Worst TV show you've seen?

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

....and even worse, because he's on that show it means he's no longer doing the nightly show on talksport with Adrian Durham which was REALLY REALLY good radio. Always funny, loads of great in jokes. Because he's doing useless TV I'm now stuck listening to Darren Gough talking about football instead. Ugh.

[GoGo Yubari]

I'm glad that a group of people on television have balls and are like "British shows FTW"

I would be if those people weren't on Adult Swim. It drives me nuts because that used to be a great programming block (decision to air Baby Blues nonwithstanding) and now, with the exception of The Boondocks which only has new episodes like once every two and a half years it seems (and the second season was a noticeable drop in quality from the first), Venture Bros., and maybe Metalocalypse it's complete crap now because Williams Street embraced "random = funny" and took it to an awful extreme. Going "hey, instead of actually trying to come up with something decent ourselves or even try to find some decent animated series' to get syndicated to us let's just get some British shows" just seems lazy, especially when it's a show like The Office that doesn't exactly need the exposure.

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Re: TMB, MPFC and American fans:

I've always thought that it's kind of interesting that two of the exported British comedy series that have gained most purchase in America are MPFC and "Keeping Up Appearances." Both of those shows seem to sell quite explicit and obvious aspects of Britishness. In the case of MPFC, it's the eccentric, quixotic yet learned whimsicality. In the case of KUA, it's the twee and rustic reification of a class-obsessed Middle England. One might argue that MPFC itself was in some way responsible for weaving the qualities which it exhibited into the fabric of recognizably "British" culture. But, even then, it's notable that PBS didn't air MPFC until after the series had broadcast its last episode in the UK. When I hear Americans talk about "British humour", it seems to me that the first part of that couplet is as important the latter, and is also operating as more than a designation of origins. Are there styles of comedy which America "expects" from Britain?

Flipping this around might explain why "Seinfeld" was poorly received when aired by the BBC, whereas "Friends" became a huge national hit. "Friends" is basically "Seinfeld" for dullards -- simpler characters, simpler plots, simpler jokes. But "Friends" also repudiates the "no hugging; no learning" ethos which made "Seinfeld" kind of a modernised and un-familial "Married... with Children". (Only better, obviously.) Do British fans respond better to US exports which "sell" American frivolity and optimism? It's notable that, unlike "Seinfeld", almost none of "Friends" occurs within a workplace environment. The environment of "Friends" is almost like a weird parody of America as seen by Jean Baudrillard.

And has anyone heard an American comedy fan wax poetic about the joys of "The Young Ones"? I've heard Aussies and Irish people do so, but never an American.

Just a back of the envelope theory, like...

Re: The Boosh "hating comedy":

I think that to make this argument you have to marshal evidence more related to the Boosh's seeming belief that they've 'gone beyond' comedy. They've become pop culture / indie icons, and this undoubtedly limits the kind of material that they can reasonably perform (could anyone imagine F&B producing a "Joking Apart"-style tradcom, for example?) A lot of good comedy contains a self-awareness that TMB's status as cultural icons can't seem to support. The website "Some of the Corpses are Amusing" argued in a review of a TMB live show that "good comedy is never cool." That overstates the case; but there's something in it.

Re: "Little Britain":

To argue that the show was "good at first" but then lost its way due to repetitions of characters misses the point, since the show was designed to be basically a cookie-cutter template in which gags were minimally re-written for each episode at the point of conception. This flaw might only have exhibited itself (on first viewing, anyway) after a couple of episodes, but it was baked into the pie from the start.

A good comparison to make with LB is "The Fast Show", which was quite a lot better and used a similar formula (corpus of characters with particular catchphrases, each placed into a minimally different settings each week). But "The Fast Show" also threw in occasional surprises, and was unafraid to be daring also. The "Arthur Atkinson" character is a great example of this -- funny on the surface, but made even better by a working knowledge of wartime music hall comedy. And one of the sketches featured a reference to "Krapp's Last Tape", for fuck's sake. L&W would never do something like that. Additionally, "Little Britain" in its later stage especially relied on a lot of annoying and smug "ironic" racism which was very much de rigeur at the time (and still is, most probably). TFS deserved its name as well -- the set-ups might have been predictable; but they rarely had time to be tedious. Indeed, some of the sketches in "The Fast Show" seemed almost to be bored of themselves, which maybe brings us back to the Boosh discussion.

