Britain's Best Sitcom

celticfc

Britains Best Sitcom was on BBC Two on saturday night & gave the list of what was voted the best 50 sitcoms. The Top 10 has still to be decided.

Every saturday night on BBC Two there will someone saying why you should vote for each sitcom. See here


The nominees in the top 10 are:

Blackadder

Dad's Army

Fawlty Towers

The Good Life

One Foot in the Grave

Only Fools & Horses

Open all Hours

Porridge

Vicar of Dibley

Yes Minister


You can register your vote for your favourite to win on the BBC website here.


Britains Best Sitcoms #100 - #11:

11 Father Ted
12 Keeping Up Appearances
13 'Allo 'Allo!
14 Last of the Summer Wine
15 Steptoe and Son
16 Men Behaving Badly
17 Absolutely Fabulous
18 Red Dwarf
19 The Royle Family
20 Are You Being Served?
21 To the Manor Born
22 Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
23 The Likely Lads
24 My Family
25 The Office
26 Drop the Dead Donkey
27 Rising Damp
28 Dinnerladies
29 As Time Goes By
30 Hancock's Half Hour
31 The Young Ones
32 Till Death Us Do Part
33 Butterflies
34 The Thin Blue Line
35 Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
36 Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights
37 Waiting for God
38 Birds of a Feather
39 Bread
40 Hi-De-Hi
41 The League of Gentlemen
42 I'm Alan Partridge
43 Just Good Friends
44 2.4 Children
45 Bottom
46 It Ain't Half Hot Mum
47 The Brittas Empire
48 Gimme Gimme Gimme
49 Rab C. Nesbitt
50 Goodnight Sweetheart
51 Up Pompeii
52 Ever Decreasing Circles
53 On the Buses
54 Coupling
55 George and Mildred
56 A Fine Romance
57 Citizen Smith
58 Black Books
59 The Liver Birds
60 Two Pints of Lager and...
61 The New Statesman
62 Sykes
63 Please, Sir!
64 Dear John
65 Barbara
66 Spaced
67 Bless this House
68 Love Thy Neighbour
69 Man About the House
70 Desmonds
71 Duty Free
72 All Gas and Gaiters
73 Happy Ever After/Terry & June
74 Only When I Laugh
75 Brass
76 The Rag Trade
77 Sorry
78 Kiss Me Kate
79 Doctor in the House
80 I Didn't Know You Cared
81 Shelley
82 Nearest and Dearest
83 Fresh Fields
84 The Army Game
85 Robin's Nest
86 The Dustbinmen
87 Whoops Apocalypse
88 My Wife Next Door
89 Never the
90 Nightingales
91 Early Doors
92 Agony
93 The Lovers
94 Father Dear Father
95 Hot Metal
96 And Mother Makes...
97 Life With the Lyons
98 Marriage Lines
99 A Sharp Intake of Breath
100 No Problem

Exit

I'm going for Fawlty Towers. I haven't seen that much of any of them to be honest. But I've seen enough of Fawlty Towers to make me laugh out loud.

Vicar of Dibley though??

po0k

Porridge.

mike65

Blackadder but where the f*ck is Reggie Perin? No 35? Pah!

Mike.

kmart6

Fawlty Towers there may not have been many of them but they were all class

byte

I chose Blackadder, as I still enjoy watching it. Fawlty Towers comes a close second for me.

deecom

Yeah have to agree Fawlty Towers would be mine, but i'm a big fan of coupling, which is only at 54.

TheSonOfBattles

Only Fools and Horses for me followed by Blackadder at No.2.

Caesar_Bojangle

One foot in the grave.

Capt'n Midnight

Dad's Army

Open all Hours

Vicar of Dibley

eh how did this lot get into the top 10 ?
Esp since I'd have a lot of the voters for these would have put sykes way above 54

Love Thy Neighbour - not much chance of repeats of this eh ?

dazberry

Porridge or Fools and Horses, can't decide. Still think as I posted somewhere else Fr. Ted should be in there too (not for the Irish connection - I just think its a classic).

