Favorite british comedy shows...

[Retnuh]

[Reveilled]

I remembered another one: Up Pompeii! :D

 

We never really learned anything in my Higher Classics class, we just watched Up Pompeii a lot. It may explain why I got a C, but it was still worth it.

[metadigital]

You are forgeting the late great Harry Secombe and the comic geniuses Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers in the comedy that pre-dates Monty Python: The Goon Show. Spike Milligan wrote most of the episodes literally whilst in fits of mania (he was very ill with bi-polar disorder for most of his life); there are few who can mach his wit. Put him together with Peter Sellers and you cannot fail to create magic.

 

Another contemporary of brilliantly irreverent Monty Python was The Goodies (Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor): they were all in the Cambridge footlights together.

 

Dudley Moore and yet another comic genius Peter Cook put together Derek & Clive.

 

I have yet to find any humour at the same level, although some of the Black Adder epidodes were pretty good.

 

Hmmm, I think I'll go and watch Dr Strangelove ...

[Calax]

I'm going to be fairly stereotypical and say Monty python because I don't know any other comedy from brittania.

[Gorth]

Benny Hill.

Well, just for completeness sake, those that I actually saw, liked and remembered (more or less) as being funny.

 

Monthy Python. Not sure if there is a *complete* series on DVD yet. Might have to check.

Fawlty Towers.

The Young Ones.

Red Dwarf.

 

And the above mentioned B.H. show.

 

The rest either didn't interest me or more likely never got aired in a place I lived.

 

One series deserves mention though for it's bizarre humour, even if it wasn't a dedicated comedy series and that was "The Avengers". Yes, I know, more a 007 type humour than slapstick, skit or sitcom, but occasionally hilarious none the less.

[Walsingham]

I'm amazed at how many of you ferengi are choosing camp 70s British humour.

[jaguars4ever]

Manuel: Qu

[LadyCrimson]

I haven't seen very many of them either. Mostly, they're played on PBS television around here, and not many.

 

But anything w/John Cleese in it gets my vote.

[Lucius]

Manuel: Qu

[Finger of Death]

Always Mr.Bean.

[jaguars4ever]

Always Mr.Bean.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Except in the Hollywood movie.

[metadigital]

Benny Hill.

...

Monthy Python. Not sure if there is a *complete* series on DVD yet. Might have to check.

...

One series deserves mention though for it's bizarre humour, even if it wasn't a dedicated comedy series and that was "The Avengers". Yes, I know, more a 007 type humour than slapstick, skit or sitcom, but occasionally hilarious none the less.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Benny Hill was a good comic, I suppose; definitely had more insanity than comedy in his soul. I wasn't a big fan of the lowest-common-denominator stuff that was endlessly recycled onto tv in the 70s, but he did have his moments.

 

The most respected British "comic" would have to be Tommy Cooper. He definitely was brilliant.

 

The entire Monty Python series of skits (including number seven, sans Cleese) were available years ago on VHS, so I expect you won't have trouble locating them. I didn't find watching them entirely enjoyable. There are a lot of flashes of brilliance, but there's also a lot of noise to wade through (and I have bought every audio collection they produced, so I regard myself as a fan: I would definitely recommend all the audio stuff. )

 

Ah, The Avengers! You do grok British humour ...!

[metadigital]

Manuel: Qu

[Kelverin]

Benny Hill

[SteveThaiBinh]

PS John Cleese and Connie Booth only ever planned the two series of Fawlty Towers. They didn't get to the end of series two and say "Let's quit while we're ahead!".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That may be so, but my understanding was that the BBC, given the success of the two series, pressured them to do more. It would have been easy to give in to that pressure and let the quality slide. They didn't.