Compared to American humor, do the British enjoy a more slapstick type of comedy, or do they have a more sophisticated kind. I’ve heard both of these views, and i was wondering which one was true.
Conti
The british have a more dry humor.
I think it all revolves around their bitters, personally.
“What’s that funny game you British play?”
“Er, cricket? Self-loathing?”
“Parlimentary Democracy.”
~~D. Adams
If you read Puck, available at most libraries in the US, there are enough cartoons to answer your question. Much is neither slapstick nor dry, but would play well here with minor attention to localisms and topical figures. That is, change the PM to VP and the joke “will play in Peoria”.
I’d say that there is a lot of variation in our humour however slapstick has gone on the back burner.
There is a love of absurdism and sheer silliness such as Father Ted (Irish but popular) Blackadder etc.
Then there is the wry ironic kind such as The Full Monty.
We only get US humour over here that is likely to work here, just as you get the kind if comedy from us that is likely to work. This means that its not easy for either to really understand each others national funny bones.
In my opinion it’s like American humor, only the accents make it funnier.
As John Cleese said, it’s great to be Australian, you get to laugh with and at both the Americans and the English. We get a lot of British comedy here on the public networks, and mostly American on the comercial stations. On the whole I’d say British humour tends to be subtler with more social context, with even the ‘slapstick’ routines having some deeper relation to social conventions (eg the Ministry for silly walks). For the purpose of this discussion, any any other purpose I try to ignore Benny Hill.
American humour tends to be more focused on the immediate setting of the joke, movie or whatever. Oblique references to outside occurences are rare without a big buildup and explanation. This mostly makes it easier for outsiders to get the humour and makes the humour faster to hit home.
Man, I love British humor!
Benny Hill, Absolutely Fabulous, The Young Ones. Just to name a few. Going all the way back to Shakespeer the English have excelled in this area! Brilliant Comedy! With the exception of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, I’m embarassed by what passes as funny here.
Now, can someone answer me this: (slight hijack) When the Benny Hill Show first was broadcast in the U.S. (late 70’s I believe) there was also another British comedian with a half-hour show. It was similar to Hills, only in addition to skits this guy would also do some “stand up” in front of an audience (he was usually doing his “stand up” while sitting down on a chair). Now, who the heck was that guy???
???
Ronnie Corbett?
Dave Allen? (Not likely)
Could be Dave Allen. Did he have part of one finger missing?
Father Ted was also pretty savage satire.
It could even have been Jasper Carrott. The era sounds about right. Do you remember what he looked like?
To the OP - surely the easy answer is yes. Not trying to be a smartarse about this - but there is a huge range of humour popular in the UK. We have the slapstick of things like Bean and Bottom right across to really subtle acquired tastes like League of Gentlemen. Like casdave said though, the humour we export may not be completely representative of what’s popular here.
Charley.
I think that all British humor can’t be lumped together, just like all American humor can’t be. I love it though. I love the accents and the humor. Douglas Adams and Monty Python are my favorites.
I think another good point of comparison would be the Ealing films of the late 40s/early 50s (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, Whisky Galore!, The Man in the White Suit, etc.) versus American comedy of the same time (this was the peak period for Bob Hope and Danny Kaye)
The Ealing comedies relied on understatement, local color, and dry wit vs. the more obvious grandstanding gag humor of much of the louder American comedy of the period.
I also think American film/TV comedy is largely devoid (outside of animation) of absurdist humor. I know quite a lot of people who don’t like certain British humor because they think it’s just too “weird.” They’re more used to the structure and conventions of sitcom-based TV comedy.
I personally loved Yes, Minister–a premise and style of humor that would be unthinkable on American TV.
casdave, can you think of an example of American humor that didn’t work over there? (when I lived in England for 9 months, it seemed all the most popular American comedy got UK distribution)
I dunno. When I introduced an American colleague to this - admittedly he teaches Public Choice (the economics of politics) - he loved it. This programme would be my nomination for best TV series of all time.
Mr Bean struck me as a comedy of manners, not unlike the farce of Frasier. Bottom is probably the purest slapstick since The Three Stooges.
For me, I guess this would be most of the skits I saw on French and Saunders. (What the heck is a “wrinkly asshole,” anyway, and why is it supposed to be funny?)
Keeping up Appearances and Are You Being Served? are a bit silly, but used to be some of my late night favorites on PBS. They are more in the American sitcom style, but I don’t they they would ever really work in Americanized form because a lot of the humor touched on class structure in British society. FWIW, I also liked Yes, Minister.
[Moderator Hat ON]
This seems more like it’s asking for opinions, so I’m sending it to IMHO.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
I think you mean Punch.
Puck was a New York City-based humor magazine of the late 19th century. Their really cool building is still standing at the corner of Lafayette and East Houston Streets in lower Manhattan.
Punch is the pre-eminent magazine of British humor, established in 1841; it stopped publishing just a few years ago.
Ah, “Puck.” That takes me back . . . I still miss getting my regular issues of “Snappy Stories” and “Cap’n Billy’s Whiz-Bang.”
Punch is currently available. Mohammed Al-Fayed, owner of Harrods, chairman of Fulham football club, father of Dodi and general unpleasant character, revived it in recent years. It hasn’t been successful.
A much better magazine at the moment is Private Eye, which I know you can find in Australia so I assume it’s also available in the US.
Punch stopped publishing in the early 1990s, IIRC. Sadly it has been resurrected by Mohammad Al-Fayed (Reanimator) but is a pale shadow of its former self.
Its columnists include such luminaries as Jerry Hayes (minor Tory MP who lost his seat at the last election), Anit Bhoyrul and James Hipwell (two financial journalists who were sacked from the Mirror for insider trading), George Best (celebrity drunk and former footballer) and the Phoney Pharoah himself.
It is a sad, sad spectacle and enought to convince most right thinking people that he should never get his passport.