Blackadder and Fawlty Towers are classics, but I'm bored with Fawlty Towers at this stage, and have to be in the right frame of mind for Blacky.

Dad's Army was a load of pants - sorry capt

D.

Mossy Monk

Fawlty Towers for me

Dads Army is hillarious btw

TheSonOfBattles

Originally posted by dazberry
Dad's Army was a load of pants - sorry capt

Take into mind the year these were around in, and the differant culture that existed at the time. A lot of older people will be voting on the list, which is why ones like that and porridge are on it.

My father for instance, 52 years that he is, loves watching Porridge, Dads Army and a one or two other old comedies on UK Gold. I grew up watching them with him as well, so I still have a bit of a soft spot for them, but like I said, Only Fools and Horses is the definate winner.

ixoy

The Vicar of Dibley is there, but The Office is at #25?! Sounds like poppycock to me - odd compiling. Anyways, Blackadders gets my vote. Fawlty Towers is good but repeated too often and always hated Horses.

mike65

Originally posted by dazberry


Dad's Army was a load of pants - sorry capt

D.

The Capt'n knows Dads Army was pants - he's wondering how it got so high in the vote...

Mike.

Töpher

Fawlty Towers!

Creature

Fawlty Towers, its total comedy genius. Nothing less.

emmemm

Me noticed the top 10 all BBC.
Would put Rising Damp second after Fawlty ts. myself.

dazberry

Originally posted by mike65
The Capt'n knows Dads Army was pants - he's wondering how it got so high in the vote...

Mike.

Oops, thanks your right, sorry Capt'n. TheSonOfBattles yeah I take your point. I'm three by 10 and 2 so I grew up with a lot of that comedy (or atleast the repeats in the 70s), so I'm sure I have a bit of a bias that way too. Just never found Dad's Army funny though - ever Can't comment on the Vicar of Dibley - could never force myself to watch it

D.

govinda

Only Fools and Horses from the top ten, definitely, but I cannot believe Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights didn't make it into the top 10 or 20, its classic! :-)

Linoge

The Vicar of f*ckin Dibley made it in before Father Ted????? What kind of bullsh!t top 10 is that. I know its not perverse enough for its English audience but it was a classic comedy. Only fools and horses gets my vote. It is the goat!

nore

Its so childish of the BBC to limit the Top 10 to just their own output...

And unbelievable that The Office (a BBC production) is not in the Top 10 - it would be in my Top Three along with Fawlty Towers and the other obviously ridiculous exclusion Father Ted whose position at No. 11 as a non-BBC production suggests it should have been a contender for the top spot...

The bookies odds suggest that its a two-horse race between Only Fools... and Fawlty Towers and the former will likely win since it has been generally more popular.
Though FT will be benefit from the received wisdom that its the best just as The Beatles do when it comes to voting on pop music and George Best when it comes to footballers!

DMC

Its not childish, as ITV have never produced a decent sit-com. Nearly all the ITV sitcoms (with the great exception of Rising Damp) appear in the bottom 50, and rightly so, IMO. There are a few Channel 4 sit-coms there, Drop The Dead Donkey, Father Ted etc. (wel not much etcetera)

Porridge for me. If Whatever Happened To/The Likey Lads were in it, I'd have voted for it. But that is down to the classic writing of Clement and La Franais, who wrote both series.

