Rigsby in my opinion is the greatest sitcom character after Basil Fawlty .. and Rising damp is up there with the best... I've never considered it racist because it is obvious that the jokes are all on the bigoted, stuck in past, British imperialist Rigsby.
I agree with Eder - one of my favourite sitcoms. The lonely hearts episode, when Rigsby and Miss Jones both go to the same pub wearing carnations to meet their mystery date, is one of the funniest things I've seen.
Quote: beaky @ 7th December 2016, 3:27 PMI agree with Eder - one of my favourite sitcoms. The lonely hearts episode, when Rigsby and Miss Jones both go to the same pub wearing carnations to meet their mystery date, is one of the funniest things I've seen.
There are so many great episodes .. I couldn't really name a favourite. I suppose Series 2 is the peak of Rising Damp
Does anybody else notice a few similarities between Rising Damp and Fawlty Towers?
Rising Damp - The trickster seymour
Fawlty Towers - The trickster Lord Melberry?
Rigsby's wife and Sybil?
The creeping of Rigsby and Basil around upper class guests?
The penny pinching of both Rigsby and Basil
Etc, etc ...
There are so many funny episodes but
the love wood one has to be my favourite.
Mr Rigsby ...will you kindly extinguish your stick!
Quote: wigwam willy @ 7th December 2016, 7:09 PMThere are so many funny episodes but
the love wood one has to be my favourite.Mr Rigsby ...will you kindly extinguish your stick!
That's a good un ! ... there's something great in each episode .. Leonard Rossiter had the ability to make a seemingly unfunny line hilarious with the way he said it.
I just love the way he delivers his lines:
Rigsby: "D'ya know, my father once got off a bus rather than sit against a woman with bare arms, that's the sort of man he was."
Alan: "You don't know where the erogenous zones are do you Rigsby?"
Rigsby: "'Course I do, they're near the equator ..."
Eric Chappell wrote really funny sitcoms and he was lucky to have good actors in all of them.
Quote: wigwam willy @ 7th December 2016, 7:09 PMThere are so many funny episodes but
the love wood one has to be my favourite.Mr Rigsby ...will you kindly extinguish your stick!
The one that sticks ('scuse pun) in my mind is when he proffers Miss Jones an engagement ring and then goes off on a tirade assuming she will not accept him although she does and he doesn't notice her saying "Yes" - a master class in comedy timing and acting.
Superb!!
Quote: EDER @ 7th December 2016, 3:06 PMRigsby in my opinion is the greatest sitcom character after Basil Fawlty .. and Rising damp is up there with the best... I've never considered it racist because it is obvious that the jokes are all on the bigoted, stuck in past, British imperialist Rigsby.
Rigsby, Albert Steptoe and Sir Alfred Garnett is my Holy Trinity.
Quote: EDER @ 7th December 2016, 7:07 PMDoes anybody else notice a few similarities between Rising Damp and Fawlty Towers?
Rising Damp - The trickster seymour
Fawlty Towers - The trickster Lord Melberry?Rigsby's wife and Sybil?
The creeping of Rigsby and Basil around upper class guests?
The penny pinching of both Rigsby and Basil
Etc, etc ...
There's a lot more than that I'm afraid, such as the amazement at seeing a black doctor - FT/an educated black man with better English and manners than all his white guests - RD; Fawlty and Rigby's puritanical conservative nature disapproving of sex on their premises especially if it doesn't include them; Alan being the brunt of Rigsby's ire much as Manuel is of Fawlty's. Plus the general situation similarity, one a Hotel, one a boarding house, plus the format - both going out of fashion farces which reintroduced them to TV.
It all needs some proper researching to see if there's a (potential causal) link or just possible coincidence but I've noticed several more very similar gags both verbal and visual and with some discomfort, these being my favourite sitcoms. Classic lines such as wife's laugh like someone machine gunning seals - FT/crows - RD. then I was watching the non wedding ep again from RD the other day which is the final RD ep I think, aired in 78 when Rigsby leaves black hand marks on Ruth's mother's top, Fawlty then does this a year later in Psychiatrist ep. 
Can it possibly be that...I don't want to go there. 
