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After ten years of swimming in circles, the BBC’s famous hippos are to be replaced with a sobbing old man on a bench as BBC 1 launches a new set of idents to appear just before TV shows.
The new idents have been selected to reflect the nature and feeling of modern Britain and along with the sobbing old man on a bench other idents will show a fist-fight outside a pub, a defecating dog, and a brick being thrown through the window of an abandoned shop.
Viewers can expect to see up to twenty different idents appear on their screens over the coming months.
“The hippos are lovely,” said creator of the new campaign Eleanor Gay.
“But I think most people would agree that modern Britain really isn’t, and it’s important that we move with the times.
“I think my favourite new one is a drunk girl in a party dress vomiting into a bin, it just beautifully encapsulates life in Britain in 2017.”
Simon Williams, a racist from Chelmsford, actually features heavily in the campaign.
He told us, “Yeah, it’s a real privilege to be involved. It’s just a few seconds, and it’s me shouting ‘Muslim wankers’ at a mother and daughter. I mean, it’s silent so you can’t hear what I’m saying, but I think you get the sense of it.”
The final ident is still to be filmed and is expected to be the most popular – someone impersonating the Queen, standing on the White Cliffs of Dover giving Europe the finger.
