American Humour : British Humour

[jiminski]

In the Age-old tradition of 'those who can't do, write about..' this passage is 'intentionally' bereft of any humour whatever!


...I am talking about how it is portrayed in popular culture; mainly TV and Film. (though it is a tiny comparison with regards the British Film)

Intelligent American humour is slicker, universally more accessible and often brilliant. I would cite Frasier and bloody hell! even Friends, in both their heydays.. (when we had not seen them a million times... chipping away at the veneer of wit to leave the metal of the lusterless corporate machine.)

British humour always strikes me as more creative, as more a challenging expression of the discipline. I feel that it journeys into the realms of a classical art-form.
I cite Chris morris (the Day today and Brass Eye) and probably Monty Python too.

My perception could be due to the greater empathy of cultural reference. Although American culture is much more familiar to me than British is to similarly positioned Americans.
I would also say that on a purely laughter scale, American humour often grabs my instinctive funny bone with a firmer grip. Whereas British is often more cerebral, more of a smile followed by 'God that is clever!'
(Blackadder is quite unique in that it marries intellect with instinct.. a little as Frasier does.. but it does not specifically change the pallet of funny)

Don't get me wrong I think that Frasier is of the highest intellectual caliber. I also think it is more reverential to form and tradition than the very best of the British equivalent.

British is 'Arthouse' - pushing the boundaries of what is funny. American is 'Hollywood' - bringing an old, comforting friend round for tea.


Am I wrong? Are there cutting-edge American 'comedies' out there which do not make it to the world for that very reason?

[black elk speaks]

i cant say that i disagree to anything that you have said. well done. i think your comment about "chipping away at the veneer of wit to leave the metal of the lusterless corporate machine" was right on the mark. you may have a better position to comment on this than most americans.

i am not certain, but i believe that you british have a far higher likelihood of understanding our slang and lingo than we do of understanding yours. what i mean is that a lot of your dialog and phrasing, even terms, are not as easily understood by us. for example, take the term 'fag' you hear it, and i assume that the first thing that might come into your head is cigarette. (tell me if i am wrong) in the us, the term is directly associated with homosexuality. so processing the term goes from "fag = homosexual", to "actually they mean cigarette" to "why don't they just say cigarette" to "what did they even say about the cigarette, i was thinking about something else." you on the other hand seem better at simply thinking "ah, to them, fag = homosexual" and move on. i could be completely off base here, do enlighten me if you think so.

i personally prefer drama to comedy. most often, when not watching a full length feature film, i can be found watching law and order. its just more entertaining and challenging to the mind.

great topic, i am interested in seeing where it goes.

[jiminski]

thank you black Elk and yes, i think that the British are almost uniquely placed to understand the nuances of mainstream American humour, without interruption.
This is not reciprocal so i feel that most British are better positioned to interpret the respective strengths of both nations' humour-product.
Far from meaning that in a supercilious sense, it is Americas complete cultural dominance which gives the British that circumspection.

For me, the very narrative of humour at its most experimental level, is more fluid for the British. Perhaps that is due largely to our different kind of Media funding.... The BBC can put out 10 crap programmes to find one gem of pure genius!
And i think that philosophy finds its way into the wider commercial market too; making innovation a prerequisite of the truly great.

[pimpdave]

Am I wrong? Are there cutting-edge American 'comedies' out there which do not make it to the world for that very reason?

Robert Altman comedies.
Christopher Guest movies.

[jiminski]

Am I wrong? Are there cutting-edge American 'comedies' out there which do not make it to the world for that very reason?

Robert Altman comedies.
Christopher Guest movies.

Spinal Tap .. an excellent example! .. heheh due to the tone and pretty much flawless accents, most people think that is English i am sure! (want to find a clip and share it pimp?)

Robert Altman though .. did he change the repertoire of humour?

Edit just looked for a little more information on Christopher Guest: Christopher .. Born in New York, son of an English diplomat who later became the 4th Baron Haden-Guest... gave him a handle on British humour perhaps

[pimpdave]

Wow, I didn't know that about Christopher Guest. And I was thinking more of the stuff he's done since and including Waiting for Guffman.