I'd vote for OFAH, but I feel the last ten years and milking it every Christmas has not helped it. I clearly see OFAH in two ways, pre-Miami special and the post Miami special. Good vs not as good.

gucci

only fools and horses followed by fawlty towers,because there just wasnt enough of them made,maybe they knew to quit while ahead.the good life?how on earth did that get in there?as for the vicar of dimbly,fr. ted should be there insead(not trying to make this debate a religious battle honest!) reckon the bbc didnt let fr ted in top 10 as the usual email campaigns would go round getting all the irish to vote for it etc:o

nore

DMC,
Fair enough, the BBC has on average produced the better stuff but surely there is exclusion going on here? There just has to be - there is no way Father Ted would not be in the Top 10 - it is a classic and widely-loved as evidenced by the posts on here so far

mike65

On the Vicar of Dibley vs Father Ted, Ireland vs UK issue.
Has it occured to anyone that Vicar... was seen by FAR more people as it was on BBC1 whereas Ted was on C4 which even on a good day gets only about 20% as many viewers. Simple minded mid-england BBC1 viewers vote too y' know! Father Ted did damned well to finnish so high.

Mike.

DMC

Agree with Mike, here. More people watched The Vicar of Dibley on first runs in Britain than Father Ted.

As Ted would say himself, "Small.... Far away"

gucci

yeah but with channel four and e4 surely everyine has seen the episodes more than vicar of.. on bbc,for example friends must be on c4+e4 about 11 times a day

Giblet

Blackadder and Father Ted definatly.

Baa!

Ro: maaan!

Out of that lot I'd vote for Fawlty Towers. But out of all of them, it'd be Coupling, Red Dwarf or Men Behaving Badly.

Linoge

as for the vicar of dimbly,fr. ted should be there insead(not trying to make this debate a religious battle honest!)

- Never even thought of it that way!! lol
As for this

Has it occured to anyone that Vicar... was seen by FAR more people as it was on BBC1 whereas Ted was on C4

Was already answered by

reckon the bbc didnt let fr ted in top 10 as the usual email campaigns would go round getting all the irish to vote for it etc

There we have it. The English trying to keep the Irish down even in this day and age. Was the famine not enough???? With 300,000 Sky Digital subscribers in Ireland and BBC 1 and 2 and E4 on digital I think it would be fair to say that the Paddy's opinion counted on this topic. It wouldn't have killed them to put the Irish sitcom in there:(

BuffyBot

Coupling

You have to be kidding? :eek:

Blackadder

/that is all

DMC

Originally posted by Linoge
There we have it. The English trying to keep the Irish down even in this day and age. Was the famine not enough???? With 300,000 Sky Digital subscribers in Ireland and BBC 1 and 2 and E4 on digital I think it would be fair to say that the Paddy's opinion counted on this topic. It wouldn't have killed them to put the Irish sitcom in there:(

And how much of a UK licence fee do you pay?

That is all.

BuffyBot

Originally posted by Linoge
- Never even thought of it that way!! lol
As for this
Was already answered by

There we have it. The English trying to keep the Irish down even in this day and age. Was the famine not enough???? With 300,000 Sky Digital subscribers in Ireland and BBC 1 and 2 and E4 on digital I think it would be fair to say that the Paddy's opinion counted on this topic. It wouldn't have killed them to put the Irish sitcom in there:(

Ermm yes. That's it. It's a conspiracy. HONEST.


Or it might just be that it's a UK based poll, consisting of the votes of UK residents, broadcast on a UK broadcaster, funded by the UK Public. Why should you have any say.

Anyway we haven't produced any decent sitcoms. Before you say it, Father Ted is a UK production, paid for and broadcast by Channel 4.

TheSonOfBattles

Originally posted by Linoge
There we have it. The English trying to keep the Irish down even in this day and age. Was the famine not enough???? With 300,000 Sky Digital subscribers in Ireland and BBC 1 and 2 and E4 on digital I think it would be fair to say that the Paddy's opinion counted on this topic. It wouldn't have killed them to put the Irish sitcom in there:(

For a start it's Britains best sitcom. Now since Irelands been trying to get out from under Englands thumb and be independant with years, it'd be nice if they not list Ireland as part of Britain in this sitcom vote. Oh wait! They didn't!!!! We're not even there!! :eek:

Do you reckon since Irelands not even listed as a participant country in this vote that you might just be being a little paranoid and stupid. Do you reckon it's even remotely possible that English people don't like Father Ted as much as we (and lets remember we're a differant country now) Irish do? And that's thats the reason its not in the top ten?