It's worth noting that, whatever its merits, TFS unknowingly created a monster, though. Sketch shows these days seem only to get commissioned if they basically just comprise a list of characters, each with a catchphrase, each placed into similar situations each week. It's easy to sell comedy this way -- repeat phrase, get the papers to viral them, get a million white-collar cunts without a clue to spit bits of sandwich at their mates whilst performing comedy kareoke. I'm not sure if there are any comedy performers in Britain right now that could produce something as good as "A Bit of Fry and Laurie". But even if they could, it's moot, since no fucker would buy it.

"The Office" is a great choice if one accepts that the gap between public accolades and actual quality and innovation is what makes shows bad. But I've already written a ~5,000 word blog post about this, and so am now thankfully liberated from ever discussing the subject again.

Edited October 29, 2009 by Emperor Fuckshit

[Skummy]

Re: The Boosh "hating comedy":

I think that to make this argument you have to marshal evidence more related to the Boosh's seeming belief that they've 'gone beyond' comedy. They've become pop culture / indie icons, and this undoubtedly limits the kind of material that they can reasonably perform (could anyone imagine F&B producing a "Joking Apart"-style tradcom, for example?) A lot of good comedy contains a self-awareness that TMB's status as cultural icons can't seem to support. The website "Some of the Corpses are Amusing" argued in a review of a TMB live show that "good comedy is never cool." That overstates the case; but there's something in it.

The Mighty Boosh was a lot funnier when there was a distance between Vince and Noel. Now, because of the public perception of Noel, it's difficult to draw a line between him and Vince Noir - while on the radio series especially, and to a lesser extent in the first series of the TV show, it was absurd that Vince thought of himself as a style icon, because he was just a zookeeper, and he was mostly ridiculous. But when the actor playing Vince becomes a cultural icon, it's harder to treat the character as an absurd notion, and much easier to be cynical about how self-referential it all appears. Also, the "cooler" the show became, the less it seemed to exist in its own little world (which was always part of the appeal), and they realised they could get away with more. I don't mind Noel Fielding joking about rape and what-have-you in his live show, but the Boosh TV show was always slightly fey and charming - and jokes about drugs and rape and suchlike in the third series just take away from that, and make it seem a lot more consciously "edgy" and pandering to their student fanbase.

It would be interesting if "The Boosh" did what they've been threatening to do for years, and created the next series around characters other than Vince and Howard, or created a new series altogether - there's been talk of an old-fashioned variety show since before the third series aired. If they could distance themselves from the characters they've become so associated with, and just be comic actors rather than "being" those characters, they might prove that they can still be funny.

"Good comedy is never cool" kind of works, in much the same way that funny can't be sexy. It's a good rule of thumb, but doesn't always stand up.

As for the cultural icons thing...I'll have to bring up Peter Cook, yet again, as I always do in discussions of comedy. In the '60s I'd argue that he was a cultural icon, probably moreso than the Boosh are now - he was handsome, exceptionally well-dressed, a figure in high society, and had the affections of Jackie Kennedy - yet remained the funniest man on the planet. If you can show that your talented enough to transcend the public's perception of the self and just care about the comedy, then it doesn't matter. We just need to see if the Boosh are capable of that.

EDIT, RE: The Fast Show and Little Britain

The subtle differences in sketches are what made The Fast Show really really work beyond typical catchphrase comedy (though it still far outlived its welcome). For every fifteen "I was very, very drunk" there was a "I'm afraid I was entirely sober", for example. Obviously it was much better written than Little Britain anyway, though. And it can never be said enough how brilliant Ted & Ralph were at the beginning...became too daft and too "comedy" towards the end, and the spin-off show was utterly dreadful (in fact, that should be my nomination for worst telly show ever).

Little Britain had one or two good sketches early on but as you say, the traditional sketch show format (which Little Britain allegedly "revived" after it was done to death throughout the 90s) is doomed to fall into catchphrase comedy of the worst kind. Lots of hate for "ironic" racism in Little Britain - it trying to be "shocking" all the time just turned it into a poor man's League Of Gentlemen, which the League Of Gentlemen had already done by that point too. There's a difference between laughing at the absurdity of racism (see "racist police horses" in the Armando Iannucci Shows) and making racist jokes because it's all a bit naughty, and thinking that's somehow subversive.

