Unfunniest comedy show you have seen?

[OneFancyTealQuail]

Mrs Brown's boys

Didn’t work with just the two of them IMHO.
I miss Lucy’s parents and I liked Toby. I did think though they over-did Anna as a ‘villain’, no one would still be friends with her!

I watch the older series now as comfort TV and still laugh at them. It’s like it morphed into a different show over the years.

i loved ofitg

I think, ironically, they've tried to mix it up and not keep the exact same family/friend dynamics in order to avoid it getting stale.

Unless it's a cartoon, any show that has children featuring in it is always a ticking clock as they grow older, and it is going to evolve of necessity.

The Christmas special of Outnumbered last year really didn't hit the mark because the whole premise of it - young children doing crazy, unpredictable and embarrassing kid stuff - was now gone, with the kids now being adults. I used to love Outnumbered - I see upthread that not everybody did! - but it was always only going to work for a limited time.

Lee Mack has never made any secret of the fact that the sitcom context is purely a vehicle for his own stand-up one-liners. I've always loved it and I still do, even though there have been a few sub-par episodes in all of the time it's been on air.

Just going on the recently-finished series, for example, I thought the sex doll episode was quite grim, forced and not that funny at all; but I found the first episode, where they were viewing the house to buy, was top-drawer gloriously silly farce, and hilarious.

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I think with Steptoe and Son it wasn't meant to be that deep down they loved each other @SprayWhiteDung but that they needed each other - that's all they knew!

Anyway, lots of old Sitcoms are being shown on some of the more niche freeview channels like That's TV and Rewind. They are the same episodes on rotation really.

Man About the House Dh and I have been watching and really most of it is very bad. I enjoy the nostalgia of the time and like the actors but after the first few episodes there's very little character development or clever plot or funny lines. The character of George Roper has absolutely no redeeming qualities at all. It's hard to understand why Mildred got together or stayed with him really - unless divorce was still too awful then. It doesn't make sense why he's so repelled by intimacy with his wife really. Just unpleasant. Mildred is a very comedy-tragic character. Yootha Joyce was the best thing in it. The actress’s story is pretty heartbreaking.

Man About the House, Robin's Nest and George and Mildred all had American versions.

There was one so excruciatingly bad that most sensible people would have erased it from memory. It was a spin off from On The Buses with Blakey and his sister moving to Spain it was called Don't Drink The Water. I truly believe this trumps any other entry .

I re-watched the first series of The Young Ones a year or two ago and you're right, it really hasn't aged well. Bottom, on the other hand, remains an absurd, anarchic delight.

I’m happy to see Rising Damp has NOT been mentioned 🤣

Does anybody remember Second Thoughts and Faith In The Future? I haven't seen them for a long, long time; but I clearly remember them as being so subtly 'funny' that they weren't actually funny at all.

Watching had its moments, but was also quite hit and miss sometimes.

Also, have we had All About Me and Life Of Riley yet?

Annette Crosbie was good in fairness and I quite liked her character in it. Richard Wilson is a good enough actor but his character was just a PITA and I didn't think the "situation" bit of the sitcom or the writing were funny.

I agree. In a way, although he was clearly intended as the main protagonist, he was actually just a kind of 'straight man' (no pun intended, not referring to RW's private life in any way!).

He didn't really actively DO things himself; he was just passively reacting to circumstances that happened to or around him and Margaret.

By contrast, Hyacinth Bucket was very much the protagonist in her own sitcom: coming up with mad ideas and turns of phrase herself, to drive the hilarious narrative, with other people reacting to her.

To be fair about KUA, I think we collectively got a bit habituated to it and maybe didn't fairly appreciate and acknowledge the brilliance of it for its time. That said, Patricia herself stated that she believed it went on for too long, with themes and ideas just being recycled. So many sitcoms don't seem to get the idea of bowing out at the right time and leaving the audience wanting more, as opposed to them saying "Oh, are you still here?!" Even Mrs Brown's Boys was a perfectly decent idea for a quirky one-off episode or two, but it should have turned the light off and closed the door after that.

Big Top was another dire one that sank without a trace, for very good reasons.

As opposed to Big School, which - although I'm not a fan of David Walliams at all - I found quite enjoyable and well written.

does anyone remember ‘Lucky Feller’ with David Jason? Quite short lived I think

Just had the displeasure of watching a few episodes of Sick Note. That was aboit as unfunny as it gets.

I wonder when someone will spill the beans and admit this disgrace was a practical joke and they never thought enough people would be so stupid as to watch it in the numbers they have done.

Mrs Brown's Boys.

I thought the first series of Little Britain was great. But like so many other shows, they tried to repeat the winning formula, and it went too far, and became bad.

The only sketch in it I really hated is when two policemen tell the wrong lady her husband died; then they go and tell the right person, and start laughing about how they got the first one wrong.

One way that Fawlty Towers maintained its greatness is because only twelve episodes were ever made. Indeed, John and Connie were reluctant to do the second series, because the expectations were so high.

Lee Mack is hilarious... I agree about James Corden though.

Still remember being sat in MIL and FILs house to watch Mighty Boosh as it was billed by them as so hilarious and just cringing through the whole thing.

Loved to the Manor Born, but guess it was very much of its time. As time goes by is my comfort watch. Shocked that people hate Blackadder and Monty Python.

I love Lee Mack too; and although he seems like an absolute bumhole in real life, I do like James Corden's writing and (to a slightly lesser extent) acting.

The Office is painfully unfunny to me.

I also hate The Big Bang Theory, but Young Sheldon is even worse than that! The most annoying show in my opinion

wasn't that kind of the point of The Office?