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General Category => Literature, Music, Art & Entertainment => Topic started by: Humph Warden Bennett on October 20, 2018, 12:24:06 PM

Title: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Humph Warden Bennett on October 20, 2018, 12:24:06 PM
I have never quite decided as to Bottle Boys (crude, stereotypical, and outdated even for it's time) is actually worse than Thompson (pretentious luvvies trying to show how clever and versatile they all are). I am not making a poll since doubtless many others will be suggested :D
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Sebastian Toe on October 20, 2018, 12:49:21 PM
Love thy Neighbour and Curry and Chips.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on October 20, 2018, 01:01:38 PM
I have never quite decided as to Bottle Boys (crude, stereotypical, and outdated even for it's time) is actually worse than Thompson (pretentious luvvies trying to show how clever and versatile they all are).
Thompson. Yes I suppose there is a case for mentioning the horror that was televised showing off from 'Peter's friends'...that film could have been called Thompson-the movie.
Your description absolutely nails the nadir of BBC comedy.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Humph Warden Bennett on October 20, 2018, 01:07:40 PM
Love thy Neighbour and Curry and Chips.

From a 2018 perspective, it could be argued that Love Thy Neighbour is sexist, since it is only the male characters who are depicted as the unpleasant bigots!

I remember Spike being interviewed on tv, he said that he had mixed feelings about Curry and Chips, since he had liked most of the Pakistani people whom he had met in real life.

Nowadays I am sure that some would object to Spike's daft "Pakistani Daleks" sketch, although part of the joke is that the sketch has nothing to do with Pakistanis.

https://youtu.be/C0n88tZQc4Q?t=46s
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Humph Warden Bennett on October 20, 2018, 01:47:18 PM
I have just remembered Hello Cheeky, that was rather bad as well, although perhaps corny rather than painful (see what I did there?(!)
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: jeremyp on October 20, 2018, 02:49:04 PM
It must be a very personal thing because I can't, for the life of me, understand why they kept recommissioning Mrs Brown's Boys. Also Two Pints of Lager is about as funny as removing your own appendix with a hacksaw blade.

Also, any comedy set in Liverpool except The Liver Birds.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Rhiannon on October 20, 2018, 03:27:40 PM
Prince Among Men. And there was something with a woman who just said 'Phenomenal' over and over like it was some kind of highly amusing catchphrase. Watched about three minutes of both.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Humph Warden Bennett on October 20, 2018, 04:11:13 PM
It must be a very personal thing because I can't, for the life of me, understand why they kept recommissioning Mrs Brown's Boys. Also Two Pints of Lager is about as funny as removing your own appendix with a hacksaw blade.

Also, any comedy set in Liverpool except The Liver Birds.

I have never understood the appeal of Mrs Browns Boys An ugly man in drag somehow gets away with making fun out of Irish women.

FTR I did meet Splodgenessabounds,  in 1980. They are from the posh semi rural village of Keston, rather than the hard sarf larndon that they claim to be from.

I do not care for Liverpool. And YES I have been there.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Humph Warden Bennett on October 20, 2018, 04:30:26 PM
Prince Among Men. And there was something with a woman who just said 'Phenomenal' over and over like it was some kind of highly amusing catchphrase. Watched about three minutes of both.

It was a good premise, but a bad script. With better writers it could have been amusing.

I recall the real life situation which involved cheap porn baron David Sullivan teaming up with his sidekick Karren Brady and taking over Birmingham FC. Brum City played  Fifth Division Macclesfield Town.. and lost.

Sullivan & his rather nasty chums had organised champers for the board, expecting a victory over National League opponents. Karren tried her best, asking Mr Sullivan "Any other surprise results?".....Sullivan, obviously embarrassed, replied "Er......No...."
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Aruntraveller on October 20, 2018, 04:44:47 PM
There was a spectacularly dire series starring the lovely Mollie Sugden set aboard a spaceship. You read that right. However I cant remember its name. Even the redoubtable Mollie couldn't save it.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Robbie on October 20, 2018, 06:25:21 PM
'Come back Mrs Noah' is the one with Mollie Sugden in a spaceship.

I don't know most of the above mentioned comedies, never saw Bottle Boys or Thompson but think I might have liked 'Thompson', or tried to, as I liked Emma Thompson at that time.

Mrs Browns Boys, on the few occasions I've seen it, has had me splitting my sides with laughter.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: jeremyp on October 20, 2018, 06:29:45 PM

Mrs Browns Boys, on the few occasions I've seen it, has had me splitting my sides with laughter.
It has me splitting my sides with an angle grinder.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Robbie on October 20, 2018, 06:53:59 PM
All in the best possible taste.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Rhiannon on October 20, 2018, 08:05:05 PM
I'd completely forgotten Thompson. I dimly remember her doing dance routines. Or am I imagining that? Big gig, a self-titled show on the Beeb, considering that her acting career hadn't really taken off then.

I like Em.

Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Steve H on October 20, 2018, 08:55:42 PM
Last of the Summer Wine and The Cosby Show - both humour-free zones.
Septic Toe mentioned 'Curry and Chips': I quite liked that.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: ad_orientem on October 21, 2018, 06:11:08 AM
Nothing wrong with Last Of The Summer Wine, though it shouldn't have gone on for as long as it did.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Rhiannon on October 21, 2018, 09:30:49 AM
Seems so often to be the way with comedy, they outstay their welcome. Even My Family ended up pants, but it was ok when it first started.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: ad_orientem on October 21, 2018, 09:36:45 AM
True, very true.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Gordon on October 21, 2018, 09:58:33 AM
There was a series called Brighton Belles in the early 1990's: a UK version of the US 'Golden Girls' which was spectacularly awful apart from one element - this was having Jean Boht (best known for 'Bread') giving us the worst attempt at a Scottish accent I've ever heard.

It was the only thing about it that was funny, albeit excruciatingly so.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on October 21, 2018, 12:36:06 PM
Nothing wrong with Last Of The Summer Wine, though it shouldn't have gone on for as long as it did.
Apparently it continues as "The Grand Tour".
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Roses on October 21, 2018, 12:38:43 PM
Nothing wrong with Last Of The Summer Wine, though it shouldn't have gone on for as long as it did.


It was quite amusing when it first started, but you are correct about it going on for too long.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: jeremyp on October 21, 2018, 12:56:49 PM
Seems so often to be the way with comedy, they outstay their welcome. Even My Family ended up pants, but it was ok when it first started.
Yes, no. Everybody in my family has always found that totally unfunny. One time at a family gathering, it was announced as coming up o the telly and my Mum said "that's really good". Everybody else looked at her in surprised. She noticed the deathly silence and then tried to fill it by saying "yes, the children are really funny, especially the little girl.... oh, wait, I'm thinking of Outnumbered.."

For the record, I have never understood the acclaim that was heaped on The Royle Family. Comedy is quite personal.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: jeremyp on October 21, 2018, 01:03:01 PM

It was quite amusing when it first started, but you are correct about it going on for too long.

I have a memory of quite liking it when I was a child. But I couldn't watch an episode of it now, probably even some of the early episodes with the originalish cast, sadly all dead now.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Roses on October 21, 2018, 02:41:25 PM
We enjoyed the original Dad's Army series, but thought the remake was absolutely hopeless, they should have left well alone.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Steve H on October 21, 2018, 04:44:12 PM
We enjoyed the original Dad's Army series, but thought the remake was absolutely hopeless, they should have left well alone.
I take it you mean the recent film. I agree. Sumptuous sets and costumes, and a real feel of the period, but laughs were a bit thin on the ground.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: SweetPea on October 21, 2018, 08:00:10 PM

Steptoe and Son …. dire
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Anchorman on October 21, 2018, 10:34:59 PM

It was quite amusing when it first started, but you are correct about it going on for too long.
   


I remember the first three series with the brilliant Michael Bates as Blamire. I seem to rememberr the comedy had a bit of a hard edge.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Roses on October 22, 2018, 12:31:47 PM
'Till death us do part' was pretty dire, the Alf Garnet character was very racist.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Steve H on October 22, 2018, 12:41:57 PM
'Till death us do part' was pretty dire, the Alf Garnet character was very racist.
That was the point. It was satirising racist attitudes. You weren't supposed to admire Alf!
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Rhiannon on October 22, 2018, 12:44:20 PM
That was the point. It was satirising racist attitudes. You weren't supposed to admire Alf!

It’s amazing how many people still don’t get that. Warren Mitchell himself said so many times that you were meant to laugh at Alf, not with him. 
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Robbie on October 22, 2018, 12:50:13 PM
Exactly.  It was very clever.  Alf Garnett the working class Tory.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Anchorman on October 22, 2018, 01:42:10 PM
'Till death us do part' was pretty dire, the Alf Garnet character was very racist.


TDUDP was superb, searing, biting comedy.
That the racist never won was the whole point!
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Roses on October 22, 2018, 02:07:16 PM
'Till death us do part' started in the 60s when racism was very much in vogue. 'No blacks welcome' were signs that were seen from time to time! >:( I suspect a good number f viewers would have shared Alf Garnet's racist view of the world.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Robbie on October 22, 2018, 02:14:18 PM
Yes they would and the fact that the character of Alf Garnett was a satirisation of someone like that was the whole point of the programme. He was laughable. Not just for racism, his general right wing views.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Anchorman on October 22, 2018, 02:17:15 PM
The sequal - "In sickness and in health" was almost as brilliant, with Garnett's foil being not only black, but gay. The genious is, of course, that Warren Mitchell was very much a 'Labour' manthrough and through, and his character was a right wing Tory. Superb acting.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Nearly Sane on October 22, 2018, 02:18:03 PM
Alf was an early example of Poe's Law.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: ippy on October 22, 2018, 08:33:15 PM
Humour's a funny thing, some of the supposedly fun things and people leave me cold and the person next to me prostate with laughter and then again visa versa.

