PBS Classic British Comedies

Sunday nights of my youth were spent watching Black Adder, Waiting For God, Are You Being Served, Chef, Fawlty Towers, Keeping Up Apperances, 'Allo 'Allo, Mr. Bean etc.. Later on they aired the one about the woman Anglican priest and some that were more lighthearted and goofy than the relatively raunchy earlier ones. Monty Python was an early staple, but they stopped showing it - too expensive to get the rights?

Mostly terrible - Waiting For God seemed pretty edgy (she's an independent atheist!), the first season of Chef was okay. Black Adder seems like the worst, in retrospect.

Black Adder seems like the worst, in retrospect.

Are you kidding me?

Lack of Python meant my elementary school friends and I were saved from being the asshats endlessly quoting Dead Parrot skits (that was my brother instead), but we all thought we were fucking clever for discovering these instead of Home Improvement or whatever late '80s sitcoms were hot.

I would say that Blackadder 2/3/4 beats everything else in that list.

Not at all. I tried watching some on DVD recently and it's so terrible.

black adder is the bomb, http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_leftkrHJkw1qf8yek.gif

Yeah, seriously. Blackadder is still really good. That's just shocking Milo.

Not at all. I tried watching some on DVD recently and it's so terrible.

― boots get knocked from here to czechoslovakier (milo z), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 2:42 PM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark

Wow.

I watched the Christmas special a couple weeks ago. Classic. U mad.

Blackadder is still beloved and thought of an an A list comedy here in the country of its birth. I don't see how it can be considered the worst of the ones you list at all!

Am I allowed to contribute? I've never watched PBS.

I loved watching all these shows on PBS when I was a kid but don't really revisit them anymore.

But I have been on a serious Masterpiece kick lately, so...

I'm really think maybe you're missing something with Blackadder Milo because it's really pretty great.

You're repping for Chef and knocking Blackadder? Almost as speechless as I was with Lex's all comedians are scum rant.

Keeping Up Appearances is the legitimate worst, that shit was poison even when I was a kid. Black Adder is the biggest disappointment from what I thought of it then and looking at it now.

x-post - LOL ^ this.

I think Blackadder mostly hasn't aged too well but that cd be partly over-exposure.

Is Chef the one with Lenny Henry? If so it's almost completely forgotten here.

Did you get Sorry with Ronnie Corbett? It was like some agonising Kafka nightmare that went on forever.

AYBS, KIU and Black Adder were the only three that never got rotated out. My local PBS station ran all three constantly from ~1986 til 1995. They may still, tbh.

Chap - Yes, that's Chef.

I can still hear Hyacinth Bucket's voice in my head and it makes me want to punch a kitten.

Lead actress on Waiting For God wasn't even 50 when it debuted! That's amazing.

Or what was that one with Richard Briers as the OCD control freak who kept getting pwned by his smug neighbour? Shit was ridiculously dark for a milquetoast evening sitcom.

Ever Decreasing Circles it was called. Like watching the build-up to a spree shooting.

Very early one that never got aired again was a '70s show about a couple of sorta-hippies moving in to a respectable area and making nice with their uptight neighbors?

Ever Decreasing Circles it was called. Like watching the build-up to a spree shooting.

Do you mean The Good Life? Stockbroker dude gives it up to become self-sufficient/run his own farm next door to super snooty neighbours.

I like Vicar of Dibley far far too much, given what it was.

Absolutely Fabulous, OTOH, I never had any type of lingering "I am afraid this might be terrible" doubt over. That show was fucking amazing.

also IIRC Blackadder 2-3 are maybe the funniest fucking pieces of television ever aired

i used to watch these when I was young as an extension of my Doctor Who anglophilia - Good Neighbors, To the Manor Born, Doctor in the House, Fawlty Towers, Benny Hill. my favorite was The Goodies, would love to see if it holds up now like Python

and I still watch my Young Ones tapes several times a year (though not PBS)

'Ever Decreasing Circles', a huge influence on Ricky Gervais. I'll leave you to decide whether that's a good thing or not.

