Top 10 favorite sitcoms

[Guest Len B'stard]

American comedy is just generally not funny? It's just like:

CHARACTER 1: Hey, what took you so long at the store?

CHARACTER 2: Went to get some yoghurt, they had lite and they had regular, i'm terrible at making desicions, whats the frickin' difference anyway?!?!

CHARACTER 1: The Lite is lighter?

*canned laugher*

Fuckin' half hour of that'd have me googling "best way to tie a noose".

[Dazey]

American comedy is just generally not funny? It's just like:

CHARACTER 1: Hey, what took you so long at the store?

CHARACTER 2: Went to get some yoghurt, they had lite and they had regular, i'm terrible at making desicions, whats the frickin' difference anyway?!?!

CHARACTER 1: The Lite is lighter?

*canned laugher*

Fuckin' half hour of that'd have me googling "best way to tie a noose".

Here's the antidote dear boy! Step away from the light fitting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo

[Guest Len B'stard]

Can't watch it as i'm at work but i'll have a peep when i get home. And if defence of the ol' yankees their stand up is better than ours, much better, is there really any doubt about Richard Pryor, Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce, fuckin' Carlin, Martin Laurence, fuckin' most of the whole Def Jam comedy contingent actually.

We've had a few here and there but the yanks do us well on the stand up front.

[izzygirl]

American comedy is just generally not funny? It's just like:

CHARACTER 1: Hey, what took you so long at the store?

CHARACTER 2: Went to get some yoghurt, they had lite and they had regular, i'm terrible at making desicions, whats the frickin' difference anyway?!?!

CHARACTER 1: The Lite is lighter?

*canned laugher*

Fuckin' half hour of that'd have me googling "best way to tie a noose".

Now can you describe "The Benny Hill show"?

[GivenToFly]

American comedy is just generally not funny? It's just like:

CHARACTER 1: Hey, what took you so long at the store?

CHARACTER 2: Went to get some yoghurt, they had lite and they had regular, i'm terrible at making desicions, whats the frickin' difference anyway?!?!

CHARACTER 1: The Lite is lighter?

*canned laugher*

Fuckin' half hour of that'd have me googling "best way to tie a noose".

If you're gonna for generalization, all UK comedy is people in awkward situations.

American comedy is just generally not funny? It's just like:

CHARACTER 1: Hey, what took you so long at the store?

CHARACTER 2: Went to get some yoghurt, they had lite and they had regular, i'm terrible at making desicions, whats the frickin' difference anyway?!?!

CHARACTER 1: The Lite is lighter?

*canned laugher*

Fuckin' half hour of that'd have me googling "best way to tie a noose".

Here's the antidote dear boy! Step away from the light fitting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAOCVwLrXo

Lenny enjoying Stewart Lee? Yeah, I don't see it.

[The Linguini Occurrence]

American comedy is just generally not funny? It's just like:

CHARACTER 1: Hey, what took you so long at the store?

CHARACTER 2: Went to get some yoghurt, they had lite and they had regular, i'm terrible at making desicions, whats the frickin' difference anyway?!?!

CHARACTER 1: The Lite is lighter?

*canned laugher*

Fuckin' half hour of that'd have me googling "best way to tie a noose".

You think that's bad? You should see this one lame ass US sitcom filmed as a documentary, just a single camera swinging around zooming in and out. Fuckin' cheesy as hell, going on about the boring lives of office workers at a Pennsylvania paper company. If I wanted to watch documentaries I'd fuckin' change the channel to National Geographic. Seriously I don't know where the fuck these mindless network executives get their ideas from.

[Guest Len B'stard]

American comedy is just generally not funny? It's just like:

CHARACTER 1: Hey, what took you so long at the store?

CHARACTER 2: Went to get some yoghurt, they had lite and they had regular, i'm terrible at making desicions, whats the frickin' difference anyway?!?!

CHARACTER 1: The Lite is lighter?

*canned laugher*

Fuckin' half hour of that'd have me googling "best way to tie a noose".

Now can you describe "The Benny Hill show"?

Benny hill weren't a sitcom first of all and second of all, even then benny hill beats any of them soft as shit american sitcoms in that it was quite lewd and peverse, especially within the context of its time, the 70s, you've actually illustrated my point there for me admirably, even something as puerile as benny hill is a thousand times more challenging than any american sitcoms, like richard pryor said when he was trying to get his show going and kept running into censorship issues, american tv is for retarded people, your brain literally has to be put to sleep to enjoy friends and such. Benny hill had elements of mime in there and all sorts, anyone with half a loaf could make a case of the artistic value of benny hill over friends any day.

