Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

i'm not saying TV's worse - quality is constant because new problems replace the old ones.

there was a good thing on BBC Four about TV in 1974 a few weeks back. Unfortunately the clips they showed of Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads made it look a rather worthy (Bolam sighs at sight of demolished factory etc.), boring affair with stifled laughter to match. Surely not the case.

"part of what makes a golden age is the feeling that you're not in a tiny minority of smug media-savvy bbc4-watchers too"

i'm not taking offense as such but i never mentioned anything about no golden age which i think is ridiculous anyway (in this context), what makes you think bbc-4 watchers are tech-savvy i'm certainly not in fact most of them are prob middle aged with string round their glasses, and "smug" ? bit douchey, no?

There's something about the name of that massive If You Don't Like Peep Show You Are Probably Not Worth Knowing facebook group that makes me think that is the perfect sitcom for our crypto-tory shitbag generation.

-- acrobat, Wednesday, August 15, 2007 5:08 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

yeah 100% otm. i hadn't realized this till recently when it got really massive. the jokes have become more sour over the last two series also, as mark as become the central character and jeremy the tosspot.

xpost i was talking about me and mine, frogman.

in any case, when the day today came out, did you not feel part of a clique/minority watching this tremendous/slightly overlooked thing at 10pm on bbc2? smug, perhaps?

possibly -- but not with 'father ted' or 'brass eye' or 'i'm alan partridge'.

or 'the smell of reeves and mortimer'!

imo Malcolm Tucker and Ollie are more likeable than Mark and Jeremy. maybe it's because they're such high status clever bastards (Tucker at least) and actually succeed most of the time. British comedy penchant for irritating losers really not a plus point.

'i'm alan partridge' was smug-inducing. brass eye was alienating to a lot of people. father ted was a legtimate universal sitcom tho.

ban anyone who uses the words 'smug' or 'genius' on this thread.

blueski banned!!!111

i don't think IAP was smug at all.

yeah i am kind of using it because i disagree with the notion, however 'i'm alan partridge' is kind of sneering and loathsome and i don't think people who are obsessed with it are particularly nice.

nah iap is iannucci and coogan playing to the gallery. the student-wanker gallery.

i disagree.

i think peep show fits in quite well with programs like balls of steel even the apprentince. it shares space with media figures like gordon ramsey and jeremy clarkson. it echoes the elevation of boris johnson to godhead status. self satisfaction, complacency, meaness all are celebrated with unironic irony. g2 gentrification, the mainstreaming of hipster one up manship becomes playground tactics. everyone wants to be on the side thats winning.

hmm.

some cracking gags tho gromit.

all rooted in a slightly shitty view of the world.

at least they're not racists though.

imo Malcolm Tucker and Ollie are more likeable than Mark and Jeremy.

Ollie isn't (especially not in part 2 of the special), Tucker certainly is. Whoever said it didn't have a laughing-out-loud vibe clearly didn't see Part 1. An hour's worth of belly-laughs, that one.

Brass Eye was alienating to a lot of people, most of whom were Mail-reading cunts.

the weird thing abt ramsey is that his shtick -- which is as acrobat sez -- is at odds with the content and dynamic of his programmes, which are about the opposite of complacency: viz "yr cookery is only as good is its eaters say it is", hence LEARN TO DO IT PROPERLY PLZ

it's quite ur-reithian that way, fuck me

"Brass Eye was alienating to a lot of people, most of whom were Mail-reading cunts"

you're a complete fucking dickhead

And you're the dude who saw 'media-savvy' and quoted 'tech-savvy'.

nah iap is iannucci and coogan playing to the gallery. the student-wanker gallery.

Sotcaalicious

xxp
ie members of my family found it too harsh, too nihilistic, too confusing, amoral etc. and they're not mail reading or the other thing. i love it, but i can see why a person brought up in a different time, or with more mainstream values might have not liked these things.
i mean i hate almost everything morris did after blue jam which revealed those unpleasant tendencies used to great effect in brass eye much more starkly. i guess that makes me a mail-reading cunt.

And you're the dude who saw 'media-savvy' and quoted 'tech-savvy'.

-- Just got offed, Wednesday, 15 August 2007 16:42

you're absolutely right. um, so?