I remember The Young Ones made zero sense to me until after I'd graduated from college

I was so into Ab Fab in HS. I haven't watched it in years but would prob still love if only for nostalgic reasons.

Yes, the Good Life or 'Good Neighbors' here. I am a horrible unreliable narrator when it comes to these.

The best part about AYBS and Good Neighbors as a child was beginning to grasp how weird and pastel the '70s were.

The Romanian babies episode - omg.

The way some children are frightened of clowns, I was scared shitless of Benny Hill. Probably still am.

I dunno if The Goodies has held up. The stunts and visual stuff is often great but a lot of the dialogue is pretty flat.

Ab Fab wasn't on PBS though, was it? I think Comedy Central.

Was also really into The Young Ones for a while in college. Another I haven't seen in a long while.

Shamefully, The Goodies is rarely shown on TV, despite the plethora of cable/freeview channels devoted to repeats of old comedy shows. Maybe it has to do with Bill Oddie being an antagonistic pain in the ass.

Some of The Goodies' episodes still stand up today, others less so, because they're not as stuffed with jokes as Fawlty Towers. Although 'Kung Fu Capers' is the Goodies episode that caused a viewer to actually die laughing.

I remember being completely obsessed with Yes, Minister during the 3 months they showed it on the Twin Cities PBS channel.

Saw Bill Oddie on a bus to Hull one time and I remembered hearing rumours about his rep, that plus the gob on him made me decided not to say "hi" and "thanks for lols". Graeme Garden is probly the funniest one in the show, now I'm an adult. There are rumours that the Beeb still hold a grudge against them for fucking off to ITV, hence no repeats on Dave etc.

nb I don't really believe that, sure it's some rights argument

The way some children are frightened of clowns, I was scared shitless of Benny Hill. Probably still am.

― boots get knocked from here to czechoslovakier (milo z), Tuesday, 18 January 2011 14:54 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is a perfectly logical response. With me it was Wurzel Gummage.

They never show the Lenny Henry sitcom where he played Delbert Wilkins either.

The Young Ones seems like the height of human artistic achievement when you are twelve. As an adult it still raises quite a few chuckles but has more value as an interesting snapshot of its time. I'm not trying to belittle though, I still have a lot of affection for it. Big influence on Trey Stone and Matt Parker apparently.

I remember being completely obsessed with Yes, Minister during the 3 months they showed it on the Twin Cities PBS channel.

― Indolence Mission (DJP), Tuesday, January 18, 2011 7:58 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yes, (Prime) Minister is glorious.

Saw Bill Oddie on a bus to Hull one time

I've seen him around a few times, he lives down the road. Always looks utterly miserable.

orrite some facts for you milo, you disgusting savage:

- Blackadder is ace
- The Goodies is brilliant and fun and thoroughly enjoyable and has not lost an ounce of quality over the decades
- I have never seen Ever Decreasing Circles but bloody will now having read this thread

The Young Ones seems like the height of human artistic achievement when you are twelve.

I watched the first season on VHS (all the local video store had) quite often at 14/15, and I loved the hell out of it - as an adult (more or less) I've never been tempted to seek out the later seasons.

I saw half an episode of Ever Decreasing Circles this morning while I was eating my breakfast, first time I've seen it for ages. Noodle Vague OTM upthread about the spree-shooting thing. It's way bleak.

we all thought we were fucking clever for discovering these instead of Home Improvement or whatever late '80s sitcoms were hot.

Home Improvement was early nineties, broh. Show a little respect.

Albert gets good lines tho.

Yeah I can remember Raquel zinging Del, but I've got nothing with Cassandra, she's like a prop.

never got the sense that Tessa Peake-Jones and Buster Merryfield were particularly bad actors at all

it's weird cos iirc when Sullivan did Just Good Friends the Jan Francis character was really well-written?

or Wolfie's girlfriend's mum in Citizen Smith. He can write funny parts for women.

Right, time to remember Hywell Bennett's "Shelley"

and everyone else goes uh?

