National Humour
 

I was wondering what Americans think about British humour and vice versa. A lot of British humour seems to be lost on our American cousins and I have heard that it can come across as rude or pompous? I am not extolling the virtues of our SOH over American SOH, I am genuinely interested in the differences in humour. Views?

I love American humour, in particular Jewish/American humour.

^ I don't believe that's true to be honest. I think we like to think that though.

I find Simon Amstell funnier than anything I've ever seen on our TVs.

Describe his humour ethan...

Hilarious, prick-like, witty, sexy, erotic, hot.

I see it as sophisticated sarcasm.
He is a funny man, but I prefer subtle humour, like Larry David for example. Ridiculous but believable.

Amstell is a sarcastic git- typically British then!

I love Amstell and I really love Larry David. They're both in my opinion two of the funniest people in the business.

I find someone like Eddie Izzard more apt for this. Although he dresses his humour in eccentricity, I find Izzard has a very sarcastic streak.

I would descibe Larry David as droll. Although it was a rip off, I liked Jack Dee's Lead Balloon series.

I personally never found Monty Python very funny. But i know a lot of people here that do.

I also find our version of the Office better >: [

I felt we kind of slaughtered the Office.

England doesnt have
http://www.myconfinedspace.com/water...ht-schrute.jpg

Touché

yea, I think the American version is so much funnier.

The Office is amazing. My brother hates it, he thinks its really bad dry humor. Sad times for him on Thursday nights :(

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.

Its not the same southpark as 8 years ago. You should try the newer episodes.

I haven't kept up with much new comedy lately, whether American or British. I used to watch "Are You Being Served?" and "Red Dwarf" all the time when I was younger. I need to find "Red Dwarf" in a box set or something...does anyone know where I can get it?
I happen to also like Monty Python, but in small doses. I think the attraction with MP is that the movies and Flying Circus are so quotable. And come on...who doesn't get a kick out of "We are the knights who saaayyyy...NEEE!" hehe.
One of my favorite American comedians is John Witherspoon. He did a piece on The Rollings Stones in his show "You Got to Coordinate" that had me laughing so hard I could barely breathe!

The only recent one I've seen is where the internet goes down and the guy sneaks in to look up porn. 'Uh, it's ectoplasm!'

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.



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.

^^^

Well written post. I could'nt be bothered to quote it!

You can get a 18 disc box set of all 8 series with hours & hours of extras. I bought it for an American friend of mine last year. Just go to Amazon.com

In fact you get a better deal than UK Red Dwarf fans because you can't even buy it in the UK , you want that you have to buy all the discs individually.

Shocking as in spectacularly good, or shocking as in incredibly horrible?

I'm quite relieved the alleged american version of Spaced was canned, i wouldn't want to imagine it.