Will 2010 be remembered as the year that British comedy punched down?

[Brundle-Fly]

What about Charlie Chuck/Uncle Peter? (Seeing as we're looking a Vic n Bob related characters)

And The Gumbys?  I'd be interested to know what type of person the Pythons originally based them on. Uneducated working class people on the beach or one bloke in particular? 

[Ambient Sheep]

Oh-HO!  Now you've opened a can of worms!  There's a case to be made that The Gumbys are indeed an example of punching down.  Possibly even the Pepperpots.

Yet it doesn't feel the same; why?

[Tiny Poster]

   
• They wren't 'class' jokes
• Pythons took the piss out of all societal strata, and snobbery/reverse-snobbery ("Grahnd pee-ar-no")
• The Pythons themselves were a pretty diverse bunch - gay Welsh Americans who broke through the lower-middle class threshold with scholarships

[Brundle-Fly]

Oh-HO!  Now you've opened a can of worms!  There's a case to be made that The Gumbys are indeed an example of punching down.  Possibly even the Pepperpots.

Yet it doesn't feel the same; why?

Maybe because the Gumbys were cartoonish grotesques that visually represented a bygone stereotype which harked back to the early 1950s? I dunno, my brain hurts.

[gloria]

The Gumbies are both working class and mentally ill. Two down-punches for the price of one.

[sproggy]

Yet it doesn't feel the same; why?

Perhaps when we first saw it we weren't burdened with as many received opinions?

It could be that the lower class chav-simpletons are the new establishment, it would seem most of the current media output (and quite a few politicians) are falling over each other to appeal to them

[Tiny Poster]

Most Gumbys were professors, so it seems they were a rather privileged group.

[Danger Man]

Yet it doesn't feel the same; why?

Whilst the Gumbys were stupid people, there isn't any known medical condition that makes people wear hankies on their heads and clutch their hands in front of them in a vaguely monkey-like manner.

(Is there?)

Which means that we are laughing at stupidity in general and not at a specific group of people in real life. Made up 'spazzers' instead of real ones.

[Tiny Poster]

This flew under the radar, as far as I can see.  Then it's quickly followed up by another episode of The Morgana Show, where you have Gilbert - a 'special needs' character, who has been disengeniously rebranded since his first appearance in The TNT Show, where he was surrounded by disabled people.  He's just socially inept, honest!!

Has anyone pointed out that the original sketches were called Gilbert's Special Report for a reason?

[Viero_Berlotti]

What about Charlie Chuck/Uncle Peter? (Seeing as we're looking a Vic n Bob related characters)

Characters like Uncle Peter and Angelos inhabit the surreal universe that Vic and Bob have created, so for me the comedy is not in laughing at their supposed mental afflictions, but at their exaggerated cartoon character personas. Angelos and Uncle Peter aren't supposed to exist in the real world, and I think audiences are intelligent enough to realise this.

It's a far cry from things like Morgana's Gilbert character, where the set-up is explicit. The character has special needs, that is the joke, and the audiences understanding of this is integral to it working.   

[Brundle-Fly]

Whilst the Gumbys were stupid people, there isn't any known medical condition that makes people wear hankies on their heads and clutch their hands in front of them in a vaguely monkey-like manner.

(Is there?)

Which means that we are laughing at stupidity in general and not at a specific group of people in real life. Made up 'spazzers' instead of real ones.

Nobody expects the Python get-out clause!!!

[Mark X]

When it came to Uncle Peter, he was basically performing Charlie Chuck's own stand-up act in itself, at which point it was never really made clear where the performer ended and the character began. When it comes to Morgana, the differences are quite clear, she clearly puts on the character of Gilbert as if it were a comical tongue-in-lower-lip hat. When it came to Python's Gumbys, it was much more obvious that it wasn't a specific condition that they were referring to, much as with the Election Night "Loony Party" sketch. And indeed, as mentioned by Tiny Poster, the TNT Show "SPECIAL Report" sketches wore their "LOL D-list celebs confronted with Scopers!" references on their sleeves.

[Ambient Sheep]

I think I got some good answers there, much to my surprise.  Thanks, people.

[Ocho]

Thing with the Gumbys is, just as somewhere I read someone argue that Spike Milligan wanted to be Eccles the happy fool, I get the feeling the Pythons all have an inner Gumby that they enjoy letting out.  The Gumbys are the pure quality of silliness that Python see in everything.