And gtf, thats bullshit, steptoe and son werent people in awkward situations, or not only but also or til death us do part or whatever happened to the likely lads, i could go on all day if you like, clearly in assessing ALL british comedy you missed a couple...like 90%

Edited November 3, 2012 by sugaraylen

[GivenToFly]

And gtf, thats bullshit, steptoe and son werent people in awkward situations, or not only but also or til death us do part or whatever happened to the likely lads, i could go on all day if you like, clearly in assessing ALL british comedy you missed a couple...like 90%

Yes and you also missed a massive amount of very goood US tv comedy. That was my point exactly.

[izzygirl]

Benny hill weren't a sitcom first of all and second of all, even then benny hill beats any of them soft as shit american sitcoms in that it was quite lewd and peverse, especially within the context of its time, the 70s, you've actually illustrated my point there for me admirably, even something as puerile as benny hill is a thousand times more challenging than any american sitcoms, like richard pryor said when he was trying to get his show going and kept running into censorship issues, american tv is for retarded people, your brain literally has to be put to sleep to enjoy friends and such.

All that in just one sentence? I'm impressed! Friends was amazing, so is The Simpsons and a few others. I agree most of the American TV is shit but there are some exceptions. And you have to admit that British humour is weird (I'm a big fan of some brit shows...but I was always a weird girl!)

[Guest Len B'stard]

And gtf, thats bullshit, steptoe and son werent people in awkward situations, or not only but also or til death us do part or whatever happened to the likely lads, i could go on all day if you like, clearly in assessing ALL british comedy you missed a couple...like 90%

Yes and you also missed a massive amount of very goood US tv comedy. That was my point exactly.

Right but i didn't ALL American comedies, did i? Also, your point would probably be more accurately put across by actually naming an American sitcom to corroborate your claim instead of talking about something you don't seem to know much about...at all.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Benny hill weren't a sitcom first of all and second of all, even then benny hill beats any of them soft as shit american sitcoms in that it was quite lewd and peverse, especially within the context of its time, the 70s, you've actually illustrated my point there for me admirably, even something as puerile as benny hill is a thousand times more challenging than any american sitcoms, like richard pryor said when he was trying to get his show going and kept running into censorship issues, american tv is for retarded people, your brain literally has to be put to sleep to enjoy friends and such.

All that in just one sentence? I'm impressed! Friends was amazing, so is The Simpsons and a few others. I agree most of the American TV is shit but there are some exceptions. And you have to admit that British humour is weird (I'm a big fan of some brit shows...but I was always a weird girl!)

I hope this doesn't offend you but i think a lot of the issue is, especially with people from non English countries that, things like Friends etc, they appeal because they are very simple and if you don't have like 100 million percent grasp of the language it's easier to digest whereas English comedy is... a lot of it is to do with like, wordplay and...plainly put it's more intelligent so it utilises the language in a way that is perhaps less universally easy to grasp...and by that i don't even mean thats it's like, some kind of regionally specific language, it's just more intelligent overall, always has been.

It's why you get a lot of people from other countries that say things like, y'know, i learned English from watching Friends...or Happy Days...cuz it's just really simple stuff.

Quite frankly if Americans made comedies like the English, their establishment'd close ranks on em, i mean Jesus can you imagine something like The New Statesman coming out of America? Not in a million years.

[Dazey]

Friends was decent enough but it's typical inoffensive prime time fodder that doesn't require the use of your brain. In that way it's fairly enjoyable but hardly up there with some of the real quality sitcoms we've seen over the years. This is a pretty good example of a really good US sitcom.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Yeah, i agree Dazey, it's enjoyable on some level but like...it don't require concentration? It's great background noise if you're doing something in an empty house or something or you just bung it on in the morning and semi-watch it but see thats the fucking death knell for something like that, isn't it? It's sort of the televisual equivalent of elevator music, it's sort of like how nowadays people are like, not so into music as they were back in the day cuz so much of it is shit that it's just become something you have on in the car when you're on your way to work, it's a terrible disservice to comedy to allow sitcoms of that variety to become the standard.

You can't be typical prime time inoffensive fodder and still be "decent enough", it's just...well, shit really, isn't it? It's made to not move you, it's made for fuckin' single serving Mark & Sparks meal buying glass of wine after work drinking single 30 somethings with desperately lonely lives, it's like an opiate designed to make you thicker.

Edited November 3, 2012 by sugaraylen

[izzygirl]

Benny hill weren't a sitcom first of all and second of all, even then benny hill beats any of them soft as shit american sitcoms in that it was quite lewd and peverse, especially within the context of its time, the 70s, you've actually illustrated my point there for me admirably, even something as puerile as benny hill is a thousand times more challenging than any american sitcoms, like richard pryor said when he was trying to get his show going and kept running into censorship issues, american tv is for retarded people, your brain literally has to be put to sleep to enjoy friends and such.

