The (NEW) BRITISH SITCOMS POLL!!!

OK, now can we take out the shit ones that don't belong there - THE I.T. CROWD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

extras is extant :p

jesus

Uhhhhhhhhhh, *kof*, "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin"?

Where's Waiting for God?

Rising Damp?

T minus 3 minutes until some beloved Americans start exploding with rage at New Answers

what about the new one with Jack Dee where he plays Jack Dee? definitely a sinful omission.

The Good Life
Yes, Minister
Till Death Do Us Part
Rab C. Nesbitt

T minus 3 minutes until some beloved Americans start exploding with rage at New Answersvoting for Extras and Red Dwarf

-- blueski, Thursday, 6 December 2007 13:46 (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

That Ricky Gervais is a genius i tell ya!

still blackadder II etc

Ricky Gervais is to comedy as Hank P Hannemeyer Jr is to quartermastering for the Detroit Prolapses

lack of "The Thick Of It" also fairly disappointing given that it made me laugh harder than anything else over the past year

Rab C Nesbitt is actually Scotland's greatest contribution to world culture, right? I mean that in a complimentary manner, btw.

landslide for blackadder, seriously.

People who prefer Blackadder to Porridge hate comedy

yeah i'm beginning to think that blackadder should have been split to save us from the vox populi lurkers :D

The Office.

^ban

once again, Father Ted.

Still Game

So shoot me. It makes me lol, no matter how many times I've seen it.

Just Shoot Me > The Office

Yes, Minister /Yes, Prime Minister is a glaring omission. And what about Jeeves and Wooster, is that not a sitcom?

I can't bear Ricky Gervais in anything else he's ever done, or as a person, but I think The Office is touched with genius.

Hancock's Half Hour?

People who prefer Blackadder to Porridge hate comedy

Dom you are obviously insane and therefore disqualified from the voting

"Is It Legal" gets my vote

And what about Jeeves and Wooster, is that not a sitcom?

no.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/images/han-fdr.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ad/Rooster.jpg/250px-Rooster.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/412DAH0QGXL._AA240_.jpg

Then what is it?

(xx-post)

Ha ha, yes, good call (xp). Distinct lack of David Croft shows too...

Medic: 'Do you have any disabilities??
Fletcher: 'Flat feet...'
Medic: (ignoring this) 'Any diseases?'
Fletcher 'Just Flat feet'
Medic: 'Are you a practicing homosexual?'
Fletcher: 'What, with these feet?'

(with regards to a urine sample)

Doctor: Can you fill that up for me?
Fletcher: What, from here?

Lack of David Croft shows was deliberate. See also Roy Clarke.

Fletcher: We could ring up those girls on Top of the Pops. Pan's People. There's one special one... beautiful Babs... can't remember her name...

Warren: I've got this letter, like.
Fletch: From a woman, it looks like, and, judging by the handrwiting and stationery, a woman of low standards.
Warren: That's right! It's from the wife!

Sam Kelly deserves a poll of his own.

Anyway yes, Porridge ftw.

I would vote for Felicity Kendal's ass if I could.

Fletcher: "My aunt did some missionary work Mr Mackay."
Mackay: "Oh yes Fletcher where was that?"
Fletcher: "Glasgow I think."

Barrowclough: I'm Scots on my mother's side, well, a bit of everything really. Scots, Irish, Polish ...
Fletch: Got about a bit, your mother.

Then what is it?

er, an adaptation of a series of pg wodehouse stories?

(sorry to interrupt the flow: more porridge gags!)

Ronnie Barker, Richard Beckinsale, Fulton Mackay and Brian Wilde ... and then there's the rest of the cast

... pretty impressive

christopher biggins!

Porridge's cast is amazing, Sam Kelly, Peter Vaughan, Tony Osoba, David Jason...

I forgot Peter Vaughan!

Also Ronald Lacey, Brian Glover...

Ricky Gervais is to comedy as Hank P Hannemeyer Jr is to quartermastering for the Detroit Prolapses

Cod and chips all over monitor

Perrin, if it was there, but Jesus Father Ted was fucking brilliant

Please don't vote for Black Books, I mean come on

Also Ronald Lacey, Brian Glover...

-- Tom D., Thursday, 6 December 2007 14:13 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^Brian Glover was awesome at playing an idiot, why did he do so many "GRRR I AM HARD" roles instead?

