Sitcom Hell

Mind you, you can understand Paul's bemusement. How does someone as intelligent, witty and all round great as Penelope Wilton's character end up married to someone like this?

Roseanne v The Good Life v My Name is Earl v Coupling.

The OC and Desperate Housewives wouldn't work here because British culture doesn't work like that. Also, as you pointed out, they aren't comedies. Though Hollyoaks comes close to the OC, I guess (xpost)

My Family is pretty much the archetypal British sitcom, isn't it?

Er...I'm sure we could find as many (or more) examples that aren't. Aside from the two Ailsa mentioned, Everybody Loves Raymond (they're not poor but...), Rhoda, Archie Bunker's Place/All In The Family, Sanford and Son (OK, last two = US equivalents of UK sitcoms), Chico and the Man, Cheers, Taxi, King of the Hill...

There's also a few amount of mileage to be had in US sitcoms of class-straddling culture-clash (Fresh Prince of Bel Air, er...Diff'rent Strokes at a push...)

It's not all Niles and Frasier sipping lattes (though that has its own class tension in Crane senior).

Cheers had a pretty broad social spectrum; laffs were both at the expense, and benefit, of the toffs (frasier, dianne) and the proles (the rest of them), at different times. episodes like the 'snark hunt', or when woody got involved in politics, or where frasier wanted to read them dickens but ended up twisting it into a tale of serial killers and mutant ninja turtles to keep the bar interested, were excellent at this.

Yeah, I think the only way "Seinfeld" fits here is through the George character. Which means that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" fits better, as larry=george.

Yeah, I think the only way "Seinfeld" fits here is through the George character. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" fits almost perfectly here though.

I have missed the boat as regards beating up the "upper-middle-class" line, but any generalisation about American Comedy that misses the Simpsons needs rewriting.

- peep show
- the office
- black books
- spaced
- fucking my family

do not conform to this.

Counter examples can be found just as easily as your examples. David Brent, Alan Patridge, as I see it, are classic examples of people making a pigs ear of a good situation - they are in good honest middle management/public eye positions are and shite at it, which is not in the same mould as a Steptoe/Norman Stanley Fletcher at all.

Similarly, Earl Hickey, Roseanne & Dan Conner (pre lottery-winning shark jump), are good honest decent hard-working folks who are making the best of a bad situation.

(xpost)

do not conform to this.

actually i think Black Books and Spaced kind of do.

*I quite like it, but then I don't "get" comedy.

xxxpost
didn't mean to diss cloth-capped Yorkshire coalminers, just trying to down-play the "class" card since characters in Men Behaving Badly aren't exactly lower-class, but they still represent a kind of grottiness which you just don't get on US TV. Similarly, shite like Hollyoaks just goes to show what happens if you try and sheen-up British TV in the same way American TV does - we just can't do it.

same as Brent and Partridge - how the British love to see the mighty fall, whereas someone like the good Dr Crane or Larry David is lauded and admired. Either that or they get put into embarassing situations which spiral out of control, in which case we are expected to sympathise.

^^ dude youre embarrassing yourself with the not-getting-it here

(xpost, Friends, Rachel was a waitress, Joey a *failed* actor, Phoebe a coffee-shop singer/masseuse. Hardly the high-fliers, eh?)

Green Wing - haven't really seen properly but it's really a sketch show and was set in a hospital in which case it's out of this domain. That said, compare it to something like Scrubs.

Two Pints Of Lager - barely classifies as a comedy, but this bunch of chavs aren't particularly aspirational are they?

Green Green Grass - what is this? Is it good?

(and wrt Friends, they must have been pretty well-paid waitresses to keep them in ornate wooden dogs, comfy chairs and hair straighteners, non? the concept of money is so swept under the rug in this show, you'd think they all lived in some kind of Marxist paradise).

-- and what (an...), May 30th, 2006 5:11 PM. (ooo)

The viewer is supposed to, at the end of the day, on the protagonist's side, no matter what kind of an arsehole he is being that day. You're not supposed to be so forgiving with characters like Brent or Partridge.

I'm trying to think of American comedies where the lead character isn't portrayed as 'hero' and one to aspire to sympathise with or aspire to in some way.* Even when Homer is being a jerk (99% of the time) they'll have him do a little speech that wins everyone around him over, and all is forgiven. Presumably people really do love Raymond at the end of the day too. In the case of The Office, the US stick fairly well to the original by maintaining Tim as the 'hero'.

*I never saw Sanford & Son but if it was that much like Steptoe then I guess it might be a good example?

Eh...but what about the end of The Office, when we DO start to feel sorry for Brent, and glad that he gets himself a date at the end?

After two serieses and a Christmas Special, sure. We are happy because he's straightened himself out and there's hope that he will one day become a humbler, better person than the tyrannous faux-empowered assclown that he was.

Me neither. I'd like to see it actually.