Britains Best Sitcom

Seems to me that between the top 10 runners, its between either Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder or Fawlty Towers. Since there were no shit episodes of FT, but shit episodes of Blackadder, and hell of a lot of shit episodes of OFAH, it seems that the canon wins again with Fawlty Tower being voted top of the pile.

(BTW does it seem ever so slightly wrong that SABC africa broadcast mind your language)

10 Vicar of Dibley
9 Yes Minister
8 Open All Hours
7 Blackadder
6 The Good Life
5 Porridge
4 Dad's Army
3 One Foot in the Grave
2 Fawlty Towers
1 Only Fools And Horses

And I've never understood the appeal of One Foot in the Grave. Its shocking to the power to ten.

Fawlty Towers- Eh. Overrated. Good as a physical comedy, but as nothing more. My dad likes it though.

Good Life- No. Just... no.

Porridge- My vote for the best British sitcom ever. "I've already told Grouty that I'm going to fall in the first". Classic.

Vicar of Dibley- My ex-girlfriend sounded like Alice, except she was from Reading. Dunno what was going on there. Its lucky Dawn French does all that stuff for charity, because elsewise she'd be going to hell.

Open all Hours- Probably the most surprising entry in the list. Barker and Jason are great comic actors though, they made the best of a bad lot with this one. Watchable, nonetheless.

Dad's Army- "Don't tell him Pike!". A classic moment every episode, but, my god, was there some crap in here. Cheeseman? Worst sitcom character ever.

One Foot in the Grave- Not funny. Ever. The worst sitcom on this list. It had fucking Angus Deayton in it for crying out loud.

Yes Minister- The choice of people who won't vote in this poll, obviously. Great. Thatcher's favourite, of course. The Father Ted to the New Statesman's Vicar of Dibley.

Blackadder- series 1 and 3 are rubbish. 2 and 4 are great. Push.

And the fact that Steptoe and Son and Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? aren't on here is a disgrace, it really is.

Porridge, although cool, is certainly NOT the best on the list, as it suffers from the problem of not being funny often enough! Fair do's, its good drama on occasion, and the characters are superbly drawn and acted, but quite often, you don't laugh for an entire half hour. Call me old fashioned, but I like my sitcoms to be funny.

Porridge not funny? Hmmm. It revolves around the classic British sitcom format of lots of minor incidents leading to the big pay-off at the end, which is technically the comic highpoint (Fletcher gets covered in coal! Fletcher has stolen some whiskey! etc etc), so it's enver going to be wall to wall laughs. I'd still take Fletcher's story about his ex-boxer mate as the funniest moment of British comic history, though.

Britain as a rule does sketchcom better than sitcom, but I'd vote Blackadder (s 2-4 as 1 was a bit piffly) and Black Books. I've honestly never been a big fan of the older 70s-80s stuff like Fawkty Towers, Good Life, Are you Being Served etc.

11 Father Ted
12 Keeping Up Appearances
13 'Allo 'Allo!
14 Last of the Summer Wine
15 Steptoe and Son
16 Men Behaving Badly
17 Absolutely Fabulous
18 Red Dwarf
19 The Royle Family
20 Are You Being Served?
21 To the Manor Born
22 Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
23 The Likely Lads
24 My Family
25 The Office
26 Drop the Dead Donkey
27 Rising Damp
28 Dinnerladies
29 As Time Goes By
30 Hancock's Half Hour
31 The Young Ones
32 Till Death Us Do Part
33 Butterflies
34 The Thin Blue Line
35 Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
36 Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights
37 Waiting for God
38 Birds of a Feather
39 Bread
40 Hi-De-Hi
41 The League of Gentlemen
42 I'm Alan Partridge
43 Just Good Friends
44 2.4 Children
45 Bottom
46 It Ain't Half Hot Mum
47 The Brittas Empire
48 Gimme Gimme Gimme
49 Rab C. Nesbitt
50 Goodnight Sweetheart
51 Up Pompeii
52 Ever Decreasing Circles
53 On the Buses
54 Coupling
55 George and Mildred
56 A Fine Romance
57 Citizen Smith
58 Black Books
59 The Liver Birds
60 Two Pints of Lager and...
61 The New Statesman
62 Sykes
63 Please, Sir!
64 Dear John
65 Barbara
66 Spaced
67 Bless this House
68 Love Thy Neighbour
69 Man About the House
70 Desmonds
71 Duty Free
72 All Gas and Gaiters
73 Happy Ever After/Terry & June
74 Only When I Laugh
75 Brass
76 The Rag Trade
77 Sorry
78 Kiss Me Kate
79 Doctor in the House
80 I Didn't Know You Cared
81 Shelley
82 Nearest and Dearest
83 Fresh Fields
84 The Army Game
85 Robin's Nest
86 The Dustbinmen
87 Whoops Apocalypse
88 My Wife Next Door
89 Never the Twain
90 Nightingales
91 Early Doors
92 Agony
93 The Lovers
94 Father Dear Father
95 Hot Metal
96 And Mother Makes...
97 Life With the Lyons
98 Marriage Lines
99 A Sharp Intake of Breath
100 No Problem

