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Post by doctorkernow on Mar 27, 2019 22:20:41 GMT
Hello again.
Fed up with Brexit? Me too. I am a great fan of the situation comedy. Creating a good situation comedy is like trying to bottle lightning.
In this thread I'd like to discuss and appreciate the art of the sitcom. Old favourites and new highlights. Memorable characters, funny stories and sharp writing are all welcome.
My favourites include Porridge, Father Ted, dinnerladies, Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Horses, The Royle Family, The Good Place, Blackadder and Drop the Dead Donkey and many, many more.
I hope forum members will enjoy this much needed distraction from all the chaos around!
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Post by doctorkernow on Mar 27, 2019 22:53:51 GMT
Hello again.
Sitcom of the week: Drop the Dead Donkey Writers: Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin. 1990-1998 First broadcast on Channel 4 and currently available on All4.
This was set in a busy newsroom. A wonderfully astute observation of office life, with a gallery of great characters played by an enjoyable ensemble cast.
Gus, the smarmy executive with a excruciating line in management speak. George, the ineffectual editor and Alex his cynical deputy who just wants George to stand up to the management. Damien the very unethical reporter and the two newsreaders old hack Henry and fame hungry Sally. Joy, the highly efficient but brutally sarcastic P.A.
The office politics was interwoven with topical news references and stories that reflected the way that the news media generally was changing. The ruthless boss of Globelink News was Sir Royston Merchant. Surely, no coincidence that the two big newspaper moguls of the day were Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell shared the exact same initials!
Quote: Gus: "Well, obviously I don't have an opinion - I am a support module. But it would be very easy to find ourselves standing on buttered ball bearings over this piece. While I feel passionately in no punches pulled, hard-hitting journalism, do you feel in any real sense that we ought to be wary of running any unsubstantiated stories if we are to avoid a faeces and fan situation."
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Post by constonks on Mar 27, 2019 23:06:32 GMT
I was about to muse that Soap was a great show that people might not be aware of nowadays, but then I remembered that our very own bobod sports an avatar from it! My mom had watched it when it was on TV, so when it was on Netflix, we binged the whole thing and I loved the absurdity of it, the parody end-titles narrator, the ventriloquist dummy, the murder mystery, the alien abductions, the scene-stealing Katherine Helmond (who sadly passed away just last month) and the dry wit of Robert Guillaume. And because it's a parody of soap operas, it has ongoing arcs (although sometimes it's as strange as Billy Crystal being hypnotised into thinking he's an elderly Jewish man) - which were a pretty rare thing for earlier sitcoms, although pretty much the norm these days. Anyway, worth checking out, certainly!
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Post by muckypup on Mar 28, 2019 15:11:08 GMT
I watched terry and june series 3 last night...…
it might be middle class suburbia with a whiff of seventies sexism …… but its good natured and a world I would rather live in for all its faults
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Post by doctorkernow on Mar 28, 2019 15:53:52 GMT
Hello again.
Ah yes, the totally inept Terry and the long-suffering June. This was the sitcom that Ben Elton and all the alternative comedians kicked against.
I always liked the title sequence with the misbehaving deckchairs. Both Whitfield and Scott had a gift for verbal and physical comedy and had worked together since the Seventies.
Cosy and safe were both adjectives used to describe it but this was precisely it's appeal. A fantasy suburban idyll, I wonder if there are any Terry and June's still out there in Purley!
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Post by Shiny on Mar 28, 2019 16:47:48 GMT
I'm currently waiting for a boxset of all seven seasons of Malcolm in the Middle to arrive from Amazon. Haven't watched the show since I was a kid. Hopefully it's as good as I remember.
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Post by doctorkernow on Mar 28, 2019 17:46:09 GMT
Hello again.
Do let us know how your rewatch goes Shiny. I used to like the theme song 'You're Not the Boss of Me' by They Might Be Giants. It was a great example of a family sitcom.
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Post by doctorkernow on Mar 28, 2019 20:01:06 GMT
I was about to muse that Soap was a great show that people might not be aware of nowadays, but then I remembered that our very own bobod sports an avatar from it! My mom had watched it when it was on TV, so when it was on Netflix, we binged the whole thing and I loved the absurdity of it, the parody end-titles narrator, the ventriloquist dummy, the murder mystery, the alien abductions, the scene-stealing Katherine Helmond (who sadly passed away just last month) and the dry wit of Robert Guillaume. And because it's a parody of soap operas, it has ongoing arcs (although sometimes it's as strange as Billy Crystal being hypnotised into thinking he's an elderly Jewish man) - which were a pretty rare thing for earlier sitcoms, although pretty much the norm these days. Anyway, worth checking out, certainly! Hello again. A U.S sitcom I remember reading about in my much read copy of 'Halliwell's TV Guide'. Thanks Constonks, any other favourite non UK sitcoms folks?