HOME TO FUCKING ROOST, people

oe maybe The Two of Us, at a push.

http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/images_tv/ohnoitsselwynfroggitt1976_2.jpg

I'm an american proudly throwing the switch for peep show

BILL FUCKING MAYNARD POLL

xp

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0007TFJ64.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TK0PP181L._AA240_.jpg

http://www.tvscoop.tv/frankspencer.jpg

in order of good:
I'm Alan Partridge (1997 - 2002)
Father Ted (1995 - 1998)
Porridge (1974 - 1977)
Blackadder (1983 - 1989)
The Office (2001 - 2003)
Dad's Army (1968 - 1977)
Fawlty Towers (1975 - 1979)
The Young Ones (1982 - 1984)
Only Fools And Horses (1981 - 2003)
The Likely Lads (1964 - 1974)
Red Dwarf (1988 - 1999)
Phoenix Nights (2001 - present)
Spaced (1999 - 2001)
Black Books (2000 - 2004)
Peep Show (2003 - present)
Absolutely Fabulous (1992 - 2005)
Steptoe And Son (1962 - 1974)
The Mighty Boosh (2004 - present)
Extras (2005 - present)
One Foot In The Grave (1990 - 2000)
Citizen Smith (1977 - 1980)
The It Crowd (2006 - present)
Just Good Friends (1983 - 1986)

This list is heavily shit-centric.

nonce sense

Hahaha The IT Crowd is hilarious lol he said "altavista"

I can't remember anything about Just Good Friends except Penny and Vince themselves, and the Wispa ad. No actual scenes or jokes spring to mind.

Likely Lads > Porridge > Dad's Army/Father Ted can't decide >>>>>>>> all the others.

Tho Steptoe really belongs in its own Theatre of Cruelty category.

The IT Crowd is hilarious lol he said "altavista"

cult classic not best seller

Is Mackay the best British sitcom character to impersonate? "FLETCH-AAAAAARRRR"

Ha ha - I've just noticed Just Good Friends. A COMEDIC LIST INDEED.

The Good Life, Reggie Perrin and Yes Minister are probably my three favourits sitcoms, so I'm not sure if there's any point my voting in this poll.

Just good friends:

I remember Vince passing off the lyrics of "Father and Son" as his own profound words of wisdom for Pen, only for the radio to play it 3 minutes later.

xpost and how weird was it that Fulton McKay was the name of the actor as well as the part he was playing?

I used to like Just Good Friends as a kid but I still thought Paul Nicholas was quite cool I think.

Looking back, Citizen Smith is sloppily written, long on stupid imaginary stereotypes and short on jokes. But Shirl's mom calling Robert Lindsay "Foxy" is still 2 billion times funnier than the entirety of Black Books and The I.T. Crowd between them.

no

only northerns and/or people old enough to have seen it first time rate Likely Lads. why did it never get repeated? early 90s would've been the best opportunity to do this ala re-run of Citizen Smith just after Stenders on a Monday night.

BECAUSE THE BBC WIPED OVER HALF THE TAPES

Is Mackay the best British sitcom character to impersonate? "FLETCH-AAAAAARRRR"

He is also central to the best ever episode of "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em"

SPROCKETT

But I pity the fool who doesn't get The Likely Lads. Clement and La Frenais, on song, are Dostoyevsky to some of the Jeffrey Archer shite on that list.

Likely Lads was repeated in the 90s! I remember watching it.

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads is probably the best piece of art concerning class in Britain ever made

lol where is green wing

Are you calling me northern and old enough etc?

Oh, OK.

But still, the rest of it: FDisagree.

xpost AND SO DO MY FRIENDS THERE!

That's "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads", not "The Likely Lads"?

Some episodes of The Likely Lads were repeated in the UK, maybe circa 95/96?

yes, absolutely.

Not "not" completely, but "whatever" was best by far.

xpost I'm sure some were repeated recently.

Was trying to find that BBC thing where you can search and find when shows were on in BBC history, and instead found this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/trial/open/aip/3997

I think I've only ever seen one episode of "The Likely Lads", it wasn't very good but apparently the best of the series was wiped by the ever thoughtful Beeb

Whatever Happened is better because it gets to work all those maturity/bettering yourself/men-being-boys riffs. Likely Lads is probly the only sitcom ever to improve when one of the central characters gets married. But what I've seen of the surviving Likely Lads is completely on point, too.

Likely Lads TX dates: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/treasurehunt/missing/likelylads.shtml

just don't remember ever seeing WHTTLL whereas caught everything else on the list without much effort, strangely.

"I bet we could go right round the world and you'd have a pat response ready."
"I've travelled man, I've seen a bit of the world now you know."
"What do you think of Koreans, for instance?"
"Not to be trusted. Cruel people. Much the same as all Orientals."
"That's a third of the world's population dismissed in a phrase. Russians?"
"Sinister."
"Egyptians?"
"Cowardly."
"Oh? I thought you might have saved that for Italians."
"No, no, they're greasy aren't they? Not as greasy as the French mind."
"Germans?"
"Arrogant."
"Spaniards?"
"Lazy."
"Danes?"
"Pornographic."
"Well that's just about everyone. Oh, Americans?"
"Well, they're flash aren't they?"
"So it's just down to the British is it?"
"Well, I haven't got much time for the Irish or the Welsh, and the Scots are worse than the Koreans."
"And you never could stand Southerners."
"To tell you the truth I don't like anybody much outside this town. And there's a lot of families in our street I can't stand either. Come to think of it I don't even like the people next door."
"I see, so from the distant blue Pacific through the barren wastes of Manchuria, to 127 Inkerman Terrace, you can't abide anyone."

another NME exclusive

^^^4-4-2

Types Smiley

that is fucking awesome, though. really.