Surprised this ranked so high.

Doesn't matter if it ain't funny. As I say, kinda a pre-requisite for a sitcom. True, what one may find funny, someone else may not, but if being funny is not its aim, then whaaaa?

If we're playing Social Satire, surely Till Death Us Do Part beats them all with politics+class+race being put under the microscope. A swell as making you think, its also hilarious. Any time Garnett gets in an argument, with ANYBODY, about ANYTHING, its funny.

The most shocking thing, of course, is that Spaced comes in at 66. Why this isn't at least in the top 10 I will never know. It can't be too young and trendy, can it?

x-post

(Out of interest, was Love Thy Neighbour actually funny? I never watched it, so I dunno if its notoriety is based on being unfunny AND un-pc, or just being un-pc.)

Hmm, I've just had an interesting thought. If Love Thy Neighbour WAS funny, would that have excused the racism? Or on the flip side, if Till Death Us Do Part was unfunny, would that have decreased its worth? I don't have the answers - just the questions, worse luck.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Good to see a (relatively) good word put in for Birds Of A Feather. Drop The Dead Donkey was probably too low but I suppose they had to count those lame later eps too. As Time Goes By is under-rated, Men Behaving Badly massively over-rated.

I take the line on As Time Goes By that its only the two main leads that make the show - that they bring quality from a quality-less script. Every episode of that show I see, the more I'm convinced that of the fact.

The relationship between the half-witted verger and the parish heavy's half-witted 'Hooray Henry' son was especially puke-inducing.

I think that the fact that the Radio Times readers voted for these says a lot; who buys the RT these days except BBC freakerzoids? Everyone else makes do with the telly mag free with the weekend papers, so buying the RT to me indicates someone who's always bought the RT, and such a person probably loves the 'gentle' comedy of TVOD. Bah. Father Ted rocks so hard, and should have been in the Top 10. Still; it'll save the BBC in terms of paying rights to C4.

The problem for things like "Steptoe and Son" and the "...Likely Lads" is that they've not been regularly shown in recent years; less repeated than "FT", "OHAH" and "Dad's Army".
I've really loved what I've seen of "'Til Death Do Us Part", but I've really not see enough episodes to be able to compare it with others that I have.
Put "Steptoe", "The Office" and "Father Ted" (genius... at least the first two series) instead of "Dibley" (absolute drivel whenever I've caught the odd second of it), "One Foot in the Grave" and "The Good Life" (I need to see "Ever Decreasing Circles" mind...) and it'd be a much better list. I admit I've never seen "Open All Hours", so can't really judge that one. No Galton & Simpson in such a 'Top 10' leaves a sour taste; "Hancock" is superb from what I've seen of it (pretty much the regular 'best of' video, plus a few radio episodes), *very* telling about its time. Few better performers than him... (Harry H. Corbett and Leonard Rossiter maybe...)

'Thin Blue Line' ahead of 'Reginald Perrin'? What's wrong with this nation! (though admittedly, should Perrin be classed as a sitcom?)

If I had to rate the Top 10:

1 Fawlty Towers (it is the best of this bunch really... *far more than just good physical comedy*. For me, the best parts are verbal and character-based: the Basil-Sybil marriage as a hell for both... even the wonderful little insanities of Ballard Berkeley's Major. It's almost a microcosm of British society at that time... easy nationalism, sexual frustration, decline... etc. so much is packed into every 30 mins... Yet, people always go on about its consistency and forget the weaker episode, "The Builders", that didn't really work. My favourite is "The Kipper and the Corpse", though I need to revisit the whole lot.)