Srsly, tho, what's so dickheaded about my statement? Brass Eye is one of the funniest programmes in the history of television, that is unalterable fact. Therefore, who can it possibly alienate? Possibly, it alienates stuck-up prudish Daily Mail readers (the stereotype most certainly applies here), who can't abide by its content, or the manner in which it skewers their complacent, bigoted view of the world.

Aha. Explanations.

Well, my comeback above was a cheap shot, sure, but bear in mind I said 'most' not 'all'. Sure there are those that might have found it amoral or confusing. In general, though, I'd expect the majority of opprobrium to come from those ideologically opposed to Morris.

Blue Jam, I'll say it again, is the finest programme ever, radio or television.

Wow, two absolutes in one post! For <superlative> programme ever, read "in my opinion, the best I have seen".

You're nuts.

Mark Heap is, like, 54 or something, you know?

finding things funny = no prob
finding things funny and awarding yrself a medal for it = tw@t

xpost: Yeah, he's getting on a bit, but he was absolutely perfect for his BJ roles. And he's still got it in doses; he was probably the best thing about Green Wing.

I'd hardly call this 'awarding myself a medal' btw. Everyone my age with an interest in comedy likes Brass Eye. Now that's scientific fact.

there's an awful lot thats funny about brass eye that makes no coherent "ideological" sense, and at the same time repulses if you've been brought up in a different milleu (social and media). you're very narrow in your knowledge and possibly experience.

Well, by 'ideological' I mean Morris' clear objective to make more or less anything, no matter what the supposed taste, into a joke. This wanton subversion goes squarely against those who would dictate what is 'right and proper'; his freedom of expression, raucously manifested as it is, got up a lot of noses.

and bar

Terry and June is one of the funniest programmes in the history of television, that is unalterable fact. Therefore, who can it possibly alienate? Possibly, it alienates stuck-up prudish The Sex readers (the stereotype most certainly applies here), who can't abide by its content, or the manner in which it skewers their complacent, bigoted view of the world.

Dude I haven't seen Terry and June, but if I did, I probably wouldn't feel 'alienated'! I'd like to know how it skewers my view of the world. Enlighten me.

there's an episode in which terry scott is reading "the daily mail" before his chair breaks

http://photos-b.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/v65/28/120/36909752/n36909752_32887061_1889.jpg

"JYOOOOON!"

> there's an episode in which terry scott is reading "the daily mail" before his chair breaks

isn't that the title sequence?

the only thing i remember about t&j being how topical it was, hence the cb radio episode, etc.

there's a fair bit of morris stuff that's just nasty. i know the peedo special is bestsatiresinceswift but so much of it is just bad taste lols. i think at some point there's a realization, or one i had, that as much as you try and justify it sometimes yr laughing cos it's naughty. it's a cheap thrill. but we're all popists here and "cheap thrill" is no denegration. it's just something to be aware of when you stop patting your back.

wikipedia says;

"Satirical television shows such as Have I Got News For You and They Think It's All Over are also popular on British television."

Wait a minute, Louis Jag is pulling a; "If You Don't Like Peep Show You Are Probably Not Worth Knowing" but with Brass Eye. Comedy = divisive.

The Nicholas Craig thing on "How to be C18th" was pretty funny for a clip show - much riffing on Biggins, Brian Blessed's "keynote performance there as Lord Shoutyface Cholesterol". Haven't seen the others. Who'd have thunk it 25 years ago that the only member of the Young Ones/Comic Strip clan to still be making reasonably good TV comedy into his 40s/50s would be Planer? To be fair, some of the others have moved into other areas, but they've all been hopeless on the telly since '93 or so.

(Lou1s J@gger is 19 or something, isn't he? I was a daft sod at that age too.)

Ooh, automagical googproofin'.

however 'i'm alan partridge' is kind of sneering and loathsome

Who is being sneered at?

There's a difference between not liking/being unsettled by Brass Eye, which I can fully accept, and being 'alienated' by it. I'm sure plenty of my friends don't much like Brass Eye, but I doubt any of them are completely, vocally opposed to its principles.

principles?

Louis thinks everyone has many principles has he has

i did see the 'how to be science fiction' which was actually 'how to be 70s science fiction' as it took most of it's cues from gareth edwards. was very much a 'lol, actors were bad back then' type affair.

brass eye argumenting now in it's 5th great year.

surely 10th?

principles of expression and humour xxxpost