It's not our vote to give, we just happen to be able to pick up the channels. Its a British poll, and while its fun to be able to vote on it, and even discuss it here and say what our Irish point of view is, what gives you the right to complain when your not within the polls voting parameters?

Anyway, its just a poll ffs, it's not like anyone cares, or its going to change anything whatsoever.

Edit: Beaten to rant by Buffybot

Linoge

Do you reckon since Irelands not even listed as a participant country in this vote that you might just be being a little paranoid and stupid. Do you reckon it's even remotely possible that English people don't like Father Ted as much as we (and lets remember we're a differant country now) Irish do? And that's thats the reason its not in the top ten?

Wow, I didn't know we had so many supporters of our long standing friends across the water. Everybody jumping to the rescue!! It was meant as a joke with a jab. Do you think I really give a sh!t about who wins or the right to vote?? Of course our hole of a country filled with beer drinking neanderthals shouldn't be allowed to vote for best comedy- we'd only fup it up! In the words of the great King Longshanks

Bloody Irish. Cant be trusted.

BTW

Or it might just be that it's a UK based poll, consisting of the votes of UK residents, broadcast on a UK broadcaster, funded by the UK Public. Why should you have any say.

Ever heard of Sky??:dunno:

And how much of a UK licence fee do you pay?

When the BBC pay for a license to broadcast here I will pay their license fee. Until then I pay bSkyb €35 a month. They should be sorting them out.

BuffyBot

Originally posted by Linoge
Wow, I didn't know we had so many supporters of our long standing friends across the water. Everybody jumping to the rescue!! It was meant as a joke with a jab. Do you think I really give a sh!t about who wins or the right to vote?? Of course our hole of a country filled with beer drinking neanderthals shouldn't be allowed to vote for best comedy- we'd only fup it up! In the words of the great King Longshanks

BTW

Ever heard of Sky??:dunno:


When the BBC pay for a license to broadcast here I will pay their license fee. Until then I pay bSkyb €35 a month. They should be sorting them out.

:rolleyes:

That is all

mike65

Its this level of sophisicated discorse that keeps me at boards.ie!

Mike.

scojones

the young ones.

Zaphod B

I voted for Blackadder, and now I'm going to condense all my possible rants into one or two sentences each.

Porridge was and still is brilliant, but feel free to be wrong. I mean to disagree.

Father Ted should clearly have been in the top 10, but unfortunately there's a generation that has come up with the bizarre idea that The Good Life was in some way amusing - some of that generation apparently work for the BBC since they still repeat The Good Life today. Quite why this isn't allowed to die along with any number of equally awful 70s sitcoms is beyond me.

Linoge my army will be over tomorrow morning. Better give Mel Gibson a call - he's already killed the Evil Camp English for the Scots and the Yanks, surely saving Ireland is the next logical step

Just to recap... The Vicar of Dibley? Top 10? EH? THE GOOD LIFE? WHAT?!? KILL!

BuffyBot

Father Ted should clearly have been in the top 10, but unfortunately there's a generation that has come up with the bizarre idea that The Good Life was in some way amusing - some of that generation apparently work for the BBC since they still repeat The Good Life today. Quite why this isn't allowed to die along with any number of equally awful 70s sitcoms is beyond me.

Well Fawlty Towers was made in the 70's. Porridge was made in the 70's. The Good Life was a hugely popular sitcom in it's time, and many of the people who voted it in there are still alive and kicking and voting. Just because you don't feel it's "cool" it doesn't mean other people can't like it and vote for it

Wheeler

definately fools and horses.
thought steptoe and son should be in the top ten

capistrano

I voted Fawlty Towrer.

The first 6 episodes took about 5 years to write; every line is funny. Also, the fact that there are only 12 episodes makes it more of a classic that other series that started out good but went on for years and over time became staid and dated - like Only Fools and Horses among others.

