BlackAdder (all)
Monty Python
Yes, (Prime) Minister
Father Ted
Faulty Towers
- Bless me Father: a much funnier Catholic-genre program than Father Ted
- *Yes Minister * and Yes Prime Minister: so well written that they were scary at times
- A Fine Romance: Judi Dench and her real life husband Michael Williams in a tour de force of wickedly dry humour
Could somebody explain Are you Being Served?, because I think it sucks really, really, really hard.
- As Time Goes By
- Executive Stress
- Mr. Bean
- Coupling (ignoring the post-Jeff season (s?) )
- Blackadder
P.S. Are you Being Served? sucks. Hard.
:shrug: I think “Are You Being Served” is quite amusing. Not the best of shows, but I do find sexual innuendo always brings a smile to my face.
Are You Being Served is old and outdated, but it always made me chuckle. I always thought it was surprising what they were able to get away with way back then. Besides, I’ll always have a soft spot for it, since it was the first British comedy I ever watched. It led me to Black Adder and Red Dwarf, and the rest was history. It’s a gateway British comedy.
In no particular order:
Spaced
Fawlty Towers
Only Fools and Horses
Red Dwarf
Blackadder
(there are a few more that I love but since we can only list our top 5…)
Fawlty Towers
Coupling
Suburban Shootout (holy CRAP! Have you seen this? I can’t believe it! It’s like an estrogen driven version of The Sopranos!)
Footballers’ Wives
The Avengers
:smack:
And I obviously can’t read. PLease replace the last two (definitely not comedies) with
AbFab &
Black Books
IIRC the ‘saying’ may have come from the theme song.
I think that the song-writer once admitted that he had made up the saying and that the ‘historic’ status of the saying was a sort of urban legend that just grew. Brewers dictionary of Phrase and Fable does not credit it. The internet is full of unreferenced examples but I am interested to hear of any true reference for the phrase which predates the series.
The Games (Yes, strictly speaking, it’s Australian. I’m including it for three reasons; it has some of the same wry, satirical feel as my favorite British comedies, the people have accents, and it’s at least as good as any other show on this list.)
Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister (Excellent books, too; written in the style of Hacker’s political memoirs published in the future, with some references to what happened to the characters. I really wish they’d been able to do a final episode or a reunion show, showing the end of Hacker’s government. My faith in the authors is such that I know it could have been brilliant.)
Red Dwarf
Blackadder
Coupling (I never cared much for Jane until the episode where she gets insulted by a sock puppet on her own hand! That performance helps put this show on the list.)
Honorable mention (and might make the next version of this list if I ever seen enough of them):
Murder Most Horrid (An anthology series starring Dawn French. Has to be an anthology since people are dropping dead (often violently) in every episode. The one with Amanda Donahoe as the hitwoman has the funniest line in the history of television. I’d pay a lot to find this on DVD or tape.)
One Foot in the Grave (I saw a few episodes, including about half of the finale, and then caught it pretty regularly when they started over at the beginning. But the local PBS station changed their lineup before they got to the end again. I really want to see that last episode.)
And one that’s not on the list:
Fawlty Towers (I loved this show the first few times I saw it, but it hasn’t worn well. At some point it dawned on me how many of Basil’s troubles are self-inflicted. There’s a certain automatic sympathy for him because of Sybil, the Major, and all the various difficulties of running the hotel, but then he loses that by making things worse all by himself. And it’s usually not in a best-intentions-gone-awry sort of way. The feelings of sympathy and comeuppance just sort of cancel each other out.)
I think that there is a fundamental difference between the US approach to sit coms and the UK approach (as glanced upon above).
Specifically it is to do with differences in the cultural view of intention, behaviour and character.
I think that to most Brits, the humor of Fawlty Towers is in the fact that Basil is so incompetent and unfit to deal with people and is the source of his own discomfort. That is the key point.
It goes for many other Brit Sit Coms:
AbFab- two totally incompetent drug taking alcoholic media whores.
Keeping up Appearances- A snob and a wimp
Red Dwarf- incompetent crawling yes-man and a slob
Blackadder- clever but self defeating Edmund and a slob
One Foot in the Grave- a moaning senior citizen and a defeated wife
Only Fools and Horses- an inadequate con-man and a wimp of a brother
The Office- incompetent socially unskilled boss and a group of staff with no initiative
Father Ted- three totally incompetent priests.
All of these and many others are based on the premise that the character flaws of the characters and the flaws of communication between them forces them to repeat the same set of mistakes year after year without learning or changing. That is what is humorous to the British eye.
Monty Python is not a britcom. Somehow.
More of a beyond-category-thing.
In random order:
The Youg Ones too often forgotten, very pythonesque, surreal but violent
Fawlty Towers no comment necessary
Blackadder (esp. II) no comment necessary
Coupling Jeff rules! The concept is quite standard, but it’s so incredibly well done
Oh what shall I say for 5? Red Dwarf? Are you being served? Allo allo? Father Ted? (Oh no, that’s Eircom) Black Books? I just don’t know.
In no particular order:
Porridge
Dad’s Army
Blackadder
The Good Life
Fawlty Towers
No-one’s mentioned one of my very favourites yet - Some Mothers do 'Ave 'em . Starring a very young Michael Crawford, yet to become famous in Phantom of the Opera .
Others in no particular order -
Man about the House
Porridge
Rising Damp
The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin
There are so many others I have great memories of - To The Manor Born, Good Neighbours, Alf Garnett etc. Good times!
AbFab - I literally laughed out loud. Every episode.
Chef
Are You Being Served
Mr. Bean - the sitcom NOT the movie!!!