Primarily because This is Spinal Tap was really a Rob Reiner movie.

As for Altman, his comedies seem to embody what you were describing about smiling as opposed to guffawing. Although sometimes it can be overbearing (as in British comedy), for the most part it's very well done.

and one other person I thought of... David O. Russell movies.

I mean, damn:

Flirting With Disaster
Three Kings
I <3 Huckabees

[sam_levi_11]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FpSExiqTxbE

try to tell me the "what do you see here" bit doesnt make u laugh as much as any american comedy.

Honestly i think its just you prefer the comedy you grow up with, i prefer british, however i love friends, fraiser and a few others too, its a mixed bag,

TBH i prefer mock the week, a panel show that has no real point but to be funny.

[pimpdave]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FpSExiqTxbE

try to tell me the "what do you see here" bit doesnt make u laugh as much as any american comedy.

Honestly i think its just you prefer the comedy you grow up with, i prefer british, however i love friends, fraiser and a few others too, its a mixed bag,

TBH i prefer mock the week, a panel show that has no real point but to be funny.

Yo, I love Peep Show. Good stuff.

[jiminski]

Wow, I didn't know that about Christopher Guest. And I was thinking more of the stuff he's done since and including Waiting for Guffman.

Primarily because This is Spinal Tap was really a Rob Reiner movie.

As for Altman, his comedies seem to embody what you were describing about smiling as opposed to guffawing. Although sometimes it can be overbearing (as in British comedy), for the most part it's very well done.

and one other person I thought of... David O. Russell movies.

I mean, damn:

Flirting With Disaster
Three Kings
I <3 Huckabees

you are quite right, and 'Curb your enthusiasm' has that cringey, smile at genius not laugh, humour. (though i do not find it funny to be honest)
So yes i agree American humour has that non-commercial, tradition of inaccessibility but i have never/rarely seen the surreal or groundbreaking; pushing of what it is to be funny, from American moving pictures.

This could be a cultural thing and perhaps it is so experimental that it would not register within my un-attuned psyche.. but I would love to see some if anyone has examples.

[deliaselene]

jimi you didnt mention Black Books

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJg_WMw5 ... re=related

[sam_levi_11]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FpSExiqTxbE

try to tell me the "what do you see here" bit doesnt make u laugh as much as any american comedy.

Honestly i think its just you prefer the comedy you grow up with, i prefer british, however i love friends, fraiser and a few others too, its a mixed bag,

TBH i prefer mock the week, a panel show that has no real point but to be funny.

Yo, I love Peep Show. Good stuff.

superhands is amazing, gotta love him lol. "that carck is moreish"

[jiminski]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FpSExiqTxbE

try to tell me the "what do you see here" bit doesnt make u laugh as much as any american comedy.

Honestly i think its just you prefer the comedy you grow up with, i prefer british, however i love friends, fraiser and a few others too, its a mixed bag,

TBH i prefer mock the week, a panel show that has no real point but to be funny.

yeas i concede that comedy is absolutely based in cultural reference.. my point is that we also share that cultural reference with America; we did grow up with American humour: Friends, Frasier, Cheers, Simpsons, Mork and friggin Mindy etc etc.
So we do have a context to judge their humour and identify with it. Very very few of the popular cultural references are lost on us as we are aware of the in-jokes already. (we are bound to it at least as much as Texan culture understands New York)

I do feel that there is a fundamental difference in our traditions and that British mainstream humour is often, at its best more risky and stretching.
To parallel American comedy at its best with Art: it comes from the pallet of grandmasters Renoir, Michelangelo .. perhaps as far as Cezane; tinkering with form at the edges.
But British seems to me more along the lines of Kandinsky and Pollack; maneuvering of preconceptions and reinventing form as art.

Again i would love to see that i am wrong, with examples.

