A British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s, combining surreal sketches and situation comedy.
Social & External
Unknown Role
During the Suez Crisis of 1956, two young clerks at the stuffy Foreign Office in Whitehall display little interest in the decline of the British Empire. To their eyes, it can hardly compete with girls, rock music, and the intrigue of romantic entanglements.
A short-lived sketch show from the 1990s, featuring Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes in one of their first collaborations.
A short-lived weekly series for pre-teens(ages 9-12) using comedy sketches to explore friendship, family, communication, and other issues.
This English follows the East End working-class Garnett family, headed by patriarch Alf, a reactionary working-class man who wields racist and anti-Socialist views. His long-suffering wife Else manages to keep things in control... for the most part. Their progressive daughter Rita lives with them, as does her Irish husband Mike, who, with an array of liberal worldviews, often quarrels with his father-in-law. It inspired the American show "All In The Family" and several other international variations on the same theme.
Three adolescent boys, Ed, Edd "Double D", and Eddy, collectively known as "the Eds", constantly invent schemes to make money from their peers to purchase their favorite confectionery, jawbreakers. Their plans usually fail though, leaving them in various predicaments.
Bo' Selecta! is a British sketch show written and performed by Leigh Francis, which lampoons popular culture and is known for its often surreal, abstract toilet humour.
A sketch comedy series starring and hosted by Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. The pair introduce most episodes as heightened versions of themselves before transitioning to a mixture of live sketches and pre-taped segments.
Sledge Hammer! is an American satirical police sitcom produced by New World Television that ran for two seasons on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The series was created by Alan Spencer and stars David Rasche as Inspector Sledge Hammer, a preposterous caricature of the standard "cop on the edge" character. Al Jean and Mike Reiss, best known for their work on The Simpsons, wrote for the show and worked as story editors.
That's My Bush! is an American comedy television series that aired on Comedy Central from April 4 to May 23, 2001. Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, best known for also creating South Park, the series centers on the fictitious personal life of President George W. Bush, as played by Timothy Bottoms. Carrie Quinn Dolin played Laura Bush, and Kurt Fuller played Karl Rove. Despite the political overtones, the show itself was actually a broad lampoon of American sitcoms, including lame jokes, a laugh track, and stock characters such as klutzy bimbo secretary Princess, know-it-all maid Maggie, and supposedly helpful "wacky" next-door neighbor Larry.
Harry Enfield, Kathy Burke, Paul Whitehouse and others take on an array of oddball characters and old-time favorites in this sketch comedy show.
A four-part drama exploring the myth of Columbus as heroic discoverer of the Americas.
Israeli satire show investigating the historical, social and political heritage of the jewish people and the state of Israel, from biblical days to this day, killing sacred cows and questioning Jewish myths and Israeli ethos.
Disillusioned after a long career at Sunshine Desserts, Reginald Iolanthe Perrin endures a midlife crisis and fakes his own death. Returning in disguise after various attempts at finding a 'new life', Perrin gets his old job back and finds nothing has changed. He is eventually found out, and later finds success with a chain of junk shops. However, it becomes so successful that he feels he has created a monster and decides to destroy it.
Little Miss Jocelyn is a British TV sketch comedy written by and starring Jocelyn Jee Esien. The show is made up of studio sketches and hidden camera footage in which unsuspecting members of the public become part of a sketch. The series ran for 2 series from 22 August 2006 until its cancellation on 14 February 2008. 12 episodes aired whilst a 13th episode was never broadcast for unknown reasons but is featured as a bonus extra on the Series 2 DVD. In 2007, Esien featured in Girls Aloud and Sugababes' Comic Relief video for "Walk This Way", where she puts a parking ticket on Ewen Macintosh, a reference to the character Jiffy from the show Little Miss Jocelyn.
A series of pop-culture parodies using stop-motion animation of toys, action figures and dolls. The title character was an ordinary chicken until he was run down by a car and subsequently brought back to life in cyborg form by mad scientist Fritz Huhnmorder, who tortures Robot Chicken by forcing him to watch a random selection of TV shows, the sketches that make up the body of each episode.
Dave Chappelle's singular point of view is unleashed through a combination of laidback stand-up and street-smart sketches.
Spaced: the anti-Friends, in that it examines the lives of common 20 somethings, but in a way that is more down to earth and realistic. Here we have Daisy and Tim; two 'young' adults with big dreams just trying to get by in this crazy world. They are thrown together in a common pursuit of tenancy, which they find by posing as a couple. The house has a landlady and an oddball artist living there. The series explores the ins and outs of London living.
Baddiel and Skinner unplanned was a free-form talk show hosted by British comedians/personalities David Baddiel and Frank Skinner and produced by Avalon Television. Its concept was developed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and had a run in the West End at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 2001. The show features the two hosts sitting on a couch on-stage and responding to questions from the audience — at times rather seriously, but usually with bizarre digressions into satirical comedy. An audience member is chosen as "Secretary" and has the job of keeping a note of the topics covered on a white board. In practice, the personality of the secretary will also prompt many jokes — usually at his or her expense. At the end of the show, Skinner asks either the secretary or the audience to choose between two song books, and to pick a page number between 1 and 20. This process determines which song is performed by the duo, sung by Skinner with Baddiel accompanying him on piano. Topics of discussion are wholly mandated by the audience and have ranged from discussions of the war against Iraq and other political events to comments on the latest plot twists of popular soap operas and the Atkins diet. Skinner's Catholicism and Baddiel's Jewish faith are also occasional targets of humour.
The big-collared comic gives his own spin on TV clips from recent programmes, plus contributions from a set of regular characters
Twisted and original sketch show from the minds of Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, starring Simon Pegg, Kevin Eldon and Mark Heap.
LOOK AROUND YOU. Look around you. Just look around you. What do you see? A tree. A weather-vane. A discarded lollipop-wrapper. A traffic shop. All of these things, and any other things you may care to mention, have one thing in common. Can you work out what it is?
A zany sketch comedy featuring many wacky characters hosted for kids and by kids.
Classic sketch comedy show satirising the news and culture of the late 70s and early 80s which introduced Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Pamela Stephenson.
Spitting Image is an award winning British satirical puppet show, created by Peter Fluck, Roger Law and Martin Lambie-Nairn. The series was produced by Spitting Image Productions for Central Independent Television over 18 series which aired on the ITV from 1984 to 1996. The series was nominated and won numerous awards during its run including 10 BAFTA Awards, including one for editing in 1989, and even won two Emmy Awards in 1985 and 1986 in the Popular