Greatest Comedies Ever

[eamo]

Throw them out:

Here's mine for the record:

5. Father Ted
4. Friends
3. Fawlty Towers
2. The Simpsons
1. Only Fools and Horses

[therock67]

eamo said:

Throw them out:

Here's mine for the record:

5. Father Ted
4. Friends
3. Fawlty Towers
2. The Simpsons
1. Only Fools and Horses

5. Family Guy
4. Yes Minister
3. The Office
2. Human Remains
1. Father Ted

For those who haven't seen it Human Remains was a one-series show on BBC with Rob Brydon (Keith Barrett) and Julia Davies. Some of it was sensational.

Honourable mentions to The Big Train, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Faulty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, Brass Eye.

Also The Thick of It which was on BBC4 last year and BBC 2 this year (a modern Yes Minister) was excellent and hopefully they make more though the lead guy was caught up in some child p0rn scandal.

[pagey]

5. South Park
4. The Office
3. Only Fools and Horses
2.The Simpsons
1. King of Queens

[eamo]

admin said:

eamo said:

Throw them out:

Here's mine for the record:

5. Father Ted
4. Friends
3. Fawlty Towers
2. The Simpsons
1. Only Fools and Horses

5. Family Guy
4. Yes Minister
3. The Office
2. Human Remains
1. Father Ted

For those who haven't seen it Human Remains was a one-series show on BBC with Rob Brydon (Keith Barrett) and Julia Davies. Some of it was sensational.

Honourable mentions to The Big Train, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Faulty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, Brass Eye.

Also The Thick of It which was on BBC4 last year and BBC 2 this year (a modern Yes Minister) was excellent and hopefully they make more though the lead guy was caught up in some child p0rn scandal.

Cant believe that Family Guy is in there and The Simpsons only gets an honourable mention when the former is effectively a plagiarism of the latter.

[therock67]

eamo said:

admin said:

5. Family Guy
4. Yes Minister
3. The Office
2. Human Remains
1. Father Ted

For those who haven't seen it Human Remains was a one-series show on BBC with Rob Brydon (Keith Barrett) and Julia Davies. Some of it was sensational.

Honourable mentions to The Big Train, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Faulty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, Brass Eye.

Also The Thick of It which was on BBC4 last year and BBC 2 this year (a modern Yes Minister) was excellent and hopefully they make more though the lead guy was caught up in some child p0rn scandal.

Cant believe that Family Guy is in there and The Simpsons only gets an honourable mention when the former is effectively a plagiarism of the latter.

It's based on a similar family setup (but then so was Married With Children or any family-based comedy from the States) but it has been far, far funnier of late. There is obviously no getting away from the fact that The Simpsons has deteriorated badly and if I was asked a couple of years ago I'd have had it in my top five easily. Maybe it's over-exposure, maybe it's the weak new episodes, either way it doesn't hold a candle to the Family Guy output of the last few years. And it certainly doesn't take as many risks.

[whyohwhy]

5. The Green Wing (1st series, 2nd series is suffering from second season syndrome)
4. Fawlty Towers
3. Father Ted
2. The Simpsons (Homer episodes)
1. Only Fools & Horses

Honourable mention - Scrubs, Seinfeld (Kramer episodes)

[eamo]

admin said:

eamo said:

Cant believe that Family Guy is in there and The Simpsons only gets an honourable mention when the former is effectively a plagiarism of the latter.

It's based on a similar family setup (but then so was Married With Children or any family-based comedy from the States) but it has been far, far funnier of late. There is obviously no getting away from the fact that The Simpsons has deteriorated badly and if I was asked a couple of years ago I'd have had it in my top five easily. Maybe it's over-exposure, maybe it's the weak new episodes, either way it doesn't hold a candle to the Family Guy output of the last few years. And it certainly doesn't take as many risks.

For me, Family Guy lacks any thought. It is funny almost exclusively due to its racist jokes and the likes. But I must confess that I havent seen that many episodes, mainly due to the fact that I dont want to watch many episodes. The Dad in it is a blatant rip-off of Homer.

True though the Simpsons has diminished significantly in quality. There have been some great episodes, namely the one where Homer hires a private detective to folow Lisa. But its earlier years blew me away.

