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Humour that Can't Travel - 11/13/2016 3:28:05 PM   
PeonForHer


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Status: offline 		It was only when I came here, to CollarSpace, that I discovered that there were fans of various British TV comedies that I'd once thought nobody outside the UK would ever 'get'. The most startling example was 'Are You Being Served?' This was a 1970s/80s series that, it seemed to me, was *all* based on weird little things about the British class system. The writers of it had never envisaged it having an audience outside of the UK. How could anybody outside the UK grasp it? But apparently they did ....

OK, here's something that will throw me entirely if, say, other English-speakers get it - Alan Partridge. Lots of examples on YouTube. Just enter 'Alan Partridge' in the search box. Steve Coogan portrays a type of British 'celebrity' that I can't imagine exists outside the UK. Stuffed up, right wing, petty bourgeois, Daily Mail-reading, knob. Here's one of his most excruciating pieces:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72BrqGNvaT0


Americans, Canadians, Kiwis, Aussies, etc, etc: is there a comedy series that it's occurred to you nobody could possibly get outside of your country? Are there some kinds of humour that you think just *cannot* work in a culture that isn't very familiar with your own?

< Message edited by PeonForHer -- 11/13/2016 3:29:02 PM >

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/13/2016 4:45:05 PM   
ThatDizzyChick


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Status: offline 		Not that I can think of, Canadian humour, seems pretty exportable, well maybe Rick Mercer, but he's something of an acquired taste even for Canadians

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/13/2016 4:55:27 PM   
Dvr22999874


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Status: offline 		From Australia, try 'Kingswood Country' with Ross Higgins...................very non -PC

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/13/2016 4:57:05 PM   
DocStrange


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Status: offline 		The Red Green Show - Great Canadian humor
Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a Redneck" comedy skits - American Redneck humor

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/13/2016 5:03:03 PM   
DaddySatyr


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I've loved Kevin Bloody Wilson's stuff for over a decade.



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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/13/2016 10:57:52 PM   
SDFemDom4cuck


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Status: offline 		I'm a huge fan of Are you being served, Mrs Brown's Boys, Wentworth, and Absolutely Fabulous!

That said, I think that because the US is such a melting pot of cultures there aren't many shows that are strictly American humor. Most of our shows, both comedy and drama, are off takes of British shows to begin with. The Office, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black etc.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/13/2016 11:07:12 PM   
sovereignsays


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Status: offline 		I think the only real barrier when it comes to UK comedy is slang or colloquialisms. While we're on the subject, do yourself a favor and watch Chewing Gum on Netflix. You won't regret it.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/13/2016 11:13:11 PM   
Dvr22999874


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Status: offline 		you have point sovereignsays but I think the body-language comes across in different ways to different races and ages.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/14/2016 12:03:10 AM   
UllrsIshtar


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Status: offline 		I loved "Are you being served?" as a kid. And "Upstairs, Downstairs", " 'Allo 'Allo!", and "Keeping Up Appearances".

"Keeping Up Appearances" is such a thing at our house, that my father forced my husband to watch it during a trip in Belgium (they still rerun it daily there), which has resulted in there being a permanent joke between my husband and I, based on Hyacinth constantly telling her husband to "Mind the X, dear" while driving. Which for us, in CO, results in constant "Mind the deer, dear" reminders, every time either one of us spots one along side the roads.

I've watched some "Fawlty Towers" too, but I never got into that.

There's a Belgian sitcom "De Kotmadam" that I'm pretty sure nobody in other countries would get, it's based on a woman using the extra rooms in her house to provide room and board for students, and there's some very specific and unusual humor in it, but nobody here would be able to watch it because it's in Flemish.



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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/14/2016 12:08:04 AM   
Dvr22999874


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Status: offline 		Keeping Up Appearances reminded me too much of my mother. I found it totally cringeworthy They could have been sisters.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/14/2016 6:47:11 AM   
needlesandpins


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Status: offline 		A friend of my ex used to call my mother-in-law Mrs Bucket, but just as it's spelled, which she used to try and pass off as a compliment, and I would have to hide myself as I laughed my head off every time he did it.

I think our comedy probably travels better now than it did, or would have done just because we're a little more understood in our language and mannerisms.

Needles

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/14/2016 8:08:57 AM   
WhoreMods


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Status: offline 		Either that or the fact that most of the current output is being written with the American market in mind as well as the domestic one...

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/14/2016 9:48:30 AM   
PeonForHer


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Dvr22999874

Keeping Up Appearances reminded me too much of my mother. I found it totally cringeworthy They could have been sisters.


I know the feeling. It was set in an area too much like the one I was brought up in, too. Sometimes comedy can be 'too close to home'.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/14/2016 11:04:30 AM   
outlier


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Status: offline 		The blend of warmth and satire that was As Time Goes By

Good Neighbors

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/15/2016 4:00:07 PM   
kiwisub22


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Status: offline 		It isn't humour, but Coronation Street doesn't travel well - and mainly, I think, because of the accent. I grew up watching it so can decipher it, but my (American) husband was clueless.

and as for humour - Monty Pythons Flying Circus was and is absolutely hilarious. Not sure the average American would get it.

Mrs. Brown's Boys is very funny, and my family in New Zealand love it. Irish/British humour at its best.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/15/2016 4:44:13 PM   
Wayward5oul


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quote:

ORIGINAL: DocStrange
Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a Redneck" comedy skits - American Redneck humor

Yeah, the Blue Collar Comedy Tour fellas, though Bill Engvall would translate across cultures a little more. Ron White's Texas material wouldn't. Foxworthy's Redneck material and anything Larry the Cable Guy said would be lost on the rest of the planet entirely.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/15/2016 4:46:39 PM   
Wayward5oul


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quote:

ORIGINAL: kiwisub22
and as for humour - Monty Pythons Flying Circus was and is absolutely hilarious. Not sure the average American would get it.

Pretty much a cult following for Monty Python in the US.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/15/2016 4:48:58 PM   
Dvr22999874


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Status: offline 		I know exactly how you feel Peon.............If I was unfortunate enough to see it, it reminded me of a couple of lines from one of Kiplings poems.

But Rosie O'Grady and the Colonels Lady,
Are sisters under their skin.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/15/2016 4:54:13 PM   
mnottertail


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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer


quote:

ORIGINAL: Dvr22999874

Keeping Up Appearances reminded me too much of my mother. I found it totally cringeworthy They could have been sisters.


I know the feeling. It was set in an area too much like the one I was brought up in, too. Sometimes comedy can be 'too close to home'.


I figure you a dead ringer for Captian Peacock, without the muastache.

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RE: Humour that Can't Travel - 11/15/2016 5:04:08 PM   
Dvr22999874


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