Obscure comedy that only you know about

[Famous Mortimer]

Somewhat difficult to search for these days, too.

New page fuckery - I was referring to "The Pod Christmas Special".

[willbo]

The Robert Lindsay sitcom called "The Office" just before our Ricky's one was a weird youtube watch for me.

[merri]

A couple of years back I really enjoyed the Tim Baltz comedy Shrink. I can't remember seeing it mentioned on here (unless I have). Probably best ignore that Glinner directed a couple of episodes (possibly just before his pure bananary).

[Clownbaby]

i bet nobody here watched spirited, the australian 'comedy' starring matt king aka super hans from peep show

I did! Bit tonally odd, wasn't sure what to make of it

[Catalogue Trousers]

I think it was hardly seen in the UK as it ended up getting dumped in the Christmas schedules one year in the middle of the afternoon, in a way which screams "we've paid for this but now we don't want it so it's just getting burnt off as quickly as possible when no-one's watching". My dad used to record the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures every year and I found an episode recorded by accident on one of the tapes. Glad it found an audience somewhere, as it was really good!

Yeah, along with Rex The Runt it suffered the undeseved ignominy of the Beeb saying 'look, we know that you want Wallace and Gromit at Christmas, but it's far too costly and time-consuming to make a new one every year, so here's some other animated toss or other. It won't be as good, but it'll shut the kids up for five or ten minutes.' Harsh and unfair, as (likely due to overfamiliarity) I much prefer Rex and the Knights these days.

Oh, and: this is a great series that not many people have seen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slings_&_Arrows

First episode here...

[willbo]

Chalk, Focus North and that funny American chat show hosted by the teenage boy in his parent's front room.

[Red82]

I find the 90's teen movie The Stoned Age hilarious. It's proper b movie fare.

[Famous Mortimer]

Focus North! That's the name I was trying to remember. I had it and Network East (which isn't a comedy show) confused in my head.

[Brundle-Fly]

Three funny, original zom-com movies for your delectation.

[Famous Mortimer]

Wasting Away is excellent, and has a very fun central conceit.

[Hobo With A Shit Pun]

Fido is great and an original conceit. It also took us most of the fillum to recognise Billy Conolly.

[Brundle-Fly]

Fido is great and an original conceit. It also took us most of the fillum to recognise Billy Conolly.

Yes! Me too! I recently experienced a similar belated moment of recognition watching The Fanatic (2019), although it's so fucking obvious.

[Brundle-Fly]

Wasting Away is excellent, and has a very fun central conceit.

I feel utterly vindicated by you saying that.

[Peabo Bryson Is Not Dead]

The RDA on BBC Choice with John Gordillo, Brendon Burns & Paul Foot, and its weird obsessions with Savile and Huw Edwards. It ended spectacularly with a Schindler's List pastiche.

[Johnboy]

Great stuff here

[willbo]

Focus North! That's the name I was trying to remember. I had it and Network East (which isn't a comedy show) confused in my head.

I started a thread about it here a year or so ago. I didn't know what it was but I could describe some of the sketches, and someone else knew. I always thought of it as "that show that mixed Brass Eye with League of Gentlemen"

[willbo]

I used to really enjoy the stoner/slacker comedy "8 days a week" when Channel 5 used to show it sometimes late at night over the early 00s. Sweet little film really. Like a heartwarming, nicer Beavis and Butthead

what about Glam Metal Detectives? I remember watching that religiously - I even remember seeing the VHS in supermarkets - but I have no memory of what it was actually like.

[Average Comedy Enjoyer]

I have memories of seeking out Big Knights in The Bumper Christmas Radio Times.

I think the same Christmas week slot was followed up the next year by something called The Amazing Adrenalini brothers which had similar humour and the same joke about fictional Easter European countries (Réndøosîa and Borovia).

Everyone knows about Meet the Mangoons yes?

My niece managed to find a bootleg copy of Help in a Taiwanese market, the Paul Whitehouse vehicle that was tainted by associate to L*ngham, and possibly resurrected under a different name.

[Thosworth]

Dream On was a '90s sitcom about a book editor who was separating from his wife and dating various women. It's USP was using old archive movie footage as punchlines that interspersed the dialogue, showing the thoughts of the lead ('Martin, I'm leaving you' - black and white clip of a woman shooting a man.)

Was actually a pretty funny mechanic, but also probably incredibly easy to write - character experiences mild emotion, insert melodramatic over the top reaction. Character says one thing, insert shot of person saying the opposite.