[humbug]

Cannot believe Friends has made it into someone's list. Mine are:

5. Curb Your Entusiasm
4. Father Ted
3. The Day Today
2. The Office
1. I'm Alan Partridge

[eamo]

humbug said:

Cannot believe Friends has made it into someone's list. Mine are:

5. Curb Your Entusiasm
4. Father Ted
3. The Day Today
2. The Office
1. I'm Alan Partridge

I cant believe that The Office made it in ahead of Friends. Friends was your classic sitcom, six characters, all well created, all acted well and written perfectly. The Office was funny, it was cringeworthy mainly. The idea was good but it pretty much wrote itself after that. I watched the entire first series over two days a few weeks ago and by the end of it I was bored. That would never happen with Friends and certainly not with Only Fools and Horses which I also note didnt make your list. Shame on you. Smite.

PS. The Day Today was a good call. I think therock67 mentioned Brass Eye as well. I remember a moment from that where Chris Morris was reading the news (It wasn't actually The Day Today, it was Brass Eye) and he said in the real serious voice that 'the television presenter Clive Anderson was been stabbed to death last night by fellow television presenter Noel Edmonds. Cross now live to the scene'. And they actually had a report on it. That is crazy sh1t and very very funny. Alas I havent seen many more episodes of either but would love to. Are they on DVD does anyone know? They are rarely on TV...

Honourable mention for Whose Line is it Anyway? Not a sitcom per se but a great show nonetheless

[stickywithoutjam]

Top 10 comedy series contenders- (no particular order)

Seinfeld
Frasier
Blackadder
Father Ted
Phoenix Nights
A Bit of Fry & Laurie
The Day Today
Paul Merton- the series
Not Only but Also
Monty Python

(On the Buses should also be up there, but I fear you all are too PC and touchy feely for the edginess of the popular and long running classic)

[therock67]

eamo said:

humbug said:

Cannot believe Friends has made it into someone's list. Mine are:

5. Curb Your Entusiasm
4. Father Ted
3. The Day Today
2. The Office
1. I'm Alan Partridge

I cant believe that The Office made it in ahead of Friends. Friends was your classic sitcom, six characters, all well created, all acted well and written perfectly. The Office was funny, it was cringeworthy mainly. The idea was good but it pretty much wrote itself after that. I watched the entire first series over two days a few weeks ago and by the end of it I was bored. That would never happen with Friends and certainly not with Only Fools and Horses which I also note didnt make your list. Shame on you. Smite.

PS. The Day Today was a good call. I think therock67 mentioned Brass Eye as well. I remember a moment from that where Chris Morris was reading the news (It wasn't actually The Day Today, it was Brass Eye) and he said in the real serious voice that 'the television presenter Clive Anderson was been stabbed to death last night by fellow television presenter Noel Edmonds. Cross now live to the scene'. And they actually had a report on it. That is crazy sh1t and very very funny. Alas I havent seen many more episodes of either but would love to. Are they on DVD does anyone know? They are rarely on TV...

Honourable mention for Whose Line is it Anyway? Not a sitcom per se but a great show nonetheless

I'll make you a copy of brass eye this evening if I remember. Send me an email or something near home time so I don't forget.

Also may I just utterly disagree with your Friends V The Office comparison? In truth I didn't know if you were joking or not when you mentioned Friends the first time. It had some funny moments over its multitude of episodes but all in all it was pretty stale and unimaginative.

[humbug]

Friends had to be the most boring sit-com ever. I watched series 1 and 2 like everyone else but after that Friends, like anything with James Nesbitt in it, was an automatic switch off. If Friends was a football formation it would be 4-4-2...so predictable and lacking in any imagination. Ross would set up the joke. Chandler would deliver the punch line. Joey would pull that bewildered look. Phoebe would do something quirky. Rachel would look pretty and Monica would act a bit anal...repeat ad nauseam, throw in a few celebrity cameos, reduce the humour down to the lowest common denominator and that's all there is to it. Friends is a sitcom for chicks.