2 Dad's Army (one can't quite forget the interminable qualities of some episodes - more generally the post-James Beck era - and the sometimes weak characters: Cheeseman, indeed! and Sponge. Too much Clive Dunn pratfalling, and too many *training exercise* episodes, which just give an excuse to do some OB filming... yawn. *Yet*, in the better episodes, and there are many (my own current favourite is the one where Fraser takes on the captaincy from Mainwaring... "If The Cap Fits") of those. John Laurie is a tour-de-force, as especially are Lowe and Le Mesurier. The central relationship between those two is the rock of the show. Something quintessentially English does come across in this nostalgic show; it may be a cliche but it does...

3 Only Fools and Horses (In its prime, very well worked sitcom... too much clouded by half-hearted diminishing returns, but still...)

Does anyone rate the writer's earlier "Citizen Smith"? Too early for me really that one, and rarely repeated...

4 Porridge (really quite a good show, again my relative ignorance of it, compared to others counts against it. I've only seen a few episodes. I love some other stuff these writers have done.)

5 Blackadder (tends to be overrated, yet is largely good fun. Series 4 is actually my favourite, as it's just about the most consequential, and has some darkness. The third is possibly the most purely enjoyable, almost in a slightly cynical Wodehousian manner)

6 Yes Minister (very droll stuff... yet not seen quite enough to be able to rate it that highly... the actual vote will to some extent revolve around which people have seen most of, likewise)

7 Open all Hours (have to be neutral on this as i've not seen it :))

8 The Good Life (really quite mixed from what I've seen... actually far more dated than Hancock and Steptoe, at least in terms of its concerns and writing...)

9 One Foot in the Grave (i've heard some decent things about this one, yet it's rarely impressed me much... far preferable to "Dibley" though)

10 Vicar of Dibley (*shouldn't even be in a Top 100!*)

I don't find David Jason at all funny or convincing as Del Boy, though other things in the show were once good.

I have never seen the Vicar of Dibley.

I mean some of the howlers in that list, My Family at 24??? Two Pints of Lager at 60 or whatever?? What didn't get in?

Another interesting thing is that Fred Elliot off of Coronation Street (don't know his real name) played the king of England in the pilot (not an actual king but a made up one - there was a kind of "rewriting history" thing going on in the pilot) and the character of Baldrick was played by the guy who played the estate agent in the first episode of "I'm Alan Partridge". Oh yeah, and IIRC, the plot of the pilot was recycled for one of the episodes in the first series.

As for the list, I really think Reginald Perrin should have been in the top 10. It's just wonderful, sheer brilliance. Father Ted should be up there as well.

No Terry & June, no Marriage Lines, no Filthy Rich & Catflap.

But it does feel so much more evocative a backdrop in this series. Episodes like "General Hospital" go a bit more deeply into Blackadder's character (a weakness of the series overall is that the characters are archetypes rather than full, human creations, like Mainwaring, Perrin, Hancock, Rigsby, Fawlty etc.), and "Corporal Punishment" (the pigeon murdering episode!) is sublimely funny... maybe the very funniest of the whole series. I like "Goodbyeeeeee..." which does work in its poignancy I've always felt. It works as there has been an effective gradual build-up throughout the series, with Blackadder's cynicism seeming more crushed and frightened than it ever had before. The defeat of Darling seems the most fitting way it could end, with the others, even Blackadder finally accepting him, in the face of their imminent deaths. "Goodbye... *Kevin* Darling", as the destructive Melchett bids his strange farewell. The jokes have to stop at some stage... I like how it imbues McInnerney's character with desperate humanity, and shows up perhaps the laziness of Blackadder's endless "Darling" jokes throughout the series.

1. The Office.
2. Fawlty Towers.
3. Blackadder.
4. The Grimleys.
5. Yes, Minister.
6. Chance in a Million.
7. Rising Damp.
8. Desmonds.
9. Phoenix Nights.
10.Bottom.

