Since the UK is the theme of the night I thought I might start out with some of my favorite scenes from British sitcom. We might as well have some fun when the cat is away.
My favorite scene from Father Ted.
How can you talk about Britcoms without mentioning AbFab
The greatest British sketch show of all time. This scene is remarkably close to the Republic agenda as well.
From the IT Crowd the life of a computer tech.
Father Ted the church doth protest too much. “Down with this sort of thing”.
A compilation from Black Books.
Truly Shameless.
Who can forget Father Jack? The epitome of the modern day priest.
“DRINK! FECK! GIRLS!” or BOYS!
Feck off!
I just love the image when it comes to Fr. Ted.
Did you know that Foyle’s War started up again last Sunday?
A good one it was – it was brilliant!
There’s going to be one more and then there’s going to be a Miss Marple for 2 episodes, and then one Hercules Poiroit? And then there will be a Wallandar?
Love Mystery Theater!
Two of my favorite UK sitcoms:
Little Britian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLd3-cfLlvU
and the League of Gentlemen (my #1 favorite): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOGAAlHzF4o
Little Britain was a riot! Britons have a depth of comedy that America just can’t seem to grasp. I think we focus more on the pedestrian, bathroom humor type stuff and not the more cerebral, heavy wit-laced comedy Europe writes…
Oh I missed this thread…dang.
Anyway, I grew up on The Young Ones and own all of the Father Ted series. Whatta’ shame ‘Ted’ died between seasons…Had to love Dougal!
I was surprised no one mentioned Red Dwarf. Silly but really funny at times. Keeping Up Appearances was great…”Minding the lorie, dear…”…Poor Richard….LOL
And recently, The InBetweeners has really made me laugh. It’s a bit R-rated as they are teens and most of the humor is below the belt, but the actors are spot on and totally work great with each other.
Not so much a Britcom is Top Gear which is a show themed on sports cars, but Richard, James and Jeremy honestly make me laugh harder than most shows on the air. Even though it seems ‘geared’ for guys…it honestly is a great show for every age and gender…Not to mention I drool over all of the super elite, mega-expensive super cars they get to toy with…oy…the Aston Martin Vantage…2 please..!…..LOL
Hello, Patriot!
I’m glad to see you again! It’s been a while! I also cut my teeth on The Young Ones and Are You Being Served? Keeping UP Appearances is still hilarious and I watch the reruns when I can catch them. Another good one that came on several years ago was “Waiting for God”…very humorous! They do have some good comedy writers over there.
But no one will ever top Monty Python! Love me some John Cleese! He was wonderful in another one called “Fawlty Towers”. Don’t know if you’ve seen that one. It’s great!
I loved the whole Flying Circus especially from such profoundly educated guys. In a small way it helped Canada produce the Second City TV model and is seen everywhere in comedy nowadays…Yet, nothing as funny as the the Pythons.If you get the chance to see The InBetweeners, one of the characters is the spitting image and intonation of a very young Eric Idle.
Watched Fawlty for awhile but never sunk my teeth into it. Love Cleese though…
Ditto on Fawlty Towers. I never really had a chance to get into it. Only watched a few ‘sodes.
I forgot to mention Rowan Atkinson as “The Black Adder”…he’s comic genius! Loved his “Mr. Bean” character.
I had two Rowan shows down below. I myself will always remember him best as his different Blackadder incarnations. Mr. Bean was cute and most know him from that, but Blackadder was edgy and dark – and the humor ever so blue to downright thirteen year old jokes!
You’re right. I followed the whole trilogy of Blackadders and Baldricks…great stuff…Hugh Laurie was always a riot!
But I have to say I think the darkest and best it ever got was the last series set in WWI. There was something truly special about that last incarnation that really stuck with me. It was engaging and darkly funny until the final episode when Blackadder and the ‘boys’ , went over the top…It was Blackadder’s shining moment of redemption after being such a cad for so many generations. Touching. I’ll never forget that episode. Now I love finding Tony (Baldrick) doing the British Time Team series…right up my alley.
I thought the same about the redeeming nature of the WWI series.
I simply loved the costumes in the others though, and love those time periods. It’s really hard for me to pick one over the other.
I love how evil and what despicable person he was, too. Like South Park’s Cartman, – you loved to hate him. And Baldrick, LOL!
Yay! Another Young Ones fan!
