What's your earliest comedy memory?

[Jemble Fred]

The Fried Dog sketch (call it what you will) is one of my favourite bits of all Python.

Also a scene where Graham Starky (I think) gets punched in the face with one of those extendable boxing glove type contraptions after being repeatedly beckoned towards the camera from far away in the distance.  I think is was 'The case of the mukkinese battlehorn' but I'm not certain (anyone able to confirm?)

Isn't that the Running Jumping Standing Still film?

[Harold Lloyd's Safety Net]

the 22 rolls of toilet paper; the hitting of Mrs Richards' head; the charades where Basil tries to let Polly know the name of the horse; when Basil falls over, exasperated at the end after being asked if there is a Mrs Richards staying there; Basil's maniacal laughter when he realises he's up ten pounds etc etc etc. I'm still have an enormous nostalgic fondness for the episode.

That episode is one of the most beautifully written and constructed sit-com episodes in history IMO.  Brilliant jokes, cracking plot, great acting.. Perfect in every way.

As for my earliest comedy memory.  Probably The Life Of Brian which we had a pirate copy of when I was a kid.  I remember enjoying the swearing...

"Are you the Judean People's Front?"
"Fuck Off!"
"What?"  
"We're the People's Front Of Judea..  Fucking Judean People's Front.."
"Wankers.."

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Nuns On The Run, aged 5!

[Mr. Analytical]

Arguably the finest transvestite anti-clerical comedy ever made.

Early memories include the young ones aged about 7, Smith and Jones' history of the world (never repeated, never mentionned anywhere) and staying up late to watch Filthy Rich and Catflap and Spitting Image.

I also remember a Mel Smith comedy called Colin's sandwhich but I must have been 13 or 14 then but I have clear memories of soiling myself over him being stuck at a dinner party being showed endless pictures of African washer-women.

[Jemble Fred]

I also remember a Mel Smith comedy called Colin's sandwhich...

It's a damning judgement on the skewed values of modern entertainment that you can talk about Colin's Sandwich in such a vague way. To me, that sentence sounds as odd as 'There was this Rowan Atkinson comedy where he lived in olden times...' It's just wrong wrong wrong that CS isn't more widely (and loudly) celebrated. Where am the DVD?

[Gavin]

I also remember a Mel Smith comedy called Colin's sandwhich but I must have been 13 or 14 then but I have clear memories of soiling myself over him being stuck at a dinner party being showed endless pictures of African washer-women.

I'll save Ribbit the trouble.

http://www.flangelog.info/csindex.html

[Pepotamo1985]

That episode is one of the most beautifully written and constructed sit-com episodes in history IMO.  Brilliant jokes, cracking plot, great acting.. Perfect in every way.

It's also excruciating to the point of toe curling. Probably the most painful Fawlty Towers episode, albeit one of the best.

[Banana Woofwoof]

My dad playing Medical Love Song in his bedroom when I was four or so.

[Harold Lloyd's Safety Net]

It's also excruciating to the point of toe curling. Probably the most painful Fawlty Towers episode, albeit one of the best.

Absolutely!  It's agonising to watch because you really want Basil to win for once, and just when it looks like he has... God it's horrible, but by gum it's funny.

Just thought of a possibly earlier comedy memory than The Life Of Brian, and it involves my namesake.  Watching 'Safety Last' as a tiny child and being completely gobsmacked by the finale when he climbs the building (the clock bit, etc;)  However I didn't really think it was funny at the time - I found it totally thrilling and not a little terrifying!

[Sigmund Fraud]

For me it was watching Bottom on Friday nights on BBC2. My Nan used to babysit me and my brother while my Mum went to play Bingo with her Mum.

Mum had banned such filth - she didn't think that a 6/7 year-old should be watching such a violent programme. Naturally, it just added to the excitement when Nan let us watch it. Oh, how we defied Mother, watching Eddie hit Richie with a frying pan! Thems woz the days.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Mine isn't particularly early -- it's my father and I watching the "Bart the Daredevil" episode of "The Simpsons" and my dad cracking up for a good sixty seconds during the Homer-falling-down-the-cliff bit (particularly when the ambulance drives two feet and slams into a tree). It was significant because my mom could see the whole thing from the kitchen and she's always thought "The Simpsons" was unfunny child-corrupting garbage, so to have my dad visibly enjoying it was a sort of vindication. I guess I was 9 or 10 at the time.

[thedaviduk]

great topic
i was born in 79, and my dad brought me up on classic comedy from the 50s, 60s and 70s. My earliest memories of comedy are laughing at the goons, when spike squeaks 'hes fallen in the water' and my dads round the horne records, with a cartoon on the cover of all the characters.
Then there was being baffled at witnessing python for the first time. It was the flying sheep episode, and i just didnt get it, i quickly came to appreciate it however.
And yes, of course fawlty towers. Like many here, my first FT experience was communication problems.
Steptoe, hancock and rising damp have always been there too, and my older brother was a carry on fan.

[Mr. Analytical]

YES!! delighted to heat that there are other colin's sandwich fans out there.  A DVD would definitely be most welcome... who knows though, they're releasing alexei Sayle's stuff so why not CS?

I just remember the expression of horror  so clearly "MORE african washer-women!"

[gmoney]

I think it must have been Dad's Army. My dad had loads of them recorded and would watch them on a Sunday with me.

[Sherringford Hovis]

My earliest memory of 'grown up' comedy would be either Morcambe and Wise or The Two Ronnies, but the shows that I think I probably saw when I was about 4-5 have been repeated so often since then that I'm not sure whether this is a true memory or not.

