The situation comedy of generally 30 minute segments was a staple of British TV until the 1990s. So what is your fave and if you like post why ? I've tried to cover all the decades in the poll choices though I'm less keen on the 90s' shows apart from One Foot In The Grave. I'm sure I've missed some good ones out.

I think I have to go with Dad's Army because the characters were so beautifully drawn and acted. Fawlty Towers though probably makes me laugh most.

Faulty Towers is my favorite followed by Ab Fab and Keeping Up Apperances.

Only Fools & Horses for me, the programme was an indelible part of my childhood, great characters, performances, and it was wonderfully developed. Sadly it should have ended in '96 and because it didn't it became a pale shadow of it's former self, at it's peak though in the late 80's early 90's it was the best thing on telly.

Blackadder is a very close second, with Fawlty Towers an equally close third.

I went with Allo Allo, I never tire of the crazy word play, plots and ongoing storyline, of that list, a close second is Are You Being Served and I have a great love for Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, Hancock's Half-Hour, Red Dwarf, Goodnight Sweetheart, Black Books, Spaced and at times Carry On Laughing.

Care to suggest anything else I should explore given those I just listed? I live in the US but I am willing to import, otherwise I would never know Hancock's Half-Hour, Spaced and most of the Carry On films.

Wow! None of my favorites are on that list.

My favorites are:

1. Father Ted
2. Keeping Up Appearances
3. The Vicar of Dibley

And yeah....I LOVE Father Ted. It's crude, rude, and socially unacceptable...but it's REALLY funny.

I haven't voted yet, it would be very difficult to choose one as better than all of the others. What would be the criteria ?, I could make out a valid case for many of them since they have different qualities to offer. I can narrow it down a little to: Porridge, Steptoe & Son, Fawlty Towers, Dads Army, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. I doubt if I could choose just one from those five. I have to say that I really disliked Allo Allo, to me it was just farce, it didn't seem to contribute anything to the development of comedy and there was nothing that hadn't already been done a lot better elsewhere.

i voted for "Other" cuz my fav i think just has to be As Time Goes By with Judi Dench & Geoffrey Palmer. it's a story that's geared more for people my age. i did also enjoy that one with Catherine Zeta Jones, The Merry Buds of May i believe it was called. interesting characters in that. get a kick out of Blackadder (especially the series that include Hugh Laurie). love The Thin Blue Line as well.

sadly we seem to be getting a lot of stuff from britain that appeals more to the younger crowd these days. typical i suppose. but it IS getting harder to find things to watch that i really enjoy.


bon

My favorite in the list would have to be The Good Life (here in the U.S. it was called Good Neighbors). I found that show extremely funny. Perhaps because when I was younger I had a Tom and Barbara bent and wished I could do the same thing.

I also enjoyed Faulty Towers and Chef. Classic British comedy in my opinion. What was the name of the show about the guy who freaked out and made everyone believe he had committed suicide by drowning in the ocean but he did it to escape his job and wife and start over again? That was hilarious but I have not seen it in years.

There was also a show about a Australian mom and her two sons and all I recall is that she favored the one son, who was no good, over the other son who was always there for her.

Kevin

The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin. Talking of Leonard Rossitter, I just realised that Rising Damp hasn't been mentioned :o :o Probably the best sitcom to come from ITV, but to be honest it wouldn't have much competition there.

I've ticked the Daddy of them all- TONY HANCOCK. Hancock was a remarkable comedy actor whose medium was really radio but who transferred to television impressively. A master of pause, a master of inflection, a master of expression. He established the pattern for the two ordinary working class geezers going about their lives that was to be a staple of British sitcom.

SIDNEY JAMES was an integral part of the show and when Sid left, Hancock was never the same. Sidney James starred in a host of CARRY ON films and whatever one may think of them, Sid and KENNETH WILLIAMS were guaranteed to make you laugh.

The two geezer sitcom was developed by Galton and Simpson (who wrote )Hancock's Half Hour) with STEPTOE AND SON though personally I preferred THE LIKELY LADS, which was the start of the very impressive acting career of JAMES BOLAM.

There was also a lovely almost forgotten one series sitcom in the 70s based on PETER TINNISWOOD'S stories called I DIDN'T KNOW YOU CARED which was brilliant and starred ROBIN BAILEY.

I agree with Bradman. Not only is ALLO ALLO rubbish, it was a tasteless mockery of the French (or Belgian) Resistance, and the whole idea was pinched from a fine serious BBC drama on the subject called SECRET ARMY.

The one man I love from British sitcom is TONY HANCOCK. He's up there for me with Buster and W.C. and Phil Silvers, and that dear old British music hall comic and latter day Beckett actor MAX WALL.

good topic..... I didn't see my all-time fave: TO THE MANOR BORN, which starred Penelope Keith...... I also liked GOOD NEIGHBORS, which starred Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal and Keith......

ARE YOU BEING SERVED was hysterically funny and I especially loved Mollie Sugden as Mrs. Slocombe.....

