American Comedy Vs. British Comedy "TV"

[Gov Kodos]

Pingfah wrote:

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Britain has a plethora of sketch comedy groups, many of which have been given their own TV shows, but yeah, I can't remember ever seeing anything similar on American TV. Saturday Night Live seems to be the closest you have, although the cast is constantly changing on that, it does feature a fair bit of absurdist comedy though.

Kids in the Hall remind me a lot of Python, although they are Canadian of course.

The Carol Burnet Show is the comedy sketch show I remember best.

[Guy Gardener]

Key and Peel is on right now.

What the fuck about Saturday Night Live?

That bastard has been running since 1975.

In Living Colour was fantastic.

Did you ever see the Sketch show?

A mildly funny English sketch show, which later sold all it's scripts to Kelsy Grammar who then remade everything in the US verbatim but less funny?

Does Robot Chicken count as a Sketch Show?

[Mr. Adventure]

Pingfah wrote:

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Britain has a plethora of sketch comedy groups, many of which have been given their own TV shows, but yeah, I can't remember ever seeing anything similar on American TV. Saturday Night Live seems to be the closest you have, although the cast is constantly changing on that, it does feature a fair bit of absurdist comedy though.

Kids in the Hall remind me a lot of Python, although they are Canadian of course.

My favorite right now is Key & Peele on Comedy Channel. It's more understated but Portlandia on IFC is sketch comedy. In thr past there was In Living Color, Chapelle, The State, probably others I'm missing I'm sure.


EDIT Guy beat me to it here

[Hyfen_Underskor]

My problem with Saturday Night Live is that they use random guests like Johnny Carson or David Letterman would do. It works for TV talk show hosts because they're able to make the conversation humorous without having that burden placed on the guest.

SNL however will have various guests participate in a sketch where they follow a script. The problem there is that just reading/acting from a comedy script is not going to make it funny. And since many of the guests are not comedians, or particularly funny, SNL has had a number of skits where non-funny people are attempting to come across as funny. And often times it just doesn't work.

MPFC were not special guest oriented, so they didn't have that problem.

[Hyfen_Underskor]

Nerys Myk wrote:

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Yeah, Black Adder is old too. The first series came out in 1983 and the last one in 1989. Hyfen_Underskor didn't mention age in his post. So what's your point? That you missed out on some American TV shows?

That's true that I didn't mention age, but that was my general idea. Those shows you mentioned were fairly common for the 60's, and pretty much ended there.

Although I never became a viewer of Third Rock From the Sun, and have my doubts that I would enjoy it, the show does have a similar storyline typical of the 60's where comedies did use unusual, non-conventional families (hillbillies in rich neighborhoods, cavemen transplanted into the modern era, witches, genies, goths, Universal studio monsters, etc.).

[Bob The Skutter]

As most people have said there's hit and miss in both, and they tend to be made in very different ways.

I prefer many British comedies over many American ones, but that's more personal preference than saying "American comedy sucks!".

[Guy Gardener]

August T Jones would have disagree with you.

[Kevin W.]

Sheep wrote:

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Like Have I Got News For You? I've wondered this myself, but I'm guessing the reason is because those shows wouldn't be able to get anything beyond B-, C- and D-list guests since the A-list crowd is clearly too good/busy/much of a moron/coked up to appear on a silly panel show.

That and a good portion of Hollywood isn't open-minded. Watch Mock the Week and they trash everyone in politics. The Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems are not safe, whereas (I don't intend for this to spark any kind of debate) if you tried an American Mock the Week, it would be incredibly one-sided and it would be 95% trashing the Republican Party.

[Guy Gardener]

Everybody Hates Chris was an excellent historical comedy!

But it had to be set when it was set and didn't really have a choice.

Chis Rock gave Todd Bridges a job.

[Mr. Adventure]

Kevin W. wrote:

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That and a good portion of Hollywood isn't open-minded. Watch Mock the Week and they trash everyone in politics. The Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems are not safe, whereas (I don't intend for this to spark any kind of debate) if you tried an American Mock the Week, it would be incredibly one-sided and it would be 95% trashing the Republican Party.

While still one-sided but to the right, there is a odd duck panel show on Fox News called Red Eye but it only airs at 3AM(!) on weeknights.

[Kegg]

Hyfen_Underskor wrote:

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Who is funnier?

Generally Americans. I can easily rattle off at least a dozen American sitcoms I love, and I couldn't give you half that number of British shows. There's a very sharp, broad, scripted quality to my favourite sitcoms (say classic era Simpsons) that, while some British shows come close to it in terms of style, few really equal.

Granted, there's a bias in being exposed to so much British TV, a great deal of which is truly awful... while not seeing the worst say American TV has to offer.

In short: Red Dwarf gets a couple of laughs. But I can't think of an episode of that show I've loved as much as Futurama's "Roswell That Ends Well."

Amasov wrote:

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It was even said a recent thread about Frasier, that it was the most British American sitcom we've ever had.

That's an interesting because I'd consider it a very American sitcom (even with Jane Leeves). Very much Three's Company with erudite references... and essentially it takes Cheers's slobs vs. snobs humour and just chooses to centre on the snobs instead. It doesn't much resemble most British sitcoms I've watched.

[Harvey]

Kegg wrote:

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Granted, there's a bias in being exposed to so much British TV, a great deal of which is truly awful... while not seeing the worst say American TV has to offer.

I suspect most American viewers -- myself included -- have the same perspective, except the nationalities are reversed. I've really only seen the best of British television -- be it drama or comedy. I assume the crap just isn't imported to the United States, or at least isn't that visible.

[Gil T.Azell]

One I didn't see mentioned here was SOAP






Way ahead of its time when it came out.

[JoeZhang]

Kegg wrote:

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Generally Americans. I can easily rattle off at least a dozen American sitcoms I love, and I couldn't give you half that number of British shows.

<tongue in cheek> Who can take seriously the views of a man who's country gave us Mrs. Brown's boys?

It was because of that show that Q put humanity on trial in TNG.

[MacLeod]

Well a few years back (2004) BBC did a poll as part of TV series and the Top 10 shows in order where

Only Fools and Horses
Blackadder
Vicar of Dibley
Dad's Army
Faulty Towers
Yes, Minister
Porridge
Open All Hours
The Good Life
One Foot In The Grave

Eagle eyed viewers will note those all aired on the Beeb, number 11 Father Ted didn't air on the Beeb