Youth comedy - Funny in your era?

A few months back The Young Ones was re shown on TV. I read a short piece in some local street press written by someone who had been a uni student when it aired and so was in the target market. Their point was that re watching the series 30 years on they enjoyed just as much the first time they saw it.

I wasn't around when the series first aired and so this was the first time I saw it. I thought it was funny in parts but nothing wonderful. Another point that the author made was that when their parents were young Monty Python's Flying Circus would have been the equivalent popular youth comedy and that their parents still found it funny years later. They pretty much had the same reaction to Python as I did to watching The Young Ones.

This got me thinking: Do you think that you only really enjoy youth comedy if your were in the target market when it was made? And what was popular when you were young?

So for me the comedies from my time would be Summer Heights High (Aussie mockumentry series), and I also really like The Mighty Boosh and The IT Crowd. The last two aren't overly popular in my part of the world but they seem to be considered youth comedy.

Context is always an issue. Topical comedy is only fresh whilst the subject is in the news, and old comedy inevitably has references which will no longer be funny. The classics which are still funny are those which deal most closely with timeless subjects, like Hancock with his ego, or Blackadder with knob gags.

I've - somehow - not seen an awful lot of Monty Python's Flying Circus but from what I have, would certainly not argue with the sentiment that it's very patchy but with moments of brilliance. The films, of course, are great.

As for The Young Ones, it's just never done anything for me. There's some funny stuff in it but much is ... well, certainly not really to my taste.

As for 'youth' comedy when I was a bit younger; no idea. Little Britain was very popular I suppose.

I suppose mine would be Lee & Herring, and Vic & Bob. I still find their old stuff funny. (I was about... 12ish I think, not sure what age you mean by 'youth'.)

Ah yes, glad to say I was a youth when The Young Ones aired. The Comic Strip also. Very fine stuff. And Ripping Yarns, which I've still never seen a second time, I'm waiting till I'm nearly dead to relive that classic series. We talked about Ripping Yarns more than any other show! In the playground.

Ripping Yarns has lasted well, because it was already concerned with the past.

I hope to God this isn't right, otherwise my top comedies would be Little Britain and Catherine Tate. I just made myself sad.

When I was little, it was standard practise to learn entire Monty Python sketches verbatum. It's sad that kids no longer attempt this level of obsessive compulsive nerdiness.

Quote: zooo @ September 1 2010, 8:08 AM BST

I suppose mine would be Lee & Herring, and Vic & Bob. I still find their old stuff funny. (I was about... 12ish I think, not sure what age you mean by 'youth'.)

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Probably the same for me; plus Newman And Baddiel and The Fast Show. Those were all shows we used to talk about at school. Oh, and Harry Enfield when we were a touch younger, his show was a big deal. And Bottom.

Quote: Nogget @ September 1 2010, 9:42 AM BST

When I was little, it was standard practise to learn entire Monty Python sketches verbatum. It's sad that kids no longer attempt this level of obsessive compulsive nerdiness.

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They do, it's just that now it's Glee and Twilight.

Quote: Matthew Stott @ September 1 2010, 9:44 AM BST

Probably the same for me; plus Newman And Baddiel

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Oh yes, we'd always talk about Newman and Baddiel the next day at school.

From Bottom to Father Ted and The Fast Show, Big Train. Vic & Bob. I suppose though the comedies during my supposedly student years, may have been Spaced, The Office and Black Books.

I have no idea what was on when I was at uni. Maybe the Boosh? Hmm.