Black Books

I'd have to disagree with that. I find Father Ted incredibly funny and I have little to no knowledge of Catholicism. I think the humour is pretty universal.

Watch out for the DVD release of 'The Armando Iannucci Shows' as well.

 

Sir, I salute your good taste!

I think 'The Day To Day' or 'Brass Eye' would be particularly great in a US election year Anything with Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) is great, too. All of those you listed are classics, though. Not sure how some will translate to a US audience, but be interesting to see!

 

Btw, digi, have you seen a rather ol british show called "Bottom" ? If you have not try to catch online the Halloween episode

 

I have no idea why BBC produced Bottom because it is really rough humour. But once a week it was a good laugh.

 

It was an extension of Rik Mayall's and Ade Edmonson's original stage show (IIRC, the Dangerous Brothers). It's completely slapstick, somewhat childish, and very, very funny.

If you like it you should also look up Rik Mayall doing Alan B'Stard in "The New Statesman". Much more clever humour, but with a sharp streak of crueltly for those of us that lived through the Thatcher years.

 

Nearly forgot this one:

http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=132277&p=57&g=72


I can't honestly claim it's as good as Black Books. Still pretty damn funny though.

 

watched em live 3 times . . .. same gag all the way thru , but *very* very amusing . . .

 

There isn't yet - I'm not sure whether one is planned or not though.

 

Apparently, it was nearly going to be called "my bottom" just so Rik and Aid could imagine people saying "Did you see ... last night?"

However, I thought most of the series was a bit purile.

Black Books (and Spaced) OTOH were quite good... this is stretching my memory, but I especially liked the episode where they were trying to go on holiday by using a lot of bargain flights.

Still my favourite was "Coupling". Some of the episodes are written with the skill of a canon with themes crossing over but all tied together.

 

father ted is a 'grower' . . honest

feck grrrls (etc)

the 'speed' episode is a particular favourite . . .

-dave-

 

"Coupling" rocks, my favorit character is/was Jeff, to bad he is out of series now

Other Britcoms that I like (in random order):
Black Books
Black Adder (the only good series with Rowan Atkinson)
Father Ted
Red Dwarf
Yes Minister/Yes Primeminister
Keeping up Appearances
Fawlty Towers
Allo Allo

 

You should get your hands on Coupling, a couple of qoutes from coupling (to get the idea of the kind of humor):

Patrick:
If I don’t like a woman, if there’s no chemistry, if I’m not attracted to her, then I don’t lead her on, I just get out of there... every time, before she even wakes up.

Patrick:
I like films with lesbians in them because it’s nice to think there are attractive women out there who can’t find a boyfriend.

Jeff:
I need breasts with brains. I don’t mean individual brains, obviously... I mean, not a brain each. You know, I like intelligent women, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere... I think breast brains would be over-egging the woman pudding.

Steve: Jeff, Jeff, I know about the giggle loop, the sock gap, the nudity buffer, and what you said to Audrey Watkins. Believe me, there is nothing you can possibly say that will surprise me. What’s gone wrong this time?
Jeff: I’ve got too many legs.

Jane:
I really thought I’d gone to his house, you know, to heal our spiritual divide. But it turns out I was just gagging for a shag. Those two are so similar.

Jane:
Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat.

Jane:
Friendship’s more lasting than love, and more legal than stalking.

And the incredible thing is that the characters stays believeble.

 

If you liked "Bits of Fry and Laurie" you might very well like "Alas Smith & Jones" too.