Jesu Criste.

Four spots outside the top ten is Last of the Summer Wine!

The whole thing was cutsharply and laced with touches of early seventies music, and the depiction of the little square on the council estate was perfect. Everythng slightly super-real and charming.

But there's a mystery about the second series. There were only three episodes, which suggests some sort of crisis. Connolly was replaced, and I had the suspicion that it was at the last minute. And for some reason everything that was perfect about the first series was rudely changed.

In the first place, it was set three years later in the early punk era: that didn't quite fit. Noddy Holder had become the headmster, which was ridiculous: a guy like that would never be made head. The schoolboy who in the first episode had fancied his teacher Amanda Holden returned as a student teacher, which was a stupid and uncomfortable idea. And Amanda Holden, who inhe first series had remained sweetly unaware of her charms, was now turned into a calculating vamp, which made no sense either and cacelled her lovableness. But that first series was pure joy.

my vote though = porridge. of the top 10, only early OFAH provides any competition really.

It was funny

Filthy, Rich and Catflap, eh? The spectacularly clumsy way Elton jams in his soapboxing (e.g. Richie Rich's rant about Wapping/Unions/Thatcher in ep #6, the gay pub) is a major minus and the whole I-can't-believe-we're-getting-away-with-this to-camera mugging strangely ain't as hilarious as it was when I was 18. But, for the whole screaming verve of it ("ENORM?!!!"), shouldabin top 40.

Keeping Up Appearances is one of the Beeb's overseas big sellers (see also: Are You Being Served?), which may account for its inflated status. It is as bad as you think. Some of the worst acting imaginable.

Hi-De-Hi ran for far too long, never recovering from Simon Cadell's departure, but had something approaching a decent ensemble cast; probably better than ten or so of those above it, inferior to a similar number below. Excise Su P*llard and it might be top 20.

Allo Allo is enormously difficult to defend or dislike. The 'sit' was a single ever convoluting problem which lasted 3,171 episodes, five stage shows and a theme park, the 'com' was the same every week.

Spaced, Sykes, Ever Decreasing Circles, Black Books, Partridge - higher. Dibley, Ab Fab, Red Dwarf, My Family - lower, much lower. The problem of Bread needs separate discussion.

As for the top 10, I believe Armando Iannucci is making the case for Yes Minister, so I'll watch that.

86 The Dustbinmen

This is the best idea for a sitcom ever. I'm sure it was rubbish, mind. But I refuse to believe it was as rubbish as the Vicar of Dibley.

i expect Common As Muck was funnier than The Dustbinmen although I have no real idea having only just heard of the latter

The clip of The Vicar of Dibley that they showed "Enter if you're sexy and love Jesus!" could not have appeared straightfaced (says he, straightfaced) on any other of these shows. I don't think that's enough to earn it a place on the top ten, it's just something that struck me.

1)Only Fools and Horses
2)Porridge
3)Open all Hours
4)Blackadder
5)One Foot in the Grave
6)Good Life
7)Dad's Army
8)Fawlty Towers
9)Yes Minister
10)Vicar of Dibley

"The 80s Sitcom Bread - Classic or Dud? (9 matching messages)

'Bread' was crummy.

The above is a pathetically lame attempt at humor which, had it appeared in a 'Bread' script, would still have improved it no end.

-- Fred Nerk (bjhaus200...), April 22nd, 2003."

1) Blackadder
2) Porridge
3) Yes Minister
4) Good Life
5) One Foot in the Grave
6) Fawlty Towers
7) Open all Hours
8) Dad's Army
9) Vicar of Dibley
10) Only Fools and Horses

Also, I never did think Bread was shit.

What the fuck? This was a shit feature length comic strip thing, yeah?

Hate to be rockist but it has to be 'Fawlty Towers'.

13 'Allo 'Allo!
14 Last of the Summer Wine
18 Red Dwarf
20 Are You Being Served?
21 To the Manor Born
31 The Young Ones
39 Bread
40 Hi-De-Hi
46 It Ain't Half Hot Mum
57 Citizen Smith
61 The New Statesman
64 Dear John
71 Duty Free
77 Sorry

Also, is no-one else surprised that My Hero didn't make the top 100? I would have thought any current BBC output on current primetime would have been a contender - I mean if people are voting for Two Pints of Lager... I was going to suggest that that awful Jasper Carrot vehicle ("All About Me"?) should be in there also but it is irredeemably shite. However it is prime-time Friday night, so surely the BBC must realise that no-one likes it now. At least My Hero can make me laugh sometimes.

