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Famous and celebrated comedy things your friends don't know

Started by magval, October 05, 2020, 07:46:04 AM

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magval

Right, let's have context. I live in Northern Ireland, and I'm 33 (I think, maybe 34, but the year won't make a difference).

No-one in my circle of friends as a teenager, or those who remain of that circle now, or my different sets of work colleagues over the years, are fans of Reeves and Mortimer. I've loved everything of Vic and Bob's I've ever seen and could offer many examples in our own 'internal comedy monologue' and 'tiny details that make you laugh' threads.

What's weird is, these people are all fans of comedy. It ranges from the basic 'watch what's on TV or what Netflix recommends' to the 'going to standup shows in clubs' levels of interest, and yet no-one's into Vic and Bob.

Vic and Bob are very, very famous (never mind very, very good). They aren't obscure at all.

Whasthatallaboutthen?

I got into them because my older brother (ten years difference) and his pals were into them (and still are), but even when I was young Shooting Stars was still on, Catterick would have been recent enough to be relevant.

There are others. I've loved Calvin and Hobbes my whole life, and that's a big, famous American strip, but I've never talked about it with another person that wasn't on the Internet, and I've asked, like.

Most of the people in the above friends-then/friends-now/ones-from-work groups aren't into Alan Partridge either. The thing that draws me to people is humour, and I don't have one hundred and FOUR friends or anything like that, so I don't speak for too many people, but it strikes me as weird. Taste is taste, but this is more an issue of awareness.

I guess all this is why I ended up here.

Glebe


timebug

Over the years, I have watched series like 'The Thick of It', 'Red Dwarf' and many more; I have asked my friends if they watch them/like them, and have often been met by blank stares.They had never heard of them! Usually, there comes a repeat showing, and then they all watch and ask ME if I watch them! I tell them that I suggested these shows to them on first showing and get the blank looks again. Did I? They have no memory of that....Nowt so queer as folk!

Gurke and Hare

The bloke I sit next to at work, or would do if we weren't all working from home is about my age (mid forties) and told me a while back that he has never seen any Monty Python output. Absolutely baffling.

magval

Life of Brian seems to be universally beloved but no cunt's seen Flying Circus.

Ornlu

Nobody under the age of 30 gives a solitary shit about Monty Python, imo.

famethrowa

It's not especially comedy, but I'm very interested in the work of Tony Newley, especially Gurney Slade, and the other stuff too. So I was in a hotel lobby last week and a couple of young ladies around 20yo were there messing about, one started singing the oompa loompa song for some reason. When I got back to our room, I attempted to explain to Mrs Famethrowa how strange it was, hearing Tony Newley's work in late 2020 on the other side of the world from the hoi polloi. But she had no idea what I was going on about. Am I wrong? No.

metaltax

Quote from: magval on October 05, 2020, 07:46:04 AM
Vic and Bob are very, very famous (never mind very, very good). They aren't obscure at all.

Are you saying they don't like Vic & Bob or that they've never heard of them? I'd put myself in the former category. I'm a big comedy fan but have never got on with R&M. There's the odd flicker of something I like in everything they do but generally I just find them tedious (and I'm starting to think I just find Vic tedious).

magval

Quote from: metaltax on October 05, 2020, 11:34:17 AM
Are you saying they don't like Vic & Bob or that they've never heard of them? I'd put myself in the former category. I'm a big comedy fan but have never got on with R&M. There's the odd flicker of something I like in everything they do but generally I just find them tedious (and I'm starting to think I just find Vic tedious).

I'm saying that they've never heard of them.

Glebe

Quote from: magval on October 05, 2020, 10:49:29 AMLife of Brian seems to be universally beloved but no cunt's seen Flying Circus.

Prolly just cos of 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' being sung on terraces and that.

The Mollusk


Jockice

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on October 05, 2020, 09:43:22 AM
The bloke I sit next to at work, or would do if we weren't all working from home is about my age (mid forties) and told me a while back that he has never seen any Monty Python output. Absolutely baffling.

I have a relative (like me in his mid-50s) like that. While having a phone conversation with him a few years ago that touched on his dad's weight gain I made a comment about offering him a wafer thin mint. Which was met with complete puzzlement. He'd never seen or even heard of Mr Creosote and 'didn't like' Monty Python so had never watched the show on TV or seen any of the films. Not even Life Of Brian. I mean, how can you not at least be aware of it? Even if you don't like Monty Python it's still a very famous sketch.

thenoise

Chris Morris. I'm 37 and my friends were, I guess, a little old for TDT on the first time round. If they missed Brass Eye, and didn't listen to late night radio much, he could easily escape the attention of your mainstream comedy fan. My old school friends loved Fast Show, Father Ted, Big Train, etc. I have to say 'the boss in the IT crowd' for them to know who I mean, and that's a bit depressing.

neveragain

I was surprised when a very culturally switched-on colleague at a theatre in his twenties didn't know Morris. Turns out he had seen Four Lions but it made no impact on him. I also once heard some other youngish folk who didn't know Morris saying how that film was a fine drama but didn't work as a comedy.

Re: the lack of Python fans under 30, it's a crying shame as the stuff is perfectly accessible to kids (a bit too rude really but still they'd like it because of the silliness and cartoons and imagination, the series or Holy Grail is a good starting point). Ironically it's probably the mass of documentaries and people talking about how great or influential it is that puts young people off finding it.

