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March 29, 2024, 10:31:24 AM

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What comedy shows made you think " What a load of shit" from the first episode?

Started by Lisa Jesusandmarychain, October 31, 2021, 07:01:00 AM

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up_the_hampipe

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on October 31, 2021, 10:47:09 AM
Green Wing. A crash zoom isn't an acceptable substitute for a joke.

The editing for Green Wing was bizarre, but there was definitely jokes in there. Maybe you were just transfixed by all the zooms.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on October 31, 2021, 08:16:00 AM
On The Buses is a good shout. Reg Varney in his 50s living with his mum. Every single character a grotesque, no likeable characters at all. A very grim show, how did it ever get beyond one series? Was it two or three spin- off films it yielded?

Since when did sitcom characters have to be likeable? Regards to him still living with his mum, is it not that she lives with him? I quite like the fact Stan and his family are so close. Never had a problem with On The Buses. It is what it is.

Famous Mortimer

Didn't Reg Varney piss off halfway through the final series, and it was so thoroughly abandoned by everyone that the remaining cast ended up writing a few episodes?

Also, anyone seen the spinoff "Don't Drink The Water"? Blakey and his wife go to live in Spain and spend every moment unhappy at the food, the people, the weather, etc.?

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Lisa Jesusandmarychain on October 31, 2021, 08:16:00 AM
On The Buses is a good shout. Reg Varney in his 50s living with his mum. Every single character a grotesque, no likeable characters at all. A very grim show, how did it ever get beyond one series? Was it two or three spin- off films it yielded?

Reg Varney was a popular star, the show had a very good cast and the two creators were very experienced writers with more than a bit of success - particularly, The Rag Trade, which Varney co-starred in the BBC version - how possibly could that mix produce something popular?

There was a considerable coarsening of comedy in the 1970s - this style may have dated quickly, but it was in vogue at the time and a lot of the attitudes very much reflect that period.

Likeable characters are hardly necessary for comedy to work and there are shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which are more effective for exactly for that reason.

Re: Varney's character living with his mum - in the first series, the mother is presented as a very manipulative character and that's big reason why he's still living at home; I suspect it's the kind of relationship that people are able to emphasise with or have some fascination with - as there was with Steptoe and Son - and one factor in why it was popular with the public.

Stan is portrayed as the main breadwinner of the family, supporting sister and brother-in-law, and that enabled the series to focus on outside the bus station and indeed there, Stan's home is one of the main settings for episodes.


Ignatius_S

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on October 31, 2021, 04:29:31 PM
Didn't Reg Varney piss off halfway through the final series, and it was so thoroughly abandoned by everyone that the remaining cast ended up writing a few episodes?

Also, anyone seen the spinoff "Don't Drink The Water"? Blakey and his wife go to live in Spain and spend every moment unhappy at the food, the people, the weather, etc.?

Not quite - Varney was absent for half of the final series (I think the first half) and actually, it worked quite well; Jack as mentioned above is portrayed in a more negative light. Michael Robbins left before the end of show - I think he was in the peneultimate series.

With the writing, not really. Chesney and Wolfe didn't write the last two series - they were working on other projects.

Bob Grant and Stephen Lewis wrote quite a few episodes together - think that started in series 5 - it should be noted that Lewis was a successful writer, due to him taking up acting with the Theatre Workshop and notably, penning Sparrers Can't Sing, which was he later adapted as a film (shown on Talking Pictures now and then, and worth a watch).

There were a number of long-running ITV sitcoms that had various writers - Bless This House, being an excellent example of the quality of an episode depending on who wrote it - so not that unusual with what happened with this show.

re: Don't Drink The Water - I've seen one or two episodes and listened to one or two audio recordings. Not that it matters, but it was Blakey and his sister to move to Spain - the latter (played by Pat Coombs) takes to life over there than Blakey, but wouldn't say that he's hating every moment of it.

Probably the main issue for the show is that it was a follow-up to a massively popular show, which is going to be problematic.

