Not Necessarily The News: The Week in What Didn't Happen

Source:IMDB- the case from NNTN.

"An offbeat look at current events, often by dubbing over news video with farcical commentary.

This was back in the day just around the rise of VHS/beta. SO HBO was still the premier channel to get latest release, which at that time was about three years after box release. This show did a lot of dubbing and re-editing so that political figures were saying comedic lines. The sniglet series was also hilarious, and Rich Hall wrote several books containing sniglets. For example, he gave a definition to the act of shaking out only two pills from a bottle, and defined the dirt that the vacuum cleaner can't get at the edge of the floorboard. There were also commercial parodies, one for a hearing aid which drowned out yelling wives and grandchildren. A great show and was not only ahead of its time compared to the daily show, but funnier, too."

From IMDB  

"Hi. This is a rare video. It is the first episode of the HBO comedy series "Not Necessarily The News." This episode was not the pilot episode from September, 1982. It is the first regular episode with the familiar original cast (Anne Bloom, Danny Breen, Rich Hall, Mitchell Laurance, Audrie Neenan & Stuart Pankin). This episode introduces several popular features of the show including: sight gags in the lavatory, highway slapstick with background music, funny footage with politicians and the introduction of SNIGLETS (Words that should be in the dictionary but aren't).

Last but not least, Audrie Neenan introduces her news anchor character Jacqueline Pennel, and Stuart Pankin introduces his character, the chief anchorman of NNTN; Bob Charles. Additionally, Stuart does his first skit as "Lenny Slatkin", the president's joke writer. Truly a rare gem in cable television. First telecast on HBO on January 3, 1983." 

Source:Sarah Lee Donovan- Not Necessarily The News with Rich (don't call me Dick) Little.

From Sarah Lee Donovan 

Before The Onion went online and Fox News and MSNBC went on the air, if Americans wanted to find out what wasn't going on in the world, at least as it related to current affairs, they had to watch Saturday Night Live and Not Necessarily The News. if you wanted real political and news satire that was honest enough to advertise itself as political and news satire, it was these TV shows that you had to watch. And of course you read the political tabloids like the New York Post to read about what wasn't going on in the world, at least in New York City. 

So the week in what didn’t happen, this time not from Fox News: 

Fox News is currently on vacation, actually in court, dealing with libel lawsuits filed against them by Democrats. But announced they’ll be back next week reporting everything that didn’t happen next week. Including a special report from Sean Hannity, on the Democratic War on Memorial Day, honoring the service of our servicemen and women.