The British Sitcom that is the least clever Page 6

I didn't think the Friends in London episodes were too bad. Although they did have Helen Baxendale in, who was a deeply annoying character.

next I'm gonna hear that Helen Baxendale did not have proper accent and did not act British enough.
Dr. House was on the plane with Rachel, btw.

And he had his normal accent! Thank gawd. He was ace in that.

I often think I'd like to kill Helen Baxendale.
But mainly just in Friends.
Worst casting ever.

Quote: oldcowgrazing @ April 29 2008, 1:55 PM BST

Will Mellor has very thin lips. He's a bad'n, you mark my words. Huh?

As a compromise how about the producer's exchange the canned laughter for voice-overs?:

[Viewer 1] Now that's funny

[Viewer 2] Ha, that happened to a mate of mine!

[Viewer 3] Lame

[Viewer 1. Again] Oooh he shouldn't have done that!

And so on and so forth.

Have you ever try watching a show like Two Pints….. with the audio descriptions on , it add a whole new dimension.

IT IS SHIT AND U ALL KNOW WHAT WEBSITE IS BETTER THAT IS RIGHT CHORTLE http://forums.chortle.co.uk/

Personally, I think 2 Pints is weak as.

The characters blurt out innuendo laced bullshit and then pause to wait for the laughter to stop before moving on to the next. Craig Cash indeed.

2 Pints is right up there with When The Whistle Blows, and that is fictional.

Little Britain.

I'm sorry, but there's nothing there League of Gentleman and the Fast Show hadn't beaten it too.

The only time that show really makes me laugh is when Tom Baker is talking. That man is pure comedy gold and someone should give him his own sitcom.

I think that to an extent Little Britain worked the first time you saw the characters. Some of the characters anyway. But after seeing the same gag for the 12th time, just in a slightly different context, it got a bit tedius.

Quote: jeej @ May 19 2008, 6:22 AM BST

Personally, I think 2 Pints is weak as.

The characters blurt out innuendo laced bullshit and then pause to wait for the laughter to stop before moving on to the next. Craig Cash indeed.

2 Pints is right up there with When The Whistle Blows, and that is fictional.

Sorry, getting a bit confused with names, meant to say Ralf Little, not Craig Cash. I blame The Royle Family. Huh?

Quote: jeej @ May 19 2008, 6:46 AM BST

I think that to an extent Little Britain worked the first time you saw the characters. Some of the characters anyway. But after seeing the same gag for the 12th time, just in a slightly different context, it got a bit tedius.

Too true...

"I'm the only gay in the village."
"I'm gay"
"No, I am the only gay in the village"

x30

Yes, I think the image of a chav sat around slapping his thigh, choking on his coco-pops, howling "look he's still the only gay in the village! But this time his outfit is pink! Genius!" sends shivers down my very spine.

Quote: Sir Geoffrey Loftus @ May 19 2008, 7:06 AM BST

Too true...

"I'm the only gay in the village."
"I'm gay"
"No, I am the only gay in the village"

x30

Yeah but Little Britain isn't a sitcom, more like a sketch comedy show... or actually it's sort of undefinable because no other show has been so brazenly repetitive. It's like a sketch show that wrote one episode and then ran it through a computer script to adjust some details every week. Was funny, infact very funny for maybe two episodes until you realize they just do the same thing every week.

Oh look! He's gotten out of his wheelchair again! Hilarious! It's funny because the other guy doesn't know that he can really walk! And look he's riding a horse! He's figure skating! He's diving into a pool! Rolling eyes

Quote: WrongTale @ May 1 2008, 3:58 PM BST

Dr. House was on the plane with Rachel, btw.

Dr. House?? How dare you! His name is Hugh Laurie, and I think most fans of his are a little disappointed he's lending his character to that awful show... while I was just talking about repetitiveness... well there's another show that uses that formula.

Sorry to drag it back up, but I actually caught an episode of 2 Pints last night and it was even poorer than I remember.

Sometimes the laughter track (be it live or not, I don't know) kicked in before the humourless gorms even finished spilling words out of their pieholes.

At one point there was just laughter whenever someone spoke, regardless of whether or not it was meant to be a 'gag'. Ironically by this point it was I that was gagging.

Yep, it's all recorded in front of a real studio audience.

Just regarding the laughing before jokes, having been in many, many studio audiences (although not for Two Pints, I'll add), a lot of that might come from previous takes, as well as facial expressions and whatnot which don't really come across on screen.

I can appreciate that, but it did just feel like laughter for laughters sake a lot of the time.

It was pretty purile too. The spazzy blonde guy was meant to be so hilarious because he was eating glass. Then when this guy got freaked out in the house cos they were all so zany, the spazzy blonde guy appears again eating glass, which in turn freaks the guy out even more and he runs away. Oh the hilarity. It wouldn't be so bad, but the whole "man appears to be physically consuming glass bottle" gag was used about 6 times in the space of 10 minutes.

Anyway, I shant go on, 2 Pints is clearly not for me.

Each to their own.

Difficult to imagine that anyone would find the intricate plotting of the Brittas Empire or the character driven dialogue of dinnerladies 'dumb'. Perhaps such cleverness is above their heads.

Two Pints is not good, because it does rely to much on shagging jokes, which are easy to write and quickly become tedious. But then just as unimpressive is the lazy writing of 'family' shows such as The Vicar of Dibley and My Family, which rely on the infantile stupidity of the characters for plot sets up and what passes for humour.

But there have been much worse. Real dumb comedy for me is that which relies on puerile catchphrases, laboured double entendres and cheap targets, such as, for instance, gays.

Stand up Are You Being Served and collect your prize.

Though to be honest a whole host of comedies from the Seventies golden age were almost as bad: On The Buses, Love Thy Neighbour, It Aint Half Hot Mum, Mind Your Language, Hi De Hi...