"There’s Only One Way to Find Out!”: Harry Hill’s TV Burp and the Rescue of Invisible Television

This article places popular comedy show Harry Hill's TV Burp within traditions of ‘television about television’ and in particular the ‘clip show’ format. Tracing the evolution of the clip show from the 1970s to the present, it considers how the format, relatively invisible within television scholarship, raises critical questions around agency, authorship and value. I argue that TV Burp typifies the clip show's complex positioning of the viewer in relation to the televisual flow, and offers a reminder that there are various ways of defining ‘invisible’ television.