Yeah, forgot Red Dwarf. And poor, poor Richard. I also liked the British equivalent of White Trash working bloke relatives. Top Gear has some memorable moments: the tractor race, ski jump, and the Alabama challenge. It’s like a British Car Talk. Gearhead material done with wit, rather than grunts.
I dunno, haven’t had success with the women folk on it. I think the situational stuff they get into is hilarious, irregardless of cars, but…
Anybody remember Hugh Laurie before he was House?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRT9QU-Q7K8
Also, the clip I’m so trying to find from The Young Ones is where they get laid siege to and stormed by medieval soldiers. That was one of the most surreal-funny moments of that show – and that’s saying a lot.
Loved him in Jeeves and Wooster.
One of my faves.
“Have we got a video?” Man, The Young Ones was so funny. I love Britcoms. Black Books, Spaced, Coupling, and all of the old classics.
A more recent gem that we just finished watching on DVD is “Gavin and Stacey,” which is a romantic comedy that was a pretty good one to watch with the wife. The character of big rough Nessa from Wales just steals the show. Oh, and Uncle Bryn as well.
Great slang the Welsh have. “Alright Neil the Baby, so what’s occurrin’?”
OMG, totally forgot about Coupling!!! I knew I was forgetting something! 😀
Yay, another Young Ones fan!!!
That was one of the best shows American or British, ever.
They tried it for a few shows here, but it just didn’t work out. I’m still amazed The Office translated so well, though it took a while.
By the way, the Welsh comment reminded me of Little Britain. Is that a Britcom, or British sketch show? I don’t care!
My lord, Welsh slang… at least there’s no double ‘l’ sounds in Welsh English! By the way, I have not seen the show (yet), and doubt the accent is that thick, but some Welsh accents sound Indian (I was just watching YouTube with a native Welsh speaker to whom English sounded definitely his second-language). Here is an interesting article on the topic:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4328733.stm
The Brits have the best elderly…
In Sickness and In Health
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYxhOdHoXWM
Waiting For God
If you haven’t seen this yet…
httpsh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr9_5uZn6ds
Or this,
Father Ted – Lingerie Escapade
Aargh, I just know I’m forgetting a few really good shows… brain cramp.
Oh yeah, who knew that The Office also has a French, German, French-Canadian, and Chilean version?
My faves:
I’ve so been here:
I must say though, that Mr. Humphries was the one that really had me in stitches.
By the way, I’d totally forgotten about Black Books.
KQ PlanetPov has the entertainment tonight !
Are You Being Served – watch thru the end
httpsh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19AQgpsIMVY
How’s Miss Slocombe’s pussy?
KQ, My husband thought it would be funny if I posted that.
Yes it’s funny,
but he is a very naughty boy and I will have to punish him for not telling me
what exactly what was in the link.
Next time he will have to make his own account and give it a swing.
Very bad boy…….
Vicar of Dibley End Jokes
httpsh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP-84G6PqYE&feature=related
httpsh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACtN6rPzLgU&feature=related
Dawn French is one of the best!
There’s a talk show in Britain and for the life of me I cannot remember the name, but Dawn French was on it and then George Clooney was a guest up next.
She wouldn’t leave until George Clooney came on, and she was teasing how much he wanted her and she would give in and allow him to kiss her.
George Clooney walked out and placed his finger at her chin and raised her head and kissed her, and it was a mighty long kiss – and then Dawn French said to him, ‘You wish’ and then dared him to do it again, and then he did!
It was hilarious, and showed that George Clooney has class, imho.
I am a huge fan of George Clooney, because he reminds me of my father, in the shit-eating grin and twinkling eyes, and does that mean that I have an Oedipus thing going on?
Well, to make that shit even better, is that my husband reminds me at times of my father, and even when my mother was alive, she said it, too.
I don’t like to think about that too much and really, I am crazy as shit anyway!
LOL
Thanks, KQ for all this. Somewhere, in my benighted youth, I missed most of this. I was and am not much of a fan of Monte Python, but I love most British humor (humour?) most of the time.
I spent quite a lot of time in England – lived for a bit in a small Suffolks town with the love of my life who now is not, and then again in London right on Abbey Road near the famous Zebra crossing where the Beatles did their thing. I have found the Brits delightful for the most part, and I still like the BBC better than most anything we have save for the business news that carries Thatcherism into the new millennium. That needs work, IMHO.
