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British comedy - funny or just weird (not an acquired taste weird either)?

You mean you don't get us EH?

Not much of a poll for people who like British comedy. All questions directed towards EH's taste in my opinion.

After all British comedy is distributed globally so there must be something in it.

Anyway off to airporet now and watch some good old British comedy on the flight.

drewpeacock wrote:Not much of a poll for people who like British comedy. All questions directed towards EH's taste in my opinion.

After all British comedy is distributed globally so there must be something in it.

Anyway off to airporet now and watch some good old British comedy on the flight.

Bon voyage Drew, off anywhere nice?

One would require a sense of humor to get British humor.



A few years after AbFab came out and proved to be such a hit in the States, someone came up with the idea of doing an American version. It was determined that it wouldn't translate and prove to be as big a success as the the original was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amfv3pdm ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byKdGZ_h ... re=related

I have all the series and still watch them!!!

I guess it depends if you 'get' it or not. Most British comedy is based on irony and sarcasm - the best ones anyway. Certain people don't really understand that. But it's a testament that there are so many spin off shows in other countries and the fact that the classic comedies are syndicated worldwide.

Yes, this forum is steeped in irony and satire.

I myself like the clean, slapstick British comedy shows!

I actually prefer them over the overwhelmingly vulgar and distasteful US comedy of today!

I'm old school, I guess!!

I miss stuff like Monty Python and the Goonies.

Only Fools and Horses
One Foot in the Grave
The Goodies
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Morecambe and Wise
Some Mothers Do Ave Em
Are You Being Served

All classics

Series such as 'Til death Us Do Part and The Office were re-made in the US and lacked that original bite.

Unfortunately Mr Bean is popular everywhere as, like Charlie Chaplin, it is purely visual humour and therefore appeals to many different cultures.

Some American humour such as Will and Grace, Frazier, The Simpsons and Friends have achieved popularity as they are an intellectual cut above the majority of US comedy.

I love the scene in Crocodile Dundee when he is put up in the Waldorf Astoria and he is inspecting the TV set. She tells him what it is and he says he saw one many years ago in Australia. He turns it on and it is showing We Love Lucy. 'Yup', he says, 'Thats what I saw!'



Knight

I could do without Friends, too.

I'll stick with Curb Your Enthusiasm & Arrested Development and we'll give you Friends and you can hold on to British 'comedy' so long as you don't traffic it over here, the Office included.

We'll also keep King of the Hill, which is honestly one of the best adult oriented cartoon series out there.

I found this article by John Cleese quite funny;

To The Citizens of The United States Of America

In the light of your repeated failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah and Arkansas, which she does not want. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable James Cameron, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded and a questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour' 'honour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such language as "US or UK English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men Behaving Badly or The office will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness, biting satire, sarcasm and self-deprecation.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full Kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2012. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is only played in Japan outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. April 25th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French (or Freedom) fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Czechoslovakia) to be sold without risk of confusion with poor imitations.

12. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2012) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $12.40/US gallon- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

I loved Smack the Pony.

^ Don't you think you're asking a lot of Americans when the English can't speak the language properly (And I'm not even sure what language the Irish and Scottish speak, but you should probably get them to speak our common tongue before you re-Anglicize (whoops) the Americans, dontchya think?)?

event horizon wrote:^ Don't you think you're asking a lot of Americans when the English can't speak the language properly (And I'm not even sure what language the Irish and Scottish speak, but you should probably get them to speak our common tongue before you re-Anglicize (whoops) the Americans, dontchya think?)?

I speak English proper! Like what it should be spoke!

(Courtesy of Morcambe and Wise)



Knight

event horizon wrote:^ Don't you think you're asking a lot of Americans when the English can't speak the language properly (And I'm not even sure what language the Irish and Scottish speak, but you should probably get them to speak our common tongue before you re-Anglicize (whoops) the Americans, dontchya think?)?

Traditional Scottish and Irish languages are Celtic or Gaelic languages - they do speak proper English by the way, it's just their accents can be very strong sometimes.

Chocoholic wrote:

event horizon wrote:^ Don't you think you're asking a lot of Americans when the English can't speak the language properly (And I'm not even sure what language the Irish and Scottish speak, but you should probably get them to speak our common tongue before you re-Anglicize (whoops) the Americans, dontchya think?)?

Traditional Scottish and Irish languages are Celtic or Gaelic languages - they do speak proper English by the way, it's just their accents can be very strong sometimes.

Ok, I don't want to start a bar fight. Maybe i just don't understand the gingers that well as opposed to them speaking a different language entirely, no need for any Scots'men' to get their panties in a wad.

event horizon wrote:

Chocoholic wrote:

event horizon wrote:^ Don't you think you're asking a lot of Americans when the English can't speak the language properly (And I'm not even sure what language the Irish and Scottish speak, but you should probably get them to speak our common tongue before you re-Anglicize (whoops) the Americans, dontchya think?)?

Traditional Scottish and Irish languages are Celtic or Gaelic languages - they do speak proper English by the way, it's just their accents can be very strong sometimes.

Ok, I don't want to start a bar fight. Maybe i just don't understand the gingers that well as opposed to them speaking a different language entirely, no need for any Scots'men' to get their panties in a wad.

Don't worry, most English speaking people have trouble trying to understand a thick Scots or Irish accent at the best of times - try a think North Wales accent - not got a clue!

So you're saying I shouldn't have understood Mel Gibson when he dressed up as a woman in Braveheart?

event horizon wrote:So you're saying I shouldn't have understood Mel Gibson when he dressed up as a woman in Braveheart?

Even the Scots couldn't understand his strangled attempt at a Highland accent!



Knight

Try Sean Connery, beautiful accent, just a shame he can't do any other accents.

British comedians on Live at the apollo are quite funny for eg :-

Jimmy Carr Live At The Apollo

Dubai Knight wrote:

event horizon wrote:So you're saying I shouldn't have understood Mel Gibson when he dressed up as a woman in Braveheart?

Even the Scots couldn't understand his strangled attempt at a Highland accent!



Knight

And i don't think it helped with people's understanding of accurate historical fact either!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4TFcnuuyNs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7ZrBCY9ipI&feature=related

Hugh Laurie before he defected and went bush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyHSjv9g ... 51D9444473