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!

"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