Does naturalism make things funnier?

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I always found the Tim and Dawn storyline hugely pantomimetic, albeit played in a cod-naturalistic way to flatter the viewers.

The Young Ones, on the other hand...I still ponder on the group dynamic in that house. Every time I watch it, I spot another morsel of back story. Mike alone is a more fascinating character than everyone in The Office put together. But it must be less subtle because there's a studio audience and lots of shouting, right kids?

I still think the best comedy fuses pantomimetic and naturalistic, though. I remember the Comic Strip Presents...The Supergrass being promoted at the time as 'more subtle than The Young Ones, with fewer laugh-out-loud jokes'. In fact, it was just Young Ones humour played in a different key. It was the same ingredients, just mixed in a different way. The scenes with Alexei Sayle's policeman are subtle and unsubtle at the same time. Nowadays, 'subtle' is just used as an excuse for 'not enough jokes'.

[thewomb]

Lalla - have you seen Trailer Park Boys? If you watched more than say, two episodes, I think we might actually agree that it's one of the greatest things ever.

I can't explain exactly why it's a grower, other than I wasn't bowled over by the first episode when I first watched it, and now it's probably my favourite show.

[Little Hoover]

Extras was so clearly contrived to make awkward situations with the minority of the week . It just got completley unbelivable that anyone would ever actually say the things that were actually said.
Also one episode was about Millman having a pantomine role one about getting him getting The Office greenlit. and there wasn't that many scenes overall in the series where the comedy was derived from the situation of people working as Extras. So Extras wasn't really the best title for the series.

[Jemble Fred]

No, no, no!

Well, not in most cases anyway.

NEXT!