Am I just getting old...

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or is TV comedy all shite nowadays? I've just forced myself to sit through 'Touch Me I'm Karen Taylor' after some woman at work raved about it non-bloody stop all day... only to discover that it was pure, unadulterated tripe. Honestly, I thought I'd seen it all with 'Little Miss Jocelyn' but this has to be hands-down the worst 'comedy' show I've ever seen. I laughed ONCE - and that was at a random kid swearing (always funny).

I feel like a right old fart saying this, but where is my licence fee going, exactly? As far as I can make out, in the past three years I've paid for about ten worthwhile documentaries in the 'Horizon' series, Lead Balloon (which I found very funny, even though it was a rip-off of Curb Your Enthusiasm) and... well... I'm struggling to find anything else.

When I think of the TV I've found entertaining in the past five years, sadly, almost all of it is American. Every now and then i discover something new - but it's exclusively American:

Lost, Curb, Scrubs, Prison Break, House, Penn & Teller Bullshit etc. etc.

And am I alone in thinking that Catherine Tate is about as funny as a night spent with a coma victim? Anyone remember the Fast Show from a few years ago - with the 'Colin Hunt' character who comes into work every day and bores everyone witless repeating the stupid catchphrases from some imaginary sketch show that aired the night before? Well, that's exactly how I feel when I hear some stupid sows at work tittering 'Am I bovvered?' or trying to do the rude granny's voice.

NOT.

FUNNY.

 

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Ha ha, hello everyone, I know I've been away a while but I had to get involved in this one

I'm pretty much with you there sir. I look back at the DVD box sets I own (and manky old VHS tapes) and realise there will never be anything like Father Ted, Shooting Stars or Absolutely again. Little Britain I am bored shiteless with now, and I watched an old episode of Bottom the other day (which I used to find hilarious) and put it this way, my 5 year old nephew found it funny.

Some quite recent British stuff I think is genius, but normally they are quite offbeat, like Darkplace, Peepshow, Bo Selecta, Extras and that, but your mainstream Karen Tate, Roman's Empire (WTF was that!!!!) and barring the South African fitness instructor sketch in Ruddy Hell, It's Harry And Paul, are all worthy of pretty much nothing more than bum gravy, IMHO anyway

 

Yeah i prefer some of the older stuff

Red dwarf
Brittas empire
Game on

Some of Gervais's stuff is quite funny, and Jimmy Carr is pretty funny 2.

 

Peep show is good

That new harry and paul show is terrible, wtf happened to them.

 

Tell you one thing. If this was WW2 and I was captured by the Germans and they wanted to know all my secrets, all they'll need to do is stick me in front of the Catherine Tate show for 5 minutes and I'll confess everything ! That woman makes me want to rip my fingernails out.

Another one is Big Brother.

 

Comedy has been shite for years, I dont know why people find Rick Gervais funny I thinks he's a tw**.

I watch shows like 9 out of 10 cats thats quite funny but you cant beat Bottom and Harry Enfield BTW Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse new show wasnt really that good.

So is it that were just gettin past it or is it the comedians?

 

Its abysmal

 

Mate I watch Big brother everynight (the mrs is a fan, thats my excuse ) and everynight i say i can't watch it anymore its annoying me too much !!

Those twins in there laugh every 2 seconds and their vocabulary consists of "OMG" and "oh my god"......thats it. They're all looking in the mirror every 5 seconds and piling on makeup and they look like dogs dinners.

 

I think it is down to the quality of the comedians.

Everyone raves about Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais, those two not remotely funny. They both make me cringe.

All the great comedians have long since passed away.

 

You are all just too grumpy! I think Catherine Tate is very funny and also like Ricky Gervais. I don't think they are the best there ever was etc.. but I enjoy their stuff.

I also love many of the older comedy stuff a few of you have listed above. Especially Red Dwarf & Game On. Red Dwarf did go a bit downhill towards the end though.

 

I'm not a huge fan of Gervais' stand up but I think he is bloody clever, Office and Extras I personally think we're much needed and unique.

Must admit, I am a Carr fan, I like deadpan humour (Paul Merton being my favourite).

I think in general televised comedy shows have dumbed down a lot, as lets be honest, the general population has (not meaning to sound snobbish, but when some tw@t on big brother the other day thought William Shakespeare was a film director I nearly smashed my house up). It's a lot of shouting and catchphrases and quite base humour. You won't find anything like Rising Damp or Fawlty Towers again

I would gladly fight Roy 'Chubby' Brown though.....

 

Catherine Tate = Crap
Ricky Gervases = Total Crap

I still catch Rising Damp on the freeview channels every now and again..CLASS. Also, Yes Minister is both hilarious and a good tutorial on how politics actually works.

Don't forget Open All Hours. You're right Zeb, when compared to these GREATS, the standard of todays comedy (British) is totally abysmal. The American stuff is good though (Scrubs, 8 Simple Rules, etc). What ever happened to Becker???

 

Cant argue with Bill Bailey being a God. One of the all time Best IMHO

 

Doctor in the House
Father Dear Father
Man About the House
No, Honestly
Robin's Nest
George and Mildred
On the Buses
Love thy Neighbour
Mind your Language
Happy Days
Three's Company
What's Happening
Newhart
Some Mothers Do ave em

Yep, there's no doubt - comedy was definately better in the good old days...

 

You missed out Last Of The Summer Wine, what more does comedy want than three walking corpses falling down a hill in a bath

 

Never liked last of the summer wine.

Allo Allo was good, but Benny Hill was the man.

But my favorite ever was Monty Pythons Flying Circus, some of the sketches were genius:- Ministry of silly walks, the dead parrot sketch, the bank robber (who goes into lingerie shop) and the funniest joke in the world sketch (if you havent seen it, see it)

Then the films like Life of Brian and Holy Grail thats proper humor not crap like Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and that ahole Russell Brand

 

QI and Buzzcocks I'll grant you - anything with Lamarr, Fry or Bailey in is genius by definition.

I think my point should have been sketch shows and sitcoms are crap. When I compare One Foot In The Grave with any sitcom since there isn't one that holds a candle to it. Since that finished about eight years ago now, that's a pretty pathetic record for the beeb I'm afraid.

My viewing habits during an average week tend to be:

Monday:
Scrubs on paramount
An old episode of the X Files on DVD
Some Seinfeld (again, DVD)
Maybe Road Wars on Sky so that i can laugh at Lee Boardman's 'professional manc' accent

Tuesday:
King of Queens on paramount
Summat on Animal Planet

Wednesday:
Everybody Loves Raymond on paramount
AN old episode of Millenium on DVD

Thursday:
House on channel 5
Scrubs on paramount

Friday:
Buzzcocks on UK Gold or whatever channel it's on
QI on one of the BBC channels

On top of that, if The Office is being re-run I'll watch that, I always watch The Simpsons and Futurama and Prison Break and Lost when they're on.

That's about it - and that does NOT equate to value for money for my TV license

 

Personally, I think BBC Television today is probably the best it has ever been. Channel 4 is excellent and Channel 5 has a good eye for a show. I'm delighted to pay what I pay for the license in order not to get 25 channels of lowest common denominator TV. ITV sucks, and is as depressing as it has always been - no wonder they want to see the BBC dismantled. As always, the key is sensible use of the remote control...