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 16th July 2017, 3:40 PMThere's a lot more than that I'm afraid, such as the amazement at seeing a black doctor - FT/an educated black man with better English and manners than all his white guests - RD; Fawlty and Rigby's puritanical conservative nature disapproving of sex on their premises especially if it doesn't include them; Alan being the brunt of Rigsby's ire much as Manuel is of Fawlty's. Plus the general situation similarity, one a Hotel, one a boarding house, plus the format - both going out of fashion farces which reintroduced them to TV.
It all needs some proper researching to see if there's a (potential causal) link or just possible coincidence but I've noticed several more very similar gags both verbal and visual and with some discomfort, these being my favourite sitcoms. Classic lines such as wife's laugh like someone machine gunning seals - FT/crows - RD. then I was watching the non wedding ep again from RD the other day which is the final RD ep I think, aired in 78 when Rigsby leaves black hand marks on Ruth's mother's top, Fawlty then does this a year later in Psychiatrist ep.
Surely a case of looking for facts to fit a pre-conceived theory. Sitcoms have always used cliched plots at one time or another.
They have always had characters that are the butts of the jokes (and/or ire): Doberman, Blakey, Bill Kerr, Baldric, Dougal... That is the nature of sitcoms. I don't see the Rigsby/Alan relationship as being equivalent to Basil/Manuel at all.
And tricksters/swindlers/conmen have been the mainstay of many a sitcom plot. I have just watched a Bilko episode ("The Conmen") in which Bilko had to retrieve some money that Doberman had been swindled out of. A similar scenario occurred in a Steptoe & Son episode ("Full House") and in Only Fools & Horses ("A Losing Streak") to name but two examples. Hancock was forever being conned by Sid in the radio series.
The old black hand marks and the like have also been a sitcom staple over the years. A recently broadcast "George & Mildred" had George doing just that to Mildred's dress when he is repairing his motor bike in the kitchen. And Pike did something similar to Captain Mainwaring in "Turkey Dinner".
I must admit I don't even remember Rigsby's wife but, of course, wives with exaggerated characteristics have always been around: Hyacinth Bouquet, Edith Artois (and her singing), Lucille Ball, Peggy Mount.
The black doctor in Rising Damp was one of the four main characters (and the fact that he was a doctor was mostly incidental to the plots); the black doctor in Fawlty Towers appeared fleetingly - specifically as a doctor - in one episode. So their roles cannot really be compared.
Even a recently broadcast Bilko from 1956 ("The Court Martial") mentioned a Waldorf Salad. You're not going to tell me...
Yes I know many of them are comedy staples but it's the closeness in time of the similarities as much as the quantity that worries me a little, not a lot, because Fawlty Towers is such a great...er 'copy', ahem, even if it turned out to be it was in some instances. RD started 74, FT 75 and with very similar situations, formats and lead characters both played manically by the actors, both shows a big change from the placid domcoms that prevailed the era, and then come the similar episode plots. There's a lot of physical similarity, coincidence or not. 
Quote: Billy Bunter @ 16th July 2017, 7:32 PMSurely a case of looking for facts to fit a pre-conceived theory. Sitcoms have always used cliched plots at one time or another.
The black doctor in Rising Damp was one of the four main characters (and the fact that he was a doctor was mostly incidental to the plots); the black doctor in Fawlty Towers appeared fleetingly - specifically as a doctor - in one episode. So their roles cannot really be compared.
Why can't they? It's not their role or their character that's the point, it's the identical reaction to them by Rigsby and Fawlty, cue huge laughs at soon to be banned political incorrectness. But you also have the black Sherriff in Blazing Saddles, er 74 again, maybe I should shut up now before I convince myself the funniest sitcom ever was a rip off. No of course it wasn't but maybe as Larkin said 'bad writers borrow but great writers steal.' Hmm...
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 16th July 2017, 10:09 PMas Larkin said
Back to:
Quote: Billy Bunter @ 16th July 2017, 7:32 PMPeggy Mount.
What Billy said. These are all common sitcom tropes that come up time and time again in titles both obscure and mainstream. They play on the class attitudes and distinctions of the era. The actual jokes that come from those basic plot staples are, however, different.
Hilarious. Anyone who thinks it's offensive should have their noses rubbed in the terms 'Context', 'Satire as weapon' and 'F**k off you PC f**king f**ker'.
