What comedy shows grabbed you from the first episode?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

The Arthur Matthews sitcom Father Ted

Btw, I love that this is a CaB thing now. It always makes me smile. Long may it prosper.

[Magnum Valentino]

Someone earlier said "Arthur Mathews' Big Train' which in the case of its second series is actually accurate, too!

[Egyptian Feast]

I didn't see the first episode of The Day Today and only caught the second flicking around, but once I saw Conor Hamill's road safety commercial and Rok TV, I was in love.

[jobotic]

Yeah I liked Peep Show the first time I saw it, and quite a few others but I'll never forget being at my friend's watching TV when the first episode of Big Night Out came on just falling totally in love with it and them. And me and her seemed to be the only ones watching it (that we knew) which made it even more special.

[sutin]

The Arthur Matthews sitcom Father Ted would be my choice. I remember watching the first episode when it aired on Channel 4 it round at a mate's flat, not knowing anything about it, and we both loved it. Spent the evening, pissed, shouting "feck off cup!" at each other.

Good shout. I was about 13 when the first episode aired for the first time and being Irish, my family all sat down to watch it together and we were all instant fans. I'll never let Banana Cunt ruin what is something my family have now bonded over for a quarter of a century.

[The Mollusk]

Delocated

"Craig, that dick."

Jon Glaser is the greatest dickhead character actor. Even in its ropey first season he manages to pull you in and make you want more and more. Also as comedy props go, it's really outstanding how the ski mask and voice modulator are never not funny, like they boost the performance by another 100% in every scene.

"A bottle of red, a bottle of white, whatever gets me laid tonight. Billy Joel."

[non capisco]

Delocated

"Craig, that dick."

Is the ska mitzvah in the first episode? I know it's at least in one of the really early ones as I remember cracking up at "I am having a good time! I am having a good ti-ime! BININININININININI!" and thinking "I am gonna love this".

[Wayman C. McCreery]

Despite being a fan of Alex Horne's standup and having an awareness of Taskmaster from the Edinburgh Fringe, I had very low expectations of it when it turned up on Dave - I didn't like what I'd seen of Greg Davies, and the channel was seen as a bit of a joke back then.

But before the first ad break we'd had Tim Key's reindeer skull and Romesh smashing a watermelon on the lab floor. Great stuff.

I remember watching the pilot of Harry Hill's TV Burp when it was hidden away late at night on ITV and just laughing my head off all the way through it. Those early series felt subversive and almost dangerous - as if the show was a secret and that he'd be in big trouble if the controllers of ITV found out he was taking the piss out of their programmes.

The first episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm I saw was The Bracelet at a friend's house a good few years after it was first broadcast. I don't think it's remembered as a classic episode or anything, but I'd never seen anything filmed or performed like that before - and I was hooked.

And yeah, the first episode of Father Ted I saw was Are You Right There Father Ted? after the new series 3 was promoted heavily on The Big Breakfast. I know there are better episodes, but as a 13-year-old it was the perfect introduction.

[Cuellar]

Probably Arrested Development for me. Saw an episode at random late at night while on holiday in the Lake District and was on board almost immediately.

Shame it went to absolute shit.

[sutin]

Oh! I was the absolute opposite with Arrested Development. There's so many characters and it moves so fast, I was at least 8 episodes in before I started to enjoy it.

[Dr Funke]

Probably Arrested Development for me. Saw an episode at random late at night while on holiday in the Lake District and was on board almost immediately.

Shame it went to absolute shit.

Same here. I happened to have BBC2 on in the background when the first episode went out and it became a favourite almost immediately. Hard to beat that as a pilot.

[Pink Gregory]

I was shown almost all of Brass Eye in one sitting, but the first one I saw was Paedogeddon.  So, strong start.

[beanheadmcginty]

Police Squad absolutely blew my fucking tiny mind when I first saw it as a nipper.

[kalowski]

Father Ted - it was the whole Craggy Island fun fair ("A child is trapped in the tunnel of goats") that just had me howling.
The Day Today and subsequently any Partridge were just perfect from the get go in my eyes.
And The Office - the first one I saw was the one in Raiders, where Gareth goes home in the side car. The accuracy of the drunkenness in the terrible provincial club was so amazing I just got drawn right in. And then at the end Gareth looks straight at the camera and I nearly died.

[PeterCornelius]

Phoenix Nights (the fact that I'm from NW England was probably a factor)
Peep Show
Father Ted (my late Dad was from rural Ireland and was also a Catholic. Ironically, he loved Dave Allen's lampooning of the Catholic church. I know he would have loved FT. I was also brought up Catholic and I instantly got FT. I could watch those episodes over and over - especially Speed 4)

[EOLAN]

I might go against the grain and state that the first episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia completely drew me in for the long ride we had ahead.

