the party on this one, so here's an extremely long post for the Series 20 joke compost bin.

WEEK 2 - BREAKING NEWS

1. The BBC is apparently fighting to stop Sir David Attenborough being poached by a rival broadcaster, which is a bit late given that he seems to have already lost both of his tusks.

2. A report has claimed that Britain's renewable energy capacity could quadruple in the next decade. This is largely the result of a proposal to reclassify Piers Morgan as a wind farm.

3. On Monday the Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson claimed that leaving the EU could 'enhance Britain's lethality', presumably in the same way that a horse eating six boxes of All-Bran and a crate of prunes could 'enhance the lethality' of its stable.

WEEK 2 - NEWSJACKPEDIA

1. 'Norway Plus' - Ummm...they're really good at skiing?
2. 'Grayling's Ferry' - A famous philosophical paradox in which a company is both a ferry company and not a ferry company at the same time until somebody actually looks at it and then it obviously isn't.
3. 'Jacob Rees-Mogg' - winner of the BAFTA for Best British Re-animation.

WEEK 3- BREAKING NEWS

1. NASA's Opportunity rover has sent its final message from the surface of Mars. NASA realised that it was time to shut down the exploration vehicle when they received a transmission reading 'Oi, ref, even I can tell that that was offside, and I'm 34 million miles away.'

2. Tyson Fury has signed a fight deal with the ESPN network worth a reported 80 million pounds. When asked for a comment, Fury said 'This should be easy. How hard can it be to knock over a TV camera?'

3. Michael Gove has said that food waste bins should be collected every week, once again underlining his commitment to talking rubbish. [EDITOR'S NOTE: waka waka]

WEEK 3 - NEWSJACKPEDIA

1. 'Huawei' - What posh people say when recovering from amnesia.
2. 'Induced Labour' - When small things are forced out of a larger thing, resulting in much screaming and crying from all concerned.
3. 'Netflix and Chill' - How to catch and store fish. [EDITOR'S NOTE: not topical] [CONTRIBUTOR'S NOTE: your Mum's not topical]

WEEK 3 - GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK

1. It's been a bad week for residents of Birmingham, who are enduring another round of strikes by bin men. It's been a good week for residents of Mordor, who can now feel pleased about having rejected Birmingham's recent twinning proposal.

2. It's been a bad week for the gravy industry as a study has shown that many Brits now prefer ketchup with their roast dinners. It's been a good week for ketchup manufacturers, who are set to make a lot of money in exchange for no real effort and who wish there was some sort of popular railway-based idiom that could express this.

3. It's been a bad week for Liam Gallagher, who has claimed that his brother Noel will sue him if he sings any Oasis songs in a forthcoming documentary. It's been a good week for Liam Gallagher, who has been told that if he doesn't sing in a forthcoming documentary then he will be odds on for the next Nobel Peace Prize.

WEEK 4 - BREAKING NEWS

1. Green Book won the Oscar for Best Picture, but the film has attracted criticism for its sanitised depiction of race relations in 1960s America. One Hollywood insider said 'If I wanted to watch a white man who forgets his racist views suspiciously quickly I'd just watch Mel Gibson.'

2. In the League Cup final last Sunday, Chelsea's goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga refused to be substituted and insisted on staying on the pitch for a penalty shootout which he then lost. He is now the three to one favourite to become the next Brexit Secretary.

3. A dead humpback whale has been discovered in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Investigators cannot fathom how it ended up in this whale-derness. It can't have been on porpoise. Haha! I'll be here all week. Unlike the Amazon rainforest. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Couldn't be less Newsjack-y in style. See me.] [CONTRIBUTOR'S NOTE: I am well aware of that, and you're a fictional editor, not a fictional teacher, so sod off.]

WEEK 4 - NEWSJACKPEDIA

1. 'Virtue signalling' - I would explain this but I really feel like other voices deserve to be heard instead. Wakanda forever, am I right?
2. 'Conversion therapy' - a Six Nations post-match interview.
3. 'Article 50' - after the obituaries but before the sports pages.

WEEK 4 - GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK

1. It's been a good week for the village of Trawsgoed in west Wales which on Monday recorded the hottest UK temperature in February since records began. It's been a bad week for the village of Trawsgoed in west Wales which will now become absolutely overrun by a tourist.

2. It's been a bad week for manufacturers of pagers as the NHS has been told to modernise and ditch the outdated technology. It's been a good week for manufacturers of plastic cups and really long bits of string.

3. It's been a bad week for a woman who returned from a holiday in Australia with a python hiding in a shoe in her suitcase. It's been a worse week for the python, which discovered that it had been hiding inside its own brother.

Hey Jee Knee

Here the ones of yours I liked. I thought your other ones were too long, didn't work logically or I just didn't get the reference.

Keep in mind I'm not an expert on one-liners.

Quote: Jee Knee @ 28th February 2019, 7:36 PM

Evening all. Very late to the party on this one, so here's an extremely long post for the Series 20 joke compost bin.