If anyone wonders what Derek Griffiths would be like playing a Spanish porter, their luck is in.


Ignatius_S

Quote from: thenoise on October 31, 2021, 10:42:20 AM
Little Britain. I only persevered for the whole of the episode because I loved Matt Lucas on Shooting Stars and I had a lot of fondness for Tom Baker from Doctor Who repeats on Gold....

The radio series worked better - the show's concept was more effective in that version and was held together by Baker's narration, which was toned down for the television one.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on October 31, 2021, 04:54:31 PM

Stephen Lewis's funeral is darkly comic desolation stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQXvl3X0wmo&ab_channel=DailyMail

You'd think it was the character, Blakey's funeral rather than the actor, Stephen Lewis. Most peculiar.

sutin

Quote from: QDRPHNC on October 31, 2021, 03:20:14 PM
No one is going to believe me, but Father Ted. I came around on it a bit since then and it's made me laugh, but by and large it's classic status absolutely mystifies me.

It's my all-time favourite but do often wonder what people with no experience of rural Ireland get out of it. It's (gently) mocking something very specific. I was on holiday in Singapore in the '00s and the place I was staying in had a Father Ted night organised by locals. Bizarre.

Cloud

The Office.  Didn't even raise a smile.... I don't get it.... I've heard that people find Gervais hilarious but I've never actually met any of these people.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: JamesTC on October 31, 2021, 04:14:38 PM
A Prince Among Men. Lasted less than five minutes of that shite. Unbelievably, they made a second series.

The relationship between Bryan Pringle's character and Prince was very effective and made the show watching - or at least dipping into - and gave a little more depth to Prince's character.

Brundle-Fly


Catalogue Trousers

TittyBangBang, the even more rubbish Scallywagga, The Catherine Tate Show (nice theme song, then crap forever after), The Mighty Boosh. Oh, and Little Miss Jocelyn. For a few years there in the early to mid Noughties, BBC3 was a hotbed of comedy crap. Does Balls Of Steel count as comedy, at least nominally? If so, then that as well.

Bob Grant breaks down after mentioning Eddie Large:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8-NJ6SHz00&ab_channel=grodvin

What happened to Pamela Armstrong? No TV after around 1990 AFAIK.

Catalogue Trousers

Oh, and Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor. Yet more shite from the BBC3 comedy factory.

I think I gave up on watching British sitcoms completely apart from Blackadder by the mid-80s. Panel shows were OK because you could dip in and out and didn't have to follow a tenuous storyline.

Johnny Foreigner

About 12 years ago, David Quantick made a Radio 4 comedy series called Broken Arts. I remember it was so bad the last episode was not even broadcast. I have heard a lot of mediocre Radio 4 comedy over the years, but that one took the biscuit. Every episode of the programme included a Gilbert and Sullivan parody that mainly revolved round the adjective 'topsy-turvy' being a funny word.

Then, there were all them mainstream American sitcoms from the 90s, such as Full House, Step by Step, Family Matters, that distinguished themselves by being totally unwatchable. Friends belongs in that category.

peanutbutter

Lab Rats is probably the definitive one for me, didn't know  enough about Addison at the time to know it'd be shite but between him being Ollie in the Thick of It and the Iannucci involvement I hyped myself up for it and barely made it through the first episode.


Was probably like 14 when Mock the Week started, I was already going off panel shows but asides from Boyle it seemed like a very weak batch of guests and the structure felt so insanely false and lacking in potential that I think I watched it mostly in bafflement as to what the game was meant to be.
I still don't actually know? Was the structure of the game deliberately vague? Were the scores just made up? There were scores, right?

kalowski

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on October 31, 2021, 04:54:31 PM
Grant made a very grim appearance on a BBC 2 daytime show in 1987:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8-NJ6SHz00&ab_channel=grodvin

That's made me quite emotional. Good to see CaB hero Eddie Large getting a positive mention.