Also, stevem, you may have been joking about Ever Decreasing Circles, but others upthread rate it, and I would rather see if it stood the test of time rather than watching the umpteenth repeat of Fawlty Towers or Dad's Army.

(with due apologies to Welsh, Irish and others)

This poll was clearly fixed to exclude Father Ted, my personal pick, so they had an all-BBC top 10. The Office apart, what was the last really good sitcom the Beeb did? I'm Alan Partridge? Channel 4 shits all over the BBC these days comedy-wise.

Re. The Grimleys; in the pilot, the PE teacher was played by Jack Dee and he was waaaay better than Brian Connely, full of total disdain for his pupils and absolutely revelling in their misery.

One could have a non-racist show about a language school, so in that sense the loose premise is not intrinsically racist. The show became racist because of the way it tried to get laugh out of the situation (stereotypical funny foreigner jokes).

You probably couldn't get away with Manuel now.

Anyway, can we get back to talking about how great the 1st episode of The (not racist) Good Life is?

Only the really dedicated (or those who grew up in a more ITV-friendly household) can really be sure about MYL. I doubt I've watched more than 15mins total in my life.

That's the line (Eddington to Briers in his office arguing about the work ethic) which always stuck with me from the first episode of The Good Life. It's played virtually as straight drama and its outlook is pretty bleak. "I used to be scared of you!" Jerry says to Tom at another point in the same conversation; the subtext being, you're forty and you've achieved nothing, which is the real spur towards Tom starting out on self-sufficiency (now Jerry will be scared of me again!).

What also has stuck with me is the equally bleak final episode of The Good Life. Having gone next door for drinks and forgotten to lock the doors behind them, Tom and Barbara return to find the house and garden vandalised. Felicity Kendal's quiet cry of "They've torn your birthday card" is near unbearable. Jerry and Margo are summoned round, Jerry tells Tom that's enough, he has to go back to his old job. Tom asks Barbara: "Do you want to start again?"

I have seen this episode with two different endings. The first is where Barbara says yes, we started this from nothing and by God we'll start this from nothing again if we have to; while in the second version, Barbara just says, quietly: "No." I wish they'd just stuck with the second ending as the definitive one; it would be almost as bleak an ending to a sitcom as the end of the final episode of the third series of Perrin, when he walks into the water for real.

About the alternate endings: the first ending is the one which usually gets repeated and is on the DVD, where they all turn to camera, raise their glasses and say "Here's to The Good Life!"

The second ending I've only seen once or twice, so presumably the tape got broadcast in error. But, as I say, it's a braver ending.

Too true, lass, too true...

DAMN YOU CARLIN! i am working my way through series 3 now... SPOILER!

But I'll keep schtumm about the final episode of The Prisoner just in case... (Paul Eddington was in the first episode of that as well!)

(I can't believe I mixed up The Prisoner and Short Circuit.)

I vaguely remember it being quite funny.

I never found it remotely funny, except for the one where Peter Sellers guested as an escaped convict.

"rising damp" is my favourite. Rigsby's repellent racist little england-ist assumed superiority bumping into philip's sophistication = endless pleasure.

I'm afraid that the other day I decided that I'm Alan Partridge series 1 was the best sitcom ever. Did you know that, also, Hamlet is the best play ever, and Ulysses the best novel ever? Sgt Pepper's LHCB is very good, too.

AND Richard Beckinsale AND Frances de la Tour!

Penelope - I don't. Most of these I have been repeated many times over the years, though.

This is a terrific line.

If I write any words they are not going to be read out by Paul Bastard Ross! They'll have to hire Ian McShane or someone of equal actorly quality.

Pinefox, you are wrong but in a wrong way you are right.

I think Alex McAvoy's the only one of that cast still around.

All In Good Faith. He played a vicar.

How many of the Dads Army cast is still alive? Joe Walker disappeared suddenly from the show, was he 1st to die?

