Pc Script Writing On The Bbc, The end of comedy. Options

[Solari]

I was expecting you to say that it was in case it offended somebody who had nits (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) That will be the next thing - affliction-ism!

[stevensfo]

There was an article recently about the song 'Hockey Cokey' being abusive since it was originally to poke fun at the catholics! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

I agree with all the above posts, though I do think part of the blame is with the tendency of people to stay silent rather than argue back. We've never been stopped from going to our children's sports days, but if we were, I hope that the parents would simply refuse to let their kids take part.

It's time the silent majority woke up and fought back against the vociferous and loony minority.

Steve

[all ears]

You called???? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) My doctoral research was on the aesthetics of comedy...but it can't have been very amusing, because I ditched it before submitting my thesis.

Maybe laughter starts out as a gasp of shock and surprise at what is unexpected or different - so the people we laugh WITH are by definition US rather than THEM...jokes might be a gentler version of the bonding people seem to experience while beating somebody up in the park, though I don't care to dwell on that thought.

No wonder we love a comic who even gets paid to be laughed at ... we get all that nice comfy bonding, and no guilt. So while it's very nice of our moral betters to remove the velvet glove and expose the iron talons, I expect they will be surprised to find that despite the murky nature of the reassurance, laughter that says "Yep, them's claws, but they are not going to be used on you" probably does a better job of healing rifts than official warnings.

I wonder if satire is on the decrease in English, at the same time as it seems to be increasing in Japanese. Satire presupposes that we are free to show that we don't subscribe to the "received values"...Japanese satire took a nosedive when the Tokugawa militocracy came to power, and a cuddly kind of socially acceptable humor developed, involving laughing at foolish or absurd behavior rather than at people's values or identity (ring any bells?), but perhaps that kind of humor is just a little too good to be true.

If you get the chance, do watch a Japanese movie called The University of Laughs (Warai no Daigaku, 2004). It's about a playwright whose works are constantly censored by a wartime official who complains that he is making fun of worthy Japanese citizens, worthy Japanese leaders, worthy Japanese traditions, etc. The more the guy is censored, the more cunning his humor becomes...but by the time he's got the censor in stitches without offending a single public moral, he's been drafted into the army, and his actors are calling him the "hound-dog of the State", so his last and finest work has an audience of only one.

[The Old Lady]

Does anyone have comedy that they used to find amusing that they no longer do? I thought that "On The Buses" was funny when I was a child, but it's cringeworthy now. Is that age or socialisation?

[Crotchetymum]

Does anyone have comedy that they used to find amusing that they no longer do? I thought that "On The Buses" was funny when I was a child, but it's cringeworthy now. Is that age or socialisation?

Good taste (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) I never like it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I'm trying to think what I really enjoyed watching, but I think it was comedians rather than sit-coms - Morecombe and Wise and the Two Ronnies - I still enjoy those (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif). Strangely enough, the only sit-com that I can think of is My Wife Next Door with John Alderton and Hannah Gordon, which I haven't thought of for years! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif) I can't remember any really laugh-out-loud ones at all - can anyone jog my memory for me?


By the way, do the new rules mean that the very funny Goodness Gracious Me! writers won't be able to pen their 'going out for an English' scipts any more? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

[The Old Lady]

NO not at all. Poking fun at the English, C of E and suchlike is not a problem. It's everything else. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Did you not like Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Porridge, Dad's Army, Allo Allo, Monty Python and so on?

[DaisyChain]

I love Blackadder (especially the "Goes Forth" series), and also Fawlty Towers. I still laugh aloud at Father Ted too...which is probably very un-PC in today's world! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

I was bought up watching the likes of Dads Army, Are You Being Served?, The Good Life, etc etc. Some of these are still quite amusing, but I wouldn't find On the Buses quite so funny nowadays. I enjoyed Porridge too. Though Going Straight wasn't so funny.

I hear they are going to make a new series of Only Fools and Horses. I doubt if this will be as funny as the original...especially if the Green Green Grass of Home (the off-shoot with Marlene and Trigger) was anything to go by.

