I hate British Comedy (1 Viewer)

[Scott L]

In Soviet Russia, jokes laugh at YOU!

 

[Julian Lalor]

I don't agree with this. Hill, and the sort of comedy he generates, is vastly more popular in the US than it is now in the UK. An example: the smutty, silly Are You Being Served? has a huge following in the US, with all seasons released to DVD. The UK? Not a DVD in sight. It's almost like a time warp. I cannot understand why Americans find this stuff funny, but they do.

 

[Paul_Sjordal]

Self-imposed repression does that. The Puritans are still with us. PS—I always lumped Benny Hill in with the 3 Stooges. Never saw Are You Being Served, so I don't have an opinion there.

 

[John Watson]

Joseph DeMartino "Nafta Compensation"

The Second City of John Candy, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, etc. I think the troup redeemed American soap opera, in that (the soaps) generated the Second City Spoofs.

Canada shares some of the British tendencies.

I know its been discussed many times before, but Three's Company and All In The Family, and many popular American comedies, were based on British originals, and we're often told, were not as good.

I think many of the SNL skits were Pythonesque.

Final sad note - I no longer find Monty Python funny as I did when I was a college student. Too many years in the real working world made me realize that Monty Python was actually a documentary on real organizations : The Wonderful World of Wicker was about TV's talking heads, the Ministry of Silly Walks was too much like the bureaucracy I worked in.

 

[Keith Paynter]

Some American comedies based on British comedies:

All In The Family - 'Till Death Do Us Part
Sanford & Son - Steptoe & Son
Three's Company - Man About The House
Amanda's***/Payne*** - Fawlty Towers
The Grubs*** - The Grimleys
American Idol - Pop Idol
(***tanked big time)

And how can you not like:
Monty Python
Are You Being Served
Red Dwarf
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Father Ted
Mr. Bean


BTW, an Americanized version of Father Ted is in the works.

Several recent attempts have been made to adapt British comedies for American television, but it has simply been a matter of (1) too many cooks, and (2) business and ratings before veiwer development.

There's an article at xtramsn.com from November 2003 that's an interesting read...

Sidebar - can anyone explain the typcally short British program season - 13 weeks?


Not exactly, but partly true - SNL is sketch comedy, but in its best years was about counterculture. Python also was not restricted by the lack of a punchline, because they could always use Terry Gilliam's stream-of-consciousness animations to get from point A to point B.

"Good Lord, I'm on film!"

 

[Tony Whalen]

Gotta agree with that.

I love 'em all.

Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Mr. Bean and many more. My wife, on the other hand, doesn't get any of it. (Although she did get a few chuckles out of Bean-and-the-turkey)

Now my own Canadian humour...on the other hand... I just don't get stuff like "Red Green".

 

[Malcolm R]

Usually closer to 6 episodes. I think it's to do with the creative process. I believe most Britcoms are written by a single person, or duo, rather than having an entire writing staff assigned to the "production." Most series also have a single director rather than a "rotation" of 2 or 3.

It makes for less episodes when one person has to do all the work, but it generally ensures the quality of all the episodes is pretty even as well.

 

[CharlesD]

the Wonderful World of Wicker was actually a spoof of specific tv show call "Wicker's World" and the talking head in the sketch was a parody of Alan Wicker who, apprently, was a big fan of aliteration.

 

[Michael Martin]

I'm fairly neutral on British humor - like some, don't care for some. What I don't get is the British fascination with men dressing up as women. Dame Edna? Eddie Izzard?

 

[Lew Crippen]

We have a lot of that as well, going back (in TV) to Milton Berle. And in the movies, Some Like it Hot and Tootsie, number one and two on the AFI 'laughs' top 100.

As for Dame Edna, I'm pretty sure that Barry Humphries, is Australian, not English. IIRC, Dame Edna gave up her 'peerage' when the Aussies held their referendum on becoming a republic.

 

[MattBu]

Can you name one example of anything recently? Aside from the fact that you named movies, not wildly popular stand up comedians.

Everyone is refering to the subtlety of British Humor, but everything that people have broad up is nothing but broadly painted slapstick.

Also-

I hate Mr Bean, it's like a ridiculous child's show.

 

[MartinTeller]

Sorority Boys

 

[Lew Crippen]

Actually I did mention The Royle Family in an earlier post, though your point is taken in a good many of the shows mentioned have a degree (sometimes great) of broad humor.

So too, do many of the American shows that you listed in one of your early posts (like Friends). Personally I don’t think that this makes them less funny, just that the humor is not all subtle. Even Seinfeld has enough broad humor to disqualify it as being completely subtle.