QDRPHNC

Quote from: sutin on October 31, 2021, 05:02:18 PM
It's my all-time favourite but do often wonder what people with no experience of rural Ireland get out of it. It's (gently) mocking something very specific. I was on holiday in Singapore in the '00s and the place I was staying in had a Father Ted night organised by locals. Bizarre.

I'm from N. Ireland and I first saw it when I was about 17, so it was the right time and the right place, it just seemed very rickety to me, if that's the word. Some of the writing is funny enough, but the craft of it is pretty poor overall.

sutin

Quote from: QDRPHNC on October 31, 2021, 06:00:44 PM
I'm from N. Ireland and I first saw it when I was about 17, so it was the right time and the right place, it just seemed very rickety to me, if that's the word. Some of the writing is funny enough, but the craft of it is pretty poor overall.

Oh! I'm Northern Irish too and was also a teenager when it started. I thought it was the best TV show i'd ever seen from the first episode, I kinda still do. It's perfect, that Arthur Mathews is a genius.

Mr Banlon


Magnum Valentino

Quote from: Catalogue Trousers on October 31, 2021, 05:12:51 PM
Oh, and Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor. Yet more shite from the BBC3 comedy factory.

An awful lot of jokes with the punchline that she has big boobies, as I remember. She seemed really unpleasant, like starring in her own series was some fluke of the universe.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: ajsmith2 on October 31, 2021, 08:39:51 AM
3: On The..., (1971) Mutiny On The... (1972) and Holiday On The..... (1973)

It was hugely popular in its day and even now has a Dr Who (well before the revival anyway) level fanbase that holds conventions where surviving cast members (Anna Karen and dolly bird clippies who were in one episode these days as everyone else is deceased) are corralled into doing meet and greets.

Have to admit I have a grim fascination with it and often put episodes on in the background while I'm working while acknowledging it is shit. The absolute dark misery of Olive and Arthur's marriage is particularly morbidly compelling.

It's the fictional partner to "The Family", capturing the still post-war grime of early seventies life without ever meaning to.

Johnny Foreigner

Vice versa, The Family was funny without intending to be.

- Why does Ted Heath wear underpants in the bath?
- So he doesn't have to look down on the unemployed. [snigger, snigger]

The fact that Margaret the greengrocer had never had an aubergine struck me as quite amusing as well.

Video Game Fan 2000

If you were a baby that was born the day the Beatles released "All You Need Is Love" and you died the day the first episode of On The Buses was broadcast, you wouldn't've got a second birthday.

Another year for me and you, another year with nothing to do.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Johnny Foreigner on October 31, 2021, 07:24:32 PM
Vice versa, The Family was funny without intending to be.

- Why does Ted Heath wear underpants in the bath?
- So he doesn't have to look down on the unemployed. [snigger, snigger]

The fact that Margaret the greengrocer had never had an aubergine struck me as quite amusing as well.

If only Ted's Todger had been unemployed, it was very active in the Roger the Cabin Boy arena.

chveik

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on October 31, 2021, 07:28:59 PM
If you were a baby that was born the day the Beatles released "All You Need Is Love" and you died the day the first episode of On The Buses was broadcast, you wouldn't've got a second birthday.

Another year for me and you, another year with nothing to do.

chilling

ishantbekeepingit

I've only ever caught bits and pieces of the OtB film.  Is the plot really that the heroes sexually harass a bunch of women out of their jobs?

Going back to the original topic, I'd have to say Upstart Crow and that one with the refugee doctor in the café.

HamishMacbeth

Joey is probably a bit of an obvious choice, but it's the first time I ever remember being painfully aware I was watching comedy that wasn't just not funny to me, but just wasn't working on any level, even by American sitcom standards.

I always thought Game On was pretty terrible.

And I admit I never really got Vic and Bob, but the love for House of Fools on twitter was still a complete mystery to me. 

Quote from: ishantbekeepingit on October 31, 2021, 08:03:10 PM
Going back to the original topic, I'd have to say Upstart Crow

This one wins the thread, for me.