All that in just one sentence? I'm impressed! Friends was amazing, so is The Simpsons and a few others. I agree most of the American TV is shit but there are some exceptions. And you have to admit that British humour is weird (I'm a big fan of some brit shows...but I was always a weird girl!)

I hope this doesn't offend you but i think a lot of the issue is, especially with people from non English countries that, things like Friends etc, they appeal because they are very simple and if you don't have like 100 million percent grasp of the language it's easier to digest whereas English comedy is... a lot of it is to do with like, wordplay and...plainly put it's more intelligent so it utilises the language in a way that is perhaps less universally easy to grasp...and by that i don't even mean thats it's like, some kind of regionally specific language, it's just more intelligent overall, always has been.

It's why you get a lot of people from other countries that say things like, y'know, i learned English from watching Friends...or Happy Days...cuz it's just really simple stuff.

Quite frankly if Americans made comedies like the English, their establishment'd close ranks on em, i mean Jesus can you imagine something like The New Statesman coming out of America? Not in a million years.

Yes, that's right... except for one little detail: I watch everything in Spanish, not in the original version.

[Dazey]

Yes, that's right... except for one little detail: I watch everything in Spanish, not in the original version.

So it's simplistic and shite and not even in the original language then?

[izzygirl]

Yes, that's right... except for one little detail: I watch everything in Spanish, not in the original version.

So it's simplistic and shite and not even in the original language then?

Basically yes. But really, it's not that bad! And Friends is not shit, it's a really good show.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Benny hill weren't a sitcom first of all and second of all, even then benny hill beats any of them soft as shit american sitcoms in that it was quite lewd and peverse, especially within the context of its time, the 70s, you've actually illustrated my point there for me admirably, even something as puerile as benny hill is a thousand times more challenging than any american sitcoms, like richard pryor said when he was trying to get his show going and kept running into censorship issues, american tv is for retarded people, your brain literally has to be put to sleep to enjoy friends and such.

All that in just one sentence? I'm impressed! Friends was amazing, so is The Simpsons and a few others. I agree most of the American TV is shit but there are some exceptions. And you have to admit that British humour is weird (I'm a big fan of some brit shows...but I was always a weird girl!)

I hope this doesn't offend you but i think a lot of the issue is, especially with people from non English countries that, things like Friends etc, they appeal because they are very simple and if you don't have like 100 million percent grasp of the language it's easier to digest whereas English comedy is... a lot of it is to do with like, wordplay and...plainly put it's more intelligent so it utilises the language in a way that is perhaps less universally easy to grasp...and by that i don't even mean thats it's like, some kind of regionally specific language, it's just more intelligent overall, always has been.

It's why you get a lot of people from other countries that say things like, y'know, i learned English from watching Friends...or Happy Days...cuz it's just really simple stuff.

Quite frankly if Americans made comedies like the English, their establishment'd close ranks on em, i mean Jesus can you imagine something like The New Statesman coming out of America? Not in a million years.

Yes, that's right... except for one little detail: I watch everything in

Spanish, not in the original version.

Which makes it worse because things don't translate well from one language to another, you're effectively getting like...a broad translation of whats been said and something thats perhaps employing a little intelligence, the crux of the thing is in the vagaries, the details, the things that get lost in translation basically. For example like, i can understand urdu if not speak it ever so well but when i watch something on TV in urdu with English subtitles they are always very...off kilter?

Say something is like, rhyming or whatever, done in verse, if you translate the shit to another language it ain't really gonna work in the same way, is it? I'm sure it's the same with Spanish too, like if you watch something in Spanish in English subtitles they don't quite nail it i'm sure.

But all that aside, without meaning to offend, how many times on this forum have you found yourself talking to someone English and perhaps not quite understanding what they meant? And i don't mean me because apparently i'm unintelligible but i've seen it myself, quite often in fact, on this forum, you going "i don't know what you mean" to something that, to me, seemed pretty plain to understand. I'm not having a go at you or anything i'm just trying to illustrate my point, hope i didn't offend you or anything.

Edited November 3, 2012 by sugaraylen

[Dazey]

Yes, that's right... except for one little detail: I watch everything in Spanish, not in the original version.

So it's simplistic and shite and not even in the original language then?

Basically yes. But really, it's not that bad! And Friends is not shit, it's a really good show.

I didn't didn't say it was terrible, just that there's far better shows out there. I'll never understand how you guys put up with watching things dubbed into a foreign language though. Would drive me insane. If I'm ever watching a foreign tv show or movie and it's not subtitled I can't watch it.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Thats weird, i can't watch like, old Kung Fu movies in their original language, the dubbing is part of their charm

EDIT: and i DID say it was terrible, what? Also, if you're a bloke and you own DVDs or videos of Friends, you're a poof.

