How the fark can someone make a career from standing in a doorway and raising one arm and one leg?

"My naame is 'Arry Werrth"

don't forget about Norman Collier

"OORRIGHT MOY DAWRLEENS"
cue studio laughter , well it is funny when he says it, innit? I mean, it must be 'cos he was allowed to say it for fifty years on telly.

or as Norman Collier would have said,"O--RI--T M-- DA--L--NS"

YEAH, it was babnal..but harmless. But hey, things have improved dramatically since then ...I see Barrymores making a comeback ....

...surely not

It's an example of how TV killed Variety. Back in the day, a top gag like standing in a doorway and raising an arm and leg could be done not just once, but again and again - to a different audience every night. Once on TV, and it lost it's appeal.

As a result of TV exposure, Variety Artists soon used up all of their material and were forced to either do it again to a much smaller audience or find new material.

Fortunately Little Britain has shown that there is mileage once more in repeating the same act over and over again, so the last few remaining variety comics are at this very moment polishing their zimmers and preparing to deliver classic lines like "I bet you never gave her a pound of cockles" once more....

eckey thump bah she knows ya know

Isn't that one of the great sins of modern times to even hint that .Little britain' is ....... pathetic, a sort of unde 14's 'humour...?

It's much the same as Catherine Tate; the joke works well the first time and is different and funny. After 27 episodes of the same punchline with a different scenario it kind of loses its appeal.

Grandma effing and blinding the first time is funny and shocking at the same time but it quickly becomes a parody of itself.

It certainly does Mr D, you should get those kids to bed before 9 !!!

Actually, a little more seriously repetition for comedic effect has worked pretty well for a long time. Spike Milligan used it a lot in The Goon Show for example - he would at times deliberately create catchphrases and use them until they got a laugh.

Moving on, Monty Python used it to perfection at times. "How to recognise different kinds of tree from quite a long way away", "Lemon Curry?", the Bishop rehearsing his line "Oh Mr Belpit your legs are so swollen", the Spanish Inquisition.... one of my favourite ones was the Deja Vu sketch which used repetition superbly.

Moving on again, a lot of the sketch shows from the early 90s started using it again - the master of it for me was The Fast Show. What they did brilliantly was to introduce a character, their catchphrases (Suits You Sir, Does my bum look big in this, you ain't seen me - right, and many many others), show them for almost an entire series doing the same thing, and then change it. The change would be so huge that even if it wasn't funny it was great viewing - Rowley Birkin QC for example spent 5 episodes doing drunken rambling reminisces with much humour followed by "I was very, very drunk" and then suddenly one episode started some sort of reminisce about a more serious thing where he ended looking rather sad and wistful. Ron Manager went off on one saying that Football was stupid and were trees the lungs of the planet and finishing by saying his wife had left him.

Sadly I think a lot of the shows since have tried to follow The Fast Show's formula and a lot don't get it right - maybe the quality of the writing and performers had something to do with it as there were some seriously good comics working on it. Little Britain seems to have got closer, but rather than just slightly odd characters has gone too much for what I think of as a "Shock Jock" approach - so instead of Unlucky Alf and Bob Fleming we get people doing bodily functions in public and middle-aged men being breast-fed......

the mitchell and webb programmes pretty funny

like the snooker commentators and NUMBERWANG! and that

I dont think TLOG was over exposed, each series changed, although it kept a backbone of characters, it did piss on its own chips with the fillum version

Curb your enthusiam and Arrested Development are excellent examples of American comedy as well

Perverts everwhere are nodding in agreement.

I liked Kelly Montheith, what ever happened to him?

some bits in the smell of reeves and mortimer and the other one.......kinda shows how memorable it was like cant think what its called....erm.

anyways, it had some funny bits, but youre right not a patch on big night out

You thinking about Shooting Stars there Salty, that was ok in patches.

