My American friends here in the US all love the Benny Hill episodes that run all too frequently on PBS in Boston.

I'm not sure what scares me more; Benny Hill shows themselves or those that think they're funny.

And I'm talking about a group of highly successful, hip, chic 30-somethings...

\Benny Hill scared me as a child; I had nightmares about him=strangerdanger

usual geek:

but still no new Dr Who in the states.

/thanks bittorrent
//fantastic

I thought the finale was a bit lame though.

***SPOILER WARNING***

Ok, the Daleks are about to kill everyone... then Rose looks into the Tardis, comes out godlike and destroys them all. So a god comes out of the machine. A deus... comes ex... the machina. It's so cheap you'd almost think they were trying to be clever.

***SPOILER ENDS***

Most of the series was awesome though, so I guess I can forgive the last two episodes. David Tennant should make a good Doctor as well.

Wasn't Coupling just Friends, but with more humping?

YES!!! I always thought that was the case.

/shoulda put Friends on HBO

Unless Britian came up with 'Reality Television' then it has nothing to apologize about.

/didn't rtfa

Interesting article, but the Fark and article headlines are both completely irrelevant. American TV has been deteriorating just fine on its own for decades without any help from British TV, and sadly without the boobies.

oh bite a cockrel man, David Tennant will stink on ice as te Doctor, I hate him already.

Nobody is ever in a position to say a certain show/joke/novel/whatever isn't funny. Really. People decide it's clearly not funny because it doesn't match their own type or standard of humour. The problem here should be clear.

The situation is similar to a man who hates bacon and decides, henceforth, that bacon tastes terrible. Anyone who has the opinion that bacon is in fact delicious is clearly wrong, because bacon - as he can prove by simply tasting it himself - is a foul tasting substance. You cannot prove this man wrong because force-feeding him more bacon is just going to make him hate it more. But the man next to him is enjoying the sweet, sweet bacon. So are they both wrong?

Humour is the same way. You cannot proclaim something to be unfunny because it doesn't make you laugh. That's placing too much importance on your own opinion.

When I watch Seinfeld the canned laughter is very, very lonely. Does that mean it's unfunny? No. It means it doesn't appeal to my sense of humour. If one person laughs at it, it's funny, so that's all that matter. I can say "I don't find it funny", but I can't say "It's not funny", because that's presenting an opinion as a fact.

Carry on! (now there's a British comedy series that I didn't find particularly funny... but I know people that did.)

ScummyTheGymbag:

Bfett20, svejker_14

America needs another McCarthy, and another Edward Bergen.

We do. Their initials are KR and GWB.



HA! HA!

Clavis

England's genetic stock of hot women has gotten all inbred; America continues to import their women, for a constant, rich supply of boobies.

Evidence of new, genetically-based hotness in the British genome.

Headlice

Sorry to have to correct you but Coupling is nothing like Friends.

See, in Coupling you have six young 20-somethings all helping each other through life. Out of 'the boys' you've got your quiet sensitive one, another that's a bit mad/jokey and another who gets all the girls but is a bit thick. As for the ladies, you've got the hopeless romantic who wonders if she'll ever marry, another who puts out way too much and lastly one in a relationship with one of the boys.

See!!!!

/Oh, errr...
//Gets coat

As a Brit, I tend to watch a lot more American tv then English (thankyou Bit torrent). Shows like Arrested Devleopment, Family Guy, South Park, and House are pure genius.

Whatever happened to Scrubs though? That show use to be so funny. Now it's just a soap.

Headlice
Wasn't Coupling just Friends, but with more humping? And Who's Line Is It Anyway was never funny. Sure, we made it worse by adding Wayne Brady, but it wasn't a good show to being with.

Oh, it is so fashionable to take a shot at Wayne Brady. Look, the fact is the man is out there every week with fresh material and he's charming!

/Stewie ranting

Colin Baker on my crotch! SWEET!

Next up... celebrities + reality tv + retro programming =

"Battle of the TV All Stars 2005!"

(Surprised Retro Crush hasn't done this one already.)

OI! If you English folk are gonna send over your shows please stop making them suck in translation.

- Whose line
- Grahm Norton
- Can't cook, won't cook

/okay I made the last one up

anyone ever catch the episode of the Simpsons when they had the Mary Poppins-type character watching Bart and Lisa? At one point, they went into this goof on British comedies... I cry everytime I see that...

Because every topic involving Britain and America Always ends up full of Chronic Love Length Waxers.

Dear Britain,
You suck. We bail you out of two World Wars and what do we get in return? Nottins I tell ya.

Yours,
America

Dear UK,
Thanks for Benny Hill. I loved him as a kid and find it even more funny as an adult.

/runs around in circles.

I actually like the recent incarnation of Dr. Who. Pity the Dr. died tho. I feel for this new fellow, big shoes to follow in.

rob

/doesn't watch too much tv, has a life.
//two kids.
///wife and a backyard
////nuff said
/////that is FIVE

And yet we can't get Jailbreak 10 brought over. That was the single greatest reality show ever made. I loved watching that so much when I was east of the pond.

darch

That would be Sherry Bobbins.

I don't want to be sour grapes but you're all a bunch of apes so I guess that I'll be leaving yooooouuuuuu!

Dear US,

You're welcome to Benny Hill, we saw 'the' joke and that was enough. Fortunately we kept Dick Emery to ourselves.