Dusty Substance


Bumped into a friend in the DVD aisle of ASDA around 2010.  Saw he had a stand-up DVD in his hand (can't remember who) and we got talking about our favourite comedy and stand-ups. We'd shared joints at parties before so it was no surprise we bonded over Bill Hicks. During the comedy chat in ASDA, I spotted Jerry Springer: The Opera for a knockdown price (think it was £1.99). I excitedly grabbed it off the shelf. Friend in question was baffled as to why I was excited about a Jerry Springer DVD. I explained who had co-written it. "Who's Stewart Lee?" he asked, looking ever more confused as I tried to go into detail about the opera and the surrounding controversy. He still didn't get it. He'd never heard of Fist Of Fun or TMWRNJ. This was before Comedy Vehicle but I doubt he ever watched it. Haven't spoken to him for eight years now. He's a Nickleback fan.



Glebe


dissolute ocelot

I know an adult person who only knows who Jerry Seinfeld is from Bee Movie, which is apparently big with her teenage children for some strange ironic reason. I guess Seinfeld was never widely popular in the UK.

Maybe not quite the same thing, but it's interesting how much critically-acclaimed recent US comedy is barely known in the UK outside a small group of people. Not just cult stuff like BoJack Horseman or Rick and Morty, but 30 Rock and The Good Place and the like. I sometimes think that nobody watches TV comedy except Friends and Family Guy.


thenoise

That Jerry Springer the Opera dvd has been clogging up pound shop shelves for years now. I think whoever pressed them thought that extensive tabloid coverage = sales.

Glebe

Quote from: thenoise on October 05, 2020, 11:00:01 PMThat Jerry Springer the Opera dvd has been clogging up pound shop shelves for years now. I think whoever pressed them thought that extensive tabloid coverage = sales.

It's always real-life deso in Dealz (Irish name for Poundland, basically) seeing countless copies of stand-up comedian DVDs for €1.49 alongside shit CDs.

Billy

I have a Brazilian friend in her early twenties who has never heard of Fawlty Towers, but lost her shit at me when she found out I didn't know a song by someone called Daddy Yankee called (something like) Despatchio.

"IT'S THE MOST POPULAR SONG EVER MADE!!"
Me: "Well, there's also The Beatles..."
"IT'S BIGGER THAN THE BEATLES!!"

The same as above but replace "Brazilian" with "Polish" and Fawlty Towers with Only Fools.

Billy

Quote from: Ornlu on October 05, 2020, 11:12:05 AM
Nobody under the age of 30 gives a solitary shit about Monty Python, imo.

I do (a lot) at age 32, but then I got into Flying Circus as a nipper during the 1994-95 repeats which I think was the last major terrestrial repeat run - someone aged 29 wouldn't remember them, so I get (regrettably) why that would be.


Jockice

Quote from: dissolute ocelot on October 05, 2020, 08:24:55 PM
Maybe not quite the same thing, but it's interesting how much critically-acclaimed recent US comedy is barely known in the UK outside a small group of people. Not just cult stuff like BoJack Horseman or Rick and Morty, but 30 Rock and The Good Place and the like. I sometimes think that nobody watches TV comedy except Friends and Family Guy.

I've never seen any of these shows. Except Friends and that's because you couldn't avoid it at one point. And a few minutes of Family Guy. Once.


McChesney Duntz

I have friends who raved about Four Lions, to which I delightedly pointed them toward The Day Today and Brass Eye, to their absolute indifference. Go figure.

Psmith

The few friends I have are friends because we all are interested in the same sort of thing.We don't always agree,hardly ever, but we all know what the other is talking about.

McFlymo

Vic & Bob and Alan Partridge exist in a weird place for me:
I know I should love them and I do appreciate everything that's funny about them, but I missed the boat with them, when they were around and now can't really be arsed going back and catching up, because there's always something else I would rather watch, or it feels like too much effort to "educate" myself with all this "classic" stuff, when all I'll get for my efforts is that same sense of "probably a couple of funny threads about this on CaB that I could read later on..." which is a bit fucking DESOLATE at times, I must confess.

Ditto Flying Circus. I've made an effort to watch big chunks of it a few times. Get through a couple of episodes before I'm bored to tears. It's a shame, because catching sketches in isolation (through the internet or whatever) you can appreciate the detail a lot more, I think, but in the context of the show, it's often so agonisingly drawn out, with painfully long transitions and call backs etc.

ASFTSN

Quote from: Glebe on October 05, 2020, 08:26:06 AM
Calvin and Hobbes made me cry once. True story.

Which strip was it, if that's not too emotional a memory?

Icehaven

I think this place can give a distorted view of what's 'famous and celebrated' though. There's shows and comedians that have multiple threads dozens of pages long with many different posters involved but irl I'd struggle to find anyone who's even heard of them (Limmy is a good example. I was late to the party on him too but I knew he existed because of seeing him mentioned so often on here, but no one I've ever mentioned him to has heard of him.) If you waste your life spend a fair amount of time on here it can start to seem preposterous that no one else in your life has seen Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or knows Alan Partridge inside out. What the fuck do they talk about all day then?