I don't know what they used to teach at RADA in Raquel's day but portraying working class women was obv. not on the curriculum

never got the sense that Tessa Peake-Jones and Buster Merryfield were particularly bad actors at all

Speechless!

xps jan francis/penny dual lead character tho so more scope and room to develop her

Sullivan also did Sitting Pretty with a lead woman but never watched this

xxxp no, not 'uh?'! I was thinking about Shelley the the other day (prompted by that Loveable Loser thread). Trying to remember what exactly it was like, and whether something like it might do well again now - (pseudo-)Intellectual laybout doleite loser glumness, right?

Being on the dole = scumbag, these days tho

xpost - lol i must have misremembered it. trigger is the one looking around for were del went, my bad.

Speechless!

sounds more like you just didn't like their (entirely believable) characters for whatever reason.

I was too young to stay up for Shelley and don't think I'd've got it anyway. Looking back, it was a bit literate for an ITV show wasn't it? Look Back in Anger played for chuckles? (NB the Richard Burton movie of LBiA is all chuckles tbh) Wd probly like to check out Shelley at some point, anyway.

But not before I get a Selwyn Froggit boxed set.

never got the sense that Tessa Peake-Jones and (her that played Cassandra) were particularly bad actors at all

I've seen them in other things, Her that played Cassandra was in "Frost" (her first line was "we meet again!" a ha ha lol..) and she was pretty good. So, either her character was meant to be flat and dull, or she can't do comedy. Tessa's character was meant to be a posho that had fallen, if I recall...

Was Shelley dislikeable or admirable? Can't remember & was too small to properly understand it, or see it often. Was there a 'we all know one' appeal to him & citizen smith? Guess that wouldn't play as well now.

So there goes my sitcom about a Zizek-spouting revolutionary postgrad living in Penge.

Marlene >>>>>>>>>>>> Raquel >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Cassandra

sounds more like you just didn't like their (entirely believable) characters for whatever reason.

Nah, that old guy *mugs furiously* couldn't act his way of a *juts chin out several times* paper bag

Citizen Smith was totally played for laughs, his Marxism undermined by venality, laziness and stupidness. Shelley I think was more antiheroic.

My irritation with Uncle Albert adnittedly has much to do with him being such a poor replacement for the Grandad, who was great and terribly camp

Marlene was probably the best actress in OFAH but didn't really have to do much.

scratch what i said earlier about Compo. Character confusion.

But not before I get a Selwyn Froggit boxed set.

OK, that's you. And me. Selling two copies is not really economically viable tho, I fear.

Looking back, it was a bit literate for an ITV show wasn't it?

Was it in that Agony Sunday slot? Maybe they'd run the slightly adult-themed stuff there?

i think ingrained parental snobbery aside, the fact is that ITV didn't hate writers and put out some good programming in the 70s and 80s too

Yah true, strange to think there was a plater-rosenthal era of itv now Downton fucking Abbey is treated as miracle of old-fashioned telly on their part.

(sry for off-topic old man grumbling.)

Is that Jim or Jack Rosenthal there?

My irritation with Uncle Albert adnittedly has much to do with him being such a poor replacement for the Grandad, who was great and terribly camp

Didn't Grandad go on to play the older Salieri in Amadeus?

What are people's thoughts on Rab C. Nesbitt?

"One Foot in the Grave" never made it to PBS?

It was on PBS in my town, and apartantly it also got to the right people in the U.S., because there was a American version w/Bill Cosby.

NV & Dada, you do know Selwyn Frogitt actually is out on DVD, yes? Network even have it in stock for cheap.

:D last time I looked there was only a bits and pieces DVD. roll on pay day.

Fuck me how did Curry and Chips get a DVD release?

Ah well, no Come Back, Mrs Noah, no credibility.

huge clamour for it after everyone got out of the pub xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd_Vjq5MEeQ

warning: mind-bogglingly rong on most conceivable levels

Re gay humour in The Goodies &c.:

http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2011/01/19/12578/carry_on_camping

Camp comedy is dying because gay culture has been accepted into the mainstream.

