Look forward to the Purple One. Is it Prince?
How Will Comedy Change In The Future? Page 2
Quote: Steve D @ 3rd December 2014, 8:44 PM GMTLook forward to the Purple One. Is it Prince?
It very much could be. Or failing that, the publication formerly known as The Purple Book.
I think he's a squiggle now. Sorry, the artist formerly shown as a squigle
I have noticed, or is it just because I'm getting old(?), but I'm finding fewer things funny these days. Recent examples are sitcoms/comedies which bill themselves in that genre, but are more akin to comedy/drama etc, a recent example of this seems to be Puppy Love, which I stopped watching after ep2.
I agree. The Wrong Mans is the same. For me, it is PC. Modern writers are so hamstrung now. They feel unable to inject humour into so many scenarios these days, for fear of offending someone. That is the way to the death of all humour eventually. They can of course, find humour in anything, depends how you target it. Suppression through fear is still suppression, just self-imposed instead of from an external source. It needs a co-ordinated campaign to reverse all this, through our chief weapon, surprise......I mean ridicule!
Well, if we're going down this road, we're going to need our grandchildren to explain the jokes, and we're going to fall asleep half way through and wake up to find a different programme.
Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 7th December 2014, 6:14 PM GMTWell, if we're going down this road, we're going to need our grandchildren to explain the jokes, and we're going to fall asleep half way through and wake up to find a different programme.
I agree with SteveD's sentiments
Paul - most stuff feels really 'flat' these days, well with a few notable exceptions such as Toast Of London at the moment. I'm starting to prefer radio comedy over television stuff, which is something I thought I'd never write. Perhaps I am getting old? There are still far too many panel shows being broadcast.
Quote: TheBlueNun @ 7th December 2014, 8:56 PM GMTThere are still far too many panel shows being broadcast.
Amen, sister!
Any jokes not delivered via the medium of panel shows will be deemed too edgy and the Daily Mail will villify the deviant responsible.
Quote: Dan B @ 12th December 2014, 6:17 PM GMTAny jokes not delivered via the medium of panel shows will be deemed too edgy and the Daily Mail will villify the deviant responsible.
In addition to this, any comedian mentioned in the 'sidebar of shame' three times will be publically whipped* in Trafalgar Square. Proceeds from the tickets will be gifted to Brinsworth House, current home of 70s comedy legend, Richard O'Sullivan.
*Some may enjoy this punishment; suggestions on just who might have been removed from my mind for legal reasons.
I know the thread is about comedy per se, but I'll go for UK sitcom in particular here.
American sitcom is superior these days (there, I've said it) and will more than likely increase its superiority.
US budgets are such that they employ large teams of writers who together produce quantitatively and qualitatively greater work.
I suggest it was at the point of Frasier that this hand-over occurred.
(Example: The Big Bang Theory will most likely finish on ca. 240 episodes. If they only have a 1 in 4 hit rate (I suggest it will be higher), they'll finish with 60 classic episodes. How many UK series can even equal that in total output?)
The UK producers, previously the kings of sitcom and spooked by this competition, fled down a dark alleyway from which they have since not emerged: the format comedy panel show.
In essence all these panel shows are variations of the radio show I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
They are easy and cheap to produce in numbers, can readily be staffed by stand-up comics and therefore easily fill slots on TV.
However, by now the formats are getting old and the shows are creaking.
One should have faced US competition and stuck to sitcom.
The BBC meanwhile, following this panel show format, has actively encouraged budding comedians to go down the stand-up career path. Training in 'humour' is thus now exclusively stand-up.
However, stand-up comedy and situation comedy are two different beasts.
At the BBC (and possibly at other broadcasters) this is not well understood, it seems.
As an example, Not Going Out is a clear-cut case of a supposed sitcom created by people most likely schooled as stand-ups. The disconnect between the two forms there is all too obvious.
To anyone who has ever watched the documentary Comedy Connections, it is clear that writing and production talent for the classic comedies of the past did not form spontaneously out of thin air.
Sitcom talent was fostered in one show and went on to the next, becoming more mature and expert as it went.
This sitcom conveyor belt has ceased in Britain. But is still operational in the US.
