Is Friends the Most Pathetic Comedy of Its Ilk?

[divea]

Listen I like British comedy, but no one shows those outside Great Britain. I think Office was one of the few shows that crossed the seas in a looooooooooong time. And ofcourse it's like Pizza now, everyone thinks its American.

Pizza's not American?

The only thing American, is the sax.....but you know, how they're always blowing their erm like you know that horny thing trumpet, so maybe it isn't.

The sax is actually from the land of chocolate body parts and sweet beer.

You mean gay-land?

Wait what does pizza have to do with sitcoms?

My point exactly. What's sitcoms got to do with being good? They just have to be mind numbing is all......

[TwoTongues]

Listen I like British comedy, but no one shows those outside Great Britain. I think Office was one of the few shows that crossed the seas in a looooooooooong time. And ofcourse it's like Pizza now, everyone thinks its American.

Pizza's not American?

The only thing American, is the sax.....but you know, how they're always blowing their erm like you know that horny thing trumpet, so maybe it isn't.

The sax is actually from the land of chocolate body parts and sweet beer.

You mean gay-land?

Wait what does pizza have to do with sitcoms?

My point exactly. What's sitcoms got to do with being good? They just have to be mind numbing is all......

Have you never seen:
30 Rock
The Office (British version first, please)
Fawlty Towers
Black Adder
Southpark/Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
All in the Family
Cheers

Mind numbing none...

[divea]

Have you never seen:
30 Rock - I hate it
The Office (British version first, please) - Dry
Fawlty Towers - Hurt my ribs when laughing
Black Adder - No see but I've heard
Southpark/Family Guy - No see
Flight of the Conchords - No see
All in the Family - Yes
Cheers - More feel good than funny

[Whole Lotta Lotta]

Cheers - More feel good than funny

What the heck are you talking about? Try drinking a few brewskis and watching a marathon of the 'Bar Wars' episodes without laughing your ass off . And what is there about the character of Carla that makes you feel good?

[Slappy]

Comedy is a true barometer of societal woes. Tragedy makes us feel and empathize, but comedy makes us think and adapt.

With All in the Family, Norman Lear really broke thru the stucco ceiling of suburban sitcoms such as My 3 Sons, Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched. Safe and sterile, sitcoms had never really challenged the audiences of the 50s and 60s. Suddenly, we had Archie, bellowing out the most vile hatred and ignorance so common in the uneducated "republican" stereotype CO'C was portraying, and doing it so deliciously, right there in our living rooms. And we laughed, by gawd we laughed.....

....but then, we asked ourselves what exactly we were laughing at. Like Shakespeare exposing antisemitism in Merchant or misogeny in Shrew, AitF was exposing American racism and intolerance and fear and sticking it into America's face, screaming from the mountain top, LOOK AT YOURSELVES!! DO YOU WANT TO BE LIKE THIS????

AitF also paved the way for more sitcoms to tell it like it was.

Enter Barney Miller (hash brownies), Mash and Mary Tyler Moore. Kotter even. And, on occasion, even WKRP hit the mark. Trumpeting the values and ethos of the modern American, the sitcom truly changed a nation. It was the golden age of the sitcom.

Alas, since the 1980s network TV has had little to compare to these classics. Other than The Simpsons of course. But without Archie, there could be no Homer. Seinfeld was unique as well, but pedestrian and slapstickish at best. Still base American treacle. NEXT!

Thank Mammon for cable. Weeds, Entourage, Californication, Lucky Louie, Louie, ConChords, etc....have been somewhat of a renaissance for the sitcom. This season, Showtime even has a sitcom about a cancer survivor called The Big C. If we can't laugh at cancer, what can we laugh at?

Funfacts about All in the Family:

I remember reading this in my early teens.



Every page a crack-up.

In 1956, O'Connor earned a master's degree in speech. So the clever wordplay was mostly self-penned.

The set chairs are in the Smithsonian.







Meanwhile, a few of you UKers have forgotten some of your own classic sitcoms: Ideal (just returned today with it's 6th season), Ab Fab, Shameless and a little known gem of brilliance entitled Absolute Power top my list. Of course, y'all can have some real stinkers too. Keeping up Appearances and Little Britain never really appealed to me, found them rather course and sophomoric. But fret not. You do own the number 2 spot behind AitF. Fawlty Towers cannot be beat by any show save for Archie and Edith.

[TheGingerMan]

Listen I like British comedy, but no one shows those outside Great Britain.

No-one? I beg to differ. Appreciation of wit & wisdom knows no bounds. It just can't be found around water-cooler office mediocrity.

The best humour is such because it is based on a dark horse slant on the truth. Such as it is, and not as one would wish it to be so.

And as funny, and as ground-breaking, as All in The Family is, it's still a copy of a more original British show.

[Slappy]

And as funny, and as ground-breaking, as All in The Family is, it's still a copy of a more original British show.

Sure. But was the British show groundbreaking? Or was it mediocre and only still slightly famous because of its association with AitF? I ask only because I don't know and would like to know.

[Whole Lotta Lotta]

Could somebody post a copy of the original British show (I think it was called 'Til Death do Us Part') for us to judge please?

[Charlie Phillips]

Listen I like British comedy, but no one shows those outside Great Britain. I think Office was one of the few shows that crossed the seas in a looooooooooong time. And ofcourse it's like Pizza now, everyone thinks its American.

Obviously, you've never heard of 'The Commonwealth of Nations', which was the politically correct term for the British Empire before the Butter War of the 1960s. Now it's just 'European or American'.

'Neighbours' is not a comedy. It's a reality show. There's no plastic in Kylies' tits.

[divea]

Listen I like British comedy, but no one shows those outside Great Britain.

No-one? I beg to differ. Appreciation of wit & wisdom knows no bounds. It just can't be found around water-cooler office mediocrity.

The best humour is such because it is based on a dark horse slant on the truth. Such as it is, and not as one would wish it to be so.

And as funny, and as ground-breaking, as All in The Family is, it's still a copy of a more original British show.

Hey, I already posted this clip in the other thread. Stop preaching to the converted. I didn't say no on SEES them, I said no one SHOWS them. AS in networks.