Never gets referenced anywhere, possibly because it included profanity and nudity and America is still not fully capable of accepting the existence of the word 'fuck' and bosoms.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I've mentioned Dream On before. I've only seen one episode though. The series had been running for ages before I watched one and there seemed to be more old footage than new footage, like 60% old footage, and it hindered the flow of the meagre 40% storyline. I didn't like it so didn't watch it again.

Maybe I've misremembered the amount of old footage, but it seemed like a lot, and quickly stopped being a gimmick and became a hindrance for me within the space of one episode.

[Famous Mortimer]

I watched most of it, and don't remember that being the case, but it's possible the central idea just annoyed you more than it did me (entirely legitimate). Also, I just discovered it was made by Marta Kauffman and David Crane, who for two years were working on both this and "Friends" simultaneously.

I associate it with "Herman's Head" for some reason - perhaps they were on Channel 4 around the same time? Weren't on the same network in the US.

[Twilkes]

Mudfinger?

[timahall]

One of my favourite TV shows of all time is an animated sitcom produced by MTV called Downtown. I first caught it on MTV in France when I was on holiday there in 2002. I've watched it countless times since (there's only one season), but have never once met someone irl who's heard of it. It does seem to have a decent following online though.

[McDead]

Let the Blood Run Free was sort of a big deal at the time, albeit in a culty way, but is almost entirely forgotten now. True grotesquery, never seen anything quite like it. Closer to the visceral spirit of something like Spitting Image than a traditional sitcom. Anyway, there's another antipodean entry for the forum data bank.

At the other end of the spectrum, but still medical, there was the other E/R, a hospital sitcom with Elliot Gould. Decent enough, though unremarkable. I remember Gould being great in it, but that's about what you'd expect.

And I always liked Partners, a short lived US sitcom designed to ride the Friends wave. Three very likeable leads (Tate Donovan, Jon Cryer and the lovely Maria Pitillo) and some sharp writing, but not special enough to make a splash. One season.

[Famous Mortimer]

Let the Blood Run Free was sort of a big deal at the time, albeit in a culty way, but is almost entirely forgotten now. True grotesquery, never seen anything quite like it. Closer to the visceral spirit of something like Spitting Image than a traditional sitcom. Anyway, there's another antipodean entry for the forum data bank.

A @13 schoolyards could correct me if I'm miles off, but this ran as a live show before it came to TV, and the gimmick was the audience could vote on what would happen next. I think this continued for at least the first season of the TV show too, which I'd have loved to have been part of at the time.

E/R also had George Clooney and Jason Alexander in it, if you want to ponder a Sliding Doors where it became a success.

[McDead]

A @13 schoolyards could correct me if I'm miles off, but this ran as a live show before it came to TV, and the gimmick was the audience could vote on what would happen next. I think this continued for at least the first season of the TV show too, which I'd have loved to have been part of at the time.

I was going to describe LTBRF as grand Guignol panto in my post, so this checks out.

[Twilkes]

Actually, Mudfinger:

Legendary on the Scottish comedy circuit twenty years ago, the guy behind it assumedly had a variant of Autism Spectrum Disorder, occasionally went down well, usually went down badly, but was going to go ahead and go down regardless. Branched out in later years to making gunging videos, including paying female models to be gunged while looking uncomfortable. That whole Youtube channel could be archived at the National Library under the title 'Normal For Ayrshire'.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I'm struggling to understand what Mudfinger is saying (due to the sound quality, not because he is Scottish). What is the character of Mudfinger?

[Twilkes]

I'm struggling to understand what Mudfinger is saying (due to the sound quality, not because he is Scottish). What is the character of Mudfinger?

The rehearsal footage might make it clearer, but I think the gist was that he was an evil supervillain who wanted to turn everyone in the world to mud, and he had a nemesis called Cleanfinger who would attack Mudfinger with soap.

You can't say he wasn't dedicated to his art:

[13 schoolyards]

A @13 schoolyards could correct me if I'm miles off, but this ran as a live show before it came to TV, and the gimmick was the audience could vote on what would happen next. I think this continued for at least the first season of the TV show too, which I'd have loved to have been part of at the time.

Yeah, Let the Blood Run Free was a regular cabaret show for a few years beforehand at one of Melbourne's stand up venues (Le Joke?), where the audience could vote on various plot developments