When did Alan Partridge first appear on television?
Slightly offtopic but anyone with a dark sense of humour would do well to check out Chris Morris's stuff - I get a feeling most younger Brits haven't heard of it.  Day Today and Brass Eye, both still funny, are wonderful time capsules satirising Britain as it was thirty years ago.But IMO his finest work was Blue Jam - the radio comedy not the TV incarnation, hour-long episodes of low-key music and surreal sketches.  Absolutely brilliant even today.  Archive.org has a copy at https://archive.org/details/chrismorris_bluejam.  Best enjoyed late at night.Trigger warning: basically everything.  The BBC would never get away with broadcasting it now.