OT: Hostility in Forums

[AgentZero]

Xrati, you, and I, for that matter, can thank my Irish mother for that. She gifted me with a very Irish sense of humour (which is essentially a British sense of humour with more cursing), so my definition of sarcasm is a bit different to the North American norm.

The object of sarcasm, to me, is to ridicule, and it is all the more enjoyable for all involved when the subject is unaware that they are being ridiculed. I'm reminded of the worn-out old joke that appears nearly every pre-teen high school sitcom, where some adult asks our antidisestablishmentarianist protagonist if they know what sarcasm means, to which our peppy teen rolls his/her eyes and replies, "NOOOooooooo."

This is not sarcasm. I'm not sure what it is. Mild douchebaggery, perhaps? The above example may draw a few laughs from younger viewers as the poor adult somehow misses the "sarcasm" and sets about explaining it, but when someone replies in a slightly curious tone, "Actually, no, I'm not familiar with the term. What is it exactly?" the entertainment value of watching someone unwittingly explaining sarcasm to the owner of a PhD in English is unparalleled.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

British humor is the best. Best comedy shows I've seen? British.

Worse comedy shows I've seen? US.

[Randallw]

In my experience, worst comedies? US remakes of British comedies.

A key factor I think is that British comedies have an idea what they want to write. Sort of "I have a few great ideas for episodes" and they condense it down into 6 great episodes a year. In the US they seem to have an idea and when they get made the writers have to wrack their brains to develop 26 epsiodes a year.

There's a great show called "Top Gear". It's about cars. Now that's normally an area I have zero interest in but it's entertaining because the presenters make jokes about stuff and have fun. If the car they're testing is a piece of junk they will call it a piece of junk. I read lately that Jay Leno thinks the idea of a US version is doomed as the presenters can't criticise anything in case the sponsors take offence.

There's a US remake of an Australian comedy in development. You can't help but read about here as it the original seems to be widely considered the epitome of Aussie humour. Me personally, I can't stand the piece of
!@#$%. I fully expect the remake to burst into flames 5 minutes before it first airs. What do I know though, there's another panel quiz show I thought would be cancelled after one epsiode, whcih kept going. It was vaguely entertaining though. Actually now I come to think of it it hasn't been on for awhile. I guess it did get axed.

Addendum: Not that I mean to go on a rant, but on a related note, I recently saw the remake of Solaris. Now I've never seen the original, although since it's Soviet Union Sci-fi and I had the misfortune of seeing one of those once I doubt it was any better, but after roughly two minutes I thought "This is the most abominably boring sci-fi film I have ever seen". It's like the 5 minutes at the end of 2001 where Dave is living the rest of his life in the one room, only it goes for 2 hours. I've never understood exactly what was happening in 2001, but there is a difference between being confused and being bored out of your skull.

I heard it has a nice twist with one guy being replaced but I couldn't bring myself to torture myself waiting to see it. Yes, yes I know I didn't watch the whole thing, but boring me within 2 minutes is not conducive to making me care about the rest.

[capnq]

Randallw said:
In my experience, worst comedies? US remakes of British comedies.

A key factor I think is that British comedies have an idea what they want to write. Sort of "I have a few great ideas for episodes" and they condense it down into 6 great episodes a year. In the US they seem to have an idea and when they get made the writers have to wrack their brains to develop 26 epsiodes a year.

Not only that, but the show has to last four seasons/100 episodes to be considered viable for syndication, which is almost pure profits.

There's a great show called "Top Gear". It's about cars. Now that's normally an area I have zero interest in but it's entertaining because the presenters make jokes about stuff and have fun. If the car they're testing is a piece of junk they will call it a piece of junk. I read lately that Jay Leno thinks the idea of a US version is doomed as the presenters can't criticise anything in case the sponsors take offence.

That's something that could work on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service; AFAIK, the only nonprofit TV network in the US). PBS is where the original versions of "Brit-coms" get aired. (Also on BBC America, but that's a cable channel so I've never seen it.)

[/quote]

[Xrati]

Well then AgentZero, you just keep that sarcasm coming. I like it! It is ALMOST the truth!

Cheers...
Beers...
and Comedy [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon23.gif[/img]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...Isn't the BBC government sponsered? That would tend to change what the sponsers won't allow.

[Randallw]

Yes. With the BBC I guess it's a situation of "How can we entertain the people with some quality programming?". With commerical TV it'd be "What can we do to get people to keep watching?, and while we're at it lets string it out for half the year to increase revenue"

There's also the difference in culture I guess. Fawlty towers is a classic but I still saw a John Larroquette vehicle once that was a copy. Not that I remember the original having an episode where two people got their piercings stuck together . The Bean counters seemingly want to jump on a bandwagon and grab some of the revenue while missing the reason something might have been popular. It also happens a lot with Hollywood copying foreign films. Terry Pretchett is dissilusioned with Hollywood because they wanted to make Reaper Man but thought they should lose the whole Death thing because it was so morbid, and there are plans to make a live version of Akira but you know with Leonardo Di Caprio, and in New Manhattan instead of New Tokyo.

Ever heard of, or seen, the movie Enemy Mine? The original book has nothing to do with a mine, it's a posessive. Some exec didn't get it though and stuck one in so the audience wouldn't be confused