WEEK 2 - BREAKING NEWS

1. The BBC is apparently fighting to stop Sir David Attenborough being poached by a rival broadcaster, which is a bit late given that he seems to have already lost both of his tusks.

WEEK 2 - NEWSJACKPEDIA

1. 'Norway Plus' - Ummm...they're really good at skiing?
3. 'Jacob Rees-Mogg' - winner of the BAFTA for Best British Re-animation.

WEEK 4 - BREAKING NEWS

3. A dead humpback whale has been discovered in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Investigators cannot fathom how it ended up in this whale-derness. It can't have been on porpoise. Haha! I'll be here all week. Unlike the Amazon rainforest.

WEEK 4 - NEWSJACKPEDIA

1. 'Virtue signalling' - I would explain this but I really feel like other voices deserve to be heard instead. Wakanda forever, am I right?

WEEK 4 - GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK

2. It's been a bad week for manufacturers of pagers as the NHS has been told to modernise and ditch the outdated technology. It's been a good week for manufacturers of plastic cups and really long bits of string.

3. It's been a bad week for a woman who returned from a holiday in Australia with a python hiding in a shoe in her suitcase. It's been a worse week for the python, which discovered that it had been hiding inside its own brother. (I like the joke, but you could have cut quite a few of the words)

Good stuff, keep it up!! From a hardened Newsjack reject my best advice is dig deep and edit, edit edit. My second best advice is to ignore the best advice of perennial Newsjack rejects ;)

Nike Adapt BB sneakers have stopped working after an app broke.

They company said, "It's fine after you re-boot"

I said I knew I'd gone slightly dark this week. Will try not to next week!

BREAKING NEWS:
1. Director Spike Lee has expressed his displeasure at Green Book winning Best Picture at the Oscars saying it was not his "cup of tea". If it was, that would have been a rosy Lee.
2. As the government has announced new guidelines for sex education in schools, parents have been reassured they can still withdraw their child up to the age of fifteen, although to be fair if they are fifteen, withdrawal's probably a bit late.
3. Australian marine authorities have discovered a loophole that will allow them to dump a million tonnes of toxic sludge over the Great Barrier Reef. Look, Australia, you can kill all the marine life you want, it's still not going to bring Steve Irwin back.
NEWSJACKIPEDIA:
1. The Foehn Effect - unseasonably warm weather for February caused by everyone charging their foehns at the same time.
2. Traffic Light food labelling - nutritional advice that seems to change whenever Jamie Oliver's button is pushed.
3. Lemon and herb - the most potent thing at The Independent Group's meeting in Nando's.
GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK:
1. It's been a good week for raspberries, as Olivia Colman blew one during her Oscars speech. It's been a bad week for pineapples as they still don't belong on a pizza.*
2. It's been a bad week for Ross Kemp, who was spotted looking tipsy in the Six Nations crowd as England played Wales. It's been a good week for everyone who spotted him, as England lost, so he didn't strip naked and roar pink-faced into a camera this time.
3. It's been a good week for Katie Price who tweeted she'd lost 7lbs by drinking laxative tea. It's been a bad week for Katie Price because her career is now literally in the crapper.

*I do not believe this. But it's a thing, apparently.

Yacob, I really liked the whale and snake ones!

Quote: Danno @ 28th February 2019, 8:51 PM

Good stuff, keep it up!! From a hardened Newsjack reject my best advice is dig deep and edit, edit edit. My second best advice is to ignore the best advice of perennial Newsjack rejects ;)

Cheers, Danno! Yeah, when is a one-liner not a one-liner? When it's far too f***ing long, that's when...

Quote: Wishus @ 1st March 2019, 10:27 AM

I said I knew I'd gone slightly dark this week. Will try not to next week!

3. Australian marine authorities have discovered a loophole that will allow them to dump a million tonnes of toxic sludge over the Great Barrier Reef. Look, Australia, you can kill all the marine life you want, it's still not going to bring Steve Irwin back.
NEWSJACKIPEDIA:
1. The Foehn Effect - unseasonably warm weather for February caused by everyone charging their foehns at the same time.
2. Traffic Light food labelling - nutritional advice that seems to change whenever Jamie Oliver's button is pushed.
3. Lemon and herb - the most potent thing at The Independent Group's meeting in Nando's.

Yacob, I really liked the whale and snake ones!

Loved these ones, Wishus! And I'm going to take credit for the whale and the snake ones as I think Yacob was quoting mine, so thank you! I'm not offended, just very, very disappointed :D

@Jen Knee...don't sweat it, it's really tough cramming news into a oneliner and NJ often ignore their own guidelines and read out some lengthy gags - presumably because they're funny enough.

Thought mine were a bit rubbish this week, although the fastfood gag felt as close as I've come to sounding more 'Newsjack'? I really wanted to get a Wombles gag out of it because of the 'underground overground' set up. Alas.

Apologies in advance...

A UKIP Councillor is being mocked for spelling Britain incorrectly in his campaign pamphlet.
The councillor in question preferred to remain nameless...presumably because he couldn't
spell that either.

A grandad, from New York, went viral after accidentally slurping down a tub of paint he
thought was yoghurt. He described the mishap as an emulsional ordeal.