[jiminski]

jimi you didnt mention Black Books

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJg_WMw5 ... re=related

ello,
I love black books, and it is quintessentially British (forgive me the Irish.. we are brothers of the beer and cutting quip) but i am not sure that it is groundbreaking in the way i mean. It does not toy with the nature of funny.. it does not put us off and miss us, until eventually it seeps into our understanding and becomes instinctively humour-filled.

[william18]

Fraiser is very good but the simpsons also very good.Has anyone noticed the beginning of a simpsons epidsode has nothing to do with it, then something crazy happens and the outcome bacomes a major part of the story.

[pimpdave]

Again i would love to see that i am wrong, with examples.

Well, in some ways, I think it's an impossible argument to have, albeit thoroughly awesome.

It's like that immortal debate question (and it's various permutations): who would win in a fight?

We (and by we, I mean primarily men, most women don't seem to care about such trivial and impossible arguments -- although of course there are exceptions to the rule) seem to be consumed with determining what would happen if the Starship Enterprise had a space battle with the Millennium Falcon.

Who was the better fighter, Muhammad Ali or Rocky Marciano?

Who would win in a fight, Mike Ditka or a hurricane? What if the hurricane was named Hurricane Ditka?



With a topic as truly subjective as art (and that's what comedy is, an art form; your analogy involving painters was tres apropos), there's no way to really argue it. One can only categorize it, sure, but no arguments presented here will realistically "prove you wrong" jiminski, cause you can't be wrong. You also can't be right.

So I see this thread going one of two ways. It could devolve into the petty jingoistic claims of superiority that mark so many other threads comparing a product exported by two different nations that share a common language. For an example, see any thread about Real Football That Americans Play or The Fruity Lawn Prancing the Rest of the World Does Because They Are Lame; which is what those threads would be called if their titles reflected the nature of either game. And that's not a debate I want to bother having, or reading. It's too damn played out.

Or this thread could become a place to compare American comedy to British comedy, providing examples of both, and giving everyone new ideas of what comedies to seek out, if so inspired.

To put it another way, I love British comedy. But it's not all I'd want. I love American comedy, but stuff like Friends fucking blows.

The two best sitcoms on American TV right now are:

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which will also make you cringe and smile, but also split your sides)
The Office (which, yes, I know was a Ricky Gervais joint, and he's awesome, but the American edition has taken on a voice and personality of it's own, which in my mind, without denying it's roots, still managed to establish it as uniquely American about midway through the second season. The same could be said about Mr. Guest, that although having ties to England, is still an American, and still makes American comedies.)



And everything I've written above has been a tangent to what I really wanted to throw out there. Does no one else agree that David O. Russell makes sublimely clever comedies?

And jiminski, since you seem to be as interested in the topic as I am, if you are familiar with David O. Russell's work, how would you label it? Does it come across as thoroughly American, does it share those qualities of British comedy that you hold in such great esteem, does it not even rate as either?

[jiminski]

Again i would love to see that i am wrong, with examples.

Well, in some ways, I think it's an impossible argument to have, albeit thoroughly awesome.

It's like that immortal debate question (and it's various permutations): who would win in a fight?

We (and by we, I mean primarily men, most women don't seem to care about such trivial and impossible arguments -- although of course there are exceptions to the rule) seem to be consumed with determining what would happen if the Starship Enterprise had a space battle with the Millennium Falcon.

Who was the better fighter, Muhammad Ali or Rocky Marciano?

Who would win in a fight, Mike Ditka or a hurricane? What if the hurricane was named Hurricane Ditka?



With a topic as truly subjective as art (and that's what comedy is, an art form; your analogy involving painters was tres apropos), there's no way to really argue it. One can only categorize it, sure, but no arguments presented here will realistically "prove you wrong" jiminski, cause you can't be wrong. You also can't be right.

So I see this thread going one of two ways. It could devolve into the petty jingoistic claims of superiority that mark so many other threads comparing a product exported by two different nations that share a common language. For an example, see any thread about Real Football That Americans Play or The Fruity Lawn Prancing the Rest of the World Does Because They Are Lame; which is what those threads would be called if their titles reflected the nature of either game. And that's not a debate I want to bother having, or reading. It's too damn played out.

