American Humour is Terrible

[pppppppppppppppppp]

Pretty sure all these points have been made, but:

1. Comedy is subjective

2. There is a wide range of comedy in America, not just crappy sitcoms.

3. South Park is funny, but its overrated in that everyone thinks it's this genius commentary on culture and politics. If you want real sociopolitical commentary, stay tuned for The Daily Show instead.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

hahahaha wow way to completely generalize the largest entertainment business in the world into two wonderfully bad shows! wonderful!

since when is south park canadian..? unless i am completely wrong.

i know anti american is so much fun on here, but this is pathetic, there are hundreds of shows out there, and your generalizing the whole damn comedy industry based in america on that?


i didn't realize humor was something that was decided by you, nor your region, hell i'm sure a good 50% of the jokes from your shows are culture/origin based on where you are, while the same runs for alot of american shows.

and in regards to your "intelligence" thing, stop being a fucking elitist prick, it doesn't generate anything beyond the fact that your making yourself look worse, and its all subjective on what kind of humor you find "intelligent", such as you mentioned south park which at the end of the day does end up to a bunch of dick and fart jokes at least half the time..

 

[Stilkon]

Granted, British humor is known for being a bit more edgy, and for that, we thank you Brits. On the other hand, there are some really good American humor shows out there, they're just not typically widely viewed. Have you ever seen Louie? Mr. Show? The Whitest Kids U Know? I find them to be on par with British humor.

 

[OutforEC]

really, I thought the first two seasons of the IT Club were effing hilarious.

Likewise. I also hold the opinion that Coupling was one of the most consistently funny sitcoms on television from any country.

That being said, I still prefer South Park and Futurama to nearly anything else still playing, although How I Met Your Mother and old re-runs of Friends still make me laugh. I think when it comes to sitcoms, there is a bit of cultural divide, since one has to be invested in the characters and situations to find things humorous, and that's not always possible when the characters and situations are something that someone, being from another country, would never find themselves in.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

OK
Mitch Hedberg
Doug Stanhope
Bill Hicks
Daniel Tosh
George Carlin
Russel Peters
Pablo Francisco
Louis CK
Modern Family
House (not comedy but it's funny)
Scrubs
Southpark which is american, matt and trey are from colorado.
Chris Rock
Simpsons
Futurama
Family Guy
American Dad
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
Saturday Night Live
Flight of the Conchords
Metalocalypse
The Venture Brothers.

You really suck at threads and comedy.

Daniel Tosh is German, the Concords are from New Zealand, Russell Peters is Canadian, both Matt Groening and Stephen Colbert have Canadian roots (Matts Dad and Stephen's Grandma!)

bahahaha if your going to do it that way, you can take every single ************ from america and take their "roots" back to wherever they came from. outside of doing "amazing" things, people completely disband the fact of anyone using their "heritage/roots" as their source of awesomeness/power.

comedy doesn't just magically take flight from where you were born, it's what is around you and how you react with it, and if enough people find common occurrences its quite easy to make jokes and be funny.

 

[funguy2121]

It just isn't funny. Not because it isn't my sense of humour, but there is no intelligence to the jokes involved. America has scrounged genuinely good British TV series such as Shameless and The Office, and ruined them in an effort to bring them to the American market.

My point is American humour is unintelligent and boring to watch. It is juvenile, and I find it actually almost painful to see shows like Two and a Half Men doing well when they are so full of utter crap.

I believe what we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is an opinion. So called because it is unique to one individual. You can easily recognize an opinion, because when you see one you will get bored and angry, especially when someone tries to pass off their own personal feelings as fact.

Sorry if Two and a half Men isn't smart enough for you, but The Office and Shameless aren't all that high brow themselves.

Remember Sturgeon's law. It applies just as well to British comedy as it does to American comedy, and it all depends on personal taste.

What annoys me about you is the implicit suggestion that you are more intelligent and mature than anyone who enjoys the shows you don't. In fact, you remind me of the insecure child who tries to act mature in the playground to impress his friends.

To this I'd just like to add that I've scrubbed surgeries with a doc who loves the Hell out of the Legally Blonde movies, and while that baffles me, he is a doctor, not a bumbling Leslie Neilson charicature of a doctor, and he saves lives for a living with great proficiency.

To everyone else who's commented on Family Guy: perhaps you should check out the 1st three seasons, from before the show was cancelled and brought back. It's like a totally different show from what it is now, and it IS quite clever.

 

[triggrhappy94]

You know, it really just comes down to taste. Its not terrible just not your taste. I hate the taste of oranges, but I don't call them terrible. I love the taste of kim-che, but it smells terrible.