Bewes' finally line there is sooooo good. It's a tribute to the writing that Bob and Terry were never simple "straight guy" - "funny guy" caricatures.

This thread made me try to find the theme to WHTTLL with no success. Can anyone ysi it?

Rodney Bewes = CLASSIC

Theme tune to "Dear Mother... Love Albert" (sung by Rodney Bewes) = CLASSIC

Anyone who doesn't vote for I'm Alan Partridge A)hasn't seen it or B) is a not-funny jerk.

have you seen Father Ted?

^^^

I voted IAP tho

but I voted Bread in the original poll, syke(s)

John Justen: hasn't seen second series of I'm Alan Partridge

I was tempted to vote for IAP despite only having seen the first two episodes thus far (dammit tv-links why did you have to die)

second series is holy grail, eh?

I found this while looking for that theme tune (no luck, apart from you tube).. It was a single on BBC REcords, and was a very minor chart hit, so ebay I guess..

Anyway:

WHATEVER'S HAPPENED TO THE LIKELY LADS?

By Adrian Lee Have your say(2)
The actors who played them haven't spoken in more than 30 years. As it's revealed that the duo could return to our screens, we find out what Bob and Terry would be doing now...

BEER, birds and football. Relying on that simple formula, the exploits of two working class Geordies captured the public imagination.

One a cynical waster, whose only concern seemed to be where his next pint was coming from; the other determined to better himself, marry the boss’s daughter and get a foothold among the middle classes.

Yet in spite of their differences, the former infant school classmates managed to cling on to their friendship.

Bob Ferris and Terry Collier, better known as the Likely Lads, became national icons in the Seventies as they sat in the pub wallowing in nostalgia and putting the world to rights. At its peak the show attracted an audience of 27 million viewers and regular repeats are a testament to its enduring popularity.

And James Bolam

More than three decades later Rodney Bewes, who played Bob, has spoken of his desire to revive the comedy. He’s held talks with the original scriptwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Bewes, 68, is convinced the Likely Lads can become a hit again. But a simmering feud with James Bolam, now 69, who played Terry, stands in the way.

They fell out when Bewes let slip that the intensely private Bolam was about to become a father and they haven’t spoken since. That was 31 years ago.

Clement, now living in the US, reveals that he and La Frenais couldn’t resist bringing the lives of two of their favourite characters up to date.

They're blokes you would meet in the street.

“Bob was always very ambitious,” says Clement. “He would have gone into the building trade, founded his own small business but gone bust. Terry would have been hit by a bus while crossing the street in Newcastle and been awarded compensation. Of course, seeing his friend who never did a proper day’s work now having all the money would be a bitter irony for Bob. We always felt the best comedy came when he was miserable.”

Clement says that Bob’s marriage to the disapproving Thelma would have survived despite Terry leading him astray.

SEARCH for:
“Thelma and Bob were joined at the hip,” says Clement who, with his writing partner, went on to create Porridge and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. “There’s a great strength about Thelma. They’d probably have kids.” Naturally, Terry would be single.

While he still sees Bewes occasionally, Clement has not bumped into Bolam for seven years. “We had dinner,” says the writer. “James never wanted to be associated with just one role. I think that he should have got over that now though because he’s had a very varied career. I’m surprised he still feels he has to be protective.

“They were a great partnership. We were going for a very realistic comedy and people found them believable. They were the sort of blokes you could meet in the street. Later on, comedies such as Men Behaving Badly tapped into that.”

The Likely Lads, which was first shown in 1964 in black and white on the then recently launched BBC2, is seen as one of the first programmes to give a voice not only to the working classes but the North. Viewers immediately warmed to Bob and Terry.

In the early Seventies, the pair returned in colour in Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? By now Terry had a failed marriage, while ambitious Bob was carving out a career and dating the redoubtable Thelma. Unusually for a revived sitcom, it proved even more successful than the original. There was even a film spin off in 1976, focusing on a disastrous camping holiday.

The script sparkled, the on-screen chemistry between Bewes and Bolam established them as a classic double act and in its own way the Likely Lads became a powerful social commentary. A changing world was portrayed, with the lads struggling to make sense of what was going on. They rowed and moaned constantly but remained great mates.

“I’d offer you a beer but I’m down to my last six pack,” Terry says in one episode. Who can forget the pals desperately trying to avoid hearing the result of an England football match so they can watch the highlights later?

They succeed but it transpires the game has been postponed.

IT didn’t matter that neither was a Geordie – Bewes is a Chelsea-supporting Yorkshireman while Bolam hails from Sunderland – or that the first series was filmed in Willesden Junction, north London.

Off-screen the pair were also pals but the friendship collapsed over a trivial incident in the same year the Likely Lads film was released.

