What I also find interesting is there was a 4 year hiatus between the airing of the first and second series of "Fawlty Towers".
I just went and had a look on Wikipedia. It says the reason for the four year gap was because Connie Booth (Cleese's wife, co-writer and also played Polly) initially didn't want to make a second series. It also says that Cleese and Booth divorced between the first and second series, so that may have had something to do with it as well.
Ha ha! She grew up in a strict home where her parents would only let her watch Public Television. If her parents only knew what type of weird British shows the PBS aired late on a Saturday night.
Speaking of "assuming" this is probably my favorite Benny Hill sketch of all time,
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Grew up watching Benny Hill, then got into Monty Python, The Young Ones, and later Absolutely Fabulous (probably thanks to MTV when they used to show them back in the late 80's).
I'd have to also add Kids in the Hall from Canada, the "North American Pythons", as one of my favorites.
A lot of the best British comedy is tempered with a melancholy and poignancy which sometimes translates and sometimes doesn't. Open All Hours, Porridge, Hancock, in particular, come to mind. Best of all is Steptoe and Son which, when you actually pay attention to it, is unremittingly dark and essentially about having the life crushed out of your aspirations. Very heavy for a 30 minute 'light entertainment' show, and ground breaking in many ways.
It's a common thread - it's largely what Fawlty Towers was about: a social climber who was always handicapped by his own crippling social insecurities and those around him. I think Cleese is on records as saying, in effect, that they quit while they were ahead.
My favourite British comedy of the last few years is Bluestone 42, which is about a bomb disposal detachment in Afghanistan. it's funny, it's clever and it doesn't pull its punches whilst being highly respectful of what those guys go through.
What else? Nighty Night from a few years back? It's very funny but extremely, extremely extremely brutally dark.
I don't really watch a great deal of American comedy, I have to admit. I'm going to buy the huge Phil Silvers Show boxset in the near future (Bilko being one of the best sit coms ever made,) and I like the Big Bang Theory but that's it. My mate keeps trying to get me to watch How I Met Your Mother, but I just don't get it. And I'm apparently the only person on earth who hated Curb Your Enthusiasm. I watched Scrubs for a while, but kind of got bored of the hyper-kinetic moralizing.
Now, Arrested Development....that was funny. And I loved 30 Rock as well. Bored To Death was brilliant too.
As for Python. Its funny as hell in places. Other, not so much. They took so much from that crop of comedians like Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine and so on who made it big when they came back from the war, and BBC radio comedy from the 40s and 50s is so sharp and so full of incredibly rich language and intelligence that you can really see where the Pythons got it from.
Of course, Milligan and Bentine took a lot of their inspiration from the Marx Brothers who in turn took their inspiration from American Vaudeville and British and German variety and music hall. It all goes around.
Some friends recently suggested "Mrs Brown's Boys". Didn't have time for it yet, but has anyone here seen that? And what's the verdict?
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the universe is for it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
Red Dwarf was great. I quite liked The New Statesman too.
"When I saw The Matrix at a local theatre in Slovenia, I had the unique opportunity of sitting close to the ideal spectator of the film - namely, to an idiot." - Slavoj Zizek
open all hours is one of my favourite shows Ronnie barker just sublime with his character but I also liked some short lived American shows like sledgehammer. I like to laugh and enjoy many of the shows mentioned I watch to much tv mostly comedy .
open all hours is one of my favourite shows Ronnie barker just sublime with his character but I also liked some short lived American shows like sledgehammer. I like to laugh and enjoy many of the shows mentioned I watch to much tv mostly comedy .
I'd forgotten about Sledgehammer. Wow, that's going back. Good call!
Fawlty Towers was one of my favorite shows and it was British sitcom, broadcasted on BBC. My favorite character was Manuel the Spanish guy, who barely speaks English. Great fun..
