Jack, your argument started to fall to pieces when you dismissed Cheers so casually. As for Brit Com, recent years have given us Getting On, The Thick Of It, The Trip, The Inbetweeners and of course Peep Show, which is easily the equal of Curb. Not a bad roster.
Quote: Jack Daniels @ August 3 2011, 8:56 PM BSTSorry, Bundy was a sort of a Cro-Magnon-Homer Simpson in Married With Children, back when the template was to enforce a laughtrack response to every single exhale of breath Roseanne Barr's husband would do or whenever Cheers' Norm would roll his eyes. That sort of humour.
When US TV Drama upped the stakes in production, acting etc with The Sopranos and other HBO backed shows their comedy seemed to follow suit.
I just wish we would do the same with our comedy, I'm not trying to be a shouty forum wiseguy, it just guts me truly as a viewer, and a wannabe, that new opportunities in British broadcasting are wasted on these half-hearted concepts based on unthreatening ideals.
Rather than being put off by these comedies you deem to be aiming so low, I'd suggest that - whether a viewer, a current writer or an aspiring one - you should be far more concerned at the dearth of narrative comedy, particularly sitcom and particularly on television. As long as comedy is produced, to each different person there will be some pap, some good, and the odd glisten of gold - but we're fast becoming a nation of quickly-churned-out, throwaway, inconsequential panel shows and stand-up series.
I haven't watched any of the Trollied preview clips, but am just glad that Sky are trying. If they hit a few failures, hopefully they'll dust themselves off and carry on rather than have a hissy fit and give up ITV-style. Shit or shine, I'm glad they're giving it a go.
Quote: radiat10n @ August 3 2011, 9:05 PM BSTThis seems to contradict your earlier assertoin that 'you' Brits should follow the American model???
Sorry, I didn't mean (or say) follow the American model, I said follow the leap in quality, where one person/duo develops a show based on a vision or a passion or a need to express their voice. This show maybe that, I don't think it is though. I don't want to upset the Victoria Wood fanclub, I just think this show (per advert) is going to be a step backwards, not forwards.
Quote: chipolata @ August 3 2011, 9:09 PM BSTJack, your argument started to fall to pieces when you dismissed Cheers so casually. As for Brit Com, recent years have given us Getting On, The Thick Of It, The Trip, The Inbetweeners and of course Peep Show, which is easily the equal of Curb. Not a bad roster.
I didn't casually dismiss Cheers, I said in the past sitcoms would, as a formality include a laughter track to every slight nuance of a fan favourite, as an example I said Norm rolling his eyes. This is true.
Cheers is a product of its time. A time we have since moved on from. Charlie Chaplin was funny too.
Please don't be a loser and do that thing of trying to be contradictory just for the sake of it. We weren't discussing the merits of Cheers were we? I was saying I wish Britsh commisioners of comedy would try to break new ground, create quality, gives new voices a chance... How is that an argument? Unless you believe, this is it? The peak of all comedic achievement, and now the only way is down?
Yes, Peep Show is funny, genius in fact, but this thread isn't titled PEEP SHOW is it? It's titled TROLLIED... So, guess which show I was discussing?
Well, Jack, technically you're the one who mentioned Curb, Cheers, Married With Children and Roseanne before anyone else. I just responded to your pretty dogmatic posts.
Quote: chipolata @ August 3 2011, 9:41 PM BSTWell, Jack, technically you're the one who mentioned Curb, Cheers, Married With Children and Roseanne before anyone else. I just responded to your pretty dogmatic posts.
Okay I'm sorry. I didn't mean the first two posts as anything dogmatic my only point buried in a lot of off the cuff thinking out loud was I wish that the people with the purse-strings would hit a home run everytime in terms of realised potential and effort.
I know diff people like diff things, but 'effort' tends to be something fairly consistent, as oppose to dumbing down - Anyway, here I go again...