The ‘tiresome’ reliance on arch irony and shrill double entendres also meant that the theatrically ostentatious style was in danger of being in an artistic cul-de-sac, a panel of experts suggested.

eternal faves:
Blackadder
Young Ones
Goodies

Watched with me Dad and loved
Fawlty towers
Porridge
Open All Hours
Only Fools and Horses
Minder

When I was little I thought Ronnie Barker was the funniest dude around, lol

no mention of Dear John yet? John 'Only Fools And Horses' Sullivan's other amazing sitcom. just released on DVD after years of people campaigning:
http://content9.flixster.com/question/66/66/21/6666211_std.jpg
Kirk St Moritz: one of the grestest, saddest comedy creations of all time imo.

Rodney getting married and moving out of the flat in the '89 series was what did for Only Fools.. there was 1 or 2 bright spots after that (Margate xmas special)
but as soon as it became about miscarriages and domestio rows oyyyyyy.

Wow, I didn't realize that "Dear John" started over there. We had it on NBC w/Judd Hirsch.

What are people's thoughts on Rab C. Nesbitt?

Used to be great, got quite bad towards the end (the first time round), should never have been brought back. Same trajectory as OFAH, really.

Was wondering how the stereotyping went down in Scotland?

i remember the theme tune to the US dear john, but nothing more about either version

Was wondering how the stereotyping went down in Scotland?

Mostly OK, I think. I certainly saw it as affectionate rather than cruel, the crux being that Rab was intelligent, if not educated. Where it went wrong in later years, much in the same way that Caroline Aherne did with the Royle Family, is that it stopped caring about the details in its characters and just started painting in broad crude strokes.

Hmm, I thought what Caroline Aherne did was to make her character less sympathetic/more selfish.

A bit like neil from the Young ones, second series.

I haven't seen the most recent Royle Family, but the last couple of Christmas episodes seem to be playing up the lazy/dull/stupid characteristics and forgetting about any actual depth of characterisation. Which was my main complaint with the new Rab C as well (I only watched two of them, right enough...). I like my sitcom characters to be credible, if not likeable. And it's worse when they used to be and now they aren't.

tbf i know loads of real ppl that go that way in terms of character progression

Tru dat.

Bill Oddie was/is a big funk fan. There's an article somewhere in which he talks about the sound he was trying to achieve on "Funky Gibbon". He mentions Sly Stone & On The Corner.
Used to be seen at Prince gigs in the 80s.

Bill Oddie:
You won't believe the musical pretensions that went on in my head. I listened to a lot of jazz and a lot of funk, and that period of the '70s for me was fantastic - it was really the era when fusion started. The people I liked were Sly Stone and early Parliament, and I listened to what was happening in jazz at the time, when Miles Davis was coming up with some very interesting hybrid music. With 'Funky Gibbon', I started off - it's almost unbelievable considering how stupid the song is - trying to get the feel of a Miles Davis track, I can't remember which, probably just after Bitches Brew and that sort of era: some really choppy Miles Davis-type rhythm, again with a Sly Stone influence.
We had marvellous musicians on those sessions, but they couldn't get it. They knew what I was sort of trying to do, but I probably listened to that sort of thing more than they did, and it was driving us nuts, so we sent the drummer and the bass-player and the guitarist home. And I had a keyboard player called Dave Macrae, who'd played with Matching Mole and Robert Wyatt and people like that - governor player - and he started playing some clavinet, very Stevie Wonder-type feel to it, and I said, 'That's fine; could you do a synth-bass on it?'
And then I literally started whacking the top of the grand piano. So the actual rhythm-track of 'The Funky Gibbon' has only got me and Dave on it - he plays clavinet and synth-bass and we miked up the top of the piano. Then we got the horn section of Gonzales playing a Memphis Horns-type thing. It was lovely for me to be able to use musicians I liked and try to reproduce sounds which I also listened to. And then put the stupid song over the top of it. The idea that all that effort went into 'The Funky Gibbon'!
It sounds like Parliament on a bad day, or something like that (laughs), that kind of thing. I think subconsciously people feel it - this was always my theory about it, I thought: I want the music to sound good or authentic, whatever style it happens to be in.