'Americans don't get British Humour' - But do British People get American Homour ?
007Fusion
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I've always viewed the statement as a beating stick to say, 'They aren't as clever or as cool as Us'. Which is a bit unfair considering the cultural differences. But overall, do we get their sense of humour?
We consume a lot of their television and general entertainment industry. But do we 'get' their sense of humour or are we just as bad - Does the statement 'British People just don't get American Humour' fit?
We consume a lot of their television and general entertainment industry. But do we 'get' their sense of humour or are we just as bad - Does the statement 'British People just don't get American Humour' fit?
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We have fully embraced all the critically and publicly love comedies they have produced: M*A*S*H, The Simpsons, I Love Lucy, Bewitched, Arrested Development, Seinfeld, Friends, i could go on forever. The same can't be said across the pond. There's a reason shows like QI and Only Connect aren't shown on BBC America, but i'll play nice and stop here.
I go to comedy clubs in the U.S. and I get 99.9% of what the "stand-up" comes out with, unless they're satirising something that has only been in the news for about 30 minutes.
I like Big Bang Theory but there are many times where I know where a joke's headed. Someone or something will happen and I know what's coming. I always know when Bernadette is going to use that annoying angry voice that we're meant to think is cute and funny, or when Penny makes a "dumb blonde" comment or something. Family Guy suffers with it, too, and not just predicting when they'll make a cultural reference resulting in a cutaway.
But then you get shows like South Park and Scrubs. Two of my all-time favourite shows. Particularly Scrubs. Both are clever, and South Park's always been great at satire and not entirely predictable.
Not that we don't suffer with predictable humour over here. While watching something like Mock the Week I'll sometimes know where a joke is going and they also sometimes suffer with relying on cultural/popular references for easy laughs. Like someone won't have said anything for a while so decides to say something about Pierce Morgan in order to get a few claps from the audience.
There are people here that don't particularly get/enjoy British humour but enjoy American humour. I know people who don't like things like South Park (not British, but clever) or shows like QI/Would I Lie To You, but love "How I Met Your Mother".
I like QI, don't like Would I Lie To You, love Scrubs, thought that Frasier was the DBs, but now it seems so dated, still get mildly amused by How I Met Your Mother, although I'm not an avid viewer, but who the hell is Pierce Morgan?
There is a large amount of smugness in American comedy too which often puts me off it.
The Simpson is probably the closest we have come to a cross over of the humour and probably The Golden Girls managed to mix it up too.
Shows like MASH and, more recently, The Big Bang Theory, demonstrate that yanks can do clever comedy if they want to but I suspect a lot of the TV companies prefer the idea of doing nice, safe, comfortable, low-brow comedy shows in order to avoid any risk of alienating the audience by making them feel like it's "going over their heads".
I guess it's kinda like those daytime TV quiz shows, where the questions are so simple that a 12 year old could probably answer them. Shows like that make the audience feel smart because they can answer at least as many of the questions as the contestants.
When you've got characters like Sheldon making jokes about going to a fancy-dress party as the Doppler Effect, you risk having a percentage of the audience feeling alienated because they don't understand the joke.
Funny thing is, if there is any "comedy snobbery" afoot, it's probably created by the US audiences who do enjoy more cerebral comedy because they will, effectively be suggesting that "if you don't think it's funny it's 'cos you're not smart enough to understand".
I forgot to add that I found Scrubs almost perfect, managing to pull every human emotion out of you.
Some of the stuff in it could have been very funny but they insisted on making it all so exaggerated and cliched that it felt like I was being spoon-fed every joke.
Sometimes, as they say, less is more... but that's when you risk having the less awake members of the audience missing out on the jokes.
Never ever got Friends - Jennifer Aniston would pull facial expression with hands on her hips and act wooden and the audience would fall about laughing, Ross would wine in a high pitched voice, Joey would go hey like the Fonz, the blonde one would act dippy and shake her head and laugh and the other two were generally boring.
Like UK comedy, there are some gems, but an awful lot of dross
TBBT? HIMYM? please don't talk in acronyms we don't all know what they are supposed to be.
I can't manage to watch it with the laughter track because of Kaley Cuoco. She annoys me no end.
I never really found Friends to be properly funny though.
To me it was more like a sort of soap opera that was also a bit light-hearted at times.
Another good one that springs to mind is Brooklyn 99 though. Anybody who enjoys stuff like Scrubs will probably like it.
Friends and How I Met Your Mother had it's moments but that latter did feel like a Friends rip off and was ruined by the ending. Killing off the mother and going back to Ted and Robin? Come on!
My problem with US comedy, particularly those with audiences/tracks, is American's habit of exaggerated reactions. It's in the blood - every emotion is over-done, and that includes hysterics at the most mundane and corny joke. I shudder to think what The Simpsons would sound like with a laughter track.
I disagree. I think the last 20 years have been great for UK comedy. Things like Peep Show, The Inbetweeners, The IT Crowd, Brass Eye, The Office, Extras, Coupling, I even liked The Mighty Boosh when it was first on, especially series 2. Panel shows like Mock The Week, 8 out of 10 Cats, Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Charlie Brooker's screenwipe etc...
Granted, the past few years have been a little bit slow. A lot of great series have come to an end, we've done the panel show thing to death, and there doesn't seem to be any brilliant comedies waiting to take over. I'm hoping there's another great series just around the corner though.
I agree.