It's catchphrase comedy that largely ruined the Mighty Boosh for me too. The point it went from quirky slightly underground comedy show to irritating student phenomenon coincides exactly with when lager-drunk indie boys started shouting "I'M OLD GREGG" ad nauseum.

Edited October 29, 2009 by Skummy

[Emperor Fuckshit]

Did Cook really embrace this fame and adulation uncritically, though? Considering both his personal and comedic personalities, I doubt that he could have done so -- at least not with any comfort. And if he did do that in the sixties, then he alienated a good wedge of people with the Derek and Clive material later on. D&C received a panning from David Quantick in the NME; TMB appear on its front cover. Cook was too divisive and disdainful to gain the kind of indie hero worship that vacuous twats like NF and JB can. And to the extent that PC did do so, I'm not sure how complicit he was in the process.

Cook's "I find that I'm watching television that evening" response to Frost kind of sums that up. I can't imagine such disdain from the Boosh towards a respect industry elder statesman. (Except for that interview where Barratt revealed that he's not big on Peter Kay. Take that, Peter!)

Haha, a Boosh fan describing something as "too comedy". Winky face...

Edited October 29, 2009 by Emperor Fuckshit

[Skummy]

David Frost wasn't really an elder statesman to Cook, though - he was a contemporary and, arguably, a Cook plagiarist.

Early on, Peter Cook definitely did accept his fame - because early on by all accounts he had an air of knowing that he was better than everybody else, and just waiting for the world to realise. Later on, and certainly after he became involved in the running of Private Eye, and most definitely after his failed chat show, I think he realised that celebrity meant fuck all to him, at the end of the day. And Derek & Clive doubtless alienated practically everybody - that was largely the point of the whole thing.

Though Cook's later rejection of "celebrity" is a contentious point to me as well, because it brings up the amount of people who claimed that he drank away his talent, and that it was a shame he never "reached his potential". Bollocks. Anyone who spoke to him towards the end of his life said that he was still as funny and engaging as he ever was, his later work with Chris Morris and, to a lesser extent, with Clive Anderson, were among the best of his career (and with Clive Anderson as your partner, that's an achievement), but people think that because he was content to just be funny (some of his best work in his later life was just calling in to late night radio under pseudonyms) and not have a primetime TV show on BBC2, he somehow wasted his talent, as if there's a guidebook as TO HOW TO BE A FUNNY MAN, and that he somehow broke those rules.

[New Damage]

Slips.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggh. If MTV had a smell, this would smell of MTV. And also Viva.

Basically Huey Lewis, I think that's his name, probably that guy from that band that people have heard of but I don't think were all that famous, in the UK, picking two chavs to race their own cars against each other. The winner takes away both cars, as the other gets nothing.

Oh, and they pimp up the cars before the race. Ugh.

The one I saw featured a chick vs. a dude, where the chick's blue Peugeot 206 gets pimped up with white paint and PINK and BLACK COW PRINT PAINT JOB.

[RPS]

The Biggest Loser. It's just awful television. I love trashy reality shows and competition reality shows, but it seems to take the worst of both worlds and just throws them together.

[Gazz]

The Biggest Loser. It's just awful television. I love trashy reality shows and competition reality shows, but it seems to take the worst of both worlds and just throws them together.

Did you never see 'Dance your ass off'? Which took 'The Biggest Loser' and mated it with 'Strictly Come Dancing', to wit the program basically became 'Hahaha, fat people dancing in lycra, look at 'em jiggle!'. I would say it was a modern day Barnum and Bailey but that title goes to 'Big 'Look at the freaks and laugh' Brother'.

The Catherine Tate Show - at least some catchphrase based sketch shows are funny for the first few episodes, this was never funny and for some reason is an absolute juggernaught in New Zealand. 'Oh, you're from England! Bovvered!' Shoot me now.

That reminds me of another one, anything with David Spade in it, guy is about as funny as genocide.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

The Ted and Ralph spin off show may have been bad but the Swiss Tony spin off was even worse.

I agree with Skummy about Mighty Boosh. Also yeah in series 1 the Vince character, while trying to be cool, was clearly a "quirky cool" fish in a tiny pond of the zoo. When outsiders came in like "Kraftwerk Orange", Vince tried hard to be cool like them but just wasn't. Also, Baimbridge took him apart on a couple of occasions. Yeah compared to Howard he looked good etc (although of course he has to add to his uniform as opposed to being able to wear what he wanted) but Howard had at least some smarts and part of it was each kinda feeling superiority to the other but ultimately both always being there to help the other out....Unlike later series where Vince's character becomes like a self-obsessed monster while Howard becomes just a pitiful useless waste of space. They became more two dimensional.

