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.

(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