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Post by burrunjor on Aug 15, 2024 21:08:07 GMT
"I'm terrified sir, these Germans will have their way with anything women born."
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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Aug 15, 2024 21:43:26 GMT
"Disease and deprivation stalk our land like two giant stalking things."
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Post by Cherry Pepsi Maxil on Sept 30, 2024 19:21:46 GMT
Just found out the opening title sequence of Back and Forth was recorded at the old Cavarly Barracks in Colchester. I wish there were more things filmed here.
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Post by rushy on Sept 30, 2024 19:31:11 GMT
Blackadder II is the best. Think that final scene in Blackadder 4 did comedy a lot of damage. Lead comedy writers to write too many dramatic scenes. The best comedies have dramatic moments, though. It makes the characters more tangible and relatable, and the laughs become more genuine as a result. It doesn't mean you have to dwell on it and become soapy, but Blackadder certainly doesn't do that. It's just one episode. And fittingly, the last one. If they did an entire season like that, it'd be another matter. Early Red Dwarf often had moments of drama where the reality of the situation hit Lister and Rimmer, and those scenes added so much vital context to the show and what makes the characters so great. Mind you, you probably couldn't get away with how far the 'Garbage World' story pushed things. That's a story that's probably better suited for a novel. Seeing Lister end up on a trashed, abandoned Earth and screaming for death might have traumatised some viewers lol. |
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Post by cyberhat on Oct 1, 2024 16:54:26 GMT
It was the scene everyone banged on about though. It did tremendous damage to comedy. I don't blame the creators I blame the critics afterwards. People that don't get comedy ie Guardian writers or professional comedy critics, ended up setting the scene for comedy's joke free future, with drama being more rated than comedy in comedy shows. Cause they think drama is a thing of depth and comedy is a thing of trivia. A mistake often made by trivial people. Duck Soup, Monty Python and South Park have more depth and ideas than most serious dramas put together.
Not totally against dramatic scenes in comedy shows, Steptoe did it great. But it ends up with the tail wagging the dog if you do it too much. The best bits in comedy shows are the comedy. They're more difficult to do than the serious bits for a start. That should be the focus, and if done well, given more, not less credit than any dramatic moments. Fawlty Towers had no serious, dramatic scenes. I don't look down on or think it any lesser for that.
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Post by iank on Oct 2, 2024 7:02:02 GMT
I agree with the sentiment, though not the correlation. I more blame the removal of the studio audience from supposed sit-coms because "we're so much more sophisticated now".
I suppose it's a good excuse for not being able to write any actual jokes.
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Post by cyberhat on Oct 4, 2024 1:45:39 GMT
I agree with the sentiment, though not the correlation. I more blame the removal of the studio audience from supposed sit-coms because "we're so much more sophisticated now". I suppose it's a good excuse for not being able to write any actual jokes. Have you seen those Youtube videos where idiots remove the audience laughter from old sitcoms? So as to go, "see, if you remove the laughing, it's not funny". Well, the actors are timing their laughs based on the audience reaction dinwits! It's like removing the knife from Psycho and going "see, it's not scary!"
I still say it's intellectual Guardian plankton like Mark Lawson and Sam Walloston that lead to this overrating of non-comedy in comedy. That then lead to the one camera one joke dramedy shows of the type you mention. That started with the reaction to the Blackadder finale.
Before that, people used to take the piss out of serious moments in comedy, like some of the ones Carla Lane wrote. There was a great Smith & Jones parody of her tragi-sitcoms in the eighties. "Next week at this time, a new sitcom, Life Is A Bowl of Cherries written by Carla Lane. It has pathos, tragedy and a joke in episode three".
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Post by Ludders II on Oct 4, 2024 2:17:54 GMT
I agree with the sentiment, though not the correlation. I more blame the removal of the studio audience from supposed sit-coms because "we're so much more sophisticated now". I suppose it's a good excuse for not being able to write any actual jokes. Have you seen those Youtube videos where idiots remove the audience laughter from old sitcoms? So as to go, "see, if you remove the laughing, it's not funny". People actually do that? Wow.... sad bastards. |
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Post by burrunjor on Oct 4, 2024 8:33:01 GMT
I agree with the sentiment, though not the correlation. I more blame the removal of the studio audience from supposed sit-coms because "we're so much more sophisticated now". I suppose it's a good excuse for not being able to write any actual jokes. Have you seen those Youtube videos where idiots remove the audience laughter from old sitcoms? So as to go, "see, if you remove the laughing, it's not funny". Well, the actors are timing their laughs based on the audience reaction dinwits! It's like removing the knife from Psycho and going "see, it's not scary!"
I still say it's intellectual Guardian plankton like Mark Lawson and Sam Walloston that lead to this overrating of non-comedy in comedy. That then lead to the one camera one joke dramedy shows of the type you mention. That started with the reaction to the Blackadder finale.
Before that, people used to take the piss out of serious moments in comedy, like some of the ones Carla Lane wrote. There was a great Smith & Jones parody of her tragi-sitcoms in the eighties. "Next week at this time, a new sitcom, Life Is A Bowl of Cherries written by Carla Lane. It has pathos, tragedy and a joke in episode three".
Oh god I HATE those smug youtube videos. I'm not a big fan of The Big Bang Theory. I used to like it way back in the early 2010s, but it doesn't really have much rewatch value. A lot of the criticisms aimed at it are true. It has terrible female characters, it only references things that were popular, despite claiming to be a show for genre fans and it is responsible for dragging a lot of faux geek hipster twats into the genre's fandom in the early 2010s who would subsequently ruin it. Still I can't help but root for it because of all the pretentious twats who rip on it online for having a laughter track and not being proper comedy like the US version of the Office or Stuart Lee. Can I just say now, I would rather watch TBBT than The Office any day of the week. The US Office is a boring and twee version of a genuinely great British version. Stuart Lee meanwhile drives me up the wall. He's not even remotely funny and the smugness and self satisfaction contained within him could be enough to consume the multiverse if it's unleashed. He's like the reality bomb waiting to go off in terms of smugness. That said however this is video with Ricky Gervais' laugh replacing the studio is hilarious. |
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Post by cyberhat on Oct 4, 2024 14:01:38 GMT
Whatever you think of Ben Elton, he did make a good point about studio sitcoms. That this anti-studio audience thing, it's a subtle side effect of Thatcherism/Reaganism being so anti-community.
It's dismissing 95% of the greatest comedy ever for a pose. It doesn't make you look sophisticated rejecting audience comedy, it makes you look comedically illiterate.
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