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Post by constonks on Mar 28, 2019 20:45:12 GMT
I'm currently waiting for a boxset of all seven seasons of Malcolm in the Middle to arrive from Amazon. Haven't watched the show since I was a kid. Hopefully it's as good as I remember. Worth the money for Bryan Cranston alone - but it was a good show, another one not afraid to be strange!
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Post by doctorkernow on Mar 28, 2019 21:39:56 GMT
Hello again.
BBC FOUR 22:00pm tonight British Sitcom: 60 Years of Laughing at Ourselves.
“What sitcom’s brilliant at,” Josh Widdicombe says here, “is identifying a social movement or type and skewering it.” He’s talking about the fashion types parodied in Ab Fab, but the rest of the programme charts how sitcoms from Hancock’s Half Hour onwards have rejoiced in mocking our attitudes to class, race, gender and anything else involving taboos. From Radio Times preview.
Hopefully, this documentary will also appear on BBC Iplayer.
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Post by doctorkernow on Apr 9, 2019 22:24:54 GMT
Hello again.
The Radio Times has just announced its list of Best British Sitcom. So drumroll... the top three are no. 3 I'm Alan Partridge (Aha) , no. 2 Father Ted (Ah go on) and no. 1 Fawlty Towers (Racket? That's Brahms! Brahms' Third Racket!)
Chosen by a huge panel of comedy writers, performers and producers the farcical goings on in that rundown Torquay hotel came out on top. The snobbish rage-filled sarcastic hotel owner played by John Cleese together with Prunella Scales, Connie Booth and Andrew Sachs made a winning team.
Booth and Cleese, the writers gave Fawlty situations that wound him up so much that the humour came from his completely over the top responses.
What's your top sitcom and why?
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Post by number13 on Apr 10, 2019 11:47:13 GMT
Hello again. The Radio Times has just announced its list of Best British Sitcom. So drumroll... the top three are no. 3 I'm Alan Partridge (Aha) , no. 2 Father Ted (Ah go on) and no. 1 Fawlty Towers (Racket? That's Brahms! Brahms' Third Racket!) Chosen by a huge panel of comedy writers, performers and producers the farcical goings on in that rundown Torquay hotel came out on top. The snobbish rage-filled sarcastic hotel owner played by John Cleese together with Prunella Scales, Connie Booth and Andrew Sachs made a winning team. Booth and Cleese, the writers gave Fawlty situations that wound him up so much that the humour came from his completely over the top responses. What's your top sitcom and why? Of course, the panel was right! Flay Otters Flatty Owls Fawlty Towers is the Best British Sitcom of all time. Great writing, great characters...
'You can see the sea - it's over there, between the land and the sky.' ...
'Do you really think a girl like that would look at an ageing, brilliantined stick-insect like you?!' ...
'Which one is "man with beard"?' ...
'Mr. Fawlty, if you want to live your life in a Marx Brothers comedy that's your problem!' ...
A ray of sunshine beamed in straight from 'The English Riviera'
(I'd give a very close second to 'Yes, Minister' and two Highly Commendeds to 'Blackadder' and 'Dad's Army'. And would I not give one to 'Father Ted', too? Ah, go on then.)
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,810
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Post by lidar2 on Apr 30, 2019 12:02:53 GMT
Hello again. The Radio Times has just announced its list of Best British Sitcom. So drumroll... the top three are no. 3 I'm Alan Partridge (Aha) , no. 2 Father Ted (Ah go on) and no. 1 Fawlty Towers (Racket? That's Brahms! Brahms' Third Racket!) Chosen by a huge panel of comedy writers, performers and producers the farcical goings on in that rundown Torquay hotel came out on top. The snobbish rage-filled sarcastic hotel owner played by John Cleese together with Prunella Scales, Connie Booth and Andrew Sachs made a winning team. Booth and Cleese, the writers gave Fawlty situations that wound him up so much that the humour came from his completely over the top responses. What's your top sitcom and why? One Foot in the Grave Yes Minister Allo Allo Only Fools & Horses - I don't think I have ever laughed so much as the 1st time I saw the Trotters scaring off muggers by running up to them dressed as Batman & Robin
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