It is a sad fact that Britain could have had prime position in sitcom land.
Global phenomena such as Two And A Half Men or The Big Bang Theory could have been ours, with all the big money that entailed.
But instead we invested our broadcasting dosh into 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Would I Lie To You? and Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
As a result the massive future markets of India and China will watch US sitcoms, not UK product.
We will meanwhile cling to our belief of British comedy superiority due to sitcoms we made thirty to forty years ago, but are in fact no longer capable of producing.
(Fawlty Towers is closer in time to the second world war than it is to us.)
Sitcom is clearly the lasting art form. Panel shows are ephemeral.
Your friends may often ask you, if you remember Del Boy doing this or that in Only Fools And Horses. But they will not tend to ask you if you remember that comment on Have I Got News For You from 1998.
Sitcom is also the established international artform. You can translate Frasier and show it in France, India, Argentina. How many folks want to watch Mock The Week, Series 3, in Saudi Arabia right now?
As has already been mentioned, then there's political correctness.
America, the initial source of this phenomenon, actually seems less affected by PC when it comes to comedy output.
So the bikini girls can come out in Two And A Half Men if it serves a gag, whereas in UK product they don't, for fear that Harriet Harman asks questions in the House.
Meanwhile every -ism possible gets granted credibility at bodies such as the BBC.
In a recent Telegraph article to which someone pointed me, it is suggested that the Beeb now vet every single joke on TV and radio.
How would the golden oldies possibly ever have been made under such conditions?
My guess is they would not have.
It would not only have been Clarkson punching a producer, but so too Cleese, Hancock, Morecambe and Milligan - with Barker following up with a knee to the groin.
So what sitcoms are we going to produce in the UK as the Yanks increase their dominance?
Why, W1A of course. We will 'ironically' mock how PC we are, by producing a programme which is completely PC.
End of monologue.
Begin weeping.
I do see your point, but thank God we're not responsible for foisting hundreds of episodes of Two and a Half bloody Men on the world. I don't think using that as an example is doing your argument any favours. 
Quote: zooo @ 10th April 2015, 10:09 AM BSTI do see your point, but thank God we're not responsible for foisting hundreds of episodes of Two and a Half bloody Men on the world. I don't think using that as an example is doing your argument any favours.
Yep, we're so much better than all that cheesy American stuff, right?
We only rip it off rather crudely. Some of the 'Two and a half men' stuff has surfaced in UK output.
Sitcom is largely a craft of rewarming old ideas.
But if we're really so convinced of our innate comic superiority, then it is really odd that we should be recycling their 'bad' stuff, unless it isn't that bad...
As for the hundreds of episodes of 'Two and a half men' and 'The big bang theory'; the day we are able to equal that output we can then start quibbling about whether ours is better than theirs.
But as of now, it's over 250 episodes of 'Two and a half men' vs 12 episodes of 'Plebs'.
However overstretched the American series eventually become (and they do!), how many classic episodes do they contain? The opening two or three series will invariably always blow out of the water anything the Brits currently produce.
If they need 250 attempts at producing 50-60 classic episodes, it still makes them way more effective than current British production.
After all, take a hard look at 'Bluestone 42' and tell me how bowled over you are.
Meanwhile, there's the money. The leading trio on 'The big bang theory' earn a million an episode. It seems the example which doesn't do the argument any favours is nonetheless very lucrative for those involved.
Naturally our writers are merely in it for the purity of it all, not the cash. 
The truth is, we are very much second fiddle these days.
I can't see that changing.
Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 10th April 2015, 10:55 AM BSTWe've got another Horseradish on our hands.....
That was cryptic, Hercules. 
I did a search and all I know is that some poor soul called Horseradish got banned. By the sound of it he fell out with folks.
Is this likely to happen to me?
I know I like producing lengthy verbiage, rather than pithy one liner posts.
Maybe that's not welcome. I don't know.
If I am treading on some virtual toes with my inane blethering, I can skedaddle...
Quote: Gussie Fink Nottle @ 10th April 2015, 5:45 PM BSTYep, we're so much better than all that cheesy American stuff, right?
Not at all. Loads of my favourite shows are American. But that one is puerile shit.