I think the darkness of Breaking Bad helped make Saul’s humor more pungent.
When the two APD detectives are ominously questioning Jesse in “Face Off”, Saul bursts into the interrogation room and effortlessly deflates their intimidating authority: “Hey! ‘Tall’ and ‘Taller’? Out!”
“the parking attendant”
lol
When comparing to the Wire, I just remember laughing so much at the Wire when we watched it again recently. Not a comedy. A lot of comedy in it.
Later, Saul and other characters provided the humour. Jessi did at first, but he lost it. Badger and Skinny Pete were gems onscreen. Hank and Gomez were hilarious. Huell.
And you’re missing a lot watching Better Call Saul second. A lot of it is such characters appearing in plots, and in cameos. Your parking attendant is one of the major players in later seasons of Breaking Bad.
I get that, but I’m not sure I want to slog through 5 seasons of Breaking Bad if it’s not enjoyable just to get the in-jokes in BCS. Maybe I’ll try the first few episodes after finishing season 1 of BCS.
Well there is a reason Breaking Bad is found close to the top of lists of best shows of all time. It’s a fantastic show. Give it a shot.
I also felt that Breaking Bad had fewer humorous moments overall, but they were much funnier than the humor in Better Call Saul.
If the only reason someone is watching Breaking Bad is to get BCS’s in-jokes, that is definitely NOT worth it. Way too little return on your investment. But as ISiddiqui wrote, it is a great show on its own, so try a few episodes and decide for yourself.
I have a theory about the person who seems to have tracked him down. Let’s see if I’m right when the series ends next year.
It’s Kim.
It’s a very different tone.
The tone of BB is dark. The mood is heavy. There are really funny moments and scenes and lines and even whole episodes of BB, but it’s never lighthearted fun, it’s brutal dark humor. (Which completely suits the show it is in - the writers didn’t forget that their protagonist was a horrible human being who was actively participating in a violent and life destroying enterprise. You can laugh at the absurdity, but it’s not going to be flighty)
BCS has dark moments, but its overall tone is much lighter and the funny moments aren’t infused with the same mood as BB. It’s much easier to laugh during BCS.
In this thread BB has been compared to The Wire and The Sopranos, neither of which I’ve seen. How does it compare to Deadwood, which I have seen (and enjoyed)?
You are comparing apples to oranges, IMO. Deadwood is an ensemble show which ended early. Breaking Bad focuses mainly on one person and his fall. Even Jesse, who ends up being co-lead-ish, is in Walt’s orbit.
Yes. There were times I seriously cringed, but the first episode I of BB I ever watched was where they were trying to dispose of Crazy 8’s body.
I started watching again (prior to the show ending, so I saw the finale live) on Netflix after my sister told me I should watch. I was surprised watching it from the beginning in order that there was way less gore than I expected after my introduction to the show! However, it’s fairly unrelentingly gloom with doom hovering heavily on the horizon. Still. Excellent show, and I don’t regret watching it.
It’s also very smart.
Imagine if Deadwood’s focus had been on Hearst and his people and that his story was the clear forefront (as opposed to that character being one of the competing narratives. And arguably only a B level narrative.) Not that they turn him into a nice guy, but that he’s the character that is being followed most closely and everything is shown in relation to him.
You’d still get humor because McRainey is a good comic actor with strong timing and writer/director/showrunners would be fools not to use that. But it’s not going to be a laugh-a-minute show. It’s going to be more brutal and less tempered than it was (because the balance of the show is at a different place).
This is what ended BCS for me – I knew the ending and watching Jimmy swirl around the drain got to be too sad. I preferred the character as he appeared in BB, when he’d come to terms with who he was. I’m planning to give it another shot, I quit shortly after Gus was introduced and his story has to be interesting.
Yes! Although that drinking game would end me.
Mike is by far my favorite character of either series. The funniest scenes involve him reacting to other people’s idiocy. I don’t know if I’d be into a show about a young Mike, though; he can’t possibly have been as funny when he was a young and idealistic cop who gave DV perps a second chance.
FWIW, now that BCS is approaching its end, I started watching Breaking Bad. I’m up to S1E5, and enjoying it a lot, though it’s definitely a lot darker than BCS started, and the humor is pretty dark as well. But it’s also interesting to see everything I missed from BCS the first time around - seeing Wendy, Ken Wins, Emilio, and Domingo in their “original” roles was a lot of fun.
This is a very interesting thread. My Wife and I finally got an internet fast enough that we could stream things like King of Thrones (loved it) and BB. We have a LOT of ‘catching up’ to do, but don’t really watch that much. We never marathon watch.
We are currently on season 4 of BB. I see very little humor in it at all. But it’s great. Looking forward to BCS.
As others have alluded to, BB is a drama with dark humor. BCS is a dark comedy with drama.
IMHO, they are both among the best shows ever produced. See them both.
…or else Tuco Salamanca may come knocking at your door. 
But Walter White is the One Who Knocks.
I watched Weeds first and that show is an outright comedy although it got very dark sometimes.
“He’s running out of skin on this side of his face!”
I thought Breaking Bad was going to be super serious all the way through but it turned out to be quite funny, although not in the conventional way. The only moment I can think of that was outright comedy was in Season 2:
Marie’s method for convincing Hank to leave the hospital and a scene later, the two of them leaving.
I also recall a scene from Season 6 that wasn’t supposed to be funny but was hilarious when the curtain was pulled back:
Walter is menacing a couple of people and tells them snipers are waiting outside for them. The snipers turn out to be a couple of tweakers with laser pointers.
All in all, it is not a show I would watch specifically for the humor but there is definitely humor in it.