Home › Forums › Ganymede & Titan Forum › The Flipside of the Generic “Why is Comedy so Shit These Days?” Question Search for: This topic has 28 replies, 17 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 5 months ago by Ben Paddon. Scroll to bottom Creator Topic January 16, 2010 at 4:31 pm #6129 genericnerdyusernameParticipant The Long Way: It was my birthday last week and I got rather a good amount of money from it, which I intend to spend on funny things, but I’ve got everything I can think of. I was wondering if anyone here has been blown away by any comedy other than what people would consider “the standards?” (e.g Hancock, Fawlty Towers, the Young Ones, Red Dwarf etc) I thought about asking this over at Cookd and Bombd but from the threads I’ve read their opinions seem to be summed up by the phrase “comedy has been shit since the dawn of time especially Michael MacIntyre”. I mean, really, who wants to hear about how shit a particular comedian is over and over and over again? There are even people on their attacking Dylan Moran now *sigh*. If anyone suggests anything that I’ve already got it doesn’t really matter, I won’t get all “I’ve already got that you FOOL” on you. The Short Way: Anyone got any comedy recommendations for my birthday splashing? Creator Topic Viewing 28 replies - 1 through 28 (of 28 total) Author Replies January 16, 2010 at 6:04 pm #108172 Pete Part ThreeParticipant Flight of the Conchords January 16, 2010 at 7:05 pm #108174 redhead85Participant > Flight of the Conchords Second. January 16, 2010 at 7:15 pm #108176 ori-STUDFARMParticipant Comedy has been shit since the dawn of time especially Michael MacIntyre Except for Hyperdrive!! :P January 16, 2010 at 7:47 pm #108178 BlisschickParticipant > Flight of the Conchords Third. January 16, 2010 at 7:59 pm #108179 CarlitoParticipant Considering I have no idea what type of comedy you like or what you may have already seen, here is a list (in no particular order) of lesser-known comedies (in the UK at least) that I’d recommend to anybody: Marion and Geoff Operation Good Guys Curb Your Enthusiasm Arrested Development Time Trumpet Nathan Barley The Armando Ianucci Shows Director’s Commentary Human Remains Big Train Black Books Peep Show (even though it’s hard for me to envision people who haven’t seen Peep Show – it’s watched by pretty much everyone I know – the ratings are never great so I guess there are a lot of people out there none the wiser!) Misfits No Heroics Kevin Bishop Show (hit and miss) Man Stroke Woman (also hit and miss) IT Crowd The Larry Sanders Show Seinfeld (hey, huge success in the US, but you never know who may not have seen the greatest American comedy of all time) Outnumbered The Inbetweeners Considering 17 of the 21 shows I listed are from within the last decade, I wouldn’t say comedy is any shitter these days than it’s ever been. It’s just a case of finding the cream. There was never a time when comedy was ‘on fire’ right across the board, just the rose tinted spectacle brigade would have you believe it. January 16, 2010 at 8:07 pm #108180 Pete Part ThreeParticipant >Kevin Bishop Show (hit and miss) Shit and piss. January 16, 2010 at 8:20 pm #108181 ChrisMParticipant Bit of an acquired taste these but you might like: Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place Psychoville which of course leads to League of Gentlemen. (You probably know of that already though.) Actually of that lot I only own the first so far! January 16, 2010 at 8:51 pm #108183 BlisschickParticipant I have League of Gentlemen on my Netflix Instant Play list, but haven’t gotten to it yet. I may take the dive later on today. I’ve heard lots of good things about it. January 16, 2010 at 9:08 pm #108184 redhead85Participant Oh and don’t forget Spaced! ^__^ January 16, 2010 at 9:23 pm #108186 Ben PaddonParticipant Are we just including British comedy in there? Because if we can throw in American stuff then I’d like to nominate Scrubs seasons 1-3 and 8, and also Futurama. January 16, 2010 at 10:37 pm #108190 Seb PatrickKeymaster Arrested Development is ?30 for the lot in HMV at the moment. It really is unmissably perfect. January 16, 2010 at 10:39 pm #108191 genericnerdyusernameParticipant Thanks! There’s quite a lot here I have heard of but never bothered to check out! Ooooh yes and I want to say that I had dinner with Big John from the Inbetweeners (although no one seems to remember who he is until I watch an episode with