To be nonplussed why people rave over Mrs Brown's Boys

[ComposHat]

I've tried watching it twice twice and haven't got past the first five minutes it was so awful.

It seemed like an artless parody of a shite 70s sitcom (like something Frankie Howerd forgot to make) Don't get me wrong I'm not a comedy snob and quite enjoy a broad knockabout comedy like Vicious, yet I am utterly bemused by Mrs Brown's Boys, it looks dated, absurd and utterly free from laughs.

Yet it has a massive following, especially amongst people of my parents' generation. Normally when there's a TV programme I dislike I can see why other people (Top Gear for example) may enjoy it. But Mrs Brown seems to be without any redeaming features.

There must be some fans out there who can explain its appeal?

As for "not getting it", I find Peter Kay deeply unfunny as well, (particularly in Phoenix Nights, which DH finds side-splitting) and I know that's partly because I'm not northern and don't get some of the cultural references.

But the difference is that I can see what DH sees in it, and just don't sympathise. With MBB I don't see the attraction at all.

HTH.

SirChenjin - cross posted with you but your local shit pantomime analogy is spot on.

I hate this programme, BIL lives it but he has moronic tendencies

Agreed Bunnylebowski, a festering pile of shite it is for sure. Nothing to do with getting it. What is there to get? People swearing?

I think I have identified the category of people that like it, 13 pages in, people who are not over-burdened with intelligence as my mother says.

Extended lists

Shit List - Mrs Brown's Boys, Count Arthur Strong, My Family, How I Met Your Mother, Miranda, Blackadder series one, Two and a Half Men with Ashton Kutcher

Great List - Frasier, The Inbetweeners, The Big Bang Theory, The IT Crowd, Father Ted, Episodes, The Office, Alan Partridge, Extras, Peep Show, Modern Family, Spaced, Blackadder series 2-4, Two and a Half Men with Charlie Sheen

Good List - 30 Rock, Friday Night Dinner, Curb your Enthusiasm, Black Books, Green Wing, Chickens, Gavin and Stacey

May be bored later and think of some more

runes I could've written those lists myself. Miranda is another one I just do not get. Makes me want to put my foot through the tv.

I think it also depends on what was around at the time. There's loads of stuffI've never watched. Also, there is far more stuff around now due to Sky etc so we can afford to be more picky.

In my day, it was Only Fools, One Foot in the Grave, followed by Blackadder, then Royle Family and The Office. All of which, imo, were funny in different ways.

Stuff like Are We Being Served, Terry and June etc are quite funny to me, because they are of their time. And Fawlty Towers!

MBB, Miranda etc seem to be a bit retro, with a lot of slapstick and less sophisticated wit. And crude!

aciddrops there is a third series of Friday Night Dinner that they've just finished filming, hopefully it will be screened sometime this year.

Shalom to you all!

and I've just checked on Amazon, the second series will finally be released on dvd in March.

I don't have a favourite sitcom, but thus us almost certainly my favourite scene, not least because it is so perfectly timed and delivered (something the actors and writer of Mrs Brown's Boys seem blissfully untroubled by)

It is the bit in Porridge where Fletcher is feigning bad feet in order to get some more comfortable shoes:

Doctor: Suffer from any illness?

Fletch: Bad feet.

Doctor:(annoyed)Suffer from any illness?

Fletch:(insistantly)Bad feet!

Doctor: Paid a recent visit to a doctor or hospital?

Fletch: Only with my bad feet

.Doctor: Are you now or have you at any time been a
practicing homosexual?

Fletch: What, with these feet? Who'd have me?

YANBU OP. My mum loves it and I have watched it a few times when I have been at her house but just don't get it. I keep thinking I will give it one more chance but it never gets any better. It seems to be that it is older people who like it. That's the case with everyone I know anyway.

Bunnylebowski, keep your hair on! If you're Irish maybe you don't get it.. but most of my friends and family love it and can relate to the family upbringing in that comedy. It doesn't do down the Irish at all. I loved Father Ted also but wonder sometimes if the main character hadn't died so suddenly, would it still be going, would we feel so fond of it? Like when Richard Beckinsale died so young, we always look back on his performances with delight.

I don't get Peter Kay either (and he's worth millions), go on blast me for that!

Phoenix Nights goes on the great list. "Have you swept that cock up yet?" Classic

melika I think it to do with the fact Richard Beckinsale was in two of the best sitcoms in the past 40 years along with two of the best tv comedy actors of all time (Barker & Rossoter) rather than his untimely death.

I don't think anybody said it does down the Irish - theyre just saying that even if you get the cultural references its still crap.

I'm Irish. I have lived in Ireland all my life. I'm Catholic. I'm 46, so getting close to the target audience according to some. I have an Irish Mammy (and even more specifically a Dublin Mammy, like Mrs B is). I AM an Irish Mammy ffs! And I still think it's shite!

Maybe cos you're too close to it, to realise it's funny.

Like when she knows her son is gay but tries to ignore it, brushing over the facts.

Like she says when someone arrives, 'do you want a cup of tea?' Typical of an Irish household and out comes the sandwiches and cake too.

Like she says the most tactless thing but thinks she can get away with it cos she's Mammy! Blaming it on age, different generation etc.

There are lots of issues that are taboo in the household and that reminds me of my own Dad and my upbringing.

Its funny to me and that's what counts.

"Like when she knows her son is gay but tries to ignore it, brushing over the facts."

Not funny and shitty parenting. It's 2014 FFS.

"Like she says when someone arrives, 'do you want a cup of tea?' Typical of an Irish household and out comes the sandwiches and cake too."

Yes that's really original and an example of insightful observational comedy. If only someone had thought of that years ago like in Father Ted for example.........Oh wait.

But if that list is what makes you laugh, I can see why it appeals.

Hubby and I don't like Mes Brown's Boys either.

Great if you find people saying 'Feck' a lot funny but nothing else in it at all.

melika Too close? That's nonsense, I'm Irish and I get it but I still think it's absolute shite. The Irish tea thing was done superbly by Mrs Doyle. Mrs Brown's Boys is poorly written, obvious, dated shite.

So, melika, first people don't get it because they don't understand Irish culture. Then, once a couple of people explain that they understand it fine and still think it is pish, they understand the culture too well?

Perhaps some people just don't find it funny because their sense of humour is a bit more sophisticated than "hur hur, it's a man in a dress".

Jesus Melina you're like a dog with a bone. Some people, me included, just don't find it funny. You do find it funny. That's grand. It would be a sad and dull world if we all liked the same things.

*melika

Oh dear, Melika, make your mind up! First we don't get it because we're not Irish, then we don't get it because we're too close to it - we don't get it because it's not fecking funny... none of your examples are funny at all. They're quite desperate, tbh.

Runes I agree with most of your list but sorry, the first series of Blackadder is superb. Miriam Margoles as the Spanish Infanta, with the translator who followed her everywhere? "Again, please!" :o :o

Lovecat In fairness I haven't seen it in a very long time, may have to check it out again on your recommendation. Am assuming your user name is a reference to The excellent Cure, and that you are therefore someone with discerning taste

Lovecat - 'what is he like in baaaade' . I think with Blackadder series 1 you have to take it as comedy genius away from the other three series. It's still seriously brilliant, just in a different way to the others.

And I don't find MBB funny because it's not my kind of humour - it's obvious, dated, cheap, etc. Not because I don't 'get' it. I think everyone gets it - there's nothing highbrow or difficult to understand about it. That's my feelings about it - I don't particularly being told why I don't find something funny, thanks. I'm not stupid, it just doesn't make me laugh.

I do love Miranda though