Must be getting old... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

[The Old Lady]

Father Ted in the lingerie dept. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[DaisyChain]

Father Ted in the lingerie dept. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

And training Jack to say "That would be an ecumanical matter"! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Speed 2 has to be my favourite episode though! Dougal driving the milk float with the bomb underneath! Classic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[gedall40]

Strangely enough, the only sit-com that I can think of is My Wife Next Door with John Alderton and Hannah Gordon, which I haven't thought of for years! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

I loved that show! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) . You are the only person to have ever mentioned it so I thought I must have been the only one to watch it. I periodically search for any DVDs from it, but in vain. I remember a really funny scene where John and Hannah are in a restaurant together and he suddenly wants to hide her - so he pushes her into the Gent's Toilet. She emerges a few moments later with the line "Don't ever do that to me again" and the words, the way she delivered it and the look on her face made me a fan of Hannah Gordon for life.

The fact that I was seriously in love with her has nothing to do with it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif) .

Coming back on topic, maybe that type of show is offensive to people who have had a divorce, and as they are beginning to advance in numbers the powers that be have decided to bury the show. I just thought is was very funny.

[maggiemay]

Oh, well - can't resist joining the chorus of nostalgia ...

I loved the Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise, Porridge, Reggie Perrin, Dad's Army, Are you being Served? It ain't alf 'ot Mum, and dare I say, Billy Connolly.

[skylark]

Yes Minister - all of them!

And the first series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet - for some unfathomable reason, my favourite was Oz (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) I still remember cracking up at the scene where he got up one morning in his underwear - holey vest, grubby pants, unwashed... and as he was wiping his nose with his hand and scratching himself, he was talking about going to the public swimming pool - classic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[Solari]

The fact that I was seriously in love with her has nothing to do with it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif) .

I still think Felicity Kendal looks great. When she was in "The Good Life" though... wow! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

[Crotchetymum]

Strangely enough, the only sit-com that I can think of is My Wife Next Door with John Alderton and Hannah Gordon, which I haven't thought of for years! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

I loved that show! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) . You are the only person to have ever mentioned it so I thought I must have been the only one to watch it. I periodically search for any DVDs from it, but in vain. I remember a really funny scene where John and Hannah are in a restaurant together and he suddenly wants to hide her - so he pushes her into the Gent's Toilet. She emerges a few moments later with the line "Don't ever do that to me again" and the words, the way she delivered it and the look on her face made me a fan of Hannah Gordon for life.

The fact that I was seriously in love with her has nothing to do with it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif) .

Coming back on topic, maybe that type of show is offensive to people who have had a divorce, and as they are beginning to advance in numbers the powers that be have decided to bury the show. I just thought is was very funny.

That's a thought. But strangely, looking back, perhaps that's partly why I liked it. My parents were divorced when it wasn't so common (where we lived, anyway) and not particularly amicably. Perhaps I liked the sit-com approach better (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

NO not at all. Poking fun at the English, C of E and suchlike is not a problem. It's everything else. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

Did you not like Blackadder, Fawlty Towers, Porridge, Dad's Army, Allo Allo, Monty Python and so on?

I was trying to thing right back to stuff I used to watch - the first sit-coms I saw. I love Black Adder, Porridge and Dad's Army - I still watch them and enjoy them immensely - such clever writing and brilliant performances (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I watched Fawlty Towers the other night and couldn't bear it - it was the 'don't mention the war' episode. I didn't mind the war part, I just can't take John Cleese at his most manic. It's my cringe threshhold - there was a certain point in each episode of Some Mothers Do Have e'Em at which I had to stop watching for the same reason! I used to like Monty Python but having lived with a real fan for the last hundred years, who has introduced our sons to it as well, I now have a limit on how long it can be quoted before steam comes out of my ears (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Celeste]

Father Ted in the lingerie dept. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

And training Jack to say "That would be an ecumanical matter"! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Speed 2 has to be my favourite episode though! Dougal driving the milk float with the bomb underneath! Classic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I LOVE Father Ted! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif) How about The Vicar of Dibley?