For me, I can do without pretty much everything OFAH-wise after 1990. I love everything before that, though - even series 1.
Only Fools... where to stop? Page 2
Quote: zooo @ June 10, 2007, 6:56 PMI'd stop before you begin.
Some BSG members would be well-served to remember that one.
Quote: Esty @ June 10, 2007, 7:44 PMFor me, I can do without pretty much everything OFAH-wise after 1990. I love everything before that, though - even series 1.
What about Mother Nature's Song with Peckham Spring, or Miami Twice, or the "Cwying one" (Stage Fright), the Batman and Robin sequence, the fainting at the auction. The list is endless!
Anyone remember how Only Fools didn't win the Nation's Favourite Sitcom thing first time round and then they did some George Bush style jiggery pokery with the votes?
Although I have a great attachment to many episodes and grew up watching it i think it has dated quite badly already, and the initial voting reflected that.
Do you mean Britain's Best Sitcom?
I'm sorry Dave, I don't know the exact title or show, I'm going by memory here, but I remember OFAH was in the top ten but not first. Perhaps third with Porridge first.
I don't want to get on the wrong side of anyone here over this because I've got a lot of respect for the show. Afterall, Sullivan wrote every episode by himself, which is an amazing achievement.
But then he did The Green Green Grass! lol The most rubbish sitcom ever!
By the way, I've written a review on Amazon.co.uk on The Green Green Grass, if anyone wants to check it out.
I think I saw another Sullivan credited as a writer (son?) a couple of weeks ago (TGGG, this is).
Dear John... was much better than OFAH IMO.
Quote: Aaron @ June 11, 2007, 10:08 PMI think I saw another Sullivan credited as a writer (son?) a couple of weeks ago (TGGG, this is).
Dear John... was much better than OFAH IMO.
Yes, his son is called Jim Sullivan and also wants to be a writer. I read in an interview that John Sullivan and his agent were due to have a business lunch with a potential client/writer, but he didn't know who it was. Before John left the house for this meeting, his son explained that it was him he was going to meet. "Why didn't you surprise me at the restaurant?" John asks. "I needed a lift," Jim replies.
Just a little anecodote, there, from John Sullivan himself.
And Dear John was brilliant. Pure class and it was a tragedy that Ralph Bates died.
second that - well, third it – Dear John was magic. Liked Heartburn Hotel as well.
I don't know that it dated badly; it was certainly of it's time. I think what has smudged it more is that the series went on way longer than it should really have done.
To me, after Rodney got married, there were only a couple of episodes which actually worked. I may be being harsh but I think the premise of the whole thing got lsot somewhere after the Wedding episode, which I thought was one of the best.
The other thing is that it was, at least partially, reliant on goods and items which we would now find hilarious. Amstrad, huge mobiles etc. I think these pointers don't really age well in any situation, but on the whole I think the show was ok - close to genius sometimes. Just went on far too long because JS couldn't turn down the cheques.
Heartburn Hotel was poorly rec'd, I think it got a bad rap really. Worse than it deserved. Roger Roger was similarly bombasted. Essentially I think the problem was that if you are given too much space (50 mins) you have to fill it up and for a new vehicle this is difficult. If they had started those shows less ambitiously, maybe a thrity minute slot, they may have worked more effectively.
GGG is bad, though. It's full of contradictory comedy, characters saying one thing and then doing the opposite for comic effect, easy lines, rolling eyes and charactures. As a supplemental character Boysey worked, because he was a cynical selfish dishonest man. As a main character it's not quite as easy; JS has had to make marlene very stupid, and his son to some extent a secondary Doberman. The plots are weak, really, and the show isn't up to much.
It's a weird thing, while I think about it. When you *know* what is going to happen, and it's still funny. I was watching Laurel and Hardy, and you know Stan is going to do something and Ollie will suffer. But the way it is done, with a finesse is something that I think a lot of writers and performers and for that matter directors and producers can learn from, because it's not immediate. A great dael of comedy is suspense, because you are building something and need the release of the laugh at the end.
TGGG fails on several key levels, to me. Simply because there is too much business which is obviously there to make up for the lacadasical script.
But that's my opinion.
Quote: Ed Parnell @ June 12, 2007, 2:04 AMJS has had to make marlene very stupid, and his son to some extent a secondary Doberman.
Yes, a good point. It's not so much annoying that they've been characterised like that (well, not to me anyway), but it's not consistent, particularly in the case of Marlene. Sometimes she's actually quite clever.
I always hated this show. That puts me in a minority of one I think, unless my brother-in-law's cat agrees.
Read the thread, love.
Kiss! I am not alone.
My name is legion for we are many.