Of the few I've seen, "Absolutely Fabulous" is my favorite. Eddy and Pats, both self-absorbed and raucous libertarians, cuss and smoke and drink and pop pills aplenty while in pursuit of whatever fad is current. Yet they never really succeed. No sentimentality either, just blatantly outrageous behavior ... :laugh: ...

Great Poll ...

Yowza ...

Thanks Jeff! :D I guess you don't recall the other show I was talking about?

Kevin

Never mind I found the name of the show. It was "Mother and Son" (1984). Here is the description of the show:

Kevin

The Young Ones!

Kevin, I didn't see Mother and Son, it's possible that it never made it to UK TV. Talking of Reggie Perrin there was a line which I found particularly funny. They visit a safari Park, Reggie his wife, daughter, son-in-law and their two young children (Infants) Reggie merely tolerates his son-in-law with thinly veiled contempt. They get stuck in a long queue of traffic, monkeys are jumping on cars, lions pace menacingly nearby, just then the little girl says "Mummy, Wayne just did poopy plops" :lmao: :lmao:

i too enjoyed To The Manor Born (Peter Bowles is lovely isn't he! :rolleyes:)
penelope keith is such a fun actress to watch and when she gets that haughty manner where all her words seem to be coming from the back of her throat.....well too funny.

i also liked Good Neighbors. i thot Felicity and Richard just made the cutest couple. and of course Penelope as the ultimate, er, snob. but a nice snob really. quite accomodating to the more earthy felicity & richard. they played off each other well.

of course Are You Being Served. became a smash hit here in US due to PBS being smart enuf to promote it and keep it playing.

bon

you know PBS did run Rising Damp for a short while some years ago. it wasn't a term i was familiar with until i watched the show. my goodness what, er, squalor they lived in? heh heh anyway i kind of found the humor enjoyable what little i recall of it. guess it didn't do well or PBS was only able to buy a few episodes because it didn't stay around long.

i've tried to get into the Reginald Perrin series but try as i may i haven't quite been able to grab onto it. i believe that a much younger Geoffrey Palmer played on that show didn't he? Reggie's friend or something?


bon

Yes Geoffrey Palmer was in the series, I think he was Reggie's brother-in-law. His character had recently left the army and he was usually trying to borrow things from Reggie, this was always preceded by him saying "There's been a bit of a cock-up on the catering front" Incidentally, I am also a fan of As Time Goes By, a marvellous series, very relaxed, excellent dialogue, top-notch acting. Judi Dench and Geoffrey palmer as the leads, you couldn't ask for much more, quite gentle and a real delight.

Oh my goodness, all these childhood memories of mine! Now you've got me feeling homesick. :cry: :cry:
There were some I watched a lot more than others as a child, obviously depending on what my parents were watching. One that was on a lot, and so is now a favourite, is Only Fools and Horses. I think it was just brilliant. :D

I remember another Judi Dench sitcom called A FINE ROMANCE, which co-starred Michael Williams, who was her real-life husband.... It iwas a bittersweet comedy about middle-aged courtship..... Dench was wonderful.....

Yes, I agree, AS TIME GOES BY and A FINE ROMANCE were both wonderful. JUDI DENCH is a superb actress.

I voted for ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE.

However, no-one has mentioned the very long running BIRDS OF A FEATHER. It's about two sisters whose husbands are in jail and they live in a luxurious house in a very posh outer suburb of London. They are both cockney girls and have a very snobbish jewish neighbour with whom they become friendly (after a fashion!). The neighbour (played by Lesley Joseph) is very clothes conscious and is just about the biggest man-eater ever depicted on the small screen. From the fashion and snobbish point of view, I ofter wonder whether she provided the inspiration for the character of Marianne in CYBILL, by far my favourite American Sit-Com.

1. AbFab
2. Fawlty Towers
3. The Office
4. Red Dwarf
5. Chef


No one liked "Last of the Summer Wine". It's been over 30 years, gotta have some fans at least. I think it's really cute and enjoyable.

Yes Penelope Keith was queen of the Britcoms for a while..... She was excellent in both GOOD NEIGHBORS and TO THE MANOR BORN.....

But maybe the all-round funniest was ARE YOU BEING SERVED, especially Mollie Sugden and John Inman (Mr. Humphreys)......

I found this mildly amusing but I never really cared whether or not I would watch it. I have noticed that it is very popular in the USA, probably more popular than here in the UK. Over here, whenever sitcoms are assessed then this kind of comedy isn't going to be ranked alongside Porridge, Dad's Army, Steptoe And Son etc. But it does succeed as a comedy because it makes plenty of people laugh. I suppose that I just don't go for that kind of broad humour, in ways it's quite close to the Carry On series and I was never very keen on that. We don't have any substantial information about the characters, basically we just know them as assistants at Grace Bros. They certainly are a mixed bunch so there is plenty of comic potential, but we don't actually know them as we know the platoon in Dad's Army or the inmates of Slade Prison.