I know point of view discussion on the internet is a fairly pointless excercise, in fact (off topic) I referenced you in a different thread a couple of weeks back because you said that the end of Godfather 2 was a mess, I used your example to someone else when pointing out how any random with a keyboard and a net connection can log online and say whatever they like, even if it's finding flaw with Ford Coppola and Puzo at the top of their game, the same way a forty stone lager lout might criticise Owen Hargreaves' fitness levels or whatever, that's just the way it is.
So yeah, expressing an opinion, any opinion, is pointless, because there's ALWAYS an anti-argument around the corner. Sorry again.
I'm sure this show will find its fanbase.
This thread is bonkers.
Just my two penneth.
Carry on...
Quote: Jack Daniels @ August 3 2011, 9:56 PM BSTI know diff people like diff things, but 'effort' tends to be something fairly consistent, as oppose to dumbing down
One man's dumbing down is another man's hitting-the-mark. No one sets out to make a bad comedy, not even the producers of Little Miss Jocelyn were hoping for a steamer. Simple fact is that comedy is probably the most subjective artform there is, and an increasingly expensive one at that. On the 'effort' argument, there's a bloody good case (which you yourself touched upon on the previous page) that too much effort is put into some shows, by too many people. Diluting the artistic vision. Messing with the format. Bastardising, polluting, and changing the comedy. I appreciate you're thinking aloud, and I sympathise with some of your frustrations, but I think that anger is being misdirected a little.
Quote: Aaron @ August 3 2011, 10:18 PM BSTNo one sets out to make a bad comedy...
...I appreciate you're thinking aloud, and I sympathise with some of your frustrations, but I think that anger is being misdirected a little.
Sorry, things can read worse than are meant. Clearly no-one sets out to do bad work and it's petulant and ill-informed of me to suggest otherwise. If I was just an expert my own writings would've sold by now so I'm as guilty of forum politics as the next fanboy. Sorry again.
As for him with the picture of the wolf or artic fox or whatever it is, my thoughts WERE directed at him, because long time poster or not, it's usually just a catty one or two line button-pushing contrarian comment as if to say Authority Has Spoken. When in reality (the world outside) I doubt he's an authority of anything.
I don't want some silly pixelated row, so I'll leave it there and mosey on back to critique.
EDIT: Just had another glance, is it a tiger? Some breed of cat-type thing?
Quote: Jack Daniels @ August 3 2011, 8:56 PM BSTSorry, Bundy was a sort of a Cro-Magnon-Homer Simpson in Married With Children, back when the template was to enforce a laughtrack response to every single exhale of breath Roseanne Barr's husband would do or whenever Cheers' Norm would roll his eyes. That sort of humour.
When US TV Drama upped the stakes in production, acting etc with The Sopranos and other HBO backed shows their comedy seemed to follow suit.
I just wish we would do the same with our comedy, I'm not trying to be a shouty forum wiseguy, it just guts me truly as a viewer, and a wannabe, that new opportunities in British broadcasting are wasted on these half-hearted concepts based on unthreatening ideals.
I havent seen this show so I shouldn't judge but I've seen the preview which is meant as "the best bits" to entice an audience, and the tone is simply depresingly off putting and dated, especially since Sky One have a remit to smash the Beeb's/C4's monopoly on TV comedy and trying to forge a brave new identity, and then THIS is the best they can do?
I'm not saying comedy HAS to be an art, nor every script resemble The Thick Of It, but surely it's better to laugh with a chracter, than at.
We need more singular vision shows, where ONE person develops an idea, they always work the strongest, not these, obviously brainstormed writers-meeting products.
I liked the Bundy show.
Quote: Jack Daniels @ August 3 2011, 9:29 PM BSTCheers is a product of its time. A time we have since moved on from. Charlie Chaplin was funny too.
Please don't be a loser
Jack, jack, jack. We haven't moved on from any time dear boy, art is art whether comedic or otherwise. It's all good, or it's all bad.
Quote: Jack Daniels @ August 3 2011, 10:32 PM BSTSorry, things can read worse than are meant.
