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Keeping Up Appearances

Started by Fambo Number Mive, January 02, 2021, 05:40:01 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

St_Eddie

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on April 09, 2021, 11:11:30 AM
I have friends who think Mrs Brown's Boys is comedy gold. Being forced to watch shit comedy and laugh out of politeness...

Why would you "laugh out of politeness"?  I can understand not pissing on their chips by saying "I'm sorry but this is SHIT!" or sitting there scowling but I don't see why it's polite to laugh at something you hate, just because everyone else is finding it hilarious.

petril

Quote from: St_Eddie on April 09, 2021, 11:14:45 AM
Why would you "laugh out of politeness"?  I can understand not pissing on their chips by saying "I'm sorry but this is SHIT!" or sitting there scowling but I don't see why it's polite to laugh at something you hate, just because everyone else is finding it hilarious.

some people are cunts who can't handle others not laughing at what they find funny. gets confrontational a bit. or just sours the mood into a sea of negativity all aimed at one person

St_Eddie

Quote from: petrilTanaka on April 09, 2021, 01:17:07 PM
some people are cunts who can't handle others not laughing at what they find funny. gets confrontational a bit. or just sours the mood into a sea of negativity all aimed at one person

That's their problem then.  I'd purposefully sit there with a face like thunder just to piss them off, if that was their attitude.  Fucking egocentrics, man.

stonkers

Quote from: Rolf Lundgren on April 07, 2021, 07:01:07 PM
I think it's because she writes so many correspondences, missives and invitations that her poor tongue would be drier than an overcooked turkey by the end of them. And having lots of posh stationery items is a thing.

I'm coming round to this being a well observed minor detail. Aspirational middle class Hyacinth would think a stamp sponge was the height of sophistication but proper landed gentry farmer poshos would just gob on their stamps.

Richard Heald

The way to enjoy Mrs Brown's Boys if forced to watch it with other people is by:

1) anticipating the punchlines of the more obvious/unoriginal gags;

2) explaining at length why the gags that just don't work don't work; and

3) trying to remember which other, better sitcoms the more elaborate set-pieces have been nicked wholesale from.

St_Eddie

The one thing I share with Graham Linehan is a hate for Mrs Brown's Boys, though for different reasons.

PeterCornelius

As a person who had an Irish father and still has Irish relatives both in the UK and across the water, I find Mrs Brown's Boys unbearable to watch.

petril

also: the joy of people who never want anything challenging in their comedy whatsoever, going along with, getting and loving basic fourth wall gags

robhug

Richard Herring's take on the success of shite like Mrs Browns Boys is that a majority of the population simply don't have a sense of humor, however they can see people who do have one having a great time so they really want one, so they just watch any shite thats marketed well enough believing it must be funny.

Bit rich coming form Herring but I can see some logic.

thenoise

I think people enjoy seeing people/situations that are familiar and they get caught up in familiar narratives in a soap opera-ish way, with the meagre laughs taking second fiddle. Mrs Bucket is a familiar figure of fun in Britain, a lower class woman with ideas above her station, pretentious, bossy, etc. Not to mention the perennial favourite, a hen-pecked husband.

Its also a very easy show to watch occasionally/not really pay attention to. You aren't going to struggle to understand it if you miss a few weeks and then turn it on halfway through. Nor will you miss anything much if you have to pop out halfway through to put the potatoes on.

Doesn't explain Mrs Brown though. A combination of panto nostalgia and the belief that the Irish accent is inherently funny?

Jake Thingray

Quote from: worldsgreatestsinner on January 06, 2021, 03:55:18 PM
PBS picked it up and played it endlessly, along with Brittas Empire, My Hero, As Time Goes By, and, when I was living in America, Eastenders episodes from about 6 years previously.

I once whinged on here about why such twee British sitcoms are shown on PBS and how Americans lump Py-THON in with them, to his credit Revelator replied explaining that after buying MPFC in a brief burst of experimentation in the mid-70's, PBS stations made a policy of deliberately targeting the older generation. Which accounts for The Young Ones being shown on MTV, and none of the 1980's alternatives or their successors breaking through in the States, until Gervais alas.