I hadn't seen or heard of this one. It reminds me a bit of this classic c-span moment: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/12/16/371232190...

The interview itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Y2uQn_wvc

His facial expression when the presenter was introducing 'him' is absolute gold! When I first watched it, I actually thought it was a skit - it being BBC, the animated facial reactions, the presenter trying to navigate his (non)-answers.

This seems to have happened about a year before "The IT Crowd" episode "Smoke and Mirrors" aired.

In that episode Moss, one of the IT denizens, goes to a TV studio where he is mistakenly put on a news program and interviewed about a war.

I wonder if they're related...

One of the first viral videos in the early years of Youtube. This was at a time when the Internet was just small enough that a single video could organically circulate around the whole world and be universally appreciated for its ridiculous yet endearing nature, by adults and kids alike.

On South African national TV the interviewee's chair broke. Still cracks me up to this day. https://youtu.be/XnHIeXQCfog?si=u4kzKfPLKSNGbBf_

For those without a NYT subscription:

https://archive.is/xZgBI#selection-505.0-505.55

I wish I could have seen Guy Kewney's face when he saw this. Sadly now passed, he had a charmingly irreverent sense of humor around Ziff-Davis UK back in the day.

Related HN posted earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48074260

A book was released…

Gift nyt link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/bbc-guy-go...

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