[whyohwhy]

humbug said:

Friends had to be the most boring sit-com ever. I watched series 1 and 2 like everyone else but after that Friends, like anything with James Nesbitt in it, was an automatic switch off. If Friends was a football formation it would be 4-4-2...so predictable and lacking in any imagination. Ross would set up the joke. Chandler would deliver the punch line. Joey would pull that bewildered look. Phoebe would do something quirky. Rachel would look pretty and Monica would act a bit anal...repeat ad nauseam, throw in a few celebrity cameos, reduce the humour down to the lowest common denominator and that's all there is to it. Friends is a sitcom for chicks.

spot on, humbug, spot on.

[eamo]

humbug said:

Friends had to be the most boring sit-com ever. I watched series 1 and 2 like everyone else but after that Friends, like anything with James Nesbitt in it, was an automatic switch off. If Friends was a football formation it would be 4-4-2...so predictable and lacking in any imagination. Ross would set up the joke. Chandler would deliver the punch line. Joey would pull that bewildered look. Phoebe would do something quirky. Rachel would look pretty and Monica would act a bit anal...repeat ad nauseam, throw in a few celebrity cameos, reduce the humour down to the lowest common denominator and that's all there is to it. Friends is a sitcom for chicks.

Thats exactly what I thought when the series was going on. But since it ended Ive watched the repeats most evenings on E4. It is actually a wonderfully constructed comedy. The above description from Humbug is ever so slightly generalised. I'll accept though that it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

The Office is still very overrrated for me though.

[bandage]

Getting tired replying to all the fascinating threads I missed while away:

Humbug, spot on. Friends is, was and always will be the most predictable, dull, made for birds, lump of poo imaginable.

The Office for me is the peak as far as comedy goes. It made me sit up and go 'fookin hell' - amazing stuff.

Father Ted is right up there too as is Phoenix Nights and the series of separate half hour specials Peter Kay made with a different character in each episode that preceded PN - particularly loved the one where he was an ice cream man at the local fair. Smashing stuff.

Loved Fawlty Towers as a kid - had them all on video and must watch them again.

Can take or leave The Simpsons and the other animated stuff. Same with Only Fools and Horses where I find you can predict the punchline about 20 mins before the end of the joke.

Pagey, I presume King Of Queens was a joke.

[eamo]

bandage said:

Same with Only Fools and Horses where I find you can predict the punchline about 20 mins before the end of the joke.

Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear....

[iamthelaw]

Not saying anything new here, but here are my votes:

Yes Minister
Blackadder
Father Ted
Fawlty Towers
The Simpsons
Monty Python
Family Guy
The Office
South Park

No to:
Scrubs, Friends, Only Fools and Horses
(all of them far too repetitive; maybe it helps some of the shows above that they did not run for so long?)

[whyohwhy]

iamthelaw said:

Blackadder

For some reason with Blackadder, I only like the WWI ones (Blackadder returns (I think)) and not the victorian ones (Blackadder the third).

Baldrick is hilarious though

BTW Do ye like my new avatar? Quality, The Fonz

[eamo]

iamthelaw said:

Not saying anything new here, but here are my votes:

Yes Minister
Blackadder
Father Ted
Fawlty Towers
The Simpsons
Monty Python
Family Guy
The Office
South Park

No to:
Scrubs, Friends, Only Fools and Horses
(all of them far too repetitive; maybe it helps some of the shows above that they did not run for so long?)

I would say yes to Only Fools and Friends because after so many years they were still funny. In the case of OFAH, the three episodes in 1996 where they got rich were probably the best ever. The Office couldnt keep it up for another series, nor could Fawlty Towers, and by the third series Father Ted was getting embarrassingly poor.

The first ever line in Only Fools was this:

Grandad: That Sidney Potter is a good actor inhe Rodney
Rodney: Sidney Potter? Its Sidney Poitier
Grandad: Its Sidney Potter. You know him - always plays the black fella!

Contrast this with the Office where Brent was talking to his staff about his favourite actor and the black dude was there. He was saying how much he liked Sidney Poitier. Then he said that he wasnt his favourite actor. He then said ' Do you know who is'? When I was watching that I was saying 'Denzil Washington' and then Gervais says.......... Denzil Washington

[bandage]

How can you say The Office could not go on any longer? Gervais chose to finish even though many people were gagging for it to run and run. You're giving an opinion as fact. IMO The Office beats OFAH up like a father would his ginger stepchild. But again that's only my opinion.

