To wish we had more TV like this?

[SaintlyLady]

Last night I watched The Two Ronnies Xmas Special from 1982 and Sorry! from 1988.

i literally laughed out loud at some of the sketches in the Two Ronnies -

and Sorry! is an excellent example of my VERY favourite TV genre -

Home Counties set,
middle class,
middle aged,
middle England, ‘
’middle of the road’
sitcoms 🙌

AIBU to want these programmes back on linear BBC1 and ITV?

I missed "Not going out", & have been binge-watching it recently - still on series 10.
Dialogue is so funny & clever.

It is! I love the social class issues at play here as well as had the exact same class dynamic in my own relationship

I love the fact it had Bobby Ball in it - an icon from my televisual era

oh Jam and Jerusalem. SO underrated. Ghosts was brilliant as well and both had the good sense to stop while they were so brilliant. And for a third, the amazing Detectorists

Also - Butterflies
Hi De Hi
Are You Being Served

I know it's a cliché but I honestly don't think they make them like that anymore.

Humour has become much more dry over the years.

The Two Ronnies 'The Opticians' is one of my favourite sketches, ever.

I think the biggest change is that back in the day, everyone watched The Two Ronnies, Morecombe & Wise, The Good Life, etc... nowadays comedy (and tv, film, music etc) is more fragmented. This means that it's harder for even the good stuff to have same impact as previously and it's rarer for all of us to have the same shared cultural experiences.

He certainly was !

I absolutely love Bread!

i used to love watching it on tv when younger and have it as a box set.

Told all of my family that one day I would live in Liverpool and I’ve been here for nearly 20 years!

As a side note I also loved The West Wing - I know that it’s not classed as a comedy but some of the one liners in that leave me crying with laughter.

I grew up with Two Ronnies, Porriage and Open all Hours which I loved. Also love yes Minster.

I do feel it's harder to find good Brtish comedy these days - but have recently love The Good Place and The Residence on netflicks.

I recently flipped past a repeat of 'Allo 'Allo! - and it was much better than I remembered it being - maybe it was an earlier series.

I think that the reason Detectorists stood out so much is that you almost never get writing of that standard these days. Ronnie Barker was brilliant, though in a completely different way.

I always wondered why she was called Karen too! It jarred every time they said it.

I cannot stand Fawlty Towers/the two Ronnie’s/the trotters brothers with the yellow van (I can’t remember what it’s called).
Mind you I don’t get why Monty python is funny either. It’s bloody awful in my opinion.
I like things like Ghosts, Not Going Out and Outnumbered for good British comedy. Motherland is also very good, although tops for me is Red Dwarf, which is actually legitimately funny.

I enjoyed Leonard and Hungry Paul that just finished on BBC2… it was Detectorist style gentle comedy

Absolutely not. Those programmes like the Two Ronnies were aired when I was a child. They were fine for the time. And every single xmas since they get aired again, cannot stand them. We've talent, need fresh programmes, but please no more reality TV!

I’m late 50s and will happily watch the original Porridge programmes and will concede that some of the Two Ronnies sketches are entertaining but I draw the line at Sorry as it wasn’t funny when it was originally made let alone after all these years . I didn’t ever find Morecambe and Wise funny .

I grew up watching Butterflies, Terry and June, To the Manor Born, then stuff like Sorry, Home to Roost and Duty Free. All classics! Butterflies had true pathos and meaning and I rewatched it recently with a whole new understanding. Give me all that stuff over Mrs. Brown’s boys any day.

Agree! I have no idea how Mrs Browns Boys is on TV, or made it past 1 series. I think there must be some blackmail going on 😂

The last series of Not Going Out was dreadful. The only funny one was the Oasis ticket episode because it was so relatable. The rest - no.

The fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin was very good. I mean the 70s one with Leonard Rossiter, not the remake with Martin Clunes. The writer, David Nobbs, also wrote A Bit Of A Do and Fair Do’s.

The Good Life. Absolutely brilliant. Fortunately up to now, nobody seems to have found a reason to cancel it.
Rising Damp, supreme cast, supreme writing,
Still shown on some channels .
Faulty Towers, hilarious but it seems the pursed lips brigade have got onto it 😬

I watched the Two Ronnies the first time round and found them humorous then but didn't much like Ronnie Corbett therefore didn't take to Sorry either. By all accounts he was an unpleasant individual. Ronnie Barker on the other hand, was incredibly talented as well as genuinely funny.
Not keen on class type sit coms a la To the Manor Born. Some of the shows from the 70s were eye wateringly sexist. Morecambe and Wise were probably my favourite

Not going out is one of the most rubbish shows ever shown.

The Good Life is one of my all time favourites!