Bewes was already the proud father of triplets when he revealed to a newspaper how Bolam had discovered that he was also to become a father. Realising what he’d done, Bewes telephoned to apologise but there was silence before the line went dead. It was the last contact between the two and Bolam even refused to appear as a guest when This Is Your Life honoured his old friend in 1980.

Their acting paths diverged. Bolam went on to confirm his talent in When The Boat Comes In, Only When I Laugh and The Beiderbecke Tapes. He also played the serial killer Dr Harold Shipman in an acclaimed television drama. He is married to the actress Susan Jameson and lives in West Sussex.

Still notoriously private, he once said in a rare interview: “I’m having new track rods fitted on my car. I don’t want to know anything about the man who’s doing it. Why should he want to know about me?”

Bewes continued treading the boards but struggled to make ends meet. There came a point when his overdraft reached £21,000 and he considered selling his home in Cornwall. In recent years his one-man theatre shows have been a success but he craves a return to sitcoms. When Ant and Dec starred in a Likely Lads tribute, Bewes had a cameo role.

He has said of the rift with Bolam: “It’s all terribly sad. We used to like each other so much. My wife Daphne was very fond of him. Now he won’t even talk about the Likely Lads. He says it’s dead in the water. He’s wrong. People still have great affection for it. They smile at me in the street and recognise me because of it.

“He also vetoed repeats of The Likely Lads for 18 years. He justified it by saying: ‘It’s a retrospective step in my career.’ But eventually they did show the series again and I’d love to have asked Jimmy: ‘Did you send the repeat cheque back because of your principles?’”

Bewes, now prepared to offer an olive branch, spoke excitedly this week about a new series or one-off special. “It would have been tremendous,” he said. “Instead of being the Likely Lads, we’d have been the Unlikeliest Grandads. We would have been sitting on a park bench in a pair of grubby grey anoraks, feeding the pigeons and grumping about youngsters.”

Carla Lane, who wrote the Liver Birds, would also love to see Terry and Bob return: “The original was brilliant comedy because they were down-to-earth lads and we all knew their kind. It could work again but it would have to be more than two old men reminiscing.”

Lane has her own ideas on how the pair might have aged. “Terry was always the more interesting character and he would still be living on the fringes, maybe even as a beggar, who is reunited with Bob in the street. His old friend is a retired company director, who lives a dull life but has political aspirations.”

Brigit Forsyth, who played Thelma, is thought to be enthusiastic about a revival but there has been no official approach. “It’s always James Bolam who has spiked it,” says a friend. “Brigit has very fond memories of the programme but she gets asked about the Likely Lads so often it’s a case of can we talk about something else.”

Ultimately, Clement fears there may be “too many difficulties” to allow a revival. He rules out casting another actor to work alongside Bewes. The writer of the comedy classics says he’s saddened by the rift between Bewes and Bolam. He hopes that the Likely Lads will, at least, one day shake hands, for old times’ sake.

you lot like some proper shit :(

I was tempted to vote for IAP despite only having seen the first two episodes thus far (dammit tv-links why did you have to die)

ok how have you seen Jam but not all of this?

re: Father Ted - In my netflix queue, but haven't gotten it yet. I'll take this as an endorsement and bump it.

xpost to Dom: true. not available on DVD in US. lame.

^^^Was gonna say this but then realised that Jagger would have been ELEVEN when IAP first showed, and then felt very old.

JJ: seriously, you're not missing out. I've said before that, excluding any three random episodes of the Sopranos, the first series of IAP is the best three hours of television ever made. Second series is a bit like watching your boss at work do his Alan Partridge impression, lots of box-ticking gags, no sign that anyone's enjoying anything.

IAP #1 = Top 10 (if not 5)
IAP #2 = 681st

IAP s2 much better on third viewing, as good as, say, Black Books (which was often too'cuddly' like Boosh but superior on account of Bailey and Moran being funnier dudes)

"Knowing me Knowing You" was better on the radio, if only so you didn;t see that it was often the same guests on weekly.

same actors you mean?

yeah. On t' radio, your minds eye made them different people.

Good bits of series 2:

"DAN!"
The speech to the fireplace salesman awards ceremony
Stirring a cup of beans with a sausage
"Oh, he's just a mate"

xpost to mark: the same actors used in every Day Today/Brass Eye sketch as well, pretty much. did not diminish the effect one bit, in fact there was humour to be found in contrasting the roles of each actor.

"DAN!"

hewn-from-genius genius.

It would have been almost impossible for the TV series of KMKY to be good as the radio one - then it would have been one of the best comedy series of all time!

Looking back, Citizen Smith is sloppily written, long on stupid imaginary stereotypes and short on jokes. But Shirl's mom calling Robert Lindsay "Foxy" is still 2 billion times funnier than the entirety of Black Books and The I.T. Crowd between them.

both of these sentences are very spot-on. got to love a sitcom set in tooting tho (well, i do). i also have the hugest soft spot for Just Good Friends. Dear John anyone?

no thanks. brr.

