Mrs. Doyle: "Now then Father--what would you say to a nice cup of tea?"
The Hate-Filled, Brain-Wasted Drunkard, Father Jack Hackett: "FECK OFF, CUP!"
Good Lord...if there was any justice in the world, in the dictionary "obscenity" would be defined as "Father Ted."
I had thought that "Monty Python" and "The Young Ones" were the nastiest you could get in British sitcom humour. I HAD NO FECKING CLUE.
Paraphrased from the IMDB: (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0111958)
"Exiled to remote Craggy Island, Father Ted Crilley shares a house with the breathtakingly stupid Father Dougal, the constantly inebriated Father Jack who has a small vocabulary and a taste for furniture polish, and their housekeeper Mrs. Doyle. Together they fight boredom by dressing up as Elvis, and provoking nuns."
There are other priests popping in and out of each episode, and they are universally "flawed"--be they mentally ill or easily tempted by the sins of the flesh or what-have-you. Father Jack (quoted at the top and in the subject) is...horrifying. Young Father Dougal is so stupid he does not comprehend the difference between miniature toy cows and real ones that are simply far away. Father Ted himself is no fine gentleman of the cloth; a chain-smoking phony, he is still the best of the lot. I'm really surprised the Church didn't go crazy-ape bonkers over this.
Lest you think a sitcom about priests is all stuffy dialogue, let me remind you that this is British Humour With An Extra U. The episode I watched tonight involved an exploding pipe on a sewage disposal truck.
Was God angry? The show ran from 1995 to 1998; one day after filming the final episode of the third season, Father Ted himself (Dermot Morgan) died of a heart attack, bringing it all to an end.
"Father Ted" is available on VHS and DVD in the US and Europe, and there's a trailer for it on the "Young Ones" DVD collection (where I first got wind of it). Your local PBS affiliate may be running it as well. You're going to hell anyway; you might as well give it a try.
I'd like to second that. 'Father Ted' is one of the greatest 'British' sitcoms of all time. I was about to post some favourite quotes and scenes on here, but then I realised that one of the great things about the programme is that nothing works out of context. Quoting it loses all the greatness, unless the person you're talking to has seen it. So all I can say is go watch it. Like all the greatest sitcoms it had a limited run, only 24 episodes (plus a Christmas Special), and every single one is a classic.
Here's my guide to great British comedy that I think you should check out:
Father Ted - Regarde la description de Squishy
Red Dwarf - I think many of you already know this one, but if you haven't it's a classic sci-fi sitcom about a small group of misfits marooned about a huge spaceship, millions of miles from Earth. Made 1988-99, 52 episodes, but they should have called it a day after the first 36. The last two series were only mediocore. Film coming out soon.
The League of Gentlemen - Sick sick but hilarious comedy about an English rural town with some serious issues. Inbreeding, murder, cannibalism, a transexual cab-driver and many other strange folk. It's been going since '97 and has about 26 episodes so far.
The Office - A pretty new 'comedy of embarassment' about an ordinary office at an ordinary company, centred around the obnoxious 'I'm one of you guys' boss David Brent and his neurotic team of imbeciles. Its presented as if it were filmed by a BBC documentary crew and the near-reality of it adds to its absurdity. Only 12 episodes so far but already a classic.
Fawlty Towers - Written by and starring John Cleese of 'Monty Python', this is about an impatient, arrogant and rude hotelier showing exactly how the job shouldn’t be done. Only two series of 6 episodes each were made in ‘75 and ‘79. For anyone who knows the series, the ‘Un Dos Tres/On Those Trays’ scene between Basil and Manuel (his Spanish waiter) is one of my favourite TV moments of all time. I also hear FT has been remade badly as American sitcoms ‘Amanda’s’ and ‘Payne’.
Blackadder â€" Each of the four series represents another twisted branch on the Blackadder family tree. The first series follows Prince Edmund, Duke of Edinburgh in the late 1400s, the second follows Edmund Blackadder, great-grandson of the first, a courtier at the court of a ditsy Queen Elizabeth I, in the mid-late 1500s. The third is about Edmund Blackadder, butler to the Prince of Wales in the late 1700s and fourth about Captain Edmund Blackadder, stationed in the trenches during WWI. Each Blackadder is more sarcastic and sharp than the previous one. 24 eps plus a couple of specials.
The Royle Family â€" What made this so great was its originality. In theory, this programme should be the dullest thing ever shown on TV. Whole episodes take place with only around five characters, the eponymous trashy working class family, and two sets, the living room and the kitchen. The action is made up almost entire of them watching TV, talking, arguing, eating and taking the p**s out the family’s youngest member, Anthony. The father is best described as a fatter, lazier version of Homer Simpson, the mother and adult daughter a pair of chain-smoking gossiping lazy housewives and the son defines loser, the high point of his day being sent to the corner shop to buy his Mum’s cigarettes. The humour comes from the conversations and the relationships between the family’s members, and while you won’t hear any laugh-track dubbed on, you won’t notice because you’ll laugh the whole way through yourself. They made around 30 episodes.
Only Fools and Horses â€" This has taken me a while and I can’t be arsed to write anymore so here’s a summary from the IMDb: “Hugely successful British comedy about of two streetwise London brothers: Del (Derrick) and Rodney Trotter. In early years they shared their council flat with 'Grandad' (until the death of actor 'Lennard Pierce' ) later to be replaced by 'Uncle Albert', a WWII Navy veteran with an anecdote for any occasion. Del and Rodney are best described as lovable and harmless black market traders; they buy and (try to) sell almost anything and many an episode is based around some faulty/stolen stock bought by Del. As with other comedies from writer John Sullivan, the humour is devilishly engineered so as not to telegraph the jokes before the punchlines and there's always a strong cast of support characters. The series has won countless awards and ratings battles.â€
I know I suck at writing reviews, and probably put you all off ever watching any of these shows, but if you never see them, you really have missed out on some great comedy.
Pete
Since we started talking about "Father Ted," I'll third it. I first caught on a "Father Ted" marathon on BBC in America. My favorite episode, the one where they went on vacation, finally, to a caravan camp, or trailer court, and--unwittingly--kept getting in trouble with the local police. I haven't lost that hard in years.
I have seen most of the others mentioned by PeteB6K, and of those mentioned, would specifically mention "Blackadder" and "Fawlty Towers," as being the funniest of those I have seen.
And why is British comedy so successful for some of us. It is said that is because British comedy goes under the concept that everybody hates everybody else, while American comedy goes under the concept that everybody loves everybody else. I don't know whether either concept is true, but, the British concept does make for bolder comedies then the ones--for the most part--seen here in the U.S. And, on occasion, it does make for funnier comedies. Enjoy!
And now, the first two seasons of Red Dwarf are available on dvd, at Media Play. Expensive, but cheap enough for any determined Dwarfer.
Smeg off!