London Transport Network is placing a ban on junk food advertising on underground and
overground services. One commuter said: 'It was a finger licking good idea', while another
said: 'I'm loving it.'

Ear worm: What you say to a worm to get its attention
Marxist: Someone who refuses to shop at Marks & Spencer
Red Carpet Treatment: What happens when you turn your back for a second on a toddler
holding a bottle of squeezy ketchup.

*warning...these are jank*

It's been a bad week for Katie Price who has been banned from driving after drinking
too many pornstar martinis.
It's been a good week for pornstar martinis, the drink of choice for people who can't
count.

2. It's been a good week for remainers as Labour has announced that it will back a
second referendum.
It's been a bad week for Nigel Farage whose been squatting on the big red bus and
could be facing eviction.

3. It's been a good week for parents who won't have to teach their kids about sex and
relationships as it's set to become part of the school curriculum.
It's been a bad week for teachers, most of whom have barely mastered the slip a
condom on the banana routine.

LOL - sorry Jee Knee! :D

Wishus - my favourite was the Australian toxic waste one.
Danno - I really liked the UKIP one!

Here are my efforts for this week:

BREAKING NEWS:

Amazon pledges 1,000 UK apprenticeships by 2021 - or by 2020 with Amazon Prime. (THEY USED THIS ONE)

After the presenter-less Oscars prove a hit with viewers, British voters suggest the country might work better without a prime minister.

A US firm is reportedly interested in buying troubled retailer Laura Ashley. The current owners said they didn't want to sell up but it might be curtains, albeit beautifully designed curtains.

NEWSJACKIPEDIA:

THE FAVOURITE: Oscar-winning movie and Luciana Berger's nickname in the Independent Group.

JORDAN: Alter-ego desperately trying to distance itself from serial drink-driver Katie Price.

FUNNY TINGE: Colour of Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri's face after his goalkeeper refused to be substituted during the League Cup final.

GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK:
Bad week for Gemma Collins as she splits from boyfriend James Argent. Good week for James Argent for obvious reasons.

Bad week for Labour as their poll ratings slump. Good week for anyone who enjoys seeing Owen Jones going into meltdown mode on Twitter.

Bad week for Ozzy Osbourne as he's forced to cancel more tour dates through illness. Good news for bats as he's too frail to bite their heads off.

Quote: Wishus @ 1st March 2019, 10:27 AM

Yacob, I really liked the whale and snake ones!

Thanks Wishus. Feel free to compliment me on my work in the Dead Parrot sketch as well. :)

There are no comments on my one-liners. Always a sign of exemplary work. Unimpressed

Hi Yacob - the big bee joke they used was very similar to yours so think you've been quite unlucky there.

I was unluck-BEE.

How they can ignore a comedy genius such as myself is beyond me. (or should I say, "BEE-yond BEE". Yes, I definitely should.)

quick bit of feedback...

@Yacob...liked the Ryanair gag, maybe just needed sharpening up but def Newsjack territory imo.
@JeeKnee...Netflix & Chill...lovely stuff, unfortunately might have been a bit to word-play-thinky for NJ?
@Steev...solid gag, think they used that topic on the show, something about 'just do it...yourself???
@Wishus...like your style. Ross Kemp & Steve Irwin were my fav. Stick at it and I'm sure you'll catch a break.
@Sausage...can't argue with the Amazon gag, great stuff and there for the taking! made me laugh when i heard it (and I was in a grumpy mood). Congrats.
Did I miss anyone? Apologies if I have...hard keeping up with the thread.
As always, loads of promise. I'm no expert, but loads of these gags seem there or there abouts, probably just need that extra level of detail, sharpness and that killer line, but sometimes there's just too much competition and great jokes go missing in the scrum :(
:*

Some top gags above, must be virtually impossible to pick the "best" each week.
Here are my efforts this time, a couple were really just fillers:

BREAKING NEWS:
1. Warmest February day on record as Planet Earth makes vain attempt to get Britain to talk about anything except Brexit.
2. Parrot star of film Pippi Longstocking dies aged 51 in Germany. His agent is now trying to contact the Monty Python team to extend his career. (THIS ONE MADE THE SCRIPT)
3. First positive news for Sterling for many months this weekend as he scores the winning penalty in the Cup Final.

NEWSJACKPEDIA:

1. Period Drama - new lesson about menstrual health being introduced to the school curriculum.
2. Sterling - value has risen after scoring the winning penalty in a cup final.
3. Goalkeeper - footballer who 'keeps' in the 'goal' no matter what he is told by his manager.

Good Week / Bad Week

1. Good Week - for the world's largest Bee which has been re-discovered after years of being feared extinct.
Bad Week - for the world's largest Sea after more plastic ends up in it.
2. Bad Week - for Karren Brady who stepped down from her post with Taveta.
Good Week - for Karren Brady who stepped down from her post working with Sir Philip Green.
3. Bad Week - for R Kelly who has been charged with criminal sexual abuse.
Good Week - for our Jerry who has barely lost any MPs.