Best bit of Series Two:

"...Bono... Bono!..... BONO!!.... BONO!!!!!!"

i preferred ilx when it was on the radio

I was thinking about including Dear John, but droppped it to keep the list as short as possible. Then I thought about making a John Sullivan poll, but by then my lunch hour was over.

other best bits of series 2: every exchange with the Seth Efriken

That dude is a decent comic actor, Italian barber in TAIS best comedy character of the decade by miles

The Colour Of Alan is definitely my favourite episode of the 2nd series, particularly the speech. I've always found (other people) vomiting to be hilarious though.

Bewes was already the proud father of triplets when he revealed to a newspaper how Bolam had discovered that he was also to become a father. Realising what he’d done, Bewes telephoned to apologise but there was silence before the line went dead. It was the last contact between the two and Bolam even refused to appear as a guest when This Is Your Life honoured his old friend in 1980.

That's a pretty fucking petty reason to cut someone out of your life.

He also vetoed repeats of The Likely Lads for 18 years. He justified it by saying: ‘It’s a retrospective step in my career.’

Needs to get over himself.

I'm kind of intrigued that Bolam is a bit of a closet psycho tho. Somebody should repeat all of When the Boat Comes In, see what happens.

Second Thoughts

Closet psycho? Do tell.

Sorry, missed Mark G's post somehow. Carry on.

There was an episode of Citizen Smith where his mate serenaded a girl outside her window while one of them played a tape in the background and the tape sped up. Funniest thing i'd ever seen aged 6.

Ever Decreasing Circles was better than everything on that list.

Lynskey not entirely correct but not far wrong

Second Thoughts

my (then-recently-divorced) dad's favourite show when it came out

Oddly enough, I was thinking of starting a thread on semi-forgotten 80s sit-coms that no one ever talks about and Dear John was going to be one of them. Also, Chance in a Million.

I feel obliged to mention 'Shelley'.

i just remember "dear john" being appallingly depressing. i used to watch it as a kid and think, god, i bet i end up like that.

i vaguely remember the episode when he goes round kirk's house and sees the man behind the bravado ... brr.

xpost: never watched it. "bottle boys", anyone? surely the worst sitcom in history.

Who is sadder, Kirk or Ralph?

Another forgotten 80's sitcom: Ronnie Corbett's "Sorry"

i was forced to remember it the other week watching charlie brooker's screenwipe; someone (might have been matt berry) was whacking on about how it had the best theme tune ever. hmm.

i can't remember a single joke or set-up from it; just the basic premise (ronnie corbett is a twat, and so is his mum).

it's being repeated on uktv 'gold'! corbett's character is totally a prototype ilX0r

Someone please provide name of intensely creaky sitcom I saw about ... umm, some sort of Scottish couple where she's a nurse and he's a superhero from another planet? Kind of a Mork and Mindy rip-off, except he's a superhero. From another planet. And she's a nurse.

my hero

(not you, the sitcom DO YOU SEE?)

hem-hem not scottish either :)

or funny.

corbett's character is totally a prototype ilX0r

this really has got me thinking about a thread dedicated to re-casting british sitcoms with ilx0rs ...

also: why no love so far for "open all hours"? which was fucking godlike.

The bloody awful "Up the Elephant and Round the Castle" starring Jim Davidson as a milkman...

HO SHIT THAT WAS FUCKING DREADFUL ... wasn't he a chauffeur? milkmen = bottle boys, which i mentioned above. robin askwith. JESUS JESUS.

here's one none of you will remember: "the happy apple".

Set in an advertising agency? Leslie Ash starred? You know a sitcom is really bad when there's no dedicated fan site for it. Similarly, "Trippers Day" starring Leonard Rossiter, and "Slingers Day" starring Bruce Forsyth, both set in the same supermarket. All I remember about the latter was a scene where Forsyth's character is naked except for a "nappy" made out of yards of bogroll.

that's the one! actually, i remember very little about it other than a vague memory of the opening credits, and a shit version of the william tell overture as the theme music.

re: up the elephant ... i'm confusing it with "home james", in which JD was definitely a chauffeur (but still shit). sorry. i actually have no idea what UTE was about, but i know i'd loathe it.

trippers' day/slingers' day: yes! good GOD i'd forgotten about those. wow. got changed with LR died, didn't it? dere god, i hope for his sake he didn't die halfway through making it. what a way to go.

I was having trouble placing the My Hero accents, and eventually just went for Scottish because of ... the other nurse, maybe? I dunno, what are they, in Yorkshire or something?

It was TERRIFICALLY unfunny, like unfunny enough that I watched it just to marvel at its weird creakiness -- but then suddenly toward the end I laughed intensely at several things, so who knows

(Wait, Wikipedia says it's supposed to be set in London. I was possibly just confused by having, like, the Irish guy talking to the Scottish woman talking to someone with a weird northern accent, creating some oddball blur)

xpost: never watched it. "bottle boys", anyone? surely the worst sitcom in history.

