Best of British: Part 4

I haven’t done a Best of British posting in ages so I figured it’s about time.

In these posts I wanted to introduce Americans to some of the classic British comedy I watched growing up and which was so influential in the cultivation of my “unique” sense of humour (it’s always good to know whom to blame!).

Red Dwarf

Most people know that I’m a bit of a bibliophile and that I love to read, but I don’t think it’s common knowledge which book I’ve picked up and re-read the most times. The title which gets that dubious honour is The Red Dwarf Omnibus, a collection of books based upon the TV comedy called “Red Dwarf”.

Red Dwarf is a comedy set in deep space about crew of the mining ship “Red Dwarf”. The crew consists of the last human alive, the hologram of his dead bunkmate, a creature descended from a domestic cat, a neurotic android and the ship’s senile computer. If that isn’t the formula for comedy gold, I don’t know what is…

In the clip below, the last human alive, Dave, is teaching the neurotic android, Kryten, how to lie:

Men Behaving Badly

Some of the jokes in “Red Dwarf” were definitely more on the “toilet humour” end of the comedy spectrum. Speaking of immature comedies…one show I loved during my teenage years was the suitably infantile “Men Behaving Badly”. This TV show followed the antics of Tony and Garry, two flatmates struggling with adulthood and grown-up life when all they really want to do is sit on the sofa and drink beer.

The following snippet comes from the end of an episode where Tony has been trying to diet…unsuccessfully. Also, Garry’s friends have found out he has actually got a lot of money squirreled away in his bank account. Because everyone keeps asking him for money, Garry goes out and spends all his money on expensive beer and high-end watches for his friends in an effort to get things back to “normal”:

Bottom

No examination of British toilet humour would be complete without a brief look at “Bottom” 😉. Below is probably my favourite scene in the show’s entire run, in which Eddie tries to teach Richie how to play chess…

Needless to say, I wasn’t allowed to watch this show! 😉