An odd mix of programmes, some old enough only ever to have been shown in B & W, 80s US sitcoms, 90s UK sketch shows. Methinks the writer should have just stuck with British 'Golden Oldie' sitcoms from the 50s -80s. There's enough to choose from FFS. Should've picked 'Whatever Happened..' over the original Likely Lads as pretty much anyone knows it is the better show. Anyway, of these 12, those I liked back in the day I still like now and those I thought were cack at the time, well I still haven't changed my mind.

Quote: Oldrocker @ 26th October 2014, 1:56 PM GMT

Agree or disagree Chums?

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/oct/25/hancock-ab-fab-young-ones-classic-tv-comedy-shows

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I am young ish well put it this way my era was Young Ones and Blackadder so I did not think Hancock would appeal and I have never been a Carry On fan as not for my era but I did listen to Kevin McNally covering Tony Hancock and I thought these were good and led to me checking out some of the original Hancock with Kenneth Williams and Bill Kerr and definitely appreciate him more now and I did not realise how talented Kenneth Williams was.

Quote: misfit @ 9th February 2015, 11:47 PM GMT

I am young ish well put it this way my era was Young Ones and Blackadder so I did not think Hancock would appeal and I have never been a Carry On fan as not for my era but I did listen to Kevin McNally covering Tony Hancock and I thought these were good and led to me checking out some of the original Hancock with Kenneth Williams and Bill Kerr and definitely appreciate him more now and I did not realise how talented Kenneth Williams was.

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Welcome unto the paths of righteousness my son.

Oh...these articles really annoy me. Different people like different comedy. My partner likes some shows I can't bear to sit through and he's the same with stuff I like.

Also, people who profess to know the ins and outs of a vintage comedy series, BUT are too young to have actually watched it at the time it was first broadcast, can surely not be fully qualified to comment on whether it's still funny now. How can they possibly criticize characters like Terry Collier when we had characters like Alf Garnett all over England saying it how they saw it and proudly too!

Whether they were right or wrong to behave that way, they DID exist and should be written. I don't get why some people are so scared to write characters who ARE present in society. A bland set of token characters getting on and being nice to each other in a 'hilariously' sarcastic manner is...oh so...zzz.

I might add, the invention of VHS recorders or DVD box sets has meant many younger people have had the chance to zip through as many episodes as their eyes can manage at one time. Condensed like that leaves nothing to look forward to...nothing to miss...no time to ponder.

I read an article the other day titled 'Why Do Women Like Horror Movies?', during which I was very kindly informed that not all girls only like chick flicks. Some like horror too. Well...thanks for that...and there was me thinking I was just a human person who liked horror.

Oh yes...I was saying...these articles annoy me. I do feel better now, though.

Quote: Oldrocker @ 10th February 2015, 12:49 AM GMT

Welcome unto the paths of righteousness my son.

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I second that. You've a lot to catch up on and enjoy.

There are certain things which will never get a second look because the 'cool' clique in the school yard of life objects. (this is very much a 'cool' list)
Whereas other stuff, which is patently crap, gets hailed as one of the greatest works in comedy, ever, because there is someone, or something in it, which is - 'cool'.
In short: certain things are acceptable, even laudable, for one to be be seen to like in public.

Objections to this are usually explained away with differences in taste, etc. But it just strikes me that once in a while a comedy comes along which appears to have the 'right' people in it, or is about a 'relevant' subject matter and all the media wonks tell us how fantastic it all is. Strangely a huge number of people tend to go along with this.

Tellingly however, once the hit has had its day, it rarely gets repeated again and, frankly, nobody wants to see it.

Watching this 'cool' stuff turns out to be much like eating wallpaper paste.
Frankly, I think I would prefer spooning Solvite into myself to watching an episode of The Office ever again, no matter how 'ground breaking' the wonks tell me it was.

If this list tells us anything it is that media folks have an inflated view of the importance of some of the more recent comedy products.
No matter whether the author of a list likes Ab Fab or Spaced, it can never really be compared with Hancock or Monty Python who in fact did much to shape the national understanding of comedy.

Mind, the presence of 'I Love Lucy' and 'The Cosby show' heavily underplays the US influence on this little island.
It is little surprise that we dubbed a programme Hancock's Half Hour, after the Yanks had been running 'Caesar's Hour'.
And the influence of their movies can never be underestimated.
Was it The Young Ones or was it 'Animal house' which caused that particular anarchic spark?

I would have finished the list at Only Fools And Horses, (with 'Seinfeld' and 'Frasier' as later US contributions) simply because there hasn't really been anything of similar impact and weight since.

Trying to treat The Fast Show as something of equal standing is much like trying to compare the US invasion of Grenada to the second world war.

I add that there are things missing on there which I myself do like a great deal. But liking something doesn't really make it 'great'. Much as I might admire the likes of Red Dwarf, it was hardly one of the greats of history. Annoying as lists as these are, they should at least be kept short.
(Unless it's a list about newts, of course.)

Oh, and before I go. I never liked The Likely Lads either (incl. Whatever Happened). But not because it had someone in it who held the 'wrong' views. Simply because I felt it wasn't very funny.
Somehow having people with Geordie accents in it didn't make things any funnier to me.
The various north easterners I know disagree ardently there. To them it holds near mythical status - along with Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Poor fools.

