British Comedy Guide

Deterioration of comedy over the years Page 7

Quote: Nogget @ May 26 2011, 6:21 AM BST

There was certainly a lot of rubbish music around in the past, but when I saw the Rebecca Black video, I concluded that even rubbish music has got worse these days.

That hardly counts as an example of modern music!

Quote: zooo @ May 28 2011, 12:55 AM BST

That hardly counts as an example of modern music!

?

It's a false assumption to assume that there's always been good and bad and they've always balanced each other out.

The post-first world war period of the 20th century produced a flourishing in the arts that wasn't matched at any other point in the 20th Century. Similarly British theatre exploded in the 1960/70s in a way that seems almost magical now, where even small radical theatre ensembles are adapting novels(!) for the theatre instead of producing new plays.

The truth is British society changed a hell of a lot through the 80s and much of it was for the bad. I'm not talking about the development of technology but of social morality. In many ways the curtain came down.

We have been moving towards an homogenised paper-thin TV programming model for some time now. The TV being produced is far poorer than what has gone before. Much of this unfortunately is masked for the casual viewer by advances in technology.

Thanks for your suggestion. Good luck on everything.

Spam links removed

Good to see surreal comedy is still alive and kicking.
Even if it does come from ARSEWIPE SPAMMERS.

I concur with Godot.

Partly I blame nervy executives following Twitter feeds and changing production accordingly.

But also the idea of TV and Radio as the national theatre is disappearing.

The profit or virtual profit model is king.

Shrek the musical?

FFS

Quote: Nogget @ May 28 2011, 7:03 AM BST

?

That wasn't released as a serious attempt at making music though, was it.
It was a business that parents paid to put their kids in a pretend music video, and that one happened to get popular online as it made her look so stupid.

If someone used that as a yardstick to judge modern 'music' they'd be a bit of an idiot.

There is some absolute shit about, obviously! Maybe even stuff as bad as that. But you can't include a pretend video as an argument that 'modern music is rubbish'.

Hmm, hmmm, hmmmm, what do I say, that we have too much comedy on? May upset some people, but I think it must be part of the problem, if indeed it is deteriorating as I believe it generally is.

The more channels we have, the more new comedy progs get poured into them and the quality of these ain't always that great is it.

But you take the best comedy from any era, and I'd say the best now compares relatively okay in quality from past decades, just not in content. Content has changed a lot. I think scripts have got cleverer, but coarser at the same time.

There are some good late night sitcoms on, but I think the really popular, funny, peaktime sitcom has suffered drastically, it's almost been neglected now in favour of BBC Three type young audience sitcoms or the tsunami of trendy US comedy star led copies. Which depresses me on several levels.

Kipper, I'm not sure where you get this idea from that the US is awash with "star led" comedies. Most of the great US shows from recent years - 30 Rock, Modern Family, The Office, Arrested Development - have been ensemble pieces.

I was hinting at the long running Sienfeld and CYE. They may not be new now but they are still influencing our new ones to a worrying degree.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ May 29 2011, 4:00 PM BST

I was hinting at the long running Sienfeld and CYE. They may not be new now but they are still influencing our new ones to a worrying degree.

Are they? Ok, Lead Balloon shares passing similarities with Curb (although the tone of the two shows is quite different), what other new shows are "heavily influenced" by Seinfeld and Curb?

Grandma's House, Friday Night Dinner, Extras (and of course LB).

Less overtly influnced are Peep Show, The Trip, Inbetweeners. But influenced they still are.

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ May 29 2011, 4:25 PM BST

Grandma's House, Friday Night Dinner, Extras (and of course LB).

Less overtly influnced are Peep Show, The Trip, Inbetweeners. But influenced they still are.

Laughing out loud

You're just randomly naming shows!
I admire your moxy, though. Even if your arguments don't hold up to scrutiny.

Teary Not a bit of it. To randomly name shows would be to say Girls On Top, Dad's Army, The Rag Trade, Bless This House. Now with the ones I did say, what one can do is slot your ol' DVDs pertaining to each show stated into the machine and see the similarities appear before your very eyes. I challenge anyone, and everyone. I think. Huh? Yes, I stand by it.

Quote: zooo @ May 29 2011, 12:45 PM BST

you can't include a pretend video as an argument that 'modern music is rubbish'.

Well I wasn't arguing that, all I said was that the rubbish music has got worse these days.

Quote: zooo @ May 29 2011, 12:45 PM BST

That wasn't released as a serious attempt at making music though, was it.

Ok, I see, you reckon it doesn't even deserve to be called music, that's fair enough. But it is purported as music, isn't it, despite being a 'vanity project' and we both agree it's rubbish, so I think we're actually agreeing.

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