[pigamus]

Phoenix Nights (the fact that I'm from NW England was probably a factor)
Peep Show
Father Ted (my late Dad was from rural Ireland and was also a Catholic. Ironically, he loved Dave Allen's lampooning of the Catholic church. I know he would have loved FT. I was also brought up Catholic and I instantly got FT. I could watch those episodes over and over - especially Speed 4)

I remember when we decided to show my nan, a very scary Irish Catholic, an episode of Father Ted - we were quite terrified - but she loved every minute of it

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Probably loads, but Spaced and Arrested Development were the most obvious ones for me.

I remember Spaced being promoted quite heavily, so I made sure to catch the first episode and it booked me almost instantly. It felt like it was made for me and my friends, despite us being a good decade or so younger than Tim and Daisy. It helped that we got most of the references via cultural osmosis and reruns and that it looked like no other sitcom I'd seen. It was also one of the first comedies I discovered independently of my parents, which increased the sense of it being our show. Also, you know, it is funny.

I do remember seeing a few trailers for Arrested Development, but they must not have been as compelling as the Spaced ones, as I missed the first several episodes. I just happened to catch an episode one night and I was an instant convert. I think it was GOB on his Segway that cemented it.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I might go against the grain and state that the first episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia completely drew me in for the long ride we had ahead.

I did like it, but I wasn't instantly grabbed and it certainly didn't feel like it would become one of my favourite shows, but I thought it was an amusing enough diversion to persevere with. How glad I am that I did.

The two people I've managed to get watching it I sold it to them with the caveat that it improves past the first season, but they both said they loved it from the start. One of those was my auntie, who is a good quarter century older than me. Irrelevant but interesting(?).

[pigamus]

I watched the first season and didn't really like it, so I'd be interested to see the second. Not sure if I'm arsed to pay for it though.

[samadriel]

I randomly caught an episode of Party Down on the ABC, and instantly fell in love with the show. IASIP also won me over straight away, after catching the first episode on TV; the characters aren't as developed/extreme at first, but it's still got loads of yuks.

The first time I saw The Micallef Program, I was delighted. I wasn't taken by surprise, because Shaun Micallef had been doing great work on Full Frontal previously, but TMP came out of the gate brilliant.

[Brundle-Fly]

Stumbling across In Bed With Me Dinner one night after the pub. Me and mates cracked open some more beers and discovered our new thing. It really was the precursor to TV Burp.

[Famous Mortimer]

Aside from those already mentioned (Spaced, Big Night Out, PhoneShop), On The Hour. I was working in a crappy low-rent "auction" place, and was testing an old timey radio / turntable thing, and the first thing it landed on was an episode of that. I stopped working to listen to it (although I was a crappy worker, I'm sure they didn't notice), then immediately found out as much as I could, which wasn't a lot, back then.

[paddy72]

The Day Today. It caught me at exactly the right time - I was 21 and had just moved into my first flat. I was stoned and just stumbled upon it on an unassuming Wednesday night.

Once my brain established I wasn't watching the actual news, I was hooked and have been a Morris obsessive ever since.

[AzureSky]

Brass Eye for me, turning on C4 one night and accidentally catching the 'good aids/bad aids' sketch. Could not believe what I had seen and also that I had already missed 3.5 episodes of this astonishing show that was never going to be repeated. Then I spent time tracking down someone who had a VHS copy - probably from here, thinking about it - and the day it came in the post was very special - I had a treasured, rare, thing (like getting A Clockwork Orange before it was available). I could finally watch the first 3 episodes and the first half of Sex that I had missed originally. As above, Morris obsessive since that moment.

[The Crumb]

The first episode of Nathan for You had me in stitches. It was a smart choice to have the more straightforward gags of the interview segments in there. Nathan earnestly asking 'What that means?' in the legal job interview still gets me. The poop flavoured yoghurt is not an all time classic concept, but the 'penis expert' argument is gold.

[paruses]

The opening scene of the very first episode of TLOG (TV version) is brilliant. I was instantly hooked. It's such a simple pull-back-and-reveal gag, but I don't think it had ever been done before. I can't think of any specific examples anyway.

I have/had the same reaction. Is it possible it was in a Two Ronnies piece - the mini series ones they filmed like The Worm That Turned? Seems like the kind of thing they might have done. It's always felt like I've seen it before then.

[BeardFaceMan]

I have/had the same reaction. Is it possible it was in a Two Ronnies piece - the mini series ones they filmed like The Worm That Turned? Seems like the kind of thing they might have done. It's always felt like I've seen it before then.

I've just been watching Kids In The Hall and they do the same gag there so it definitely pre-dates TLOG.

[SereneMackeral]

Another ping for Peep Show here, First episode I watched was the one where Mark and Jez go to a party and end up bowling in Season One.

"I'm out on a date with a teenage goth, smoking pot in the Lazerbowl toilets... this is it. This is literally, it. This is the sort of thing people do when they're having a good time."

I'd never heard anything like it in a TV sitcom. Was instantly hooked.

[Ferris]

Nirvanna the Band the Show

Nathan for You

Brass Eye