“Harrison Bergeron - the latest sitcom from CBS!”
Don’t worry - it’ll come back to you.
What I find most offensive is that Sheldon is supposed to be so smart, yet for some reason he rents an apartment that requires him to be driven to Cal Tech. I lived in Pasadena and I can tell you there would be no problem finding an apartment within walking distance. And given Penny’s constant money troubles why does she insist on living alone in a one-bedroom apartment?
See these are the real things about the show that are worth worrying about.
Those clips would likely play better/seem funny if the actors weren’t pausing to wait for audience laughter to die down.
The yuks are moronic though. I think audiences are so familiar with the show, they laugh when they think it’s expected.
First of all let me say that what few episodes I have seen of this show NEVER made me laugh, so I use my standard line these days: “I’m not offended; I’m just not amused.” That being said, the OP brings up an interesting point here. In order to have “humor” SOMEBODY has to be the butt of the joke. In the case of “Big Bang Theory” the nerds are the butt of the joke. But let’s look at some other shows over the years and see who is being made fun of:
“All In The Family” Blue collar men and traditional family values. Think about it for a moment. Norman Lear himself said that the point of the show was to show how silly bigotry and prejudice are, and so Archie Bunker suffers some kind of setback due to his own prejudices. Okay fine, but it didn’t stop with that because the “hero” of the show was supposed to be Mike “Meathead” Stivic because he was progressive, intelligent, and open-minded (supposedly). He was also an atheist who believed in free love without responsibility. Archie, for all of his faults, provided for his family and believed AND lived by “traditional middle class family values” and he believed in God even though he conveniently ignored God’s commands to love everybody. Nonetheless, “traditionalists” were the butt of the joke on this show.
“MASH” I confess that I could count on one hand the amount of episodes I’ve watched because I never thought it was funny or entertaining. That being said, even many fans of the show got offended when Alan Alda started injecting his political messaging into the show which was from what I understand anti-conservative; hence the right wingers were the butt of the jokes here.
“The Simpsons” Goodness, there are so many to choose from here: The father figure (Homer); the cop (Chief Wiggum); the mayor (Mayor Quimby); the school principal (Skinner); in other words, authority figures are the butt of the jokes.
The Jeffersons: George Jefferson was an ambitious black man, who, like Archie Bunker, had an attitude based on what he experienced throughout life. This time we have a black bigot who also is greedy and certainly willing to “sellout to the man” (usually Mr. Whittendale) if it can make him more money. In this case we have an ambitious and somewhat greedy black bigoted businessman who is the butt of the jokes.
“Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Carlton, who actually wants to study and make something of his life is often portrayed as a stuffy fool compared to Will. In this case, the well-behaved studious young man is the butt of the jokes from the slightly misguided but good-hearted hip cousin.
Warner Bros. Cartoons: Take your pick: Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian, Sylvester the Cat, etc.
Bullwinkle & Rocky: I have to say, this is one of the few shows in history that had NO PROBLEM making fun of EVERYBODY!
The Three Stooges: The fat dumb loveable bald guy is usually the butt of the joke.
My point is this: in order for their to be humor, SOMEBODY HAS TO BE the butt of the joke. If you consider that “racism” or some other “—ism” so be it, but I have to ask, if there were a show on now that blatantly went out of its way to offend Roman Catholics or Evangelical Christians (okay “Family Guy” tends to do that) would there be the same uproar as when Blacks or Jews or Nerds are made fun of with stereotypes?
I hate to break it to you, but I have worked with people in their 20s who had an arranged marriage - it’s not that uncommon.
Howard’s mother is a terrible human being. She infantilizes him and his life, and violates mother/son boundaries and personal boundaries in shouted conversations about personal habits and in other ways.
In later episodes, Bernadette shows she isn’t such a doormat and can do some underhanded things. For example, Howard decides to become an astronaut without consulting her. She’s angry at this, and she doesn’t like the danger involved because her father was a cop and never knew if he’d come back home. Finally, she says it’s okay with her and she’ll never say another word about it. She promptly goes to his mom, tells her, and his mom shouts “Over my dead body!”
I’m not going to pretend this is not remarkably like something Sheldon would say. Which makes it really funny! :D:D:D
Perhaps you dislike dubbed foreign films, too.
I think this illustrates you don’t appreciate the humor that is there.
No, they’re not as funny. However, I still got some huge laughs from them, mostly at how on the one hand ULTRA-seriously AND predictably Sheldon takes himself and how he reacts bizarrely, and to a lesser extent, others’ reactions to him.
If one says, “That isn’t funny to me”, that’s okay; it takes all kinds etc. However, if one says “That isn’t funny,” I have to ask what his/her authority is for making that absolute statement.
Perhaps there are people who don’t laugh when they think not laughing is expected.
Even when I first saw the shows, I just KNEW where lots of the jokes were going and I started laughing BEFORE the studio audience.
