American Humour is Terrible

[wilsontheterrible]

Are we talking just television or humor in general?

Are we going for 'Oh, I see what you did there. Yes that was quite clever of you.' because British comedy tends to focus on that while the U.S and China have a hearty appreciation for slapstick comedy. Every culture has a unique aptitude for different types of comedy.

When I was working overseas I found out that Germans think satire is fricken hilarious but it's a little to dry for me. India actually has a really vibrant spirit of comedy that gets overlooked a lot as well.

As for television my favorite is Japanese tv even if I couldn't understand a word of it, I've got my American mainstays, but I can't stand British television. Some of it's great but most of it, like any nations tv, is bland crap.

In general I think American's have a great sense of humor. We laugh at ourselves and at each other in pretty equal measure. I think the problem is that in the U.S humor is very sudden and very apparent, it doesn't normally require too much effort to discern the meaning but I don't think that reduces the comedic merit of it.

 

[Sean951]

American comedy realises on slap stick, and low brow humour too much.

Something I'm not a fan of.

(Also, why is it that the only comedy Americans like in British comedy is Monty Python. There are tons of others that are far more superior, take Red Dwarf for example. Oh... I didn't just go there, oh yes I did.)

Isn't Monty Python largely slap stick?

Also: Could someone PLEASE tell me how Red Dwarf is funny? I saw the first episode, and only finished it because one of my friends was enjoying it. I found the entire premise completely boring. Oh look, some idiot wanted to take a cat to Earth and retire in New Zealand, but then he was frozen for 2 million years and the cat became what is quite possibly the single most annoying character without being Peter Griffin.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

I remember when the American version Cath and Kim came out. It was awful XD They completely missed the whole humour of the show. funnily enough i think it stopped airing after the second episode.

For example, n the original(Australian) version of the show one of the characters(i can't remember which was which) dresses in short shirts and stuff. The whole funny thing about it being she's middle aged and got this muffin top going on, so she looks awful but she doesn't seem to get that.

In the American version however the actor who played her was this young slim girl who looked quite decent in that sort of clothing and since half the humour of the original was about how bad she looked in them it just missed that entirely.

 

[Caligulove]

Humor is kind of a subjective thing. Right now, American humor is a bit more favorable in my eyes since Russel Brand wasn't our fault.

 

[Greasemoicockneypalm]

British comedians are excellent, but Monty Python is very hit and miss, as is a lot of institutionalised British comedy. I mean, look at the Carry On films, the IT Crowd; it's often pretty puerile.

The truest indicator of a nation's sense of humour is its standup, its live interviews, and life experience within a country. Let me tell you, the 'comedy' we get on Australian TV is so far removed from the reality of Australian life it boggles the mind.

For example, Trailer Park Boys, whilst not the most intelligently written show in the world became so popular because it parodied social realities and dabbled in the farcical, just like the Simpsons, Daria, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld did (to name very few).

 

[The Lesbian Flower]

What if I just want to sit in front of my idiot box for a couple of hours and not have to really think about why something may or may not be funny to me and what makes up the humor of the show I'm watching? A lot of the "humor" on American television is just very simple but there's some stuff that's complex, but what do you care? No one makes you watch it and I don't see why you have to complain when you can just live and let live.

 

[zajohnson]

American humor.... sucks. I can't believe people laugh at garbage that's on TV nowadays.
Probably why I NEVER watch TV. I just go on YouTube, THAT'S where all the laughs are it seems xDD

 

[Vern]

I know it's pointless to post this so far into the thread. But I just have to point out "Upright Citizens Brigade". It's hilarious. And it's American. And it uses intelligent jokes and ridiculous situations. And I for one hate Two and Half Men, and I've never seen Big Bang. Really the only American sitcoms I've ever enjoyed are Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Roseanne. The former because it's intelligent, quirky, and is glazed in a heavy dose of pathos. Roseanne actually showed a dysfunctional American family, had some humor, but it showed life, and for that I give it credit. Well, I'll have to add Arrested Development, because it was hilarious.

 

[TheEldestScroll]

eh some of it is funny. the american office is my favorite show, but thats just below the british show, the IT crowd. whats funny is funny. but yes american humor is meh sometimes.

 

[Active Schizophrenic]

the daily show are the Colbert Report the two funniest shows ever. And I am Canadian.
also south park is american one of the guys who made it attended columbine High school.

 

[sora91111]

First of all if your aiming a post at Americans use humor not British. Second of all not all American humor is simple.Scrubs is hilarious.

 

[Von Strimmer]

While the United States will never have fawlty towers or the original office and of course will never reproduce top gear! I do believe there have been some fantastic shows to come out of the states. Shows such as American Dad or scrubs, community is a good one at the moment. Also Boston Legal. There have been many good shows. sorry OP but your massive generalisation is flawed and unfair.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I believe it's simply down to America being so much bigger.