I take no issue with your dislike of British humor (though I am surprised at the number of times you use the word ‘hate’), but I do think that the American shows you list as not containing obvious humor, in fact contain a good deal.

The West Wing is not a comedy, so I’d think that it should be excluded from consideration, but just some examples of obvious humor in the shows you cite:

Friends not only introduced a monkey early on, but has had multiple episodes based on an unmarried woman carrying triplets for her ‘loser’ brother—this is so unsubtle that one or even two babies were not enough.

Seinfeld has many moments of very broad humor—anything involving George and his parents, for example. Or the time that George looked down the TV executive’s daughters dress and he and Jerry got thrown out of the office, George explaining to Jerry, ‘I could not help it—it was cleavage.’ To which Jerry replied, ‘Cleavage is like the sun—it’s too dangerous to look at directly. You have to glance, look away, glance, look away…’, still one of the funniest lines I can remember in the series. But nothing at all subtle about the setup.

Curb Yr Enthusiasm (which is my current favorite) had a whole show where the payoff was everyone in a restaurant yelled ‘fuck’ often and loudly. The very last episode had Larry insulting the receptionist, suggesting that she and her ‘partner’ should consider ‘Tang’, as a name—was anyone surprised when her partner later physically attacked Larry on this issue. Funny—very. Subtle—not very.

Everybody Loves Raymond, has at its core, his parents, two of the most unsubtle people around. The last episode I saw had Frank driving women out of the house when he announced that he was loosening his pants and then he threatened to begin scratching. Again funny but hardly subtle.

Scrubs one of the freshest shows in a while has so much physical comedy that it is hard to even know where to begin—and it is so unsubtle, that the last show I saw had J.D. able to catch up on his paper work during a predictable rant. Fresh and funny—very; but again not humor that is particularly unsubtle.

As you can tell, I find the shows you listed very funny, so I’m not trying to have a go at you—only to observe that much of what makes even these shows funny, is (in my opinion, of course) is some degree of physical and broad humor.

The same with comedy in the UK.

As to men dressing up as women, I did primarily mention movies—but then since you cited the Python films as examples, I thought, fair enough. I actually can’t think of any recent sitcoms where men routinely dress as women, but I’m pretty sure that it happens reasonably frequently in isolated situations.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

It's interesting... a few years ago, SNL had John Cleese and Michael Palin reenact the "Dead Parrot" sketch... one of my favorites. However, for some reason.. it wasn't funny this time around. Perhaps because it was live, or because John and Michael were much older and their lines seemed scripted... but I think it was mostly because I knew most of the audience wasn't going to get it.

 

[Keith Paynter]

Bosom Buddies (Tom Hanks)

Kids In The Hall**

**Canadian in origin, but as (Python's) Terry Jones said, it was easier for them to make funny women characters when they dressed up themselves, because they couldn't write funny parts for women. Carol Cleveland was more or less eye candy

Whose Line Is It Anyway (another decendant of British origin) - Colin Mochrie always got stuck playing women's parts...

 

[Keith Paynter]

Like Pee Wee Herman?

Bean has success for all age groups and is world popular, simply for the fact that it is done as homage to silent comedy (dialogue is very rarely used), and Rowan Atkinson's man-child is his most famous as a result, so much that it has typecast him, although I prefer Black Adder (and to a lesser degree, The Thin Blue Line).

 

[Malcolm R]

You still haven't given examples of what you do find funny.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Actually Matt gave some examples in an early post. I find that the ones he liked I also found quite funny—The West Wing excepted.

 

[andrew markworthy]

The trouble is that by being selective you can find a case for or against anything.

In the main, Brit comedy relies far more on knowing the background culture than US comedy does. A lot of the time when Americans find a Brit show silly or trivial, it's because there are nuances (nearly always social class-based) that are escaping you but which add to the enjoyment of a Brit audience. Trust me, if you're an American, you may *think* you're getting the humour of Monty Python, but you're missing a whole subtext. However, Benny Hill is as puerile as it looks, and you can keep every episode of it.

Amongst the very favourite Brit comedies are ones which I doubt many of you have seen in the USA, because they rely on a very good knowledge of British culture to get the full impact of the jokes. For example, Dad's Army and Porridge are still immensely popular over here nearly thirty years after the last episodes were made.

I think it's also important to remember that a lot of Brit comedy is written for the moment, without the idea of endless re-runs (syndication is not really a big thing over here). Thus, you get short runs of typically six episodes per season written by a single writer or a small team. The 'production line' approach, churning out 20+ episodes per year is unknown here (with the exception of Spitting Image, but that was the exception that proved the rule).

Oh and if you think the comedies mentioned so far are bad, just be thankful you've never seen Nearest and Dearest or
Love Thy Neighbour.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Or Mind Your Language.