Inside Victor Lewis-Smith (1993)

This series takes a look inside the mind of comic author, prankster, and journalist Victor Lewis-Smith as he lies immobilized in a "comic coma" in a BBC hospital for distressed broadcasters. Throughout the course of the series, Lewis-Smith confronts the dark recesses of his own psyche as he embarks on a guided tour of his internal organs via his bloodstream, accompanied by a chatty cab driver who doubles as a narrative linking device. The hospital story line is woven around a series of comedy sketches that emerge from Lewis-Smith's subconscious when his life-support system is fed into a television monitor, in effect transforming him into a "human video playback machine." The result is a bold, bizarre, and hilarious collection of skits embedded within a surreal, highly innovative situation comedy format. Each episode features one or more of Mr Lewis-Smith's signature phone pranks played on some unsuspecting member of the public.