I Didn't Know You Cared really was The Royle Family 25 years ahead of its time. The original books by Peter Tinniswood are even better and considerably darker. A Touch Of Daniel reads like David Lynch doing BS Johnson.

Yes, died of cancer in '73. The only ones left out of that lot are Clive Dunn, Ian Lavender, Frank Williams and Bill Pertwee.

Clive Dunn wasn't even 40 when Dad's Army started!
Why don't they ever show the B&W episodes?
Also Likely Lads and Steptoe & Son were great, but again noone ever shows the B&W episodes. Not even UK Gold.

1. The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin
2. The Good Life
3. Father Ted
4. Ever Decreasing Circles
5. Fawlty Towers
6. I'm Alan Partridge
7. How Do You Want Me? (if this counts - otherwise add Terry & June at no.10)
8. The Office
9. Rising Damp
10. Porridge

Sid James was great in Bless This House.
Granada + were showing some old sitcoms a few months back
Man About The House, George & Mildred, On The Buses, Rising Damp etc

Ed Byrne is the only awful twinkly Irish comic that I can think of right now.

Much like the pubs and clubs of London...(ducks)

Anyway, just to remind you how bad things really can get, I give you...Jim Davidson in Up The Elephant And Round The Castle!

I am glad to see N. is a fan of EDC. I was staggered when it didn't even make the top 100 sticoms ever in that recent BBC poll. Top twenty at the very least, I would have thought. How short people's memories are.

HOME JAMES? Christ on a bike, that's bad.

It was No.52 in the list above. Or was that a different one? I lose track.

I've never heard of this before. Can someone explain the situation so it can be confirmed as being as horrific an idea as it is in my head.

Ah FEH for not being able to post Office gifs.

This sounds like the worst thing ever. Its only missing one comedy 'ethnic' neighbour.

Not a deliberate typo - I was too young for that sort of thing.

Duty Free (no real memory of this other than Keith Barron constantly being flustered by Manuel-esque buffoon)
Second Thoughts (Bellingham ditches Mr Oxo, with unhilarious results)
Square Deal (nothing to say about this at all)
Watching (nothing to say about this at all)
Hardwicke House (notoriously taken off air after one episode following record number of complaints, and rightly so - exceptionally cynical, 'nasty', 'oh the humanity' brand of 'humour')
The Piglet Files (Lyndhurst defects, with unhilarious results)
Old Boy Network (Lyndhurst persists, with unhilarious results)

I have no memory of Hardwicke House. Why was it so offensive?

Duty Free was OK. I liked that they were always on holiday. Only When I Laugh was better. I liked that they were always in hospital.

Mmmm, 80s Joanna Von Ghyseghem (sp?)

Hardwicke House - possibly Roy Kinnear's last vehicle in which he was the bumbling headmaster. most of the humour revolved around stripping everyone of whatever dignity you would normally expect them to be able to command and retain via the use of tried and trusted devices such as misinterpretation and extreme violence and everyone just being really callous and uncaring to each other. doesn't sound too out of the ordinary i know - but i think it set a precedent for me wrt not liking that style of comedy.

Lysette Anthony, anyone? Or Belinda Lang?? [melts]

was Lysette the one in Three Up Two Down? i fancied her mucho

i liked Brush Strokes. actually i keep saying i liked these things as a kid but we're so indifferent then/casual in viewing habits plus we stay in more so in the evenings so it just so happens i would watch these terrible programmes enough to remember them even today.

This is an interesting thread. I should go and re-watch The High Life.

Does anyone remember Roger Doesn't Live Here Anymore - Jonathan Pryce, Diane Fletcher, Kate Fahy and
Michael Elphick , written by John Fortune?

but it was Steven Moffat who can't do (much) wrong in my book

actually, Chalk was the least funny thing he's done but i think that may be a function of it being aimed at BBC1 rather than BBC2.

Jimmy: ...wreckers of law and order. Communists, Maoists, Trotskyists, neo-Trotskyists, crypto-Trotskyists, union leaders, Communist union leaders, atheists, agnostics, long-haired weirdos, short-haired weirdos, vandals, hooligans, football supporters, namby-pamby probation officers, rapists, papists, papist rapists, foreign surgeons (headshrinkers, who ought to be locked up), Wedgwood Benn, keg bitter, punk rock, glue-sniffers, 'Play For Today', Clive Jenkins, Roy Jenkins, Up Jenkins, up everybody's, Chinese restaurants (why do you think Windsor Castle is ringed with Chinese restaurants?).

