Programmes: Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge (1994/5) I'm Alan Partridge (1997, 2002)
Standout moment: Far too many to choose from. Getting too much gassy wind after eating a Scotch egg, being stalked ("You're a mentalist!"), putting his foot in it over the subject of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday (he thinks it's about washing the car at the weekend, not a massacre) with Irish TV executives. Pitching ludicrous ideas to his boss, including "Inner-City Sumo", "Youth Hostelling with Chris Eubank" and the famously self-explanatory "Monkey Tennis".
Memorable catchphrase: "A-Ha!" - said with increasing desperation as his chat show went into freefall.
Lowest ebb: Being sacked by the BBC after a Christmas Special in which he punched (fictional) head honcho Tony Hayers on-air.
Big screen potential: There has been regular talk of doing a movie version of Partridge over the years and it has even got as far as the script stage. Unfortunately this revolved around Partridge being entangled in a terrorist attack and after 7/7 it was shelved. Every now and again the idea resurfaces - Coogan's Hollywood chum Ben Stiller has even been linked to it.
Why are they a hero? Sexist, racist, homophobic, devoid of social skills, bad clothes, but we love this exquisite televisual portrait of failure. Partridge's decline is about as painfully funny as it gets. As his TV career and marriage to Carol collapsed and he ended up back on local radio, Partridge found himself living in the hell that was the Linton Travel Tavern, halfway between Norwich and London. Surely a fate worse than death.
Factoid. Alan has two children, Fernando and Denise. Fernando is named after the song by Abba.