I like South Park (I know it's Canadian).

Also, South Park is American, not Canadian. Trey Parker and Matt Stone both grew up in Colorado, attending high school in Littleton, which is in the same school district as Columbine.

Spoiler: Source

Other than Wikipedia I also site this...

 

[Chelsea O'shea]

Seinfeld is American,how i met your mother is American,curb your enthusiasm is American....my point being OP there are ALOT of great American comedies out there stop generalizing.

 

[triggrhappy94]

OK
Mitch Hedberg
Doug Stanhope
Bill Hicks
Daniel Tosh
George Carlin
Russel Peters
Pablo Francisco
Louis CK
Modern Family
House (not comedy but it's funny)
Scrubs
Southpark which is american, matt and trey are from colorado.
Chris Rock
Simpsons
Futurama
Family Guy
American Dad
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
Saturday Night Live
Flight of the Conchords
Metalocalypse
The Venture Brothers.

You really suck at threads and comedy.

Daniel Tosh is German, the Concords are from New Zealand, Russell Peters is Canadian, both Matt Groening and Stephen Colbert have Canadian roots (Matts Dad and Stephen's Grandma!)

All of those are still based and made in America. Daniel Tosh was born in German, but moved early in his life.
But if you're siting people's heritage and ethnics (or whatever you want to call it) as where their comedy comes from, then you COMPLETELY missed that Hugh Lorie (House) in actually a British Comedic actor, at least he was before he got the job as House.

 

[Weaver]

But I like Seinfeld!

 

[Greenstripe0]

Waitwaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait..

Real American humor could be defined as Mark Twain. But if you're talking about movies and TV shows:

Watch Tootsie, starring Dustin Hoffman

Watch Arrested Development, starring Jason Bateman, Michael Cera, etc.

Watch Ferris Beuler's Day off, starring Matthew Broderick

Have you seen I Love You, Man?.. watch it.

^this and also watch some stuff by kevin smith, watch scrubs, watch arrested development. Also, from my experience, I've seen some really lowbrow british shows. Also, intelligence does not equal funny.

 

[k-ossuburb]

Okay, some American comedy shows are good, however I would point out that not a lot of them seem to take very many risks and the ones that do are often ones that the BBC or Channel 4 sold to them.

When I say "risk" I mean tackling on dark humour or exploring sensitive subjects.

Spoiler: Here are a few U.K. shows that don't pull their punches when it comes to something that may offend someone.

South Park and Family Guy seem to do this pretty well, but other than that there aren't a lot of others that try to take on this level of dark humour.

 

[smartengine]

Sorry to disappoint you, but that is funny every time I see it. The entire show is.

And no I am not an american.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Clearly, TWO SHOWS are representative of ALL AMERICAN HUMOR.
ALL OF IT. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Based on that logic, I can discredit the entirety of British Humor because they gave us Fat Slags.

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

Wait a tick. Are you saying that not every American comedy is intelligent or well written? Are you suggesting that some people are stupid and will watch stupid things? Please excuse me while I shit my pants in awe.

EDIT: I do believe that Monty Python, arguably the pinnacle of British comedy, has skits about detecting witchcraft by weighing a woman against a duck, two men arguing over whether or not a parrot is dead, and a song about a cross-dressing lumberjack. Last I checked, they were still hilarious.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I COULD say that British and Canadian humor is terrible because of how pretentious and preachy it all is, but that would just be irresponsible to make those kind of generalizations.

 

[ultimateownage]

The average American comedy show is German level lack of humour. It's just not fucking funny.
Family Guy (and all the other shows identical to it) are horrid, it's just fart jokes and flashbacks to fart jokes gone by as well as some paedophile and gay jokes.

But if you don't like it, then stop watching it. We barely get their comedies over here anyway. Go back to the IT Crowd if you hate The Big Bang Theory.

 

[Dr Snakeman]

How I Met Your Mother proves you wrong.

Seriously, watch it - it's much funnier than whatever we've been putting out. People keep saying MONTY PYTHON WAS AWESOME BRITS RULE YEAH!, but that was twenty seven years ago. It's different now.

Quoted for truth. I just started watching that show, and I can't stop laughing. It's one of the few sitcoms that is genuinely funny. Not like that "Everybody Loves Raymond" crap.

I suspect that it has something to do with Neil Patrick Harris. That man is a god.

And as for the OP? You're wrong. We have some really stupid TV shows. So does the UK. It doesn't mean that all our TV sucks.