Or this thread could become a place to compare American comedy to British comedy, providing examples of both, and giving everyone new ideas of what comedies to seek out, if so inspired.

To put it another way, I love British comedy. But it's not all I'd want. I love American comedy, but stuff like Friends fucking blows.

The two best sitcoms on American TV right now are:

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which will also make you cringe and smile, but also split your sides)
The Office (which, yes, I know was a Ricky Gervais joint, and he's awesome, but the American edition has taken on a voice and personality of it's own, which in my mind, without denying it's roots, still managed to establish it as uniquely American about midway through the second season. The same could be said about Mr. Guest, that although having ties to England, is still an American, and still makes American comedies.)



And everything I've written above has been a tangent to what I really wanted to throw out there. Does no one else agree that David O. Russell makes sublimely clever comedies?

And jiminski, since you seem to be as interested in the topic as I am, if you are familiar with David O. Russell's work, how would you label it? Does it come across as thoroughly American, does it share those qualities of British comedy that you hold in such great esteem, does it not even rate as either?

It is not a pissing contest which i am trying to establish Dave.. I am not aiming for an argument about superiority, i hoped i made that clear.. by saying that American humour often made me laugh more than its British counterpart.
I was obviously not clear in what i said.

This is no more subjective than saying Cezanne was a post-impressionist and Kandinsky ventures into the abstract. The reason i use the artists i do, is that we can categorise them into known and accepted epochs and movements with the corresponding understanding of how they are universally perceived now in our epoch.

What i am saying, with my knowledge of American and British humour: (with no judgment in value or worth) is that I know of the British equivalent of Kandinsky in Comedy; i know the equivalent of Renoir for American Comedy but i do not know its Picasso.

Again i am not saying that Picasso is better than Renoir i am saying that we can define their difference and within our context of hindsight, judge their impact upon form relative to their time.

Now this requires a leap of imagination to lock-onto the metaphor but i think that it is a truism and not a subjection.

what i ask is that if there is an American Comedic-Picasso, swept under the world carpet by his lack of universal appeal, please show him to me.... i would love to see him


..... or her


or even if i am missing the restructuring of form due to my bias (or lack of understanding) educate me.

[KoolBak]

Interesting stuff....refreshing to see a thread with content....lol.

Being an older american (leaning towards the redneck side of life), my views are most certainly different, but I would enjoy the opportunity to opine.

I completely agree with my unilateral lack of understanding of British culture....I simply have no frame of reference; my best friend travels to merry olde England several times a year on biz and absolutely loves it. British friends (adults) I have made on CC, as a whole, seem to have a scathing wit and extremely dry senses of humor - I find them immensely entertaining! As can be the case with all human beings, however, there are idiots everywhere (there just seem to be MORE here....lol).

Anyhow, I always have and always will love Monty Python....the shock factor was huge. I also loved Benny Hill and own tapes of all his shows ;o)

As far as sitcoms (IMHO), which appear to be what you are discussing, I have never seen an episode of friends. Frasier is pretty good. I tend to enjoy what my old father referred to as "lowbrow" humor....lol. I thought Married With Children was absolutely hilarious, but I have been married for 20 years...... There are others but none come to mind......

On to comedians (and not the main line names); there are soooooo many; personally, again due to the questionable synapse-firing in my nugget, I thought Andrew Dice Clay was classic.....and Sam Kinneson (saw him live a few days before his passing).

So....thanks for the chance to ramble my friends ;o)

[jiminski]

heheh .. i love to ramble!

you are right Kool, i kind of focused upon Sitcom and Films, which does limit the nature of eachothers creative framework .. i did not mean to limit the debate to that!
I think 'Sit-coms' or TV sketch-shows, are limited by the nature of commercial TV in the US. (not to the same degree in the UK.)

It just dawned upon me, due to the different base and demands of the discipline; that your Picasso, your Kandinsky and your Monet are very likely all in Stand-up!