Edited November 3, 2012 by sugaraylen

[Dazey]

Thats weird, i can't watch like, old Kung Fu movies in their original language, the dubbing is part of their charm

That's exactly the reason though man! I mean I agree with you on that 100% but that's why it grates so much with anything else. When I'm watching say "Infernal Affairs" or "Let the Right One In" I'm thinking of Samo Hung knocking shit out of Jackie Chan and I can't take the rest of it seriously.

[izzygirl]

Which makes it worse because things don't translate well from one language to another, you're effectively getting like...a broad translation of whats been said and something thats perhaps employing a little intelligence, the crux of the thing is in the vagaries, the details, the things that get lost in translation basically. For example like, i can understand urdu if not speak it ever so well but when i watch something on TV in urdu with English subtitles they are always very...off kilter?

Say something is like, rhyming or whatever, done in verse, if you translate the shit to another language it ain't really gonna work in the same way, is it? I'm sure it's the same with Spanish too, like if you watch something in Spanish in English subtitles they don't quite nail it i'm sure.

But all that aside, without meaning to offend, how many times on this forum have you found yourself talking to someone English and perhaps not quite understanding what they meant? And i don't mean me because apparently i'm unintelligible but i've seen it myself, quite often in fact, on this forum, you going "i don't know what you mean" to something that, to me, seemed pretty plain to understand. I'm not having a go at you or anything i'm just trying to illustrate my point, hope i didn't offend you or anything.

No, you didn't offend me. My English is really bad and limited, I'm pretty aware of it... but yours is worse and you have no excuse.

But when I see something subtitled it has nothing to do with a dubbed thing. I know original versions are better but, at least, we have great people and great actors working at dubbing. There are a lot of people trying to find the best way to say things so they keep the original meaning of the story. I can't explain but it's not as horrible as you think!

[Guest Len B'stard]

My brothers always bangin' on about Infernal Affairs but i never got round to watching it, apparently it was the original of The Departed...which don't make sense to me cuz i thought The Departed was about Whitey Bulger. Is it any good?

[Lithium]

Ross is the most unfunny person on TV. That's all I'm saying.

I'd take Ross over Joey any day. Joey must be the most terrible character in TV history. Nothing he does is funny. I almost punched my TV in frustration when I saw that episode where one of the girls is trying to teach him French and he just babbles nonsense. I can't believe they even gave that character his own show. It just proves how fucking stupid people are.

[izzygirl]

I didn't didn't say it was terrible, just that there's far better shows out there. I'll never understand how you guys put up with watching things dubbed into a foreign language though. Would drive me insane. If I'm ever watching a foreign tv show or movie and it's not subtitled I can't watch it.

I guess we are used to it. Here, if you go to the cinema, every movie will be dubbed into Spanish, so there is no choice. Unless you buy the DVD, you have no other option!

[Guest Len B'stard]

Which makes it worse because things don't translate well from one language to another, you're effectively getting like...a broad translation of whats been said and something thats perhaps employing a little intelligence, the crux of the thing is in the vagaries, the details, the things that get lost in translation basically. For example like, i can understand urdu if not speak it ever so well but when i watch something on TV in urdu with English subtitles they are always very...off kilter?

Say something is like, rhyming or whatever, done in verse, if you translate the shit to another language it ain't really gonna work in the same way, is it? I'm sure it's the same with Spanish too, like if you watch something in Spanish in English subtitles they don't quite nail it i'm sure.

But all that aside, without meaning to offend, how many times on this forum have you found yourself talking to someone English and perhaps not quite understanding what they meant? And i don't mean me because apparently i'm unintelligible but i've seen it myself, quite often in fact, on this forum, you going "i don't know what you mean" to something that, to me, seemed pretty plain to understand. I'm not having a go at you or anything i'm just trying to illustrate my point, hope i didn't offend you or anything.

No, you didn't offend me. My English is really bad and limited, I'm pretty aware of it... but yours is worse and you have no excuse.

But when I see something subtitled it has nothing to do with a dubbed thing. I know original versions are better but, at least, we have great people and great actors working at dubbing. There are a lot of people trying to find the best way to say things so they keep the original meaning of the story. I can't explain but it's not as horrible as you think!

Suffice to say your English is probably better that my Spanish. Lets have a go shall we?

Hola! Hola senorita, que pasa? Uh...yo tengo la gasolina? Mes que un club! Ummmm, Touche senor pussycat! Yeah, i think thats my lot I know puta, i know maricon...ummm, spanish, spanish, whats spanish? Siesta, Fiesta, Granada, Sierra Madre, Rio Grande, Rio Ferdinand!

How'd i do?