Cactus Col

Blackadder!


Fawlty Towers has got to be the most over rated comedy ever ......

father Ted not in the top ten? the office not in the top ten? Pheonix Nights not in the top ten? The New Statesman not even in the top 100!

The Top ten should look like this (in no particular order):

Blackadder

Pheonix Nights

The Office

Father Ted

I'm Alan Partridge

Some Mother's Do Ave Em

The League of Gentlemen

Spaced

To the Manor Born

and

Porridge



(wish rte would do a similar poll .... see how Leave it to mrs O'brien would do .... best thing to come out of RTE is Paths to Freedom)

DMC

The New Statesman is there, at 61. Good 'ol Piers Fletcher-Dervish.

Zaphod B

Originally posted by BuffyBot
Well Fawlty Towers was made in the 70's. Porridge was made in the 70's. The Good Life was a hugely popular sitcom in it's time, and many of the people who voted it in there are still alive and kicking and voting. Just because you don't feel it's "cool" it doesn't mean other people can't like it and vote for it

I don't remember saying the 70s produced no good comedy. Mostly because I didn't.
But as with every decade it also produced some distinctly average and easily forgettable comedy (granted, awful was not the right word to use). I just don't feel TGL was funny enough to be resurrected and celebrated more than any number of other comedies from the same period which while witty were certainly not timeless.
Let me rephrase then, "Quite why The Good Life isn't allowed to die along with any number of equally average sitcoms from the same period of time (with no undue prejudice against the 1970s) is beyond me"... would that satisfy you?

On reflection The Good Life was not awful, but nor was it comic genius or very near approaching that. I simply don't believe it belongs in the Top 10. I think there are plenty of far better comedies that have a lot more things going for them than sitcom nostalgia, and they end up waaaay down the list.

Incidentally where did I say it wasn't "cool"? For that matter when did I signify a desire to enter into one big cliché? I have been accused of many things over the years but trying to be cool was not a common one. I don't rate my comedies on how trendy they are, controversially I rate them by how funny I think they are.

So ends my drunken rant. If I've been overly aggressive (as I usually am in drunken ratns) then I apologise in advance to save time later

Edit: Final Thought - Lists mean jack sh!t anyway We've had too many Top 10, Top 100, Greatest Bestest Ever In The Whole Wide World lists lately and I'm not even sure why I took an interest in this one... :dunno:

capistrano

I'm glad to see Yes Minister getting a few votes. While I don't think it's numero uno it's damn good and the scripting is absolutely superb.

Beëlzebooze

Originally posted by Linoge
- Never even thought of it that way!! lol
As for this
Was already answered by

There we have it. The English trying to keep the Irish down even in this day and age. Was the famine not enough???? With 300,000 Sky Digital subscribers in Ireland and BBC 1 and 2 and E4 on digital I think it would be fair to say that the Paddy's opinion counted on this topic. It wouldn't have killed them to put the Irish sitcom in there:(

linoqe...you plonker!

Linoge

linoqe...you plonker!

Beelzebooze!

I'd be alot more insulted if I knew what you meant by that.

celticfc

Don't forget that the 1st of the Britain's Best Sitcom shows about the Blackadder is starting tonight @ 9:10pm on BBC Two.

From Digiguide:

ENTERTAINMENT: Britain's Best Sitcom
Channel: BBC Two 106
Date: Saturday 17th January 2004
Time: 21:10 to 22:15 (starting in 2 hours and 26 minutes)
Duration: 1 hour and 5 minutes.
Blackadder.
Series looking at the top ten British sitcoms, as voted for by the public. Political journalist John Sergeant argues the case for the historical comedy series Blackadder. This documentary reunites the celebrated team behind the show including Stephen Fry, Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson and Brian Blessed, plus writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton. The programme features clips from all four series and rare behind-the-scenes footage.
(Widescreen, Subtitles)