ARE YOU BEING SERVED was total silliness but it worked.... The show was years ahead of US sitcoms in its broad humor and sexual inferences.... it presented a bunch of people trapped together in a store and caught up in nonsensical situations... but the actors were all very good and I always liked those British eccentrics....

I like it, actually.

I lived for a year (1995) in Moscow, and they were playing it on the BBC channel there - one of the VERY few english-speaking channels. I watched this show at first out of desperation for something in english (watched "East-Enders" too :P ), but quickly grew to like it alot.

I've not seen it since though....

I never did like Last Of The Summer Wine, it certainly has been going for a very long time, on and on and ON and ON. Obviously the viewing figures must be good or they wouldn't keep it going. Whenever I have had the misfortune to be present through a whole episode, it always seems exactly the same. And when Bill Owen was still appearing you could always bank on Compo being taken for a ride on some dubious form of transport, preferably down a steep hill with water at the bottom of it. Good luck to them, people want to see it, quite why is completely beyond me.

Last Of The Summer Wine (Oh how sadly ironic that title seems), falls into the inoffensive category of comedy, complete with Hi-De-Hi, Oh Doctor Beeching and numerous other sunday teatime something for Grandma type comedies. I've never liked it, partially because as a kid I had to watch it but mainly because octogenarians riding down a hill in a bathtub is not my idea of comedy.

Are You Been Served, Constant innuendo's about thse size, shape , or colour of Mrs Slocombe's pussy. No ta.

you know i tried desperately to like AB FAB, i really did. and i saw several episodes. and some of the stuff was kind of funny. and i like saunders and i like lumley. but.....i dunno. i just couldn't handle it on a regular basis. i guess it was that their characters are a little toooooo self absorbed, a little toooo wacked out. but i really did try to like the show.


bon

yes i did see that series and i thot it was cute that these 2 married people were playing 2 people who sort of weren't even sure they liked each other in the beginning. oh they were so young then!! haha judi has such a baby face that she looks (especially then) like a child.

it was very sad when judi lost her michael to cancer some time ago. i gathered that they were very close and happy.

a little trivia.....in As Time Goes By where they show the supposed young Jean & Lionel during the war years (the photograph on the writing desk), the young girl is actually Judi & Michael's daughter, Finty.


bon

ahhhh i see you mentioned The Office. what a brilliant concept and Ricky Gervais is absolutely wonderful in that. the whole cast was perfect for their parts. i had read such excellent reviews of this show that i just had to watch it. i was hooked from day one.

i've watched the american version and they do an admirable job but it will never be ricky gervais.

long live THE OFFICE!!!!!


bon

p.s. i also love Lenny Henry and adored him in Chef. loved the theme song to that show too. "Serious...serious perfection. Serious....serious perfection". ahhhh yeah

am i correct in recalling that Steptoe and Son in the UK became our Sanford & Son in America?


bon

Yes that's right but I never saw any of that series so I can't say whether or not they stayed true to the original characters. Steptoe and Son was a wonderful comedy series and especially for the first five years or so, some of the later episodes were a let down since most of the comic potential had been exhausted. I don't know if you have seen any of them but they are well worth trying if they are available in the USA.

:laugh: I know, I never found it particularly hilarious either. As a kid, I suppose a bunch of old people getting up to those kinds of "adventures" just wasn't amusing. My dad still likes it, but then, he is rather old. :P Well, OK, he's 53.

Another comedy that began in the UK and became a US show was Man About The House from the '70s. The American version was Three's Company with John Ritter. I never saw much of either, actually, so I can't say which is better.

I have not seen Steptoe & Son but I have heard a bit of a routine on a What a Carry On Compilation. Sanford & Son is funny, a classic, one of a few older shows that still does well in syndication, and early episodes were based on Steptoe scripts but I think it grew into its own seperate series. I think Steptoe & Son could find an audience in the US. As for Three's Comany, I grew up with it and love it religiously but never saw Man About the House, is it worth the bother? Another US sitcom based off of a British one is All in the Family, based off of Till Death Us Do Part. I read somewhere that there was an attempt at a US Are You Being Served for which Robin Williams auditioned for the role of Mr. Humphries.

No.............no I don't think it is worth the bother :laugh: It's OK but it's not great comedy, it was made for ITV and their sitcoms were generally not up to the standard of the BBC counterparts. I thought that some of the situations were just absurd, rather childish. There was a spin off series called George and Mildred which was quite possibly superior to Man About The House, not that that is saying much. One thing in favour of George and Mildred was that it featured the excellent Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy. (Never known anyone else called Yootha)

you know i actually saw Man About The House when i was in the UK back in '75. then when it became Three's Company i watched the first episode and it turned out to be the exact story i had seen in the UK!!! my friends were amazed when i predicted what was going to happen and what they'd say. haha i admitted that i had seen the story not long before.

funny thing is i never really became a regular viewer of many of those early sitcoms. never saw sanford and son and only a couple of the three's company episodes. now of course i watch even less american comedy shows. but if it's a britcom man i'm the first in line to check it out!!

ahh just call me an old anglophile!

bon