Music Banter - British vs. American comedy

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ya_ba (Post 566444)

Full House, for example.
Oh - duh - even Beverly Hills was kinda naive.
(Yeah, not sexless, but still naive.)

Full House was a sitcom. You said you weren't talking about sitcoms. I do agree that it sucked though. And even though I can't stand Beverly Hills 90210, I'd say it's pretty much the opposite of "goody-goody-virgin-until-they're-married-and-boys-who-respect-it people". So I'm still not sure what you're talking about when you refer to non-sitcoms that are about goody-goody people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon (Post 566450)

Full House was a sitcom. You said you weren't talking about sitcoms. I do agree that it sucked though. And even though I can't stand Beverly Hills 90210, I'd say it's pretty much the opposite of "goody-goody-virgin-until-they're-married-and-boys-who-respect-it people". So I'm still not sure what you're talking about when you refer to non-sitcoms that are about goody-goody people.

This is exactly what I was thinking. I had a feeling they were referring to the likes of Dawsons Creek and One Tree Hill but if so I would have to say what they were thinking and what they were posting were not exactly agreeing with one another.

Meh, doesn't matter.
You're right about Full House being a sitcom...
I'd say Neighbours, but like... It's Australian.
Come to think of it, it's not American TV shows that I despise, it's Aussie ones. ;P
(It's lack of sleep that's causing me to write like a moron, I'm not actually that dense.)

This thread is about comedy. Please stay on topic or open a new thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojopinuk (Post 566448)

Again I think maybe I'm needing to choose my wording a little more carefully. What I was intending is certainly best shown in some older shows and usually centre around family life or friendships and in the bigger iconic cities such as NYC. Where the shows can revolve around themes such as happy family life and seem, at least to me as a foreigner to portray places such as NYC and America proudly as the greatest places in the world. They certainly would never or rarely deal with some of the cultural issues such as war and gun crime etc and maybe even portray forgeigners in a very stereoptypical manner. Friends did this for a start. Im not saying its a problem or anything, its sitcom after all. I think the Brits appear to be a little more prepared to show the grittier sides of their culture. A lot of British sitcoms show life in this country from the more working class and poorer point of view and I can think of quite a few that deal with some of the more negative aspects of the culture such as football hooliganism which seems a common one. Whichever way you look at it a lot of British comedy is set in environments that are probably far from attractive.

I can see what you're saying but I also think you're focusing on the 80s and early 90s which, honestly, is probably the worst era in American TV. During the 70s I think it was fairly common to find American sitcoms that dealt with the grittier sides of the culture, Good Times, M*A*S*H and Taxi come to mind as examples. Heck even in the wasteland of 80s and early 90s American shows you can still find shows like Roseanne and Married With Children which, while certainly not the greatest shows by any means, did have a heavy focus on the working class.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon (Post 566460)

There are always going to be exceptions. Really my views are nothing but a very broad generalisation when you consider there are always exceptions, whatever the opinion. Whenever you have a trend you also have those working against it.

I rarely watch TV, but America had George Carlin, so we win. :D

I rarely watch TV but we had Tony Hancock, Peter Cook, Spike Milligan, Monty Python and Peter Sellers. :D

well I think im going to be rather biased as I am from the UK, but generally I think that there is a definate diference in humour betweek UK an American, how thats not to say that American comedy is bad at all most of my favourite shows are American but not always for the comedy factor.

Two of my favourite programmes are never mind the buzz****s and have i got news for you.

If you havnt you should check out Simon Amstell and Russell Howard for stand up. The only problem being that a lot of the humour does relate to being british.. but give them a go? you might like them?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cadence (Post 567765)

well I think im going to be rather biased as I am from the UK, but generally I think that there is a definate diference in humour betweek UK an American, how thats not to say that American comedy is bad at all most of my favourite shows are American but not always for the comedy factor.

Two of my favourite programmes are never mind the buzz****s and have i got news for you.

If you havnt you should check out Simon Amstell and Russell Howard for stand up. The only problem being that a lot of the humour does relate to being british.. but give them a go? you might like them?

Same for a lot of British stand up comedians. Probably limits their appeal outside of the UK.