Honestly, I just happened to see this show for the first time a couple of months ago because a station here has 2 hours of reruns on Sunday evening and that’s one of the few watchable things at that time. I then watched it on the TBS reruns, too. I had been a bit depressed and this got me LMAO.
Here’s one of my favorite bits of dialog.
How very Sheldon of you.
Do you people examine everything to death?
BBT IS smarter than the average sitcom. Yeah, it panders to some of the same 'ol sensibilities while improving and expanding upon them, that’s what makes it so popular and enlightening for the average viewer. If the average sitcom was geared toward the discerning members of the SDMB it would be cancelled in a week or two. I’m guessing a lot of you can’t see that YOU ARE SHELDON.
I realize ya’ll don’t see yourselves as average, but this thread is offputting in a way a popular sitcom could never be. Way more than half of the posts in this thread are nothing more than trying to prove yourselves smarter or more discerning than anyone who could possibly enjoy such drivel. Self congratulation and “better than thou” crap like this (plus conitinuing moderation issues and ignoring of malware…and yeah, my adblock is on…) is why I reverted to guest a few days ago.
loshan- I think you’ll enjoy the site better if you think of it as a bunch of drunk freshmen in a college dorm. Occasional meaningful insights but buried in a lot of pretentious BS. Once you accept that you can find the humor in the “Dopers are smarter than average” comments. 
Did you ever really look at your hand, man? It’s…cool.
Speaking only for myself, no, I don’t examine everything to death, only the things I like. In my experience, this is something that non-nerds often don’t get about nerds: They’ll say something like “stop nitpicking everything and just enjoy it”, without realizing that nitpicking is one of the ways we nerds enjoy things.
It was suggested at one time that she get a roommate, but the suggester was Leonard so it may not count.
Again with this bullshit? It’s funny how condescending the people accusing others of condescension are. Never anywhere did I (or anyone else in the thread that I can remember) say I was smarter or more discerning than those who like the show. The idea that I couldn’t possibly find the show an unfunny piece of dreck on its own merits without it being merely a pathetic pose to prop up my own ego is ludicrous. When someone thinks something you like sucks donkey ass it’s not a comment on you, it’s a comment on the work in question (and is just an opinion, in any case). Stop being so defensive about what you enjoy.
Well the problem is that this thread is not “Is the BBT funny?”. So when someone comes in to declare such a thing in a thread that is not even about that, then it seems like a bit of condescension.
Except it is related, at least in my mind - my very first response was about the hacky humor of the show, and how race is always going to be an element of that type of humor.
If by ‘racist’, we are referring to jokes specifically intended to denigrate members of an ethnic or religious group, I’d say, “No”. The main characters are all stereotypes of various kinds, but that’s typical for a fairly conventional sitcom, as this is.
As long as this seems to have become a referendum on whether BBT is funny, I guess I’ll weigh in; I’m sure you’ve all been anxiously awaiting my opinion anyway :p. I only started watching a few months ago, and mainly in reruns. First impression was that it was impossibly rigid and formulaic; sort of a nerd’s version of the old Andy Capp comic strip, with endless variations on the same three or four setups, and with characters, particularly Raj and Howard, that I simply couldn’t stand. In fact, if I had started watching right from Season One, Episode One I probably would have given up on it right away.
With that said, however, the actors playing Sheldon, Leonard and Penny (particularly Jim Parsons) are superb, and for me pretty reliably do something interesting with their parts even when carrying out the most routine plot points. The addition of additional female leads in recent seasons has helped quite a bit as well. Lastly, I enjoy that the producers at least make an attempt to get some of the scientific details right (such as using the reflectors left by Apollo astronauts to bounce a laser beam off the moon).
Bottom line is the show does in fact make me laugh. Not all the time (but no sitcom does, really), and it too often goes for the cheap shot, but OTOH I’ve already seen a couple of instant classics, such as the one where Leonard’s mother comes to visit (and out-Sheldons Sheldon), and the trip to a scientific round table that degenerates into all the main characters taking potshots at each over their various sexual hangups. That’s enough to keep me going with it.
…from earlier in the thread:
Its one thing to say “I don’t think its funny.” Its another to say “It isn’t funny.” And its another thing alltogether to make the claim that the show is for people who “think they are smart, but aren’t really.”
Yes you did.
I take this to mean that you don’t find the show funny because you don’t think the humor is clever enough. From this one could infer that you think anyone who does find it funny can’t be as smart as you, and that’s condescending.
Again, bullshit. You’re reading into it what you want, possibly because you’re taking shit personally. I like plenty of easy, LCD humor - Seinfeld has plenty of examples of it (and more racial stereotypes, to boot), as does Caddyshack and even Modern Family, all of which I enjoy. The problem for me with the humor on BBT is that it’s predictable, warmed-over-from-the-80s LCD humor. Hacky material can work if it’s done well. This show ain’t an example of that, IMO.