Once upon a time there was a boy called Charlie who liked to draw cartoons. One day he put them on his website which became an instant comedy cult, spawning a book and E4 TV show – the end.

OK, the story of TV Go Home – the 'TV Listings' site 'written by someone driven to insane fury by the mundane pointlessness of it all' – may be slightly more in-depth than that, but not much. Really.

In a simple, yet brilliant parody of The Radio Times, Charlie Brooker's www.tvgohome.com includes listings for imaginary TV shows such as 'Ainsley's Last Suppers: More deathbed cuisine as Ainsley Harriott continues his tour of Britain's hospices' and movie blockbuster 'Die Hard through a Cow'.

This in itself wouldn't be enough to make it a good website, however, in a medium filled with too much dross. But some of the most dark, cruel, and warped writing this side of Chris Morris has made it the web equivalent of Viz comic; a private joke that by word of mouth – or in this case 'mouse' (kill me for writing that) – turned into a money-spinning cult drawing 400,000 hits a month.

The site has elicited a predictable range of response from the press. For the New Statesman it 'taps into the zeitgeist of vicious anger towards New Labour television' while for The Daily Star it is simply 'Outrageous!!!!'.

Strangely, for a medium that boasts of its interactivity, TV Go Home is one of the most un-interactive sites around – being just one big, well-designed jpeg.