Does Peter Glaze capering on Crackerjack during Ed Stewart's tenure as MC count as 'proper' comedy? I think I remember this as my earliest comedy memory because the first sort of humour other than slapstick that I 'got' was the pun, and Peter had a skipful of 'em. He was also half of the prerecorded Don & Pete black-and-white double act that parodied/celebrated early comedies like Chaplin etc - to this day, I can't see a silent comedy in black-and-white without being reminded of good ol' Don & Pete. Crackerjack went shit when Stu Francis took over and The Krankies became inexplicably popular, though.

[Derek Trucks]

Even though I had watched (and loved) many comedies before then, my first distinct memory of watching a comedy show was Series 1, Episode 2 of Red Dwarf at age 9 - a toilet suddenly appearing, and Lister calling the toaster a smart arse.

[weirdbeard]

Mine isn't particularly early -- it's my father and I watching the "Bart the Daredevil" episode of "The Simpsons" and my dad cracking up for a good sixty seconds during the Homer-falling-down-the-cliff bit (particularly when the ambulance drives two feet and slams into a tree). It was significant because my mom could see the whole thing from the kitchen and she's always thought "The Simpsons" was unfunny child-corrupting garbage, so to have my dad visibly enjoying it was a sort of vindication. I guess I was 9 or 10 at the time.

Haha, I also laughed uncontrollably when I first saw that.  When the ambulance drove into the tree and Homer came out of the back and back down the cliff, I had trouble breathing because I was laughing so hard.

[Clerk]

For me it would have to be the Q series with Spike Milligan,even listening to the theme song now makes me smile.

[Hoogstraten'sSmilingUlcer]

For me, probably Holy Grail or Life of Brian. I remember being about seven and eight and my dad making me stay up late on a school night to watch Holy Grail. I can't pinpoint the first time I saw either films, but I think they're first films I ever saw. I also remember watching Blazing Saddlesvery young, and squealing with delight at the farting scene and the bit when Mongo punches the horse. Those above films always fill with a very warm feeling, and they're the only films I'd ever want to watch in hospital.

[dan dirty ape]

Hard to say what the earliest was, but I remember a Kenny Everett 'partridge in a pear tree' song sketch which involved people getting covered in bird shit. I used to love the Two Ronnies as well, primarily because Ronnie Barker was a dead ringer for my grandad.

[Squidy]

An early one would have to be asking my father why the interior shots in Fawlty Towers looked different to the exteriors.

[Bernard]

Discovering I'd been adopted. What I mean is, I came home to find the locks had been changed and there was a lunchbox on the doorstep with a note inside.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

An early one would have to be asking my father why the interior shots in Fawlty Towers looked different to the exteriors.

'Right, son, it's about time I told you the facts of life. First, the difference between film and video...'

[Sherringford Hovis]

Ronnie Barker was a dead ringer for my grandad.

We m ust be related - Ronnie Barker was a dead ringer for my Grandad as well, but Porridge Ronnie rather than "Goodnight from him" Ronnie. Another conicidence was that both Norman Stanley Fletcher and Grandad Hovis were both jovially crooked bastards too.

[gazzyk1ns]

One of my earliest (non-children's) television memories is watching The Two Ronnies, specifically "The Worm That Turned". There was an episode where someone got flushed down a toilet, or a toilet overflowed, or something similar...  for some strange reason it frightened me and gave me a bit of a phobia of the toilet overflowing/doing something nasty whenever I flushed it. Were those shows repeats, or were they new at the time? Looking back, I sort of assume they were repeats; this must have been in about 1985/6.

[Ambient Sheep]

It's also excruciating to the point of toe curling. Probably the most painful Fawlty Towers episode, albeit one of the best.

Absolutely!  It's agonising to watch because you really want Basil to win for once, and just when it looks like he has... God it's horrible, but by gum it's funny.

Indeed...I've never been able to watch it a second time, ever.  Utterly utterly brilliant, but also utterly utterly agonisingly "watchfingers".

I honestly can't remember my earliest adult comedy memory, which is quite dismaying, really.  Probably something like "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em".  I do remember constantly wanting to watch Monty Python, but not being allowed to.  Actually, I suppose it must have been The Goodies, but having now watched some of the DVDs I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that John Cleese's taunt of "kids' programme!" was more or less accurate.

[The Mumbler]

Actually, just remembered one that might be as old as 1973 (might have been a repeat when I saw it but not sure) - seeing the Morris Minor hanging over a cliff bit of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em when I should have been in bed.  This really distressed me at the time, and to this day, the way the camera zooms out to show you where they are is startling in a slightly queasy way to me.

[Tom Tortoise]

I think my most significant earliest comedy memory (must have watched a fair bit on TV but it never registered) was discovering a couple of Blackadder videos on a shelf (II and the Third) and watching them when I was off sick from primary school one day. I fell in love with them, and from there, I started going through my parent's BBC comedy cassettes. I'd listened to Fawlty Towers and Victoria Wood over and over long before I actually saw them on the television.

[gazzyk1ns]

My mum and dad used to let me watch Richard Digence shows, though it had to be after they'd taped them because it was past my bedtime. I remember watching an hour-long special and then a load of... what was it, Abracadigence? I never found him very funny, back then I was too young to get a lot of the jokes... but when I managed to find half an episode a couple of years ago I found that it just wasn't very funny anyway.

[David Brunt]

One of my earliest (non-children's) television memories is watching The Two Ronnies, specifically "The Worm That Turned".  Were those shows repeats, or were they new at the time? Looking back, I sort of assume they were repeats; this must have been in about 1985/6.

Originally the 1980 season, so repeated in 1981.

It was also the serial in '21 Years of the Two Ronnies', which would have been 1987.