Our individual senses of humour seem to be unexplainable, the tastes we have must be shaped by so many facets of our individual histories and more, I'll put up my hands to the view that my humour fixated at about the age of twelve and I don't mind who says so, I would have to agree.

People without an apparent sense of humour, you do get the odd one from time to time, are put on the earth to amplify the fun others have due to the serious looks on their faces.

It's an impossible job to analyse humour, I loved Bob Monkhouse's remark about sex at 70? he said he lives at number 65 himself.

Regards to all ippy
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Steve H on October 22, 2018, 10:43:26 PM
Warren Mitchell was also Jewish, and I don't suppose Jews would be especially popular with Alf Garnett, either.
Woss Poe's law?
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Nearly Sane on October 22, 2018, 10:59:48 PM
Warren Mitchell was also Jewish, and I don't suppose Jews would be especially popular with Alf Garnett, either.
Woss Poe's law?


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on October 22, 2018, 11:00:10 PM
Humour's a funny thing

 ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on October 22, 2018, 11:06:43 PM

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Nearly sane
I was just wondering who might want to desperately parody a creationist and that reminded me of a story of an antitheist comedian who apparently couldn't go on stage because he ''felt a bit funny''. His manager told him to ''get on quickly before it wore off''
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Sebastian Toe on October 23, 2018, 12:29:52 AM
Nearly sane
I was just wondering who might want to desperately parody a creationist and that reminded me of a story of an antitheist comedian who apparently couldn't go on stage because he ''felt a bit funny''. His manager told him to ''get on quickly before it wore off''
It gets funnier every time you tell it....











....not.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: jeremyp on October 23, 2018, 07:24:45 PM
It’s amazing how many people still don’t get that. Warren Mitchell himself said so many times that you were meant to laugh at Alf, not with him.
The problem I have with that is that I found him so obnoxious that I couldn't get into the programme. The protagonists need to have something about them to make them sympathetic.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: ad_orientem on October 23, 2018, 07:29:43 PM
The problem I have with that is that I found him so obnoxious that I couldn't get into the programme. The protagonists need to have something about them to make them sympathetic.

Alf Garnett was West Ham. Isn't that sympathetic enough? LOL!
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: jeremyp on October 23, 2018, 07:39:34 PM
Alf Garnett was West Ham. Isn't that sympathetic enough? LOL!
Hmm let me - an Arsenal supporter - think about that for a moment.... no.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Dicky Underpants on October 29, 2018, 04:59:31 PM
It must be a very personal thing because I can't, for the life of me, understand why they kept recommissioning Mrs Brown's Boys. Also Two Pints of Lager is about as funny as removing your own appendix with a hacksaw blade.


Certainly agree with those. TV comedy series (apart from panel shows) seem to have gone through a particularly dire period this year. The awfulness of 'Hospital People' and 'Man Like Mobeam' left me speechless (the latter was written in response to 'Citizen Khan', which the writer thought "too stereotypical").
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Rhiannon on October 29, 2018, 05:14:15 PM
Certainly agree with those. TV comedy series (apart from panel shows) seem to have gone through a particularly dire period this year. The awfulness of 'Hospital People' and 'Man Like Mobeam' left me speechless (the latter was written in response to 'Citizen Khan', which the writer thought "too stereotypical").

Upstart Crow is cool. New series of that has just aired.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Steve H on October 29, 2018, 10:40:30 PM
Upstart Crow is cool. New series of that has just aired.
Upstart Crow is brilliant. The one in which Hamnet died was rather moving at the end.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Rhiannon on October 29, 2018, 11:24:46 PM
Upstart Crow is brilliant. The one in which Hamnet died was rather moving at the end.

I know, I wondered if Ben Elton would duck it, and if not how he'd handle it. I think he pulled it off rather well.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Steve H on October 29, 2018, 11:36:48 PM
I know, I wondered if Ben Elton would duck it, and if not how he'd handle it. I think he pulled it off rather well.
I too had wondered how they would deal with Hamnet's eventual clog-popping.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Nearly Sane on October 30, 2018, 09:12:31 AM
I find Upstart Crow unwatchable. Comedy is a very strange thing
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Roses on October 30, 2018, 09:32:59 AM
The very worst comedy ever, which I hope will be ended sooner rather than later, is called, ' President Trump'.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: jeremyp on October 30, 2018, 01:50:25 PM
The very worst comedy ever, which I hope will be ended sooner rather than later, is called, ' President Trump'.
That's not comedy, it's tragedy.
Title: Re: Worst TV Comedy Series of all time
Post by: Dicky Underpants on October 30, 2018, 05:06:50 PM
Upstart Crow is cool. New series of that has just aired.

I have mixed feelings about Upstart Crow. I think David Mitchell is usually brilliant in whatever he does. However, U.C. does tend to make a meal out of the well documented absurdities in Shakespeare's plots, so the dialogue in this respect is probably not quite as clever as it first sounds. What is quite clever is the playing with more modern ideas of female liberation and the absurdities that resulted from Shakespeare having to get young chaps to drag up to play the parts.