To Think That Morecambe & Wise Are Not Funny

[TheShellBeach]

Now that it's almost Christmas it reminds me that we watched Morecambe and Wise Christmas Specials every year when I was a child.

My parents thought they were funny but I always found them cringeworthy.
I just don't find them funny at all and I don't understand how anyone can enjoy them, not to mention wishing they were still around to make even more Christmas Specials.

It was The Two Ronnies I hated (and don’t get me started on Dave Allen).

I don't think they're funny and was too young to watch the first time round - but my 16 year old DS thinks they're hilarious!

YABU
"All the right notes (or substitute relevant item) but not necessarily in the right order" is a regular saying in our house.

The Andre Preview sketch is one of the great all time classic sketches, along with the stripper / Glenda Jackson/ Shirley Bassey / Angela Ripon offerings, but maybe you need to be of a certain age to appreciate them.

Anyone who can't see the humour in "Four Candles" really needs to think again!

As for Dad's Army - it has stood the test of time so well because the wartime scenario is really just a vehicle for commentary on small town British life - the social hierarchy, the petty jealousies and absurdities - oh and for some good old slapstick moments. Yes society has changed but many of those fundamentals still strike a chord.

I loved them as a duo, and still do - though it was Eric I really thought was funny and Ernie slightly irritating. My husband doesn’t like them at all - yet in all other ways I would say we share the same sense of humour 🤷🏼‍♀️

Ernie slightly irritating

That was his job, to be the irritating, pretentious one 😊

How very dare you!

I like them and much prefer them to some more modern sketch shows or sitcoms (although obviously some are brilliant). I'm in my early 30s and M&W and 2 Ronnies still make me laugh. It is (only fools and) horses for courses though. My opinion is that whoever told John Cleese and Miranda Hart that they had any comedy chops and green lit their moronic vanity projects utter gurn fests Fawlty Towers or Miranda ought to he hunted down with dogs and finished off at close range with a shot gun. The only good thing about FT is that there are only 12 eps of it. Spaced, however is one of the funniest shows ever made- to my mind, any way.

Nothing to do with comedy but I admire Ernie Wise because he and his wife were childfree by choice long before it was acceptable for married couples to be so.

Watching M&W is like somebody giving me a massive hug and instantly taking me back to my childhood ☺️

I still think they're funny. It's a gentle humour though, no swearing, no sexual references. I still love it. And The Good Life, Ever Decreasing Circles and many more from back then.

Never liked Terry and June though!

And also more recently, never got Mrs Brown's Boys. Total garbage.

Am agreeing with you @TheShellBeach

They are not funny at all, also Tommy cooper! I never got what people found so funny about him!

And also more recently, never got Mrs Brown's Boys. Total garbage.

Yes, and a different era and genre.

Can’t even be bothered to read your post 🥱 Just remember that their humour was of a different time. What was funny then isn’t going to be funny now.

The show from that time that often was cringeworthy or worse was The Comedians.

What was funny then isn’t going to be funny now.

Some of it is.

Ant and Dec are the new Morecambe and Wise and I find neither acts funny. Someone does though!!

Ant and Dec’s remake of The Likely Lads was cringeworthy.

They did what? Thank fuck I missed that one!

Unbelievable.

Or are you kidding? oh! No, you are not 😖

😂😂😂

Don't forget "Who do you Do?"

Terrible.

Some one up thread said we weren't sitting around watching silent movies in the 70s, but we were.

They don't make shows like Morecambe and Wise any more there is nothing to compare them too. They are funny, we just know the punch lines now, it would be wonderful to be able to see them for the first time again.

Don't forget "Who do you Do?"
I had ... not sure we watched that often.

In what sense ‘before their time’?

We watched an old one last year and Dh and I ( we are late 50s) were chuckling away and my children were sat stony faced!
I didn't like ' the young ones' or Monty python much, but others find it hysterical !
We all like different things

Definitely agree with you I’ve never laughed at them and never will that goes for all comedy. Monty python the young ones I can’t stand generation game anything like that.

The bed scenes would be pulled apart these days , but somehow, it was accepted that just sat in bed together! It wasn't seen as odd really.. plus other celebs used to fight to go on their shows. They were very popular