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I can't remember watching anything quite like Monkey Dust. I am even tempted to doubt that there has ever been anything quite like Monkey Dust. The list of collaborators reveals that there are many hands at work in this selection of animated nail bombs, which is a weakness as well as a strength. But on the immediate plus side, any programme that opens with music from the incomparable Eels is halfway to my heart before a barbed word has been spoken.

Let me stress that this is not easy watching. The people who have put together Monkey Dust are not in love with the modern world. In fact, they hate it to pieces. This is satire without embellishment, a view of life that is Hogarthian in the sense it is less warts'n'all, more warts and that's all. Having said this, the opening sketch is relatively mild, giving the viewer the chance to adjust to the extreme temperatures they are about to face. Rebranding the fire brigade is the theme - 'How do we reach out to people whose houses are not on fire?' Get your chuckles in quickly, though, because what follows is as funny as lancing a boil.

Some of the targets are blindingly obvious. The man caught in a holding pattern as he tries to book a couple of tickets for the cinema is a familiar conceit. The difference with Monkey Dust is that it takes that conceit to a remarkably unpleasant extreme. Similarly, the internet exchange between a young girl and a monstrous, pus-filled, heavy-breathing stalker of the chat room is familiar - and horribly pertinent - territory. Onlywe are in the presence of people who appear to accept no boundaries whatsoever, which makes this a riveting experience.

As I mentioned before, the efforts of many hands will invariably prove the truth of the old adage that not all hands were created equal. The Irish tinkers flogging plutonium is pointlessly queasy, while the tale of the dad trying to impress the son he gets custody of for enough time to find out he is being outgunned in every material department by his estranged wife's new man encroaches on the emotionally cheap. Also, for my taste, the Hollywood remake of the Diary Of Anne Frank is obvious although faintly adorable.

But when the programme gets it right - and it gives itself every opportunity by choosing brevity of attack - this is potent stuff. Having watched this, any doting parent will have radically overhauled their notions on naming a new baby, and any husband coming home unfeasibly late from the office will think twice before giving as their excuse the lyrics of a widely popular rock song in condensed form. Welcome Monkey Dust - the television skyline is pleasingly deformed by your arrival.