I like Extras just to see that these so called celebs to actually have a sense of humour by taking the piss out of themselves

I think 'Extras' is the work of a genius!!!! :sweet:

Not side-splittingly funny in the slightest....but marvellous scripts!!!! :sweet:

I watched a video of Vic & Bob about 6 months ago and it was embarrasingly not funny at all!!!!
I can't remember what I actually found funny in the 1st place!!!!

Sketch shows for me....

'The Fast Show' and 'Harry Enfield & Friends' and 'Spitting Image'!!!! :sweet:
I wish they'd bring back Spitting Image!!!!

Little Britain in my mind is sick and I can't believe it actually got on TV!!!!
Taking the piss out of handicapped and old people isn't funny!!!!

Catherine Tate....I've never actually watched one of her shows but the clips I've seen show me it's just a rip-off of the sick and unfunny Little Britain!!!!

The third was a great series, full of historical observation but the best of the lot has to be the final episode of the fourth series, the WW1 version. The final scene was perhaps the most evocative piece every written about the futility of that war. Especially the immensely clever line 'who'd have noticed another madman around here"

Baldrick: 'I have a plan, sir.
Captain Blackadder: Really Baldrick? A cunning and subtle one?
Baldrick: Yes, sir.
Blackadder: As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
Baldrick: Yes, sir.
["On the signal, Company will advance"]
Blackadder: Well, I'm afraid it's too late. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was better than my plan to get out of here by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman round here?
Captain Blackadder: Good luck, everyone.

Anyone else liked Sledge Hammer ? I thought it was great at the time but I've seen it since and it's lost something in time.

Some things date really badly, possibly Big Night Out is one of those - although I thought it was hysterical at the time and I remember killing myself laughing as The Ponderers injected ink into a Battenberg Cake. They've had their moments since, but it's too often been just that - moments. Always thought Bob was the funnier one in any case.

I loved Blackadder, right from my first seeing The Black Adder - The Queen of Spain's Beard is my favourite episode partly because Miriam Margolyes is so splendidly, insanely, over the top.

I loved The Fast Show, and think that it's a sign of how on top of their game they were that they didn't carry on making series after series. That's killed too many series IMO, including the likes of Harry Enfield.

I've always loved some of the sillier and off the wall stuff, and for some reason there seems to be a Scottish element as well. Naked Video was one I thought was good, and Absolutely was terrific; I also might be the only person to think that "The High Life", a low-budget BBC effort set around a Scottish Airline, was great viewing. Some of Billy Connolly's stuff is superb as well - his "Scottish Singers" piece on The Late Show was a classic of the type. "Erufor....."

Father Ted was superb, especially some of the segments that sent up films etc. "Speed 3" with Dougal on the Milk Float, the section from the Christmas Special where he has to lead the group of priests out of the Lingerie section Vietnam war style...

However I would say the thing I have watched that had me laughing myself silly was a few years ago on Eurosport. It was showing a German Flugtag - which basically consisted of Germans in crazy contraptions running along a pier and then falling into a lake in the name of man-powered flight. I remember lying on the floor, helpless with laughter....

You're not!

I've got it on DVD

You for coffee??

Ehhhhh

Classic show

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
not that, its sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeITE!

maybe the other series was a taste of R+M...




extra's is great!
been some great bits this series, the bowie 1 was the worst like imo
last 1 tonight innit?!

Yeah last one tonight

The best one was with the Harry Potter kid in it and orlando Bloom was funny as well. I think that Stephen Merchant who plays the agent is the best character though

I think that might go on my Amazon Wishlist if it's still out... still remember part of the theme tune:
"If you're feeling kinda serious, if live is positively mediocre, here's how to get that adrenalin flowing, just step aboard a Boeing going aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh......."

There's someone at work who I sometimes come across called Shona, I can't here the name without thinking "Miss Spirtle"..... it was just so wonderfully, totally silly and it knew it. Remember the entry for the Scottish Song for Eurovision? "Piff Paff Pouffe, my heart goes piff paff pouffe....."

Trust me. I know what i'm doing.

Classic at the time