him in and start jumping up and down, pointing and yelling “I KNOW HIM HE’S MY FRIEND!”). So that’s my small claim to fame; I know a semi-inbetweener. :) January 17, 2010 at 1:04 am #108203 Tarka DalParticipant > Garth Marenghi?s DarkPlace This. January 17, 2010 at 1:09 am #108204 CarlitoParticipant >>Kevin Bishop Show (hit and miss) >Shit and piss. Okay, more miss than hit, but the hits are worth it. January 17, 2010 at 3:06 am #108213 RidleyParticipant Nighty Night The Smoking Room January 19, 2010 at 12:19 am #108275 genericnerdyusernameParticipant I watched a few clips of Human Remains on youtube and it’s convinced me to seek out the DVD. From the few clips I watched it seemed like a funny version of Chris Morris’ Jam. I don’t mean that as an insult to Jam, it’s just I didn’t feel that “funny” was what it was going for. I found it disturbingly interesting is accurate. January 19, 2010 at 8:21 pm #108294 AlexParticipant Human Remains is indeed great. Dark in a different way to Jam but definatly great all the same. Plus of course they used John Martyn’s ‘Don’t Want To Know’ for the themetune so it’s doubally great. January 20, 2010 at 12:46 am #108302 pfmParticipant > the ratings are never great so I guess there are a lot of people out there none the wiser Or maybe, like me, they just can’t stand David Mitchell’s voice for longer than 2 minutes? Yeah I’ve seen enough of it and it IS funny but definitely not one of my favourites. I would rather watch a million episodes of The IT Crowd (well, all of the 18 episodes literally several times each, let’s not over-exaggerate…) over a single episode of Peep Show. And btw this has got nothing to do with the whole Footlights thing, obviously, considering Richard Ayoade was in Footlightst too. Heck, he was President in ’98, 2 years after Mitchell. January 22, 2010 at 9:16 pm #108405 RidleyParticipant 15 Storeys High January 23, 2010 at 8:19 pm #108420 DaveParticipant Catterick January 23, 2010 at 11:26 pm #108423 Bob LoblawParticipant How I Met Your Mother 30 Rock It’s Always Sunny In Philadephia January 24, 2010 at 1:35 am #108426 CarlitoParticipant A show nobody has mentioned of yet, which I’m going to watch for the first time later this evening (therefore I’m not endorsing it just yet) is The Thick Of It. Is it as good as people make out? January 24, 2010 at 3:22 am #108428 JonsmadParticipant I like it yeah. The Election specials were very good. The Film In The Loop was good too. There’s definately a lot to enjoy across two/three series. Tucker being the most entertaining thing as long as there is a tv screen between you and him you’ll be ok! January 24, 2010 at 9:27 am #108429 genericnerdyusernameParticipant I bought In The Loop a while ago, but it got left by an open window while it was raining and is now damaged beyond buggery. Will have to get it again along, along with The Thick of It. I understand that you don’t need to have seen TTOI in order to see ITL, yes? January 24, 2010 at 10:24 am #108430 AndrewParticipant In the Loop is pretty much entirely separate. With the exception of Tucker, the characters are different…despite the fact they’re often played by Thick of It actors. (The movie was what got me into the TV series, in fact.) January 24, 2010 at 11:54 am #108431 Seb PatrickKeymaster The movie is better than the TV series, although the series was somewhat energised by the movie, and the third (which is pretty much watchable without having seen any of the previous ones) is phenomenal. I’d say it’s possible to skip straight to the election specials, but there is good stuff in series 1/2 (which on DVD is one series, but which on broadcast was actually two of three episodes each). January 24, 2010 at 8:32 pm #108439 pfmParticipant I really hope Iannucci ends up directing the Alan Partridge film. He makes a brief mention of it at the bottom of this – http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/movies/alan-partridge-creator-armando-iannucci-finds-big-screen-success-with-in-the-loop/story-e6frf9h6-1225822543356 so at least he IS involved. In The Loop could very well help the Partridge film get made, along with Peter Baynham’s involvement with Borat and Bruno. January 24, 2010 at 8:36 pm #108443 Ben PaddonParticipant I wanted to see In The Loop. I saw posters for it when I was in the UK last year. Never got to, though. I had no idea it was connected in any way to The Thick Of It. 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