The Classic Britcom Q&A Thread

Thank you very much for the extra information.

 

A load of old cobblers - Wikipedia

 

That's similar to what I said. Sometimes people call something "A load of old codswallop" instead.

 

I enjoyed the gentle comedic shtick of Dad's Army. I get a nostalgic buzz from seeing it again. I can't defend it as necessarily brilliant, although for myself I got into it enough to love the book with the scripts of early 'missing presumed wiped' episodes, and then got the episodes later when some were found!

A couple of past comedic shows I think the U.S. might have really enjoyed are Catweazle and Ghosts Of Motley Hall (by the creator of Catweazle). It's a mystery why something like Are You Being Served or As Time Goes By, or even The Good Life/Good Neighbors, get rerun decade after decade while there were many shows totally unaired anywhere in America.

 

I tried the first episode of Dad's Army the other day and couldn't get into it. I will try again. I'm going to read up on exactly what the show is about and who the main players are. Some shows are much easier for me to get into than others. There's a certain kind of British humor I just don't get. Monty Pythons is hit or miss for me - some of it is great and some of it is absurd = not funny.

Some humor I find dated, too. Same with American comedy. It's a big mistake that I think Saturday Night Live has made over the years with their political comedy. A lot of that stuff is dated whereas the situational comedy is almost timeless (except for what the players are wearing).

 

A "dad's army" was the term older men during WWII volunteering as a home guard. They were not up to sending into combat overseas usually because of age, thus most might've been actual dads or fathers. I think that's all needed to understand the situation, and then of course comedy ensues hopefully.

I did watch Are You Being Served and Good Life, didn't meant to single them out, or A Fine Romance which I followed as well the first time it was on, just examples of shows that are almost always on someplace over here.

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em could be really laugh out loud hysterical I thought. I loved Open All Hours, a bit more gentle/shtick, and the revival with David Jason older and now in charge of the shop and finding himself repeating lines Ronnie Barker had used on him to his shop assistant.

 

Ahhh ok that helps. I thought it was about someone that had served in the war and was stuck in the past.

 

Another Brit-com I enjoyed was titled I Didn't Know You Cared, which had some great northern, fatalistic, even dark, humour. Idiosyncratic characters of course. Where you would get the Liverpool sort of exaggerated put-down thing from a David Lister in Red Dwarf, here it was a more dour Yorkshire bleakness which would only occasionally make it into Last Of The Summer Wine.

Another Yorkshire sitcom was Rising Damp centering on a boarding house. Again, memorable idiosyncratic characters carried things along. A bit earlier over in Liverpool was The Liverbirds... England's Laverne & Shirley you might say. Members of The Scaffold, who provided the theme song, might even turn up in it, including Paul McCartney's brother. The entire first season with Pauline Collins is still 'missing presumed wiped' the last I heard.

On The Buses was a good knock-about comedy we had for years in Canada... centering on a municipal bus line and garage and the home of one of the driver's played by Reg Varney. Carney had been in an earlier show called The Rag Trade as a shop manager in a garment factory caught between the management and the seamstress who was the union rep.

 

Parodied in Austin Powers 3.
And also here:

 

I see no one has mentioned The Thin Blue Line a short lived Rowan Atkinson show from the 90s.I'm not surprised.Few people remember it yet it was quite good!

 

A "bit" strange. Nice understatement! Love it though. Psychoville was almost just as good, but I don't think League of Gentleman will ever be topped.

 

Catterick was great. Seems largely forgotten about though. Early Doors was another great, but largely forgotten, show too. In fact, I'd probably say it's my favourite comedy series.

 

I don't think you necessarily have to know the background to Dad's Army to appreciate it - though I guess it won't do any harm - it's really just about the characters. Each of the main characters is really distinct and they all play their individual roles perfectly and maybe it just takes an episode or two to get to know them. Or maybe you just don't like it - I can't say I've actually seen it in years myself so maybe I'd feel differently about it if I saw it again today, I'm not sure. All I know is the episode where Private Godfrey (the really old one) is ostracised by the others when they find out that he didn't fight during the First World War is genuinely really, really moving.

 

Well, I just finished watching Derry Girls and thought it was great! Any shows with the same comedic timing feel to them? The show felt like rapid fire jokes to me. Great stuff!