As for him with the picture of the wolf or artic fox or whatever it is, my thoughts WERE directed at him, because long time poster or not, it's usually just a catty one or two line button-pushing contrarian comment as if to say Authority Has Spoken. When in reality (the world outside) I doubt he's an authority of anything.
Oh dear.
Quote: Marc P @ August 3 2011, 10:39 PM BSTI liked the Bundy show.
Jack, jack, jack. We haven't moved on from any time dear boy, art is art whether comedic or otherwise. It's all good, or it's all bad.
Oh dear.
Marc, Marc, Marc, don't patronize me. And don't quote me out of context, "dont be a loser" was the start of another sentence.
I know you like to quote how well read you are... and didn't you once mention, in mere passing, that you'd wrote a book?
I resisted your attempts to get involved the last time I had a bit of disagreement with a poster, even though you tried to butt in three times, so seeing as how you want an exchange...
Let me ask you a serious question, your script for the show 'Doctors', was that "all good" or was it "all bad" seeing as how all art is one or the other?
I think chipolata's avatar may depict a snow leopard.
Quote: Jack Daniels @ August 3 2011, 10:51 PM BSTMarc, Marc, Marc, don't patronize me. And don't quote me out of context, "dont be a loser" was the start of another sentence.
I know you like to quote how well read you are... and didn't you once mention, in mere passing, that you'd wrote a book?
I resisted your attempts to get involved the last time I had a bit of disagreement with a poster, even though you tried to butt in three times, so seeing as how you want an exchange...
Let me ask you a serious question, your script for the show 'Doctors', was that "all good" or was it "all bad" seeing as how all art is one or the other?
Ok Jack I won't patronise you if you don't patronise other people. Is that fair. Where do I quote how well read I am ???? please advise me of what I said when butting in? Why are you talking about my writing re wrote a book or a script for Doctors by the way? What's that got to do with anything?
I'm backing down now because I feel like a fool.
But I'll explain myself, probably at length, offer an apology if it's riled you, and then leave it at that.
Ok, as for trying to butt and make quips in another thread, I was reffering to this; Page 3.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/forums/thread/21844/3/
At the time, I thought, whatever, and left your little dig alone.
Me saying you like to make reference to how well read you are, this isn't an insult, its an observation, I'm not going to quote threads, but I was using this a justification for why you felt could patronize me - You holding a loftier intellect, I guessed was a good justification. Well done you.
About Doctors...
You said all art is either All Good, or All Bad... You said time doesn't move on... So basically you're patronizing me (adopting that pedestal again) but this time on the merits of measuring ART.
Okay, I thought, intresting topic to debate I thought, in fact my FAVOURITE discussion, so I'll respond.
So I did, rather than ask your opinions on Trollied or Cheers or whatever else, I'd ask you what you think of YOUR work that's been referenced here on this website.
If I was asked the same question, or,
If I was talking about the unsold scripts of mine, or the short films I did (no budget/no distribution) or in fact anything I have ever done creatively I can honsetly say I am proud, happy and secure that It was my absolute best output and I swear by it. (never recieved a wage check, though, so I'm obviously not that good yet)
But, because of the effort/passion in my own unknown, unsold, un-imdb-ref'd work, I'd reply "All Good"
And if I remain unknown forever and this is my measly cv, so be it, I have no hack credits to my name, never subscribed to the idea any credit is a credit so long as I get my foot in the door, I know this a popular view, and near accepted as gospel, but not for me. I'd rather gouge my eyes out than script an episode of Hollyoaks, say.
I know this could lead to contacts, yada, yada, yada, but I'm not that flexible, more fool me.
And that's it.
So, sorry again.
Just on The Godfather 2 point, I think it's a great film, I just have some minor quibbles with the end (not the Guido stuff, but the proceeding sequence of deaths). I don't think that's a massively controversial or contrary viewpoint, and am slightly bemused it got under someones skin so much.
Quote: Jack Daniels @ August 3 2011, 10:51 PM BSTthat you'd wrote a book?
OK Aaron, got this one covered !