At its heart, TV is all about getting the most viewers (except the BBC, who are funded by the licence and therefore not so obsessed with ratings, which is why they produce so much more quality than other stations, tho they do keep chasing ratings with a copy of anything that gets popular on other stations, but, that's a topic for another day).

Facts are, if 24% of people rated Community as 9.7/10 'almost perfect' but 67% of people rated 'Everybody Loves Raymond' as 5/10 'watchable' they'll commision another series of 'Raymond.

It all comes down to keeping people content, there's no money in making something excellent, not if you can do 'slightly above average' and moderately entertain more people, cheaper.

One other thing that I think the UK does right, is we tend to commision a series of 6 episodes. It's enough to let viewers get a feel for a show and its characters, whereas US shows seem to go for 13 or 24, and that's a far bigger budget allocation to risk on an unknown property.

 

[monkey jesus]

Can't we all just get along?!

Look at what happens when the US and UK get together to make TV.

HBO Motherfuckers.

 

[J3llo]

I don't think all American shows are stupid i think it is that the general American public is stupid, i mean should you trust the country who have shat out almost every reality show on the face of earth with making intelligent comedy shows.

I think their comedy is like their food, its nothing special but it goes down as fast as cheap hookers.

 

[silasbufu]

Why does humour have to be intelligent?

I'm just curious. Because if I want a good laugh, I can watch an episode of Family Guy for example and laugh my ass off without caring what the show is about. I can also watch shows like Rescue Me which have some really imature jokes, but what's wrong with that?

If I want to laugh, but see something interesting as well, I can watch something like House, Scrubs, Top Gear (just to show you that I can enjoy both american and brittish shows) etc.

So I really don't see your point, rather than some subjective elitism for brittish humour.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Absolute fucking heresy... I'm surprised no-one called you out on this:

Let me just leave this here, it explains my thoughts.

It depends what the limits are! If it's between 0 and 1/3*the cubed root of pi, all's good!
[/mathematical pedantry]

Uh, there's no integral variable i.e. 'dx' is not in the expression so it doesn't make sense. [/mathematical douchebaggery]

That's actually all I wanted to post here, but I've thought of something else.

OT: American humour is just sourced from too many cultures to be able to appeal to everyone. Most British humour is based on satire and dry wit. There is a plethora of American comedy shows out there, it's just finding one that caters to your tastes. I enjoy Scrubs (mostly), Spin City (again, mostly) and a couple other American shows but that's just me.

I find British humour so damned good because my favourite show (relative to medium) is a fucking radio show! It doesn't need the visuals to make me get a stitch.

 

[Kurokami]

National Generalizations Based On a Handful of Things You Don't Like are Fucking Idiotic

You are only meant to use capitals for the first word of each sentence, proper nouns and the word 'I', including of course I'm, since it is just a contracted 'I am'.

But back on topic, yes. Generalizations are bad if you present them as fact.

I was parodying the title of the thread - thus the title case. If any criticism could be leveled, it would be that the capitalization was inconsistent among the short/function words. Though on the other hand, opinions on proper title casing remain largely divided with no universal standard in virtually any major dialect of written English.

Also, you forgot adjectives derived from proper nouns, numerous brands, days, months, languages, taxa, some common species names, nouns used to denote a class of things when they more commonly refer to a single entity (the Church when refering to all churches at once for instance), acronyms, honorifics, legal terms, and likely a number of other words too.

And certainly you must have better things to do than making unthinking comments about the capitalization of forum posts.

TL;DR: Your attempts at grammar trolling are cute.

I have actually posted on this thread.

Commenting on your grammar, I assumed to be for your own benefit, obviously not if you wrote that way on purpose. I do tend to try to correct people if they have issues with spelling or grammar. Why? Because I think it's silly not to try to educate them. If I have made mistakes in my posts, which I have, I would want them corrected. I also don't particularly understand people wanting to remain ignorant or taking some sort of offence when they are corrected rather than saying "thank you" if they actually learned something.

(PS: Capitalization counts as grammar? I'm never sure of these things)

 

[brunothepig]

This thread just seems to have become people pointing out the good American comedies. Well, I still love Family Guy and American Dad, yes still. It may be mindless and stupid, but I find them to be hilarious shows. As for sitcoms, Scrubs is awesome, and so is How I Met Your Mother. I hear Community is hilarious, haven't got around to watching it. Oh, and Archer is American. In fact, that's all that needs to be said.

 

[supermariner]

For every 'Father Ted' and 'Red Dwarf' theres 50 'Two pints of Lager and a packet of crisps's'

I love you this, do I have permission to quote this in future debates about sitcoms forever more?

Aha. feel free my friend thank you