Comedy reflects declining standards

[Whoever]

I watched To the Manor Born last night, followed by the Catherine Tait Show, and couldn't help reflecting how the two programmes emphasised just how manners, speech and standards have fallen over the past 25 years. I know they' were both meant to be comedy but does anybody feel that they also reflected a grain of truth too?

[Ethel]

Think of sitcoms 30 years ago and you can find plenty of 'bad behaviour' - Love Thy Neighbour springs to mind. At the same time was more 'refined' sitcoms such as Terry and June.

Benny Hill was dreadful but very popular 30 years ago, as was Bernard Manning.

Even Last of The Summer Wine is very different to its original series where the main characters smoked, swore and were outwardly mysoginist.

I can't find anything funny in Catherine Tait, but didn't laugh at To The Manor Born either.

I think tv has generally cleaned up over 30 years - there is not as much gratiutous sex as there used to be. The Sweeney and Minder are good examples of every episode having at least one topless woman and casual sex.
I think it could be because the general population is no longer titilated by nudity - we are so used to it it has lost it's shock value and is now simply boring.

We still have quality tv shows - they are just harder to find.

[REDHEAD24]

i agree hence my catherine tate question , her comedy style is lousy

only fools and horses never needed to swear , and was quality says it all really

[velvet lady]

i love fools and horses!!! fawlty towers, vicar of diblers, friends, they are all great and i can watch them over and over and over over and over and overover and over and overover and over and overover and over and overover and over and over again

no need for miss tate for entertainment!!

i love little britain too. especially linda and martin

[Ethel]

Gina Yashere created a teenage single mum on the dole living in a council flat, innit for The Lenny Henry Show.

She was a caricature of the modern underclass young person, similar to those portrayed by Tait. But I found Gina's to be hilarious.

I would have liked her to have had a series of her own. Very funny woman.

[Quinlad]

I think it's more to do with the 'democratisation' of television.

It wasn't so long ago that you had to have come from Oxford or Cambridge Universities (or have a background in Shakespearean theatre) to be in TV comedy.

The Goons, Monty Python, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, Rowan Atkinson, Smith & Jones, Fry & Laurie all came from that avenue. These days it's almost unfashionable to have that background.

The other thing is that taboos have fallen away. And to equate that with falling standards is quite wrong.

Compare two political comedies - Yes, Minister and The Thick Of It. The latter is absolutely stuffed full of brutal swearing. But I think you'd be hard-pshed to argue that it's of a lower standard than Yes, Minister. It's critically lauded and merely reflects our acceptance of realism in comedy.

[bednobs]

personally i don't think standards have fallen, just changed. As an example, i watched that quiz about 25 years of channel 4 the other night and they had a mystery guest on who was one of the "mini pops" from 20 odd years ago. They showed a clip of it - a seven year old done up to the nines in make up singing about "making love" and it really made me shudder - it was really creepy. However, this was popular entertainment back then! You can't apply the morals and standards of today retrospectively i'm afraid

[Mortartube]

I think Benny Hill is very underrated as an entertainer. He was more than just innuendo and sexism. He revived many old cinema tricks that had fallen by the wayside. One that springs to mind was reverse filming wher he appeared to throw a tablecloth at a tree stump and the whole dinner service was laid out perfectly. Not hilarious in itself but not gratuitous either.

His best bit of work in my opinion was a clown against a black background, who peeled himself apart right doen to the skeleton and even then discarded limbs. The section I refer to starts about 2 mins 20 into this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er5PFs6ZL5I

It was not all just chashing scantily clad women