Well I am neither American nor British (not immediately anyway), so I can only comment as a bystander. Bear in mind that NZ's entertainment/news is mostly dominated by the USA nowadays.
I think NZ was once a very British country but is nowadays predominantly American - I'm not sure when/how that happened, but I suspect that NZ went into the war pledging allegiance to Mother England and came out of the war realising it could stand on its own two feet... or maybe the Constitution Act had something to do with it. Point being that NZ is a mixture of both - we have British language and familial ties, but American entertainment/news.
Anyway, getting back on track... American humour differs greatly from British. I think British humour is more dependent on sarcasm, language, dark parody/satire, acting, chaos, history references and self-parody to an extent. American humour tends to be more physical and dependent on slapstick, modern pop culture references, vulgarity and everyday life in general.
I prefer British comedy but I can find a lot of good entertainment from both sides.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProggyMan
American comedy is hardly lacking, but it's sadly weighed down by unfunny crap like South Park/Family Guy etc. I have nothing against humor like that, just humor like that that isn't funny. I saw Monty Python (My parents are fanatics) when I was 8 and didn't get it. Not since then have I seen it though, and I'd probably like it more. I don't really know much about British comedians.
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Well I would probably present South Park as a good example of American comedy. While it might superficially appear to be outwardly vulgar, there is some very clever satirism/parody going on there IMO. If you know what I mean, a lot of the humour content isn't in the form of obvious jokes but rather more subtle themes. Regarding the internet/ectoplasm episode, I found the underlying ideas quite amusing... the parody of the fact that people rely as much on internet as food nowadays, people are more concerned with having e-relationships than real ones, and that the internet is for porn, even if no-one wants to admit it.
I'm not really a fan of Family Guy... for a show so seemingly random, it comes across as being rather formulaic and repetitive. Typically, most of its 'humour' involves unrelated flashbacks to random things and pop culture jokes. It seems like a giant mish mash of whatever they can chuck together in 20 mins. I don't mind it (and watch it when my flatmates are watching it), but I think it's a bit weak and contrived.