Reggie: You realise the sort of people you're going to attract, don't you Jimmy? Thugs, bully-boys, psychopaths, sacked policemen, security guards, sacked security guards, ratialists, Paki-bashers, queer-bashers, Chink-bashers, anybody-bashers, rear Admirals, queer admirals, Vice Admirals, fascists, neo-fascists, crypto-fascists, loyalists, neo-loyalists, crypto-loyalists."

Jimmy: Do you think so?, I thought recruitment might be difficult.

The main guy in Watching was called Paul Bown. I quite liked Watching, which also starred Liza Tarbuck and Perry "Billy Mitchell" Fenwick.

The son in the utterly rubbish Home To Roost was played by Reece Dinsdale.

Maybe I should do "Actors in British Sitcoms Since 1980" if I ever decide to go in for Mastermind.

When I saw this episode it was broadcast in black and white, which accentuated the whole Boulting-Brothers-gone-wrong atmosphere. Early '70s but it might as well have been 1952.

"You want dark? I'll give you fuckin' dark - the unbroadcast My Hero pilot features eleven minutes of awkward silence while Janet sobs quietly in the corner, under a tarpaulin."

(See also: Molly Sugden's cameo in Der Beginn aller Schrecken ist Liebe).

I feel that one day, I must read this thread, properly.

The Jones / Carlin interaction above is superb.

I'm fascinated to read these comments about "The Good Life"; I've never given it that much attention, and it wasn't a show that I was caught by as a youngster, a la Steptoe, Perrin, Dad's Army, Fawlty. I can well believe it to be a fine sitcom, knowing of Esmond-Larbey's pedigree, c.f. "Ever Decreasing Circle", which is both comfily jestful and startlingly bleak in equal measure. Particularly the first five or so episodes of series 2, though the third and fourth arguably ground the series even further in reality (Paul's wistful, gradual fall from imperviousness; more focus on Martin's day job) and British decline. In terms of 'subsidiary' characters how much deeper do the absurd Howard & Hilda resonate than a Baldrick or Percy, say?

However, upon catching "Brush Strokes" on a Paramount Comedy channel earlier this year, I was rather non-plussed; it didn't seem to have much of a focal point.

Brush Strokes was very mediocre - I wouldn't worry about it.

second, Lame Ducks

alright, no.

Most unlikely, written by the guy who wrote Sapphire and Steel. Main challenge in the "unlikely" category comes from "Kinvig" which was written by Nigel Kneale (Quatermass fella)

The Greatest Sitcoms of All Time and
the five best american television shows ever

Also does anyone remember the name of the sitcom that featured Thora Hird and Christopher Beeny as undertakers who were in the Salvation Army? Been bugging me for ages.

Can you imagine this idea getting past a commissioning editor now?

But I do dimly recall Bright's Boffins and Robert's Robots. Only dimly, mind.

Unbelievably, not Mollie Sugden's worst sitcom which was surely 'Come Back Mrs Noah' - a sort of Mrs Slocombe in space, starring her and a number of Lloyd/Croft regulars like Ian Lavender, Michael Knowles, Donald Hewlett and Gorden Kaye.

The one where she played a female boss whose husband was her chauffeur (played by her real-life husband, I think) was pretty awful as well. 'My Husband & I', was it?

Aargh! Xpost

Metal Mickey was kind of Monkee-does-ironic-kidcom really (Mickey Dolenz was the producer).

Sugden was also IIRC in the extremely shortlived TV version of The Clitheroe Kid playing Jimmy Clitheroe's mum.

And it indeed was My Husband And I...and it was indeed awful.

When I was a child, perhaps my favourite. I can't watch it now, but I don't think it's because it's bad.

Okay I got my boxed set of I Didn't Know You Cared yesterday and after two episodes I've got to say

a) This shit is bangin'
b) Most criminally overlooked show ever when they break out the dumb nostalgia programmes?
c) Peter Tinniswood is a god to me