[Subtle Mocking]

A search for all the results relating to the Gilbert Show on YouTube don't half make me that little bit more misanthropic. I hate to stereotype but it makes the whole 'women aren't funny' belief seem not wholly unreasonable. With the exception of the females of CaB, of course.

[Neil]

A search for all the results relating to the Gilbert Show on YouTube don't half make me that little bit more misanthropic. I hate to stereotype but it makes the whole 'women aren't funny' belief seem not wholly unreasonable. With the exception of the females of CaB, of course.

It's nothing to do with 'women aren't funny.'  Women are plenty funny, and have a whole different sensibility to impart, and we should recognise and value it.  These are just dicks who like some really awful comedy, which has quite a hateful undercurrent to it.  Gender is irrelevant. 

I bet you could find a ton of young men pretending to be Gervais/Fielding, and I know that people have pointed out such examples here before. 

[Subtle Mocking]

That's true actually. Also, remind me not to read YouTube comment sections in future. Someone commented on one of the videos claiming it to be satire? I'd love to ask the bloke how it's satire but I'd get that stupid "if you don't like it don't watch it" shite in return.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

You've already played out the fictional argument in your head, why not see whether it happens? Just for fun of course.

[Neil]

I've been flatteringly asked to turn this into an article for another site, but I need to do more research first.  Can you guys think of other examples of comedy punching down in 2010, or prior to that?  Perhaps examples of comedy that's followed on from Gervais/Little Britain in the noughties?  Still have to see Come Fly With Me, and must check out Lee Nelson.

What got us pissed off last year?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Can you guys think of other examples of comedy punching down in 2010, or prior to that?  Perhaps examples of comedy that's followed on from Gervais/Little Britain in the noughties?

Jimmy Carr, Harry Hill, chav/ASBO jokes generally on panel shows populated by comfortable middle-class comedians.

[Subtle Mocking]

Whenever Balls of Steel finished (2008?), they were still trying to push a character called 'the Scummy Mummy'

[Neil]

Ta, Balls Of Steel, yes, worth looking back at that.  Very good one, as it did also use disability as a way of catching people out.

Jimmy Carr, Harry Hill, chav/ASBO jokes generally on panel shows populated by comfortable middle-class comedians.

Can you (or anyone else) nail it down to some specifics?  I don't generally bother with panel shows.

[Gradual Decline]

Really, it's Harry Hill and his awful music that sticks out the most for me, Neil. I don't know how far you would want to run with that.

[Subtle Mocking]

It's only really that one song that punches down in such a manner. The rest of the songs on the album are just cack, e.g. Flatscreen TV, a song in which he just shouts the titles of shows and a few character names, followed by a chorus of shouting FLATSCREEN TV over and over again. It's horrible.

Anyway, I hate to remind everyone of this but Stand Up for the Week was nothing but punching down. You all know the one joke I'm thinking of from that show.

[Gradual Decline]

Flatscreen TV was just as bad, albeit in a more subtle manner.

[Little Hoover]

Congrats on getting another writing gig Neil. Who is it for this time?

I don't recall specifics apart from that Jack Whitehall routine, but much of Stand-up for the Week to me seemed to be comedy of the bullies, of people who want you to laugh at their put-downs and insults, people who want to come out on top with their comedy basically.

[Jemble Fred]

I'd still say there was considerably less 'punching down' in comedy in the last year than during the heydays of Little Britain / Gervais / Shirley Ghostman etc in the last decade.

[doppelkorn]

I've been flatteringly asked to turn this into an article for another site, but I need to do more research first.  Can you guys think of other examples of comedy punching down in 2010, or prior to that?  Perhaps examples of comedy that's followed on from Gervais/Little Britain in the noughties?  Still have to see Come Fly With Me, and must check out Lee Nelson.

What got us pissed off last year?

Nice one! I'd be interested in seeing the finished article. What's the site?

[Neil]

I don't recall specifics apart from that Jack Whitehall routine, but much of Stand-up for the Week to me seemed to be comedy of the bullies, of people who want you to laugh at their put-downs and insults, people who want to come out on top with their comedy basically.

Yes, I'll definitely go back through that thread, and see what else there is.

Thanks btw, It's for New Left Project.  They apparently have previous form, with regards seeing Little Britain, at its worst, as not much more than a crib-sheet for playground bullies.

[placeholder]

I wonder what would've happened in the current climate.