American Rubbish!?!

Went down to my local library the other day, and requested 'Bless this house', erm 'no' was the reply, the same reply was given when inquiring about 'Some mothers do hav' em', and 'Rising Damp'! Not popular enough!

However, in the comedy section , there were ALL 37 billion episodes of Friends (the number of episodes only being surpassed by the size of Jennifer Aniston's head, not using a metaphor, that head is massive, it has the potential to block out the sun - literally, surely she could end global warming with that head, forget Earth aid, or planet live or whatever it was called)also, all episodes are about as funny as being hit by a bus; and the amount of times that they are repeated does cause some people to experience the compulsion to do just that! The song 'jump' by Van halen springs to mind!

Moreover, they had all of the Mash series (erm why), and all episodes of 'Joey'! What the bloody hell is that all about! Would anyone actually admit to watching Joey? If you did you would probably be accused of heresy and placed in some form of stocks where people could urinate on you and throw cabbages and stuff (and rightly so)! Well I'm glad my council tax to being used so advantageously! I'd rather watch Michael Barrymore

Has anyone experinced similar things? Cheap American rubbish being bought in instead of comedy classics!

Cause Mash is good, maybe?

I like Friends to.

It's very, very lazy to say Friends is rubbish.

People who think Friends is a bad comedy do so for completely the wrong reasons. Which is a shame.

For me it's up there with the great US shows of the 90s. (amazing to think also that these four shows ran concurrently.) Those shows are, of course Seinfeld, Frasier, Simpsons and Friends.

It's got many faults of course, and made a lot of errors along the way - and is by far the least challenging of the four shows. But for sheer one-liners, and for what it did for the genre of US comedy (most shows since have copied it's style) it's immense. It was unique and sharp. It's probably the sharpest of the shows I listed in fact, but things will forever outweigh it as a classic. The way it ended, the cheesiness, Jennifer Aniston's hair, the hugging. It got caught up in the zeitgeist and exploded in terms of pop culture which has tainted it forever is light and fluffy comedy guff. Which, as I said, is a shame because look at the bare bones of the show and you'll find some of the funniest and wittiest scripts ever aired, and some pitch perfect performances.

Off topic this, but of course Seinfeld is the best of those, and the only show who even when the tone shifted when Larry David left, still remained superb. Also it never felt the need for the schmaltz of the other shows.

Shows such as 'The Office'and 'Alan Partridge' are comic genius, could you really compare 'Friends' against such shows in terms of performance, scriting, casting, writing and delivery? All of the characters in these shows are flawlessly acted and continuity maintained throughout, displaying none of the flaws apparent in Friends! Even 'The Extras' and shows such as 'Bottom' demonstrate superior comic writing skills!

I find it sad that people in the UK relate better to American imports than superior home written comedy! Even going back to the 70's shows such as Bless this House and Rising Damp are better executed than modern big budget American comedy shows i.e. Friends and Everybody loves Raymond to name just two! Both Rising Damp and Bless this House took place on limited sets, and were still VERY funny, if Friends was limited to the Flat set, would the writers still have had the talent to produce comedy? I doubt that! And Chappell wrote on his own, no team of writers per se!

One could argue that all are different sub-genres of comedy, but surely comedy is comedy?

Friends is actually good, leave the character inconsistency aside and there are lots of great episodes with good gags.

Never seen MASH but I know thats a respected sitcom. Joey is shit though yes.

Plus your opinion is now rendered inoperable as you said The Office is 'comic genius'..funny yeah, genius I think not.

I'm sure many of your favourite writers, looked up to a lot of American comedians such as Laural & Hardy and The Marx Brothers and so on.. same goes with many British rock bands being influenced by blues.

This is an ongoing cycle between both countries.

The Office and Partridge - both genius, both brilliantly written and acted - yes.

But some 12 episodes each, and a very, very different kettle of fish. Extras was mostly average, Bottom was a live action cartoon (also very funny)

I don't think you can compare UK and US comedy. Far, far different. Well, saying that something like Curb has a British feel to it and is done wonderfully. We've got The Office - done brilliantly also. But the UK are yet to match a Friends or a Seinfeld. We've tried, but failed. I think a long running, team written show could be done but we haven't nailed it as of yet. (for sheer amount of jokes per episode, Not Going Out is the closest we've got)

Friends only had three sets, lets be honest. Also the characters were well-rounded (slipped into characature a lot I'll admit) but they were complete and identifiable. To prove this look at the amount of Friends writers who wrote for lesser copy-cat shows ('Jesse', 'Nikki' etc) and produced awful scripts simply because the characters weren't there. Nothing to play with, no finally tuned performances to inspire.

I do think that our comedy is very, very different to the point where you can't fairly compare

UK shows look so compact and heavy - both plots and characters. They're dense with undertones and multi-layered where as I think US shows are quite open and sometimes shows go by where you might not learn anything about the people in it. I put this down to our US counterparts have 4 times as much time to play with. (Time of episodes not being counted, I can't be bothered to the maths!)

I'll will say though a lot of US writers (especially on Seinfeld) deserve to be counted as geniuses because some episodes are multi-layers with the plots spiralling all over the place before coming together at the end in just 22 minutes. UK shows get 7 minutes more and can't even get close sometimes.

Back to Friends - I just find it odd people dismiss it. Even the top rated US shows out now (the only one I can think of that's a mainstream show is King of Queens, which ranges from average to brilliant. Kevin James is masterful sitcom actor) don't compare joke-for-joke. Friends has produced some of the best one-liners in sitcom history.

I don't know WHAT I'm arguing for or against here, I really don't. Still, I hope you found it of reasonable interest :-)

(Oh, and Everybody Loves Raymond is hateful garbage.)