[KoolBak]

Indeed my friend......I have never been a fan of sitcoms, and now the overwhelming tide are the damnable "Reality" TV shows, most of which are garbage.....i.e., forcing stupid / uncomfortable social situations for the viewing enjoyment of the unwashed masses.

........must..........be........positive.............lol

BUT.......being self employed and working late into most nights, I have a tendancy to have the boob-tube on for company. I have an unfortunate feel for a majority of these shows. There are a few competition style programs that come on that I do enjoy as background noise; "So you think you can dance"....."American Idol"......fun to watch the pilgrims compete...lol. I do, however, LOVE Gordon Ramsey's programs.....Kitchen Nightmares and Hells Kitchen....he is an amazing guy; marathon runner...good father....successful businessman and apparently a hell of a nice guy, but a real bastage in those shows...cracks me up ;o)

Back to comedy..............dont suppose you have ever seen Andrew Dice Clay? Extremely vulgar but funny as hells.....

[DAZMCFC]

Jimbob, does this fit your bill for the British one.
Operation Goodguys/Don't eat the berries.
Operation Goodguys/That's Entertainment Part 1.
Operation Goodguys/That's Entertainment Part 2.
Operation Goodguys/That's Entertainment Part 3.

[jiminski]

Jimbob, does this fit your bill for the British one.
Operation Goodguys/Don't eat the berries.
Operation Goodguys/That's Entertainment Part 1.
Operation Goodguys/That's Entertainment Part 2.
Operation Goodguys/That's Entertainment Part 3.

heheh, the berries cracked me up...

it reminded me of this:
Mighty Boosch Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

(sorry video quality is very poor on parts 2 and 3)

truly innovative 'sit-com'

this may be the perfect example of humour not translating to an American market... Too many quintessentially British references.

[jiminski]

And everything I've written above has been a tangent to what I really wanted to throw out there. Does no one else agree that David O. Russell makes sublimely clever comedies?

And jiminski, since you seem to be as interested in the topic as I am, if you are familiar with David O. Russell's work, how would you label it? Does it come across as thoroughly American, does it share those qualities of British comedy that you hold in such great esteem, does it not even rate as either?

Sorry Dave, I missed that! could you find a good link please?

[deliaselene]

We (and by we, I mean primarily men, most women don't seem to care about such trivial and impossible arguments -- although of course there are exceptions to the rule) seem to be consumed with determining what would happen if the Starship Enterprise had a space battle with the Millennium Falcon.

Dave you knew I couldn't resist a comment like that.... which generation of the Starship Enterprise were you referring to or worst what if Cat wasn't on Red Dwarf !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkl ... re=related

[Curmudgeonx]

Looking back to the 1970s-1980s, let's compare Mel Brooks (Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, etc.) and Benny Hill.

No contest.

Mr. Bean? ugh. (although the thanksgiving episode with the turkey was humorous)

And maybe I am just dense, but neither version of the Office is funny.

[jonesthecurl]

American humour tends to be more obvious in my experience. Even the American taste in British humour. I mean I doubt if most Brits under 20 have ever seen Benny Hill or Are You Being Served . Both are still going in the US.

With US tv comedy, the main problem is that anything successful will carry on several series too long.

Probably my favourite US comedy that's made it over to the UK (other than the sublime Frasier, & its predecessor Cheers, both of which went on one series too long) is all animated - Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, and best of all King of the Hill.

I also love two shows which I don't think have made it over to the UK due to being topical (and thus out-of-date very quickly) - The Colbert Report, and the show before which I usually see the second half of when I realise Colbert is on (Today Show?). For brits, imagine a tv version of Private Eye, that's about as close as you'll get. Brits can probably get Colbert's book I am AMerica and So Can You, which I heartily recommend.

All of which reminds me of a brit show which I used to love - Drop the Dead Donkey - it failed when it fell victim to the US disease of getting confused with a soap opera, where the story becomes about changes in the characters lives (rather than a sit-com where the comedy is about stable interactions) and stopped dealing with the news.