Yours,

England [and some other smaller less important countries]

I gotta disagree with the people who say "friends" is just like "coupling"

While the premise looks the same superficially coupling is laugh out loud funny while "friends" is ho-hum.

Also the UK Office is some of the funniest tv made anywhere.

It's fascinating how Andy Kaufman was, once again, decades ahead of his time. Does anyone remember Has-Been Corner, from The Andy Kaufman Show? Basically Andy had a washed-up singer come on to the show and sing a couple of songs. It was the prototype for all of these "former celebrity" shows.

Why blame the British? Our TV networks are run by people on drugs that steal ideas and managle them. PBS stood for Plenty Bad Shows, and the best ratings a PBS station got was when it was shopwing reruns of BBC shows like "Doctor Who", "Black Adder", "Red Dwarf", "Blake's Seven", etc. Once PBS stopped showing BBC shows, George W. Bush and company slashed $100M from their budget.

Most US TV shows have a liberal bias, are boring, have huge plot holes in them, and are not original. Forcing most viewers to rent DVDs or VHS tapes to see Hollywood movies instead.

Yes we saturated bombed Britain with Hollywood movies, as well as the rest of the world. Tom Cruise is a WoMD, BTW. ;)

Ozlander:

I'm not sure what scares me more; Benny Hill shows themselves or those that think they're funny.

Agreed - I never really got "Benny Hill." Love Monty Python tho. Enjoyed reading HHGTTG, hated the BBC series (haven't seen the new movie).

Bri humor is an aquired taste. Some I have aquired, some I haven't *shrug*

improvius

Let us not forget Dave Chappelle and trading spouses. He was a year or two ahead of the curve. Not to mention that show would be WAY better if they made the spouses get it on. Especially the one where the lesbian couple swapped with the conservative couple.

Caboose3c

Thank you.

As a non-American living in the US who's also lived in the UK, I can confirm that the 'Brit teeth' thingy is a fallacy.

Having just come back from a week in Maine - Jeezuz. More smile gaps than TX, AK, SC, WV, OH, OR; and that's saying something.

\waiting for the 'US teeth are the best' retard to chip in

The funny thing is, ITV would have been totally screwed if they hadnt been able to sell their shiatty formats around the world.

This kind of crap has totally bombed here. The whole 'celebrity' reality TV thing is dying on its arse over here.

We are only currently interested in celebrities if they are getting a simulated ejaculation to the face by a fake reporter.

Dear Britain,
You suck. We bail you out of two World Wars and what do we get in return? Nottins I tell ya.

Yours,
America


*big yawn*

D_the_Duck

Ah yes, Sherry Bobbins.

Sheer genius.

orion_blastar:

Most US TV shows have a liberal bias, are boring, have huge plot holes in them, and are not original.


True, but I have yet to meet a conservative that is all that funny or can even make an attempt at being creative. Seems most people with any artistic inclination lean to the left.

/ Not a liberal
// Not a conservative

LineNoise

Of course there's a distinction between two distinct types of humour, and most of us (hopefully) don't find 60 minutes of mindless physical comedy to be funny. I couldn't imagine finding those Funniest Home Video shows to be funny. It's out there in "Your sense of humour makes me believe that Darwin was wrong" territory, and I see you're coming from.

But yet I stay true to my vision: a perfect world where opinion and fact are neatly divided. Of course, Fark.com is the wrong place to look for that, or anywhere on the Internet for that matter, but a man can dream.

dc-kid

Dear Britain,
You suck. We bail you out of two World Wars and what do we get in return? Nottins I tell ya.

Yours,
America

As a flame baiting troll you are quite inept.
Or was that your lame attempt at humor?

.....and thanks for all the fish

And on topic - die reality TV, die.

If you watch reality TV for any reason at all, you are contributing to the downfall of western civilization.

rob.d - I agree. The new Who is the awesome.

I like britcoms...

DigYerOwnHole

You're welcome to Benny Hill, we saw 'the' joke and that was enough. Fortunately we kept Dick Emery to ourselves.

A bit too much for one's taste - Does anyone like Little Britain beyond the technical expertise?

I quit watching tv after they cancelled The Courtship of Eddie's Father.

You should have, too.

The problem with U.S. television is the same thing that happens with any mature business which has a sole purpose of generating revenue. A simple lack of innovation. They go with the tried and true methods, even to the point of re-making the older movies.
Somebody sees something "fresh" on the satellites, coming from England, (which the British consider old hat and a rehash of their older stuff) and lap it all up, re-making it because it's new to them. It doesn't matter if it's good, just new. We in N. America, numbed by the repeated skullfarking of CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, CSI Topeka - Kansas, or Law and Order, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: Kindergarden Bullies, or the formulaic Sitcom scene, see something flash across the screen, and say "Hey! This is new! Me watch now!!!" and every other production house goes scrambling to get in on this hip, fresh new thing. They'll make their money off of it until the craze dies down, and go rape some other countries culture.

And don't think I'm shiatting on the Americans over this, Everyone else is doing it to the American cinema as well.

Dear Britian,

You are forgiven because of the following:
Monty Python
The Young Ones
French and Saunders
Absolutely Fabulous
Coupling
The Office

Sincerely,
America

Shrugging Atlas

They did. Mark Burnett is British. He is the producer of reality shows like Survivor and the Aprentice

We need to import more of the UK big brother busty chicks like Saskia.

At least The Sun is there for us Yanks to update us on her exploits.