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As an older American, I’ve always found British humor of the Monty Python type hilarious. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a lot of newer material of this type.

As an older American, I’ve always found British humor of the Monty Python type hilarious. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a lot of newer material of this type. I may have to look harder.

technothrasher 9mo ago
As a fellow older American who loves Monty Python, the more modern British shows I've enjoyed the most were Green Wing, League of Gentlemen, Peep Show, and Doc Martin. Of those, League of Gentlemen and Green Wing have the most Python-like absurdity, while Doc Martin has the most subtle humor. Peep Show is hilarious, but the most crass humor of those listed, although League of Gentlemen doesn't shy away from crassness either.
xnorswap 9mo ago
What do you mean by "this type"? The sketch show format has been pretty much entirely killed off by TikTok & Instagram. It's very hard to do a sketch that hasn't already been done on TikTok with a tiny fraction of the budget. Absurdist humour still exists everywhere, it's less popular than either Python in the 70's / 80's, or the flash era in the 2000s, but it's still everywhere, but I'd also wager it is not to your taste. At the risk of offending just about everyone, I would suggest that something like "Skibidi Toilet" is just this generation's badger-badger-mushroom, which in turn was that generations' "Bring me a shrubbery!". Sketch shows in particular don't work well for TV in this era. Mitchell and Webb tried hard to return with one this year and it just fell flat, the jokes feel telegraphed from a mile-away, taking a minute to get to a punchline in a era when the same jokes are told in a 10 second short. The downside of the tiktok/insta model, is that the more successful people on Insta end up just re-telling their one good joke over and over. ( Or indeed, re-recording someone else's one good joke. ). Not that sketch shows didn't also repeat jokes sometimes, but they could at least play around with a punchline in unexpected ways, or have callbacks and nods to earlier sketches in a series. That kind of non-continuity doesn't work when you don't know which tiktoks will go viral, or which order your audience will see them in, as the algorithm dictates all.
- m348e912 9mo ago
  If you are saying sketch shows like "Thank God You're Here" "Fast & Loose" and "Who's Line is it Anyway" are being killed off by short/low budget replacements on TikTok, we must be living in different worlds. I haven't seen anything like them on TikTok and I'm on there enough to have noticed. Maybe you're talking about the dumb alien short videos of them telling a joke to each other and snickering, that doesn't compare.
  - xnorswap 9mo ago
    "TikTok doesn't live up to the best of TV" is true, but that's not the argument I'm making. OP asked for "newer", and yet you've not named anything created in the last 10 years. ( And named a 30+ year old improv show, which is definitely not the format I'm talking about. ) You're not alone, one second-cousin comment even went with the phrase "more modern", then named a range of shows that are at least over 20 years old. Green Wing was the 90's, that's closer to the time of Python's Life of Brian than today. Clearly things aren't fine if there isn't fresh blood coming through. Sketch shows never were the best of TV, they are a format where you throw a lot out there and then the very best bits of each episode might be particularly funny, with a bunch of filler in-between. That can't compete with a medium where people just swipe the second they're not finding a particular piece funny or to their taste.
    - m348e912 9mo ago
      I agree the shows I named have aged, but I think my point stands. There really isn't anything _like_ those shows on TikTok that I am aware of, and maybe you've made a bigger point that there isn't anything like these shows at all anymore. (To be fair I don't watch much traditional TV anymore -- maybe that was your point all along and I just missed it)
  - pixl97 9mo ago
    >"Thank God You're Here" "Fast & Loose" I've never heard of these shows, where are they out of? >we must be living in different worlds. While I'm not on social media like that, I do think so.
amiga386 9mo ago
As in surreal British sketch comedy? You'd like - The Goon Show (it's this 1950s radio serial that inspired the Pythons... it's surprising how many tropes the Pythons borrowed from it) - The Goodies - The Kenny Everett Television Show - Absolutely! - The Mighty Boosh / Unnatural Acts / Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy - Vic Reeves' Big Night Out / The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer / Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer - Big Train - The League of Gentlemen - On the Hour / The Day Today / Brass Eye - Jam / Blue Jam - The Armando Iannucci Shows - Limmy's Show Also, to throw in a US programme, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson was pretty good
- technothrasher 9mo ago
  > The Goon Show I had the opportunity to meet and talk to Harry Secombe just a couple years before he died. He was quite surprised to run into an American who knew who he was. Most American's only know Peter Sellers.
- internet_points 9mo ago
  - A Bit of Fry and Laurie with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry
- gizajob 9mo ago
  I feel like Jam/Blue Jam was about the zenith of British surreal and nihilistic comedy.
- jacquesm 9mo ago
  Can we fit in 'Not the nine O'clock news'? And what about 'Spitting Image'?
  - amiga386 9mo ago
    They're both fine shows, but I'd say Spitting Image is satire, spoofing current affairs of the time, rather than surreal. Although, that said, Monty Python also threw in a number of current affairs references, e.g. references to Reginald Maudling, and spoofing other TV programmes and BBC continuity.
- 9mo ago
lanfeust6 9mo ago
If you're a gamer, pick up Thank Goodness You're Here!