"bottle boys, bottle boys
something something something noise"

That's all I can remember, must have been really shit

British Sitcom Guide:
http://www.sitcom.co.uk/list.shtml

Seeing how "The Young Ones" is in the poll, I have to mention "Filthy, Rich & Catflap" and the almighty "Bottom".

this really has got me thinking about a thread dedicated to re-casting british sitcoms with ilx0rs ...

http://www.davidjason.info/images/open-all-hours-2.jpg

L-R: Louis, Dom

C'mon, there must be at least one other old fart on here who remembers David Jason in A Sharp Intake of Breath.

And where are the mad props for Windsor Davies' oeuvre? It Ain't 'Alf Hot Mum and Never the Twain chalked up a hell of a lot of forgettable episodes between them.

Yeah, I remember A Sharp Intake Of Breath. Wasn't it set in a warehouse or something? I was very young when it was on.

Akshully all I remember is David Jason taking a sharp intake of breath, regularly. Norman Lovett may have been involved?

Nah, I mean that 70s bloke who looked like him, don't I?

I remember the cartoon title credits, which were actually done by a fairly famous cartoonist whose name escapes me at the moment.

Is Vince Powell the worst pound for pound sitcom writer that ever lived, by the way?

xpost Yeah like some bloke who drew cartoons for the Daily Express or sump'n?

Bill Tidy?

Just found him - Mel Calman

I've said before, I feel sorry for Vince Powell because, although he is a fucking biggot, he gets dragged onto clips shows so we can all laugh at him and how non-racist we are these days, before they show some Ricky Gervais/Little Britain clips.

Sorry had the highest ratings of any British TV show to ever be cancelled

My secret fear is that I'll be Timothy Lumsden when I'm 40.

I do remember one joke from Sorry!

Timothy was served curried cod for supper and, balking at this, said: "Mother! If God had meant us to eat curried cod, he would have placed the North Sea off the coast of India".

I have no idea why this stuck in my mind. At the time, I used to think the board game Sorry! was somehow related to the show.

Both look innocent but will definately cause arguments?

Sorry had the highest ratings of any British TV show to ever be cancelled

Is that irony or am I just being a wanker?

toss-up between Father Ted and the Boosh, but ICE FLOE NOWHERE TO GO

Bread

Clive fucking Dunn fucking falling in a fucking pond. That's comedy.

Clive "The Fucking Don" Dunn

Is that irony or am I just being a wanker?

-- Autumn Almanac, Friday, 7 December 2007 01:01 (8 hours ago) Link

^^^It's true! It had something like 14 million an episode. More innocent times.

... and only four (maybe three; fucked if i'm checking dates) channels. and no internets. and pubs probably shutting at 7pm, or something. aye, gathering round a big rented thorn telly which couldn't display red properly and watching ronnie corbett trapped in a domestic hell only slightly more awful than your own: them were the days, aye.

BEST RONNIE CORBETT JOKE: the one about the dude who goes to buy snails and gets drunk

Just ahead of the cricket playing horse

Another forgotten 80's sitcom: Ronnie Corbett's "Sorry"

"Sorry" is better than virtually everything in this poll, it's fuckin' classic.

I've had the joy of working on the DVD subtitles for Sorry! S1+S2 twice. I think someone forgot that it had been released in 2004 and commissioned it again. This time with an 18min Corbett interview as bait. By the end of its run it was probably going out at the same time as Clarence, so, for once in his career, Corbs was in a better sitcom than Barks. Faint praise and that.

Ronnie C >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> some twat like Dylan Moran

^4-4-2

corbett's spotlight jokes on the Ben Elton show were bloody awful.

Yeah, boo on him for not bringing his A-game to a show with Ben Elton and those two Australian cunts

I'm not convinced that 75 year old comic actor Ronnie Corbett has to bother all that much about impressing a Ben Elton audience or not

Oops, he was 77... on Tuesday!

There's room for both Corbett and Moran in my world. Well, Ron's only small, isn't he?

Funnily enough, Kenneth "Jeff! It's me, Marty!" Cope wrote A Sharp Intake Of Breath.

Ever-popular pub conversation: what was the 2nd best ITV sitcom?

Can we pause and imagine OFITG with Les Dawson (Renwick's 2nd choice after Wilson initially didn't want the role)?

Can't really take issue with the list at the start of the thread except for:
Just Good Friends - genuine TV phenom at the time, but truly dire to see now
Citizen Smith - yeah, Sullivan really only had one good show in him - this is poor
IT Crowd - half-watched S1 repeats recently and it's weaker than I even remember; S2 better but, if it only improves at this rate, it'll be S9 before it's as good as a middling episode of Ted
Ab Fab - nosedived after S1; Saunders used to be great - wha' happen'?

And the sins of omission:
Hancock's Half Hour - solid gold
Ever Decreasing Circles - if I'm only allowed one dose of Briers, this is it
Open All Hours - big, broad, daft Roy Clark Northern bollocks, but miles ahead of anything else he ever wrote cos he lucked out and got two of the Greats in the leads

What was that office based comedy in the 70s, it had that Liverpudlian guy who played Ives in "Porridge" in it? It was called "The *Somethings*"?

