I’ve started listening to BBC Radio 4 for the past couple of work days. It makes me think that if England was still a land of top hats and umbrella skirts, this would tipify every station. Classical music, subtle humor, etc. That’s not a bad thing though. There’s a show I just listened to called Quote Unquote and I was very amused.
“My mother in law has been characterised as the kind of woman that goes to see the doctor for a second opinion”
“The first 2 weeks of shooting a movie are called a probation period because the cast can be fired if they’re not up to scratch. The actors are all quite distressed at this time. There was a young fellow who was particularly nervous and the whole time he was doing his utmost to make himself appear adequate, while fidgeting frequently when off the camera. So one day as he was about to go on set, he was given a telegram. Fearing the worst, his face turned completely white, and he reluctantly began to read the text. All of a sudden, he looks up with a sense of relief, and says: ‘Thank god, it’s just mom that’s died’.”
Just wonderful!
If anyone can contribute, please do!
Prefer the good old Scottish humour myself. Love how we can laugh at ourselves.
“Remember years ago when they were making Braveheart? Everyone was saying, “Oh, its ridiculous; Mel Gibson playing a Scottish guy? That’s not going to be very convincing!” But take a look at him now: an alcoholic Racist!”
Hah, good one! That’s from Live at the Apollo now isn’t it? Great, great show.
I went to Edinburgh this christmas and what a really amazing city. We went on a tour to a distillery and a chapel or two here and there. The distillery was fantastic, got to try some expensive single malts and a Johnnie Gold Label (which I think is an awful whiskey)…I couldn’t help but notice how the tourguide was so proud of the Englishmen they’d killed:
“The English came and slaughtered the countryside and raped the women. So William Wallace rode day and night for so long with his army and killed them all.” Few things were ever said with such pride!
Some more:
“I’ve always had a particularly soft spot for politicians.
It’s a peat bog in the west of Ireland.”
A priest on his way to church on Sunday morning passes one of his non-churchgoing male parishioners hard at work on his garden. Unable to resist the temptation to put the man’s efforts into some kind of divine perspective on the Sabbath, he says: “Good morning, Mr. Jones! What a magnificent job you and the good Lord have been doing on this garden.”
The man looks up, smiles and says: “That’s very kind of you, father. But you should have seen what it looked like when the good Lord had it all to himself!”
I was walking through the cemetry one morning when I saw someone else walking through.
“morning!” I said. And he looked at me and went:
“nope, just walking the dog mate” .
Yeah, we Scots have a tendency to revel in the failures of the English, nothing personal mind you!
Scots slang makes for some great jokes. ‘After announcing he’s getting married, a boy tells his pal he’ll be wearing the kilt. “And what’s the tartan?” asks his mate. “Oh, she’ll be wearing a white dress,” he replies.’
Mitchel and Webb are a product of radio 4 and as far as I’m concerned if they were asked to write something about depression it would be hilarious. Their current TV show that Mitchell and Webb look is superb and IIRC there’s a new episode on tonight. see here for catch up episodes if you fancy a watch:
If you listen to radio four you probably already know these guys well. Or you might of caught them on panel shows like QI or Mock the week etc, or the sublime Peep Show a sort of situation comedy but with the unusual twist of having 1st person perspectives alot.
The IT crowd, The Mighty Boosh and them are the best thing to happen to English comedy in a long time.
US comedy atm on the other hand is distinctly samey, with no innovation and pretty much churns out the same old sit coms about 4 quirky people over and over again changing them slightly to make one of the friends gay or something, Classic example Friends and then the new series by the writers of Friends, about 4 quirky people who are friends, brilliant the innovation and clever new output is extraordinary. I think if it wasn’t for UK comedy atm there wouldn’t be much worth watching on, American comedy is pretty much circling the drain of mediocrity and sameness. Although Sarah Silverman is a little different thumbs up there. I thought there might be something in The Big Bang, geek comedy and all, slightly different idea, but it turns out geek comedy is done far far better when its not being advertised and obvious and doesn’t just revolve around the same jokes, like a demented comedian with one knob joke who just does it over and over again. If you want nerd/geek comedy watch the IT crowd basically. American comedy used to be great but its now just pedestrian, it needs a kick up the arse. Sit coms aren’t the only fruit. Mind you anything that’s a cartoon like Southpark, Familly guy is bloody great. Just a shame the real life actor comedy writers are obsessed with the same old formulaic dross.