Also, on this note, I've always been a fan of Peep Show and own and enjoy all 5 serieson DVD....So started watching series 6 (only the first episode so far) and Mark's character has changed internally. No more has he got a self-loathing fearful thing going on, he just rants about getting Dobby alone so he can try and get sex with her, Any warmth in his character seems to have gone which is a terrible state of affairs. I hope that changes for the rest of the series....They're all starting to look old anyway.

[Lowerdeck]

I never liked much of anything Adult Swim came out with, aside from ATHF, the Boondocks, and stuff that was imported from other networks. Williams Street aside from ATHF, I couldn't get into anything. And much of it is horrible.

[MalaCloudy Black]

The Whitest Kids U Know. I watched one sketch and it.. wasn't funny. It's just profane for the sake of being profane, and I don't find the humor in it at all. Maybe it was a weaker sketch or something, but I have friends who rave about it and then I watched the "What Really Happened to Abe Lincoln" skit and it was.. just bad. Dumb.

[NobBe Nobbs]

To argue that the show was "good at first" but then lost its way due to repetitions of characters misses the point, since the show was designed to be basically a cookie-cutter template in which gags were minimally re-written for each episode at the point of conception. This flaw might only have exhibited itself (on first viewing, anyway) after a couple of episodes, but it was baked into the pie from the start.

Not really. I'm arguing the show entertained me at first but, as it became painfully apparent it was never going to develop any further than six shows a series of "HUR HUR HE CAN WALK HUR HUR SHE'S INDIAN", I stopped being entertained and started realising that it was a poor excuse for a show. When the second series didn't stop this rot and just went further and further into the Forest of Disgust - Bubbles and the WI ladies, for instance - it went beyond "poor excuse for a show" and into "just plain shit". It doesn't matter that it was conceived with that aim in mind to me, I'm just saying that I find it shit.

[Gazz]

Extras, which as a massive fan of The Office, is all the more disappointing.

First season is a vanity project for Ricky Gervais and his new celebrity mates. The second season rails on cheap, lowest common denominator comedy yet has episodes that mock the disabled, dwarves, the homeless and homosexuals.

[GoGo Yubari]

Yes! Oh man. Extras is very likely the most overrated TV comedy of the decade in my opinion. The irony of an episode of the intentionally awful fake sitcom in the second season having basically the same "minorities are exposed to shocking racism, it's terribly awkward" that Gervais actually does repeatedly in the real show is hilarious.

I did, admittedly, enjoy much of the guest appearances, but you could watch the funny bits there on Youtube and not have to put up with... well, the majority of the rest of the episodes, which are usually just really bad and haphazard. It feels like Gervais is trying to take after Curb Your Enthusiasm at points but he just can't pull it off.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Yeah, Fast Show characters evolved and developed. Little Britain characters did not.

Jesse went from eating normal things in his diets to more and more weird and outlandish suggestions.

Brilliant got darker.

Ted and Ralph's story played out (for better or for worse).

He Spanish TV channel was always changing and the weathergirl "SORCHIO!" added more to her reportoire.

Even Jazz Club guy added more words and catchphrases.

It's a little thing but as a sketch show Fast Show kept adding and changing aspects to the characters. Little Britain did not. When a sketch started you knew EXACLY how it would run out....Never a surprise, unlike Fast Show.

[Hobo]

Also, on this note, I've always been a fan of Peep Show and own and enjoy all 5 serieson DVD....So started watching series 6 (only the first episode so far) and Mark's character has changed internally. No more has he got a self-loathing fearful thing going on, he just rants about getting Dobby alone so he can try and get sex with her, Any warmth in his character seems to have gone which is a terrible state of affairs. I hope that changes for the rest of the series....They're all starting to look old anyway.

It is hard for him to be a warm character though given the circumstance he's been in for two series. I wouldn't say the fearfulness and self loathing is completely gone either.

[Toe]

I don't know if it's because I didn't get the jokes or what, but I hate Harvey Birdman. I don't find any of it funny.

[Skummy]

Extras is terrible, but I'll let if off for "but, of course, I've seen everything".

[Liam]

Extras is terrible, but I'll let if off for "but, of course, I've seen everything".

That scene validates the shows very existence.