Premise driven comedy.
When it's done well it is an absolute joy to watch. It's like someone compiling a 147. Just knocking a red out here and there from the bunch for later on in the break.
What makes you laugh? Page 3
Milligan - the goons or the Q series were both genius. What I liked about them, (and this may sound strange) is that they quite often missed the target. When you're striving for greatness you sometimes don't get it right every time, and he didn't, but I could see were he was trying to go with it and it made me appreciate it all the more. Peter Cook was the same.
I like strangeness that has some smarts about it, if that makes sense.
Me, I'm pretty easy to please. Sitcom-wise though, I tend to more go for the simple stuff than the complex and clever. After a long commute into work, hard day at the grind stone and long commute home again, pretty much the last thing I want from a sitcom is to be made to think about what I'm watching in order to enjoy it. I just want to sit back, relax, and be entertained.
Not that there's not a place for the clever and 'modern' stuff - I just find that I prefer that which is unashamedly funny just because it's funny, with no pretence of social commentary or other such hoity-toity-ness.
As for when I write (admittedly very rare these days), I try to use elements of both styles, but certainly with far more a leaning towards the simple. I know a lot of writers are very snobbish because it's seen as easy and stupid, but look at the sitcoms which have been most successful, popular, and had the greatest longevity. 'Allo 'Allo, Are You Being Served?, On The Buses, My Family, Bless This House, Man About The House/George & Mildred, Terry & June, and so on and so forth.
Really hard to pinpoint what makes me laugh in particular with comedy. However someone once told me that Chaplin said comedy is watching a man walk down the street, reading a newspaper unaware that there is a banana skin on the road. And we watch the man as with each step, he gets closer and closer to the banana skin. Then as he reaches the banana skin, he manages to walk straight over it and falls down a manhole. All the comedies I really like have this - the anticipation of a gag but then surprise when they pull the rug from underneath your feet.
Quote: Lucy @ October 8, 2007, 10:49 PMWhat is it that inspires you to write?
An ulcer that keeps me awake all night telling me I'm skiving off sleeping when I should be writing.
But the thing that inspires me most is my own writing partner. He makes me laugh. He refines (or de-refines) my ideas and 'improves' on them (in his opinion). His humour is different to mine, more earthy and crude. Mine is darker, aimed at the head than the bowels. Plus I enjoy thinking up weird premises for sitcoms, placing people in odd surroundings.
Yeah, generating ideas is the best. I live for the moments where I think of a great idea or sketch or I make myself laugh with something.
I've got 5 projects in the pipeline and some of these ideas have been around for a couple of years, yet those ideas would have been conceived in a matter of minutes of a normal day. So those Eureka! moments are pretty rare and you never know when you'll get the next one, therefore, I enjoy it more when it happens.
Quote: Aaron @ October 9, 2007, 12:37 PMMe, I'm pretty easy to please. Sitcom-wise though, I tend to more go for the simple stuff than the complex and clever. After a long commute into work, hard day at the grind stone and long commute home again, pretty much the last thing I want from a sitcom is to be made to think about what I'm watching in order to enjoy it. I just want to sit back, relax, and be entertained.
Not that there's not a place for the clever and 'modern' stuff - I just find that I prefer that which is unashamedly funny just because it's funny, with no pretence of social commentary or other such hoity-toity-ness.
As for when I write (admittedly very rare these days), I try to use elements of both styles, but certainly with far more a leaning towards the simple. I know a lot of writers are very snobbish because it's seen as easy and stupid, but look at the sitcoms which have been most successful, popular, and had the greatest longevity. 'Allo 'Allo, Are You Being Served?, On The Buses, My Family, Bless This House, Man About The House/George & Mildred, Terry & June, and so on and so forth.
Ditto, with a capital DIT!
Wow, what a broad range.
One of the funniest (non sitcom related) things I read this year was in a book by Ralph Steadman. He was out camping with his 10 year old son by a river, and they were eating sausages. There was one sausage left and they were discussing who should eat it. The son says 'Don't worry, I've got it sorted'. He picks up a bit of wood with a nail stuck in it and the sausage and wades out into the river. He then attaches the sausage to the wood and lets it float away. He turns to his father and says 'What'll they make of that downstream'.
That actually sums up my sense of humour. I love the dark, the absurd and the incomprehensible.
TV-wise Mock The Week, QI, Have I Got News ... the usual stuff that's already been mentioned. But my all-time 'fall on the floor in hysterics blubbing like a kid' funnies come from Johnny Hart's B.C. cartoon books. I absolutely love 'em, they're absolutely brilliant I think.
Do you have Sky in Spain Mike?
Not legal to receive Sky Sat outside UK unfortunately. However for interest I'll email you our channel list currently running at 50 TV and 20-or-so radio.
What makes me laugh?
Well I like filthy stuff. I like stoopid stuff. I like clever stuff. I like blatant stuff & shocking stuff.
Bill Hicks - Clever =Amazing.
Eddie Murphy live - Filthy = Amazing
Joan Rivers- Blatant - Great
I like all sorts of stuff. Stuff is in its self funny. I like stuff.
Eddie Murphy 
The older Eddie Murphy that is, by which I mean the younger Eddie Murphy, garh my head hurts. 
I would have to say a woman being kicked in the crotch.
Herpes.
Seriously? The bizzare and the surreal. Also, monkey drag racing.