As an older American, I’ve always found British humor of the Monty Python type hilarious. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a lot of newer material of this type. I may have to look harder.

technothrasher 9mo ago

As a fellow older American who loves Monty Python, the more modern British shows I've enjoyed the most were Green Wing, League of Gentlemen, Peep Show, and Doc Martin. Of those, League of Gentlemen and Green Wing have the most Python-like absurdity, while Doc Martin has the most subtle humor. Peep Show is hilarious, but the most crass humor of those listed, although League of Gentlemen doesn't shy away from crassness either.

xnorswap 9mo ago

What do you mean by "this type"? The sketch show format has been pretty much entirely killed off by TikTok & Instagram. It's very hard to do a sketch that hasn't already been done on TikTok with a tiny fraction of the budget. Absurdist humour still exists everywhere, it's less popular than either Python in the 70's / 80's, or the flash era in the 2000s, but it's still everywhere, but I'd also wager it is not to your taste. At the risk of offending just about everyone, I would suggest that something like "Skibidi Toilet" is just this generation's badger-badger-mushroom, which in turn was that generations' "Bring me a shrubbery!". Sketch shows in particular don't work well for TV in this era. Mitchell and Webb tried hard to return with one this year and it just fell flat, the jokes feel telegraphed from a mile-away, taking a minute to get to a punchline in a era when the same jokes are told in a 10 second short. The downside of the tiktok/insta model, is that the more successful people on Insta end up just re-telling their one good joke over and over. ( Or indeed, re-recording someone else's one good joke. ). Not that sketch shows didn't also repeat jokes sometimes, but they could at least play around with a punchline in unexpected ways, or have callbacks and nods to earlier sketches in a series. That kind of non-continuity doesn't work when you don't know which tiktoks will go viral, or which order your audience will see them in, as the algorithm dictates all.

m348e912 9mo ago
If you are saying sketch shows like "Thank God You're Here" "Fast & Loose" and "Who's Line is it Anyway" are being killed off by short/low budget replacements on TikTok, we must be living in different worlds. I haven't seen anything like them on TikTok and I'm on there enough to have noticed. Maybe you're talking about the dumb alien short videos of them telling a joke to each other and snickering, that doesn't compare.
- xnorswap 9mo ago
  "TikTok doesn't live up to the best of TV" is true, but that's not the argument I'm making. OP asked for "newer", and yet you've not named anything created in the last 10 years. ( And named a 30+ year old improv show, which is definitely not the format I'm talking about. ) You're not alone, one second-cousin comment even went with the phrase "more modern", then named a range of shows that are at least over 20 years old. Green Wing was the 90's, that's closer to the time of Python's Life of Brian than today. Clearly things aren't fine if there isn't fresh blood coming through. Sketch shows never were the best of TV, they are a format where you throw a lot out there and then the very best bits of each episode might be particularly funny, with a bunch of filler in-between. That can't compete with a medium where people just swipe the second they're not finding a particular piece funny or to their taste.
  - m348e912 9mo ago
    I agree the shows I named have aged, but I think my point stands. There really isn't anything _like_ those shows on TikTok that I am aware of, and maybe you've made a bigger point that there isn't anything like these shows at all anymore. (To be fair I don't watch much traditional TV anymore -- maybe that was your point all along and I just missed it)
- pixl97 9mo ago
  >"Thank God You're Here" "Fast & Loose" I've never heard of these shows, where are they out of? >we must be living in different worlds. While I'm not on social media like that, I do think so.

amiga386 9mo ago

As in surreal British sketch comedy? You'd like - The Goon Show (it's this 1950s radio serial that inspired the Pythons... it's surprising how many tropes the Pythons borrowed from it) - The Goodies - The Kenny Everett Television Show - Absolutely! - The Mighty Boosh / Unnatural Acts / Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy - Vic Reeves' Big Night Out / The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer / Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer - Big Train - The League of Gentlemen - On the Hour / The Day Today / Brass Eye - Jam / Blue Jam - The Armando Iannucci Shows - Limmy's Show Also, to throw in a US programme, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson was pretty good

technothrasher 9mo ago
> The Goon Show I had the opportunity to meet and talk to Harry Secombe just a couple years before he died. He was quite surprised to run into an American who knew who he was. Most American's only know Peter Sellers.
internet_points 9mo ago
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry
gizajob 9mo ago
I feel like Jam/Blue Jam was about the zenith of British surreal and nihilistic comedy.
jacquesm 9mo ago
Can we fit in 'Not the nine O'clock news'? And what about 'Spitting Image'?
- amiga386 9mo ago
  They're both fine shows, but I'd say Spitting Image is satire, spoofing current affairs of the time, rather than surreal. Although, that said, Monty Python also threw in a number of current affairs references, e.g. references to Reginald Maudling, and spoofing other TV programmes and BBC continuity.
9mo ago

lanfeust6 9mo ago

If you're a gamer, pick up Thank Goodness You're Here!