Quote: Gussie Fink Nottle @ 9th April 2015, 11:42 PM BST
I know the thread is about comedy per se, but I'll go for UK sitcom in particular here.
American sitcom is superior these days (there, I've said it) and will more than likely increase its superiority.
US budgets are such that they employ large teams of writers who together produce quantitatively and qualitatively greater work.
I suggest it was at the point of Frasier that this hand-over occurred.
(Example: The Big Bang Theory will most likely finish on ca. 240 episodes. If they only have a 1 in 4 hit rate (I suggest it will be higher), they'll finish with 60 classic episodes. How many UK series can even equal that in total output?)
The UK producers, previously the kings of sitcom and spooked by this competition, fled down a dark alleyway from which they have since not emerged: the format comedy panel show.
In essence all these panel shows are variations of the radio show I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
They are easy and cheap to produce in numbers, can readily be staffed by stand-up comics and therefore easily fill slots on TV.
However, by now the formats are getting old and the shows are creaking.
One should have faced US competition and stuck to sitcom.
The BBC meanwhile, following this panel show format, has actively encouraged budding comedians to go down the stand-up career path. Training in 'humour' is thus now exclusively stand-up.
However, stand-up comedy and situation comedy are two different beasts.
At the BBC (and possibly at other broadcasters) this is not well understood, it seems.
As an example, Not Going Out is a clear-cut case of a supposed sitcom created by people most likely schooled as stand-ups. The disconnect between the two forms there is all too obvious.
To anyone who has ever watched the documentary Comedy Connections, it is clear that writing and production talent for the classic comedies of the past did not form spontaneously out of thin air.
Sitcom talent was fostered in one show and went on to the next, becoming more mature and expert as it went.
This sitcom conveyor belt has ceased in Britain. But is still operational in the US.
It is a sad fact that Britain could have had prime position in sitcom land.
Global phenomena such as Two And A Half Men or The Big Bang Theory could have been ours, with all the big money that entailed.
But instead we invested our broadcasting dosh into 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Would I Lie To You? and Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
As a result the massive future markets of India and China will watch US sitcoms, not UK product.
We will meanwhile cling to our belief of British comedy superiority due to sitcoms we made thirty to forty years ago, but are in fact no longer capable of producing.
(Fawlty Towers is closer in time to the second world war than it is to us.)
Sitcom is clearly the lasting art form. Panel shows are ephemeral.
Your friends may often ask you, if you remember Del Boy doing this or that in Only Fools And Horses. But they will not tend to ask you if you remember that comment on Have I Got News For You from 1998.
Sitcom is also the established international artform. You can translate Frasier and show it in France, India, Argentina. How many folks want to watch Mock The Week, Series 3, in Saudi Arabia right now?
As has already been mentioned, then there's political correctness.
America, the initial source of this phenomenon, actually seems less affected by PC when it comes to comedy output.
So the bikini girls can come out in Two And A Half Men if it serves a gag, whereas in UK product they don't, for fear that Harriet Harman asks questions in the House.
Meanwhile every -ism possible gets granted credibility at bodies such as the BBC.
In a recent Telegraph article to which someone pointed me, it is suggested that the Beeb now vet every single joke on TV and radio.
How would the golden oldies possibly ever have been made under such conditions?
My guess is they would not have.
It would not only have been Clarkson punching a producer, but so too Cleese, Hancock, Morecambe and Milligan - with Barker following up with a knee to the groin.
So what sitcoms are we going to produce in the UK as the Yanks increase their dominance?
Why, W1A of course. We will 'ironically' mock how PC we are, by producing a programme which is completely PC.
End of monologue.
Begin weeping.
