Recently in Funny telly clips Category

Hat-tip to Maggie Philbin, ex of Tomorrow's World and now a BBC technology journalist, for finding this gem on YouTube and posting it on Twitter

Is it BBC newsreader Jonathan Charles making a surprise confession, or a case of a missing full stop on an autocue? I suspect the latter:

This was being shown as the top video on YouTube today. Not sure why. Not sure I want to know. Pretty certain that, if I ever have children, I want to keep this puppet and its impossibly bad voice away from them....

So, four weeks in and my doubts about Mock the Week are starting to look, at best, dumb.

Two newish comedians added into the mix, and all four of the regular comedians on fine form (even Hugh Dennis) meant it passed the Remote Control Diet Coke test - ie laugh so hard you spit your drink back out.

And below is arguably one of the funniest moments of the TV scenes of the year.

And this.. loving the gag about Adrian Chiles

I love this video - quite how Sky News made it look as though Jack Straw was happy about the death of a comedian, I'll never know....

Forget the Cadbury gorilla's rendition of Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight, I think we've found an even more surreal remake.

Step forward Mike Tyson (taken from the forthcoming film The Hangover)...

There's a lot wrong with Fox News, the Murdoch news channel which is blasted into UK homes via the ol' Sky box. Yes it's biased, massively in favour of the Republicans. Yes, it's dumbed down in a way even the brains behind BBC Breakfast News would find offensive. And yes, it doesn't understand the irony when it announces it is the news channel which is "fair and balanced."

But, by God, it's compulsive viewing when there's a storm on. In the UK, when there's a severe flood on, Sky News might go over to its "news wall" more often for an update than usual. At Fox News, with Hurricane Ike pounding Texas (natural born Fox News territory if ever there was such a place) they went to their, wait for it: Extreme Weather Center [sic]. Oh yes, this is news injected with dangerous hormones to the factor of 10.

... Mock The Week (Thursday, BBC 2, 9pm).

It's one thing for us to enjoy it, it's quite another to see six comedians enjoying the work of a seventh, quite so much.

Yet that was just what happened when Stewart Francis appeared this week. He had Frankie Boyle in stitches, Russell Howard doubled over with amusement and host Dara O'Briain smiling for longer than the obligatory moment he gives most people.

Hollyoaks suddenly has a rival for its title of "best Sunday morning, watch while in bed, TV programme." Having battled and beaten Something For The Weekend over on BBC 2, a surprise enemy is now in play: X-Factor.

Whereas Hollyoaks has glamour and beauty to bring you back into the world after a heavy night out, X-Factor instantly makes you feel better about yourself as the great deluded line up to be humiliated by Simon Cowell and co.

Given that the prize of winning X-Factor is a bit hit-and-miss - for every Leona Lewis and a Shayne Ward there's a soon-forgotten winner too - it seems quite frightening that so many people can turn up to audition in the seeming belief they have a god-given right to be stars, even though God appears to have been less than generous when it came to giving them talent.

It's only when you watch it as an adult that it seems a little less, well, n normal!