British Comedy Guide

Sitcoms - A World We Would Like To Be Page 2

Do you mean Cordelia Bugeja?

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Quote: hotzappa11 @ November 24 2008, 3:50 PM GMT

Do you mean Cordelia Bugeja?

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Good work, hotzappa. I've been wanting to find out what she was called for ages. :D

No problemo.

I Could live 3 million years out in deep space. If the Red Dwarf crew could spare the spare Stasis booth.

Travelling between the 40s and 90s with an edless supply of 40s money to take back from the 90s and an endless supply of valuable collectables to bring back to the 90s with the gatway between the two out the back of my shop.... I'd be up for the Goodnight Sweetheart lifestlye.

Blackadder 2 has awlays appealed. Mostly because I'm in love with Queeny.

I'm not entirely sure about this theory about the sitcom world being safe and cosy. Sometimes it seems sitcoms make us feel good because we don't live in the protagonists' worlds. Look at the pathos in shows such One Foot in the Grave, Steptoe, The Royle Family to name a few. Some sitcoms world are pretty miserable, dangerous and show characters that can never win; Fawlty Towers, Nighty Nighty, etc.

Maybe the American shows represent a more idealised world. I always remember a friend wishing she had a local that was just like Cheers.

I think maybe the world of sitcoms cheers us up by presenting a world where we can laugh at bad things, mishaps, appalling luck, misunderstandings, frustrated ambitions and unrelenting boredom and where we feel luckier than those characters who are suffering.

I think we find the predictability of sitcoms and it's characters comforting. I know I do.

I'd like to be in Fletchley with Sid James and Victor Spinetti in Two in Clover.

Respectable would be fun in a sleazy kinda way.

UK vs American aspirations? To me, an American uplifting story involves the humble girl at the supermarket check-out becoming famous after a struggle. The UK version has the same check-out girl never getting anywhere beyond happiness.

Sitcom is as varied as there are sitcoms. The cosiness that I suggest is mainly universal and a good thing. The safety is the key to sitcom.

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ November 26 2008, 4:41 PM GMT

I'm not entirely sure about this theory about the sitcom world being safe and cosy. Sometimes it seems sitcoms make us feel good because we don't live in the protagonists' worlds. Look at the pathos in shows such One Foot in the Grave, Steptoe, The Royle Family to name a few. Some sitcoms world are pretty miserable, dangerous and show characters that can never win; Fawlty Towers, Nighty Nighty, etc.

Maybe the American shows represent a more idealised world. I always remember a friend wishing she had a local that was just like Cheers.

I think maybe the world of sitcoms cheers us up by presenting a world where we can laugh at bad things, mishaps, appalling luck, misunderstandings, frustrated ambitions and unrelenting boredom and where we feel luckier than those characters who are suffering.

My life already is a sitcom. It's horrible, depressing, everything goes wrong, I waste half my life explain obvious things to morons who argue about it. But from an outside perspective it's funny. Everytime I rant about these things poeple laugh.

I'd like to live in the same building as Tim, Daisy, Marsha, Mike, Brian and Colin...

In an article about Outnumbered Bryan Appleyard seems to hold the opinion as myself. He quotes Andy Hamilton on Outnumbered as saying:

"People tell me...that they've been reassured by the show. We get emails from viewers saying how they've watched the show and felt better, because it shows other people cocking the same things up. We see it as a little bit of an antidote to the parenting industry. We're saying being a crap parent is okay."

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