Agreed that it was a funny mixture of shows to chose from. But I have to say that I think The Day Today still works mostly actually, generally because of the angry shouty shocky knee jerky style of broadcasting which has spread and spread over broadcasts in the years that followed its transmission. The same goes for Brass Eye in my opinion, although thankfully they didn't slag that off in this.

'Brass eye' and 'Day today':
Hmmm.
They are of a recent strain of comedy which I have a problem with, because it is simply observation without pay off.

So 'Brass eye' and 'Day today' in a way let you know that they, the makers, had noticed the deterioration and sensationalism of news media, but didn't really give it a comic turn.

One took the stylistic tell tale signs of hyped news media, then replicated and exaggerated it ad absurdum, but that is the be-all-and-end-all of the joke.
It therefore is a satire of style. It satirises not content but style alone.

I would suggest that 'The thick of it' suffered from much the same problem.
One no longer satirised politics, but the style of modern day politics.

Quite a bit of comedy has relied on replicating style alone.
French and Saunders were, apparently, hilarious at recreating film scenes 'in the style of' but without much other comic content. The gag supposedly was always that Dawn French was fat.
Frankly, I didn't get it.

I like satire a great deal.
I could watch Bird and Fortune exchanges on old Rory Bremner shows until the day I fade away.
I think 'Yes, minister' is one of the greatest UK sitcoms ever made.
But these kinds of satire have a traditional punchline.
They poke fun at what has been observed. They do not merely provide the observation. They work as traditional comedy on top of satire.

It is in that respect that I feel much comedy these days provides half baked product. The observation alone is the pun. Less work, I guess.

So in essence you provide the setup for a gag:
'Ever noticed how....?' But then there's no pay off.
To me, that's not a gag, merely a setup without the gag.

So, 'ever noticed how news is all flashy and hyper these days'?
Yes, I have. But I'm not laughing.

Call me old fashioned, if you will.

You won't like Seinfeld then

Quote: Gussie Fink Nottle @ 12th April 2015, 2:57 AM BST

'Brass eye' and 'Day today':
Hmmm.
They are of a recent strain of comedy which I have a problem with, because it is simply observation without pay off.

So 'Brass eye' and 'Day today' in a way let you know that they, the makers, had noticed the deterioration and sensationalism of news media, but didn't really give it a comic turn.

One took the stylistic tell tale signs of hyped news media, then replicated and exaggerated it ad absurdum, but that is the be-all-and-end-all of the joke.
It therefore is a satire of style. It satirises not content but style alone.

I would suggest that 'The thick of it' suffered from much the same problem.
One no longer satirised politics, but the style of modern day politics.

Quite a bit of comedy has relied on replicating style alone.
French and Saunders were, apparently, hilarious at recreating film scenes 'in the style of' but without much other comic content. The gag supposedly was always that Dawn French was fat.
Frankly, I didn't get it.

I like satire a great deal.
I could watch Bird and Fortune exchanges on old Rory Bremner shows until the day I fade away.
I think 'Yes, minister' is one of the greatest UK sitcoms ever made.
But these kinds of satire have a traditional punchline.
They poke fun at what has been observed. They do not merely provide the observation. They work as traditional comedy on top of satire.

It is in that respect that I feel much comedy these days provides half baked product. The observation alone is the pun. Less work, I guess.

So in essence you provide the setup for a gag:
'Ever noticed how....?' But then there's no pay off.
To me, that's not a gag, merely a setup without the gag.

So, 'ever noticed how news is all flashy and hyper these days'?
Yes, I have. But I'm not laughing.

Call me old fashioned, if you will.

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That's a very very good point! I think it is a totally different realm of satire to Yes Minister and Bremner, Bird And Fortune, but I could also sit and watch either of those shows on end for I think their style is just as effective and funny but in a totally different way. I must say I do beleive that, after a while, Brass Eye did get a little up itself, and the jokes became more and more..well..unfunny. I always found the 2001 special most disappointing. It was, as you say, lots of set ups but not many punch lines, and those set ups were..eh...not very funny. Lots of jokes about paedophiles didn't really do it for me. It seemed lazy. And that's rare for a work of Morris and co.

After reading background info on that episode, I do understand that, like the rest of the series, they were trying to comment on how it was covered so insensitively by the media. But had I not read this I think I would struggle to have ever found an clear point to that particular show. The rest of the series was pretty good in comparison, but The Day Today got it better in terms of remaining funny (to me, anyhow), and I think that might have been largely due to Iannucci's input (and maybe also because they kept it to just 6 episodes). In that respect of the special Brass Eye, I would say it isn't really particularly funny anymore, and I'm not sure that it ever truly really was. The rest of the episodes however really worked for me.

Quote: Steve Sunshine @ 12th April 2015, 3:22 AM BST

You won't like Seinfeld then

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Au contraire, I like Seinfeld a lot.

Yes, he's famous for observational comedy.

But his comedy is still of the old fashioned 'set up & pay off' variety.
It's true that 'have you ever noticed how...?' pretty much became a Seinfeld cliche.
But there either followed a classic joke pay off to this question, or the question itself heavily implied the gag for the audience to make for themselves.

In that regard I find Seinfeld is a traditional joke teller.