The Squirrels?

The Squirrels? Written by Eric Chappell, no less.

Most of the action takes place in the accounts department of International Rentals, a television hire company. Bernard Hepton plays Mr Fletcher, the boss, nicknamed "Fletcher the Lecher" because he fancies himself with the ladies ... especially sexy Susan, played by Patsy Rowlands. (Fletcher is also a tyrant, of course.) Ken Jones plays Rex, Fletcher's nervous dogsbody assistant.

I love Ken Jones - he was in The Golden Vision too.

xp!

Right! Eric Chappell wrote it!

Bernard Hepton plays Mr Fletcher, the boss, nicknamed "Fletcher the Lecher" because he fancies himself with the ladies ... especially sexy Susan, played by Patsy Rowlands. (Fletcher is also a tyrant, of course.) Ken Jones plays Rex, Fletcher's nervous dogsbody assistant.

Do you think Ricky Gervais remembered it?

Oh yeah, another one - with Lewis Collins and *sigh* Diane Keen...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41GZ8J0R94L._AA280_.jpg

Ab Fab - nosedived after S1; Saunders used to be great - wha' happen'?

Was Saunders really ever great? Ab Fab is OK sometimes but everything else I've ever seen by Saunders and/or French is fucking awful and I'm mystified how they ever got popular!

"French and Saunders are masters of sketch comedy" is maybe the biggest ever fallacy in British comedy criticism

Corbett has never been funny without Barker

Well, I'm going to get the opportunity to see some early F&S again in the next few weeks (it's me job), so I can see whether my good memories of '82-'90 Jen Saund (Comic Strip and all that) actually hold up. Might turn out that it's the one out of Raw Sex who's not Rivron that's the talent in those early shows.

Corbett has never been funny without Barker

"Sorry" but you're wrong

Corbett has never been funny without Barker

-- blueski, Friday, 7 December 2007 11:24 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

^^^so so so 4-5-1. Corbett = greatest stand-up comic the UK has ever produced.

I'm just going by what I've seen i.e. Corbett on TV being unfunny a LOT in the last 25 years. I still find him quite likeable tho. I did even like Sorry! as a kid but big deal back then Bread was my favourite show.

I never really liked F&S much either. Preferred Wood & Walters and Atkinson-Wood.

Can we pause and imagine OFITG with Les Dawson (Renwick's 2nd choice after Wilson initially didn't want the role)?

"4291? OM NOM NOM"

Hard to imagine Les Dawson married to Annette Crosbie

Crosbie was second choice after Roy Barraclough

Worst big-ish budget bbc sitcom ever - that one from the mid 90s where Chris Barrie was a scouse jack the lad. What was that called?

A Prince Among Men?

The one where he was a footballer?

Terrible but not anything like as bad as that Harry Enfield one based on that Private Eye comic strip

God it was bad, maybe because i like Chris B so much (Spitting Image, Red Dwarf series 1-3).

The Brittas Empire?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/content/images/2007/08/07/orrible_3_396x222.jpg

Never actually saw that, don't think I want to either

Man, Red Dwarf was shit

The one where he was a footballer?

-- Tom D., Friday, 7 December 2007 11:59 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^he was basically a really obvious caricature of Kevin Keegan, except without being beaten up in an M1 layby for [CONTROVERSIAL MODERATOR EDIT]

i voted 'i'm alan partridge'.

i didn't know james murphy had done a sitcom.

xposts

damn those controversial moderator edits!

'i didn't know james murphy had done a sitcom.'

John Sullivan is playing at my house.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Black Books is the only right answer.

http://www.international.ucla.edu/cms/images/Mr%20Wong.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Phoenix Nights (2001 - present) 0
Extras (2005 - present) 0
Fawlty Towers (1975 - 1979) 0
Spaced (1999 - 2001) 0
One Foot In The Grave (1990 - 2000) 0
The Young Ones (1982 - 1984) 0

omg

dammit we almost had the right outright winner. shoulda split blackadder up.

Good and wide ranging selection. NOT. Birds of a Feather FTW.

Pheo-doppa-loppa-doppa-lis. That's some funny shit right there.

