As I’ve previously said, LC,…your turns of phrase are legendary… 
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I think that was the intention. Ritchie and Eddie are a pair of twats who never grew up. I think Rik and Ade sat down and thought ‘what will Viv and Rik be like in middle age?’
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Oh I’m sure it was, but I’d imagine the intention was that they’d also be funny. For many I’m sure that was indeed the case but, for me, they weren’t. They were just creepy, and a bit sad. I really wanted to like it because I always loved Rik and Ade. They are the stars of my first and second favourite sitcoms of all time. I loved all their earlier sketch-based routines which they showcased on shows like Saturday Live, such as “The Dangerous Brothers” or “Kevin Turvey”, and I even thought the short-lived Filthy, Rich and Catflap (the Mayall/Edmondson/Planer sitcom which bridged the gap between The Young Ones and Bottom) was pretty good, too. But Bottom just left me feeling they’d run out of material.
I’d almost forgotten about him, and his obsession with Theresa Kelly - Really funny monolgues - Must check out You Tube for some clips. 
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They might have thought it was comedy gold. I thought it was hilarious when I was 12… Then I caught a recent rerun and thought I am too old for this!
I didn’t find Spaced funny the first time round but in light of this discussion I like going back and watching it, I may get it now. The one show I couldn’t stand back in the day and can’t now was Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie. 
I liked that one, too. Have it on DVD.
Don’t think I have ever seen it. 
A couple of 90s classic comedies not mentioned here are THE FAST SHOW and MEN BEHAVING BADLY. FAST SHOW gave us catch phrases used all over the place, “Oh suits you sir!” “Selling cars is like making love to a beautiful woman.”
Not everything was gold but the good stuff out weighed the bad. “BRILLIANT!!”
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Finally watching some show called Breaking Bad. I’m onto season 3, and it’s pretty darn good.
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Very more-ish, isn’t it ! … only one dodgy episode that I can remember, you’ll know it when it happens.
Extremely!
I just got The Last of Us 2, but I can’t bring myself to play it until I’ve watched all this.
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its not a movie but a sitcom. the one and only friends was the last thing i watched. it just is the best and i think you can learn alot from it.
Are you sure you’re on the right site!? 
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Hi Pete, and welcome to The Spaghetti Western Database! You’ll probably have wanted this thread, mate:
Each to their own of course sir but, personally, I found Friends to be a pile of old bumshit from start to finish. The only thing I think anyone can learn from it is how to form a death cult with only six people, and how to hog the couch in a coffee house for ten years without the rest of the customer base eventually giving them a f#cking shoeing right there in the shop. 
I was much more of a Frasier guy back in the late 90s/early 00s. Still am, tbh.
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Agreed. ‘Frasier’ is the only American comedy that I find funny…“My God, Niles!”
As for ‘Friends’…as usual Asa, your expletives sum up my feelings. Yet again, I have to salute your 'Shakespeare-like- turn of phrase with:
Quote: “I found Friends to be a pile of old bumshit from start to finish.”
Keep it coming, buddy… 
Friends is nowhere near as funny as Frasier but it does have its moments. I remember liking the first four series quite a lot and then finding a bit difficult after that. It felt like some of the characters became parodies of their former selves. Another American comedy I loved was 3rd Rock From the Sun
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Over the last week or so, binged all four seasons of The Good Place, a sitcom from Michael Schur, co-creator of Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, in which Eleanor (Kristin Bell), a morally reprehensible saleswoman of fake pharmaceuticals, dies in a convoluted shopping trolley pile-up and finds herself in the afterlife. Thanks to a one-in-a-million administrative cock-up in which a thoroughly decent woman with the same name dies at exactly the same time, Eleanor - scheduled for an eternity of torture in “The Bad Place” - is introduced by affable angel Michael (Ted Danson) around “The Good Place” instead, and afforded all of the heavenly trappings designed specifically for the other, decent Eleanor, including a cottage decorated to the other Eleanor’s tastes, an all-knowing omnipresent celestial assistant called Janet (D’Arcy Carden) and a soulmate, the also newly-deceased Chidi (William Jackson Harper), with whom to bond for all eternity. Everything should be perfect but things are going wrong in The Good Place and it appears to be because of Eleanor’s fraudulent stay, so she confides in Chidi to assist her in keeping a low profile. Also assisting them are their Good Place neighbours: the irritating, name-dropping socialite Tahani (Radio 1 DJ Jameela Jamil) and her designated soulmate Jianyu (Manny Jacinto), the enigmatic Buddhist monk still maintaining a postmortem vow of silence. But all is not what is seems; not just with Eleanor but with her new friends, with Michael and with the entire Good Place itself.
Unlike most sitcoms, The Good Place tells one big story with a beginning, middle and end. Not very episodic (it reminds me of Arrested Development in that regard). But since it’s only 52 episodes long (well, 53. The finale is a double episode) and each episode runs at about 23 minutes, it’s not a particularly intimidating investment to make, and it’s a fun, quirky, tale. One or two characters can grate from time to time but they’re likeable for the most part, and Ted Danson is always brilliant in any sitcom. It’s not quite as good the aforementioned Brooklyn Nine-Nine (I’ve never gotten around to more than a few episodes of Schur’s other big hit Parks and Recreation and although it looks promising I’ve not seen enough to form a fair opinion yet) but it is similarly warm-hearted and daft, and it has supporting roles for regulars from either or both of those shows (Marc Evan Jackson, Jason Mantzoukas, Adam Scott).
Well worth a look if you’re between gritty dramas and need something light and friendly to clear the palate.
My favourite American sitcoms, fwiw:
- Frasier
- King of the Hill
- Seinfeld
- Curb Your Enthusiasm
- The Larry Sanders Show
- Cheers
- Eastbound and Down
- Married… With Children
- It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
- Rick and Morty
- My Name is Earl
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine
- Soap
- The Good Place
- Bojack Horseman
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Have the entire series on DVD, and I’m thinking of revisiting it soon. Absolutely love Mike Judge.
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People keep telling me how good this series is… I must get round to watching it…along with ‘Peaky Blinders’…
Just finished season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which cantankerous old sod Larry David opens a coffee shop purely to spite a coffee shop wherein he’d had a bad experience. A BIG improvement on the uneven and uncertain season 9 from 3 years ago (which itself was probably as uncertain as it was due to a 6 year layoff since season 8). It’s taken twenty years to get to season 10 and, although both Larry and his show are past their very best, they’re both still operating very close to maximum expectation. If he ended it here it’d represent a far better send-off for the show than either of the previous two seasons but tbh in this form I don’t see why he wouldn’t want at least one more run around the block. Prettyyyyy, prettyyyyyy, prettyyyyyyy, pretty good. 
Next up for me is probably going to be Swamp Thing, cancelled for uncertain reasons (tax breaks not being honoured in their chosen shooting location of North Carolina was at least one theory I read somewhere) shortly after its debut episode premiered to considerable critical and popular acclaim.
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