[eamo]

bandage said:

How can you say The Office could not go on any longer? Gervais chose to finish even though many people were gagging for it to run and run. You're giving an opinion as fact. IMO The Office beats OFAH up like a father would his ginger stepchild. But again that's only my opinion.

I never ever said my opinion was fact. I thought that the point of this forum is to argue an opinion. When did I ever mention the word 'fact'?

Gervais knew The Office couldnt go on any longer. There's only so long before that type of humour gets repetitive and if he had done one more series then he would have lost its 'legendary' status. The same was true for Fawlty Towers but IMO Fawlty is a much better comedy.

Take Father Ted as an example. At the end of the second series is was untouchable having never put a foot wrong. Then after the disaster of the third series it left an extremely sour taste in the mouth. I believe that the Office wouldve followed the same route.

I did like the ginger reference though!

[lyonsee]

bandage said:

IMO The Office beats OFAH up like a father would his ginger stepchild.

I'm stealing this phrase. Yoink.

[eamo]

Can I throw another out there:

The Royle Family. IMO it is better than The Office

[therock67]

eamo said:

Can I throw another out there:

The Royle Family. IMO it is better than The Office

The Royle Family is excellent. I think you're getting overly concerned with dismissing The Office. It was a wonderful programme. If you don't like it then that's fine but you don't have to compare everything to it.

Having noted your earlier comments I'm having a look at what made up Series 3 of Father Ted and they're superb episodes: (copied and pasted from wikipedia)

Are You Right There, Father Ted? - Ted's "Chinaman" impression goes down badly with Craggy Island's newly-arrived Chinese community and he is branded a racist.

Chirpy Burpy Cheap Sheep - Ted makes a large bet on the King of the Sheep competition. Unfortunately, Chris, his chosen sheep, has heard rumours about a sheep-eating beast and isn't feeling at all himself. The title is a parody of the 1970s song "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" by Middle Of The Road. There is a hidden pun in the show's plot — it's all about sheep worrying.

Speed 3 - When Ted and Dougal expose a philandering milkman, Pat Mustard, he takes revenge on his replacement, Dougal, by putting a bomb on the milk float. If Dougal's speed drops below 4 mph... This show was dreamed up by the creators when they decided to "see if you could make a worse sequel than Speed 2".

The Mainland - Ted wins some money on the horses and must travel to the mainland to claim it. This is a very bad idea. Even Richard Wilson doesn't believe it.

Escape From Victory - Ted takes great steps to ensure he wins a bet with Dick Byrne on the outcome of the All-Priests Over-75's Five-a-Side Football championship. The title is a pun on the football movie Escape to Victory, originally titled Victory, about a football game played between prisoners of war and their guards in World War II.

Kicking Bishop Brennan Up The Arse - the only episode to follow on directly from the previous one. Exposed as a cheat, Ted waits in terror for Dick to inform him of his forfeit... can you tell what it is yet?

Night Of The Nearly Dead - The visit of a young daytime TV presenter, Eoin McLove, causes excitement for the island's aging females. The title is a pun on the movie Night of the Living Dead. Eoin McLove is a parody of Daniel O'Donnell, an Irish crooner particularly popular among elderly women.

Going To America - Ted gets the opportunity of a lifetime, but can't bring himself to break it to the others that they're not invited. The title is a pun on the movie Coming to America. The last scene of this episode was going to show Ted climbing onto a window ledge along with another priest to commit suicide. This was then replaced out of respect at the last minute with a montage containing one clip from every previous episode, in reverse order, as Father Ted actor, Dermot Morgan died just soon after making this final episode. However, the writers have said that the joke didn't really work and would have been replaced anyway.

[eamo]

I suppose that I am fed up of people quoting The Office as the greatest comedy ever when it is nowhere near in my view. But ok I will desist mentioning it in future.

I didnt like any of those Father Ted episodes. For me they were a pale comparison on the flawless first and second series.