Father Ted - not quite as funny as it seemed a decade ago; too much of the contemporary comedy writing disease of needlessly drawn out analogies substituting for actual humour (i.e. "you're worse than an A done by B in a C").
Blackadder - see above except I probably would have found it funnier had it not been for Atkinson getting in the way all the time.
Likely Lads - too young to have seen the original, but Whatever Happened... seemed enormously poignant for its time. Haven't seen it since the seventies though so I've no idea whether it still stands up.
Porridge - superbly constructed and genuinely funny character comedy.
I'm Alan Partridge - first series meh, second series superb, third series unnecessary.
Absolutely Fabulous - never found this funny except for the original French and Saunders sketch which is how they should have left it.
Black Books - same problem as Blackadder; could develop if it weren't allowed to be a vehicle for unattractive star's glorified stand-up routines.
Peep Show - can't get into it; far too pleased with itself.
The Mighty Boosh - see Peep Show.
The IT Crowd - see The Mighty Boosh.
The Office - best when it wasn't trying to be funny.
Steptoe And Son - brilliant, immaculate comedy.
Red Dwarf - making no great claims for this but I always liked it.
Only Fools And Horses - this was terrific until it started thinking it was terrific.
Citizen Smith - very funny and I think it's stood up, even if only as a prequel to GBH. Certainly needed Peter Vaughan in it though.
Dad's Army - objectively I can admire this hugely, in terms of writing and performance which are both marvellous. Trouble is I just don't find it funny.
Phoenix Nights - loved this; very naturalistic humour (but the Max and Paddy spinoff doesn't really work).
Extras - doesn't know what it wants to be, much like its creator.
Fawlty Towers - greatest sitcom ever, you are all mad not voting for it. I know it's been repeated 12 million times but even so it's brilliant and quite terrifying in ways - especially when you get older and you realise that Basil F is just trying his inadequate best to keep crap in order.
Just Good Friends - skilfully done but fundamentally unfunny.
Spaced - funny and inventive.
One Foot In The Grave - see Only Fools And Horses.
The Young Ones - now dated and not particularly funny.

No Alf Garnett, no Reggie Perrin, no Hancock, no Tom/Barbara or Margo/Jerry, no Frank Spencer, no It Ain't Half Hot Mum even (well I found it funnier than Dad's Army), no Nightingales (the sitcom that everybody forgets and it was fab and 20 billion times more genuinely surreal than Boosh), no Roy Clarke or Carla Lane, so clearly there was scope for a lot more to be included.

I'm quite surprised Fawlty Towers didn't get a single vote.

Maybe it was just down to overfamiliarity.

Also - no Sykes!

Haven't seen Sykes since I was kid, suspect it mightn't be belly-laugh central now.

I think Fawlty Towers' problem might be that it's admired more than its loved, but I agree that getting zero votes is the biggest O_o of the whole poll.

Hardly surprising that the voting would skew 90s and later, given the demographic for ILX. Ted is still great I think, but do all the modern sitcoms suffer from overfamiliarity due to video/DVD/satellite TV repeats. At the same time, does that overfamiliarity beat out underfamiliarity of the pre-1980 sitcoms?

And how played are the following styles: surreal, edgy, naturalistic?

Belly laughs were never really Sykes' thing; it was that near-extinct species of "gentle" comedy which most people now regard as interchangeable with "unfunny." I suspect younger folk would find it too slow and generally WTF?

However, Up Pompeii!

Yeah I like some of Roy Clarke's gentle stuff. Open All Hours is theoretically gentle, except its played by the De Niro/Pacino of British sitcoms. I would like to rep hard for the first two or three series of Last of the Summer Wine, pre-bathtub hilarity, but I need to watch them again first I think.

Carla Lane isn't gentle tho, just ropey. I thought The Liver Birds was all that when I was a kid, maybe that's the exception.

I thought The Liver Birds was very funny when I was a kid, but again I haven't seen it since then. I didn't mind Butterflies either but Bread and Solo were where we began to part company.

Yeah, Michael Bates-era Summer Wine isn't bad.

I'm Alan Partridge - first series meh, second series superb, third series unnecessary.

Assuming you mean Knowing Me Knowing You by "first series"?

Yes, I lazily lumped it all in as one, Heston Blumenthal-style.

Hey folks, should I Didn't Know You Cared have been on this list? And should I buy the boxed set? I only know Tinniswood through The Home Front and a couple of books but he is exackly the thing for nostalgic winter hibernation, yeah?

Actually, yes, but the first series with Stephen Rea as Carter Brandon is the best.

It's actually easier to get the DVD than the books now :(

The books are much darker than the sitcom ever was (same with the Perrin books, oddly enough).

Yeah, I think I've read one of the Perrins. Did you ever see The Home Front? I blame that for giving me existential trauma at the age of 14.

I think I remember that one. Was Warren Clarke in it?

Yeah. They were interlocked 1 hr plays about an eccentric, loveless Northern family (surprise!) with Brenda Bruce as the matriarch who revels in respectableness and limitation. Some of the stories had time-shifting themes and the funny was almost overwhelmed by the bleakness and claustrophobia. As a teenage boy it was like having my whole internal map of home played out on TV.

No "No Frills" with Kathy Staff.... no credibility!!!!!

Fawlty Towers is my second-favourite after Father Ted. It's practically unimpeachable. I don't know what my third and fourth favourites are because I haven't seen too many of these in the past year and my tastes will have changed. Phoenix Nights probably holds third spot at present, followed by what I've seen of IAP, but Porridge/Likely Lads/Steptoe are unchartered territory for me.

Classic opening titles + (sitcom) theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNdgVUaxnAM