The Saturday Night Armistice

The Saturday/Friday Night Armistice
Armando Iannucci, Peter Baynham and David Schneider presenting the 1 July 1995 episode of The Saturday Night Armistice. The "Mr Tony Blair" prop is visible to the left of Iannucci.
Starring	Armando Iannucci, Peter Baynham, David Schneider
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	24
Production
Running time	30 min per normal episode
Release
Original network	BBC2
Original release	24 June 1995 – 1 January 1999

The Saturday Night Armistice (later The Friday Night Armistice, plus the one-off The Election Night Armistice) was a British satirical television comedy programme presented by Armando Iannucci with Peter Baynham and David Schneider, which ran from 1995 to 1999.

The programme took an irreverent and often surreal look back at topical events, and featured studio discussions, sketches and setups. Like many 1990s British comedy series it included appearances and writing contributions by a large number of UK comedians including amongst others Arthur Mathews, Graham Linehan, Simon Pegg, Andy Riley, Kevin Cecil, Kevin Eldon, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Omid Djalili, Al Murray, Ben Moor, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins.

The show took an irreverent look back at the events in the previous week, although as with Iannucci's previous news satire The Day Today, ideas were often taken in surreal directions by the three protagonists, for example an Orange March demanding passage through a ladies toilet because it used to be a gents 200 years ago. Iannucci was the main presenter and sat at a desk with Schneider and Baynham sitting on an adjacent black leather sofa. On Armando's desk was a rotund cuddly toy named "Mister Tony Blair," an extreme characterisation of the then-Leader of the Opposition. In a manner similar to Sooty, Mr Tony Blair could only be heard by Armando, opening up a wealth of opportunities for humour based on whatever zany comments the real-life Blair may or may not have said that week.