I'm sure the Marx Brothers were linked with organised crime, so maybe not good role models there! Besides which their comedy is very different from British comedy at that time (again ours was better - Grouco Marx's one liners were about as funny as waking up one morning, looking in the mirror and realising that you actually look like him, hmm not good or indeed funny)! I do feel that British comedy shows of the 60's and 70's (possibly the 80's) have influenced US comedy more so than the other way around! For example, Everyone loves Raymond is well liked in the US, it concludes the same way almost EVERY episode (yawn), wasn't that done 30 thirty years ago with Bless this House? Both cultures are different (despite Blair's attempt to form America Ulterior), this is therefore reflected in their respective comedy, I just feel that ours is better, and unfortunately shows such as 'The Office' et al have not become contaminated!

Charlie Chaplin (Americanized) or L+H any silent slapstick must've inspired Some Mothers Do Av Em.

Quote: Columbo @ July 10, 2007, 5:20 PM

I'm sure the Marx Brothers were linked with organised crime, so maybe not good role models there! Besides which their comedy is very different from British comedy at that time (again ours was better - Grouco Marx's one liners were about as funny as waking up one morning, looking in the mirror and realising that you actually look like him, hmm not good or indeed funny)! I do feel that British comedy shows of the 60's and 70's (possibly the 80's) have influenced US comedy more so than the other way around! For example, Everyone loves Raymond is well liked in the US, it concludes the same way almost EVERY episode (yawn), wasn't that done 30 thirty years ago with Bless this House? Both cultures are different (despite Blair's attempt to form America Ulterior), this is therefore reflected in their respective comedy, I just feel that ours is better, and unfortunately shows such as 'The Office' et al have not become contaminated!

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A lot of Americans who are actual comedy fans hate Everybody Loves Raymond, its just mainstream fans that like it, same with Little Britain over here I guess.

Plus you are now saying one of the funniest men ever Groucho Marx is unfunny, so I am now not going to take what you say seriously.

Quote: Leevil @ July 10, 2007, 5:23 PM

Charlie Chaplin (Americanized) or L+H any silent slapstick must've inspired Some Mothers Do Av Em.

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The link between is the two is extremely tenuous to say the least! The difference in years, not to mention the other VAST disparities between the two comedies (too numerous to mention here)! Slapstick is used in many comedies, including King of Queens, therefore using your argument, any comedy using a slapstick approach or element must have been influenced by Laural and Hardy! Even older comedy such as Keystone Cops contained slapstick (maybe due to a lack of sound, therefore no dialogue)!

Also Seefacts; as for Bless this House, this had 65 episodes (and most were funny and the ideas fresh despite the limited resources available)! Maybe UK audiences don't want a another Seinfeld or Friends and are content to watch American imports! God knows I would rather watch the office than either of these shows!

My initial question was, how can UK audiences prefer US comedy to UK comedy (maybe I'm getting old and nostalgic)

Maybe it's because you grew up in different times. America and other foreign countries don't seem as distant as they once was and us, "youth" don't share the same old tired xenophobic attitude toward other countries,people or ideas. (except Aaron)

Quote: Martin Holmes @ July 10, 2007, 5:27 PM

A lot of Americans who are actual comedy fans hate Everybody Loves Raymond, its just mainstream fans that like it, same with Little Britain over here I guess.

Plus you are now saying one of the funniest men ever Groucho Marx is unfunny, so I am now not going to take what you say seriously.

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You have just illustrated my point, everyone finds different things funny, not everything is black and white, which is why comedy consists of different genres as discussed UK vs US! I just believe UK comedy is better (in terms of everything)!

Maybe you should think about that before jumping in and defeating your own arguments! Just because you find Groucho Marx funny other people may not (me included)!

Quote: Leevil @ July 10, 2007, 5:39 PM

Maybe it's because you grew up in different times. America and other foreign countries don't seem as distant as they once was and us, "youth" don't share the same old tired xenophobic attitude toward other countries,people or ideas. (except Aaron)

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This would seem sensible, but ITV have been importing US shows since 1955! Therefore older audiences (not me by the way) already had access to these shows!

It has noting to do with xenophobia, I just think that most national comedy shows mirror their own society, therefore are/should be more preferable to that specific audience! You ever seen French comedy? Do not see the funny side at all, but they do! It has nothing to do with xenophobia if you find comedy from another country unfunny, that's the easy argument to produce and another product of Labour Britain!

Ok people play nice. I think everyone here has a valid point, alot of whats on the shelves of shops, libraries and on the TV is American. Its simply cheaper for British companies to import. That means we should savour the fact that British Comedy is still being produced and is being produced well. Theres never going to be a consensus on the best form of comedy so its maybe better to respect other people's views and move on. In the age of downloads and dvds its far easier to pick and choose the comedy you want to watch rather that what your given. When I look at my DVD collection its definatley split down the middle between British comedy and American comedy. We should be thankful that we have more control over what we watch and where/how we watch it. In other words cheer up.

Welcome to the BSG btw Columbo, hows the wife

I'm not going to defend a tv channels decision to buy imports, but if they do, the ones that succeed,

Friends for example is about 'relationships in the 90's' every young, lets say single person could relate to that in some way, if they allowed themselves to, doesn't matter which country you're from the situations and decisions made by the characters are relatable, the characters a likeable, the humuor is witty and funny.

Whereas in the UK, from my perspective anyway, most of the mainstream comedies being produced were mainly about middle class family's or business and were using the same old tired format of 2.4 Children nuclear family. Friends broke that mold with something fresh and exciting to us young'uns.

I think now, we have a pretty even playing field with a mix of imports and homemade shows, so i don't know if there is anything to complain about?