These clip were ALL unfamiliar, so I’ve enjoyed seeing them. There’s a lot of “yeah, boo, sucks to you” in some of it, but they still get a good smack at the upper class and pomposity at all levels.
I agree with you, javaz – STILL don’t much like Benny Hill! He’s a one joke guy, but he’s not all that different from US comics that I also don’t much like.
My favorites are older, the BritComs of the 50s and Flanders & Swann in the 60s. We resurrected the latter in our discussion of cannibalism since they did the great song, “The Reluctant Cannibal” that simply cannot be topped.
Thank you for a trip down memory lane, KQ even if these particular bits are things over which I have NO memory! They were fun to see!
Cheers CL. I think you would love the irreverence of Father Ted. It’s a great parody of unprincipled religious types.
Vicar of Dibley: I can’t believe it’s not butter
httpsh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MsbvGmLaU4
I love Vicar of Dibley. Dawn French is just so so funny.
I never liked Monty Python when younger but must admit that since I am older, I do find humor in it now and another one that I absolutely hated was Benny Hill and not sure, but think that I still dislike that one.
British humor is something that must be an acquired taste at times, imho.
Benny Hill was always too silly for me. MPFC is silly too but at least they were clever about it. British humor is definitely an acquired taste. On Brit explained it pretty well. He said Americans comedy is filled with one liners where British comedy likes to set up funny situations that pull you in more.
OMG!
I so love British comedy!
ABFAB is one of my absolute favorites, along with Fr. Ted and am laughing just thinking about it.
I can’t do the youtubes thing on this, but “Keeping Up Appearances” is another good one.
When it comes to shows that are not a comedy is “Monarch of the Glen”, even though that is a comedy, too, but with a serious side and the backdrop is absolutely beautiful.
I love “Foyle’s War”, and “Wallendar”, and “Hercules Poirot”, and all of the “Miss Marple”, and “Rosemary and Thyme” – I think that was the name – and then there’s the “Darlings of May”, which is another favorite and one of the very first acting roles for Catherine Zeta-Jones – that was an excellent and hilarious series.
I wish that I could embed all these, but the youtubes crashed me already and I’m trying to hang in here.
OH!
France had one – it was only 15 minutes long without commercials – something to do with a tea break and I think that’s a play-off from the British version of the Office.
That was hilarious and you didn’t even need to understand French!
French TV didn’t do commercials like we do here – they’d run shows and then they’d have public announcements and they’d be 30 minutes long but they get a full 90 minutes of commercial-free TV.
Plus, in France, their version of PBS was part of the deal whereby they charged taxes on televisions and it was part of your taxes and not volunteer programming for people like you.
I miss it all.
Oh, one more thing, is Hyacinth from “Keeping up Appearances” also played Miss Marple when she was much younger.
Don’t get me started Javaz. I think I’ve seen every britcom or mystery I could get my hands on for sure.
Add Last of the Summer Wine, Keeping Up Appearances, Black Adder, Mr. Bean, The Mitchel and Web Look, Two Pints and a Package of Crisps, Coupling, Cadfael, Mrs. Bradley’s Mysteries, New Tricks, Inspector Morse, Inspector Lewis, Lord Peter Wimsey etc. About the only one I don’t like is “The Office” it reminds me too much of work.
We even listen to BBC Radio Comedies and Mysteries before going to bed.
Check out “Old Harry’s Game” it’s absolutely brilliant.
Also if you love Britcoms you will love “Trailer Park Boys” it’s a great Canadian comedy.
OH! I forgot about Inspector Morse!
The thing when it comes to movies made in Europe, whether they be British or French or German, is that the endings most times leave you hanging.
There are some excellent movies though that do have an ending, even if the ending is the second movie.
I love film and I love television series when they are well done.
Am not a fan at all of Reality TV and keep praying that that shit ends soon.
The new Inspector Lewis’ are good as well.
You listened to Beeb radio comedies KQ? Did you ever hear The Goon Show from the 50’s/60’s – Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan? Briliant and somewhat offbeat
Nope I missed the Goon Show, but I have listened to Dad’s Army and the Navy Lark and a few others.
They actually are running more series than ever on the beeb.
Oh yeah and to me Father Ted is probably the funnies sitcom of all time. We have the whole series on DVD.
You should check out The IT Crowd. It was made by the same guy who created Father Ted.