Anyway an example of the sublime comedy of Mitchell and Webb:
Sorry Hume, that one’s a bit tough to get for me. I know tartan’s the cloth and I can guess the joke but I’m a bit lost.
Faust, you really didn’t find any of those funny? I think one thing that sets British comedy apart from American comedy is that Brits don’t need to swear to emphasise a point, and can be funny/witty in a subtle way, without having to be about racism/parties/terrorists.
Mitchell and Webb seems more just like a remake of the Fast Show. I don’t really like Mighty Boosh. It’s amusing, but more like potthead humor. Family Guy and South Park are of course the all time greats.
Big Bang Theory was very promising. The engineering crowd and I really liked the episode where the skinny guy was going to halloween wearing a striped shirt where each line was of a different length, meant to illustrate the Doppler Effect. Or how they’re all doctoral physicists, but for the engineer with the master’s; I think that’s just hilarious. But it just keeps repeating the same jokes and the same interactions over and over. So if you’ve seen the first few episodes, you’ve seen them all.
For me it’s not the english conceptual funny-ness, it’s the wit that comes from being the orignal settlers of a language that I long thought I discovered. Clever is foriegn to many americans. Just how sharp it can get. Not monty python, but football/soccer announcers.
Stewart Lee is atm if you ask me, but then that’s very clever very sharp and very English ironic humour, so it might not play as well in other countries.
That said if you really believe that then you need to get out more and start watching stand up, sure the dross on American TV is pretty terrible atm, but your stand up bods and ours are still throwing out some gems. And if you liked Father Ted watch the IT crowd. Honestly Jen breaks the internet, and the presentation on the internet are priceless.
I’ve never heard of Bob Newhart. I’m 20. Robin Williams is fine but he’s anything but subtle, he just does more family humor. Seinfeld, I don’t really find it particularly witty. It’s more just absurdity and slapstick. My generation, I’m thinking Eddie Murphy/Dave Chapelle/Dane Cook/Russel Peters. Canada counts. It’s not that it’s bad humor, I find it hilarious, it’s just that British humor generally has more wit and subtlety.
And you cancelled Arrested Development! What the hell?! One of the most outstanding comedies to have ever been aired, and cancelled after only three seasons.
Comparing the quick, sharp back and forth arguments that occur there, to the tired old “the American people would want…” Dem vs Rep rhetoric in your House of Representatives: youtube.com/watch?v=UXXZYcaSCeI
British people don’t get Seinfeld, it’s too Jewish I think. Which I think is code for not funny. It bombed over here, got airplay on BBC2, then relegated to late at night, then it was finally cancelled after no one tuned in its late night slot. I never got it even watching some of its finest moments, its clear to me that although the US and UK sense of humour are similar, clearly their are also some large differences. I think Canadian humour is probably just a smidgeon nearer, they seem to get absurd and self mockery better. An often stated classic which is considered perhaps one of the finest English comedies is Fawlty Towers. We even had to watch that in English class (although I say had it beats learning verbs).
Favourite British stuff of all time in no particular order?
Blackadder
Red Dwarf
Mighty Boosh
IT crowd
Father Ted
Fast Show
Mitchel and Webb
8 ) Armstrong and Miller (A touch of Force on the Case was brilliant)
Big Train (World staring finals was inspired)
Anything by Stewart Lee including TMWRNJ (This Morning With Richard Not Judy), and his current live stand up show.
Black Books
The Mary Whitehouse Experience (That’s you that is, that’s your mum et al)
Fry (That guy in QI and from the film Oscar Wilde) and Laurie (House MD) (and for understated Enlgish humour Jeeves and Wooster, in which they starred)
Not the Nine O’clock News
Monty Python and that includes Ripping Yarns (Michael Palin) and Fawlty Towers (Connie Booth and John Cleese)
Rab Nesbit
Dawn and Jenifer Saunders (Dawn for pulling off Leo Di Caprio in their spoof of Titanic (in fact all their spoofs are great), and for Absolutely Fabulous, although I don’t think they are that funny per se)
The League of Gentlemen (“Your my wife now Dave!”)
Yes Prime/Minister
And probably many many more that I’ve forgotten. Not sure the writer of Father Ted isn’t Irish but meh, and Dylan Moran who cowrote Black Books definitely is Irish.
You sound like a Vulcan. Perhaps everything is just not funny to you except a man pretending to be gay in order to send up celebrities and fundamentalist nuts. And yes I agree Bruno is hilarious, or should I say what I have seen of the film so far is.
Anyway humour is personal, although if you ever watched The Life of Brian or The Holy Grail and just sat there all the way through stony faced, I’d suggest you needed an immediate sense of humour bypass.
Ok that’s only half “that bit” what happens next? That is just the set up for the joke after all rather than the joke itself. I presume you mean the internet sketch. The other sketch is a cliché and only works if you know what is going to happen next.
EDIT: I’ll give you a clue…
That bit is the set up think of it like the film The Sting, basically because she’s an IT idiot who somehow managed to wangle a position as manager of IT despite knowing like most office workers nothing about the ins and outs of PCs, and she’s just won employee of the month, despite actually doing nothing. Her colleagues decide to play a joke on her when she asks them to write her speech (obviously she can’t write a speech about IT she’s ignorant on the subject) So they set her up before the shareholders, with a preposterous speech about the internet- thinking of course were she to present it the share holders would laugh their arses off (worse than the time they told her you could break the internet by typing Google into Google.) so imagine The Entertainer is playing on the piano. What happens next:
Ok obviously you can’t possibly know, sadly though I’d put up part 2 to that episode (if I could find it, copyright means it can’t be veiwed in this country) but you really have to watch the whole episode and how it all comes together in spectacular weirdness at the end. Otherwise you can’t really know how an English sit com like that is going to unfold.
You can watch every episode pretty much on 4OD. I’d recommend it the series is way funnier than anything in the US sit com genre, atm at least.
Monty Python is just not funny. They’re not funny. Repeating the word “shrubbery” is not funny.
Cohen has always been funny. Not just in “Bruno”. I have only seen the trailer for Bruno - but he does what he always does - he satirises everyone at once. He satirises “both sides”. But it’s more than that - he has technique, which is precisely what is lacking in most comedians.
BTW - no one was more subtle than Bob Newhart. He was bone dry.
That clip from the IT Crowd. Anyone could have done that. There was precious little technique.
Performed humor is all about the timing - and it’s not a mental art - it’s a physical art. Cohen’s humor as Ali G is all about timing and facial expression. He’d be funny with any material. As Borat, his physical humor was at once over the top and subtle. These three on IT were just mugging. The chick didn’t pull of the bit where she seems to catch on the the “elders of the internet” - she went a beat or two too fast. They all went too fast. “Let’s get to the next joke”.
I didn’t bother with the other clip.
Where does it go? Well, my guess is that the shareholders are dumber than the chick, and buy everything she says. But the setup is “Don’t drop it”, so eventually, I am sure the Internet gets dropped.
Nope never mind. Anyone can guess roughly what is going to happen from that, but the humour is in the details. How anyone can basically say the last 30 years of comedy doesn’t exist because they only like 4 things is weird. But there you go it’s your opinion. You sound quite a humourless person, although I’m sure that’s unjust.
And clearly you must have a very narrow appreciation of comedy which is fine I just hope you are not representative.
Comedy is more than what you said, just as art is more than slapping paint on a canvass in a pleasing way.
It is a mental art and a physical art. A person can have people in hysterics despite never moving an inch and likewise can do so by using the environment. Telling someone what humour is is like telling someone what is the greatest country in the world, pointless.
Jen gives her speech and roy and co sit through it waiting for the shareholders to laugh, as you know though its obivous that everyone who works in an office are just useless with IT, so they end up foiled as the share holders lap up every word about the magic internet…
The CEO is having an affair with a woman who used to be a man (The CEO who inherited the position from his father is even more useless than Jen) but its not important, when he finds out she’s a man they get involved in a fight in the lab of the company, and he beats the crap out of his ex girlfriend.
… who crashed through the window knocking the internet off the table, finally Roy and co get there giggles as they all panic when the internets red flashy thing starts flashing wildly.
By the way I don’t believe for a moment you didn’t look that up, but then it was a rhetorical question anyway and none of the humour is in what you expect to happen but as in all character humour in what is said and the dialogue rather than slap stick which is just incidental.
I really don’t want to live in your world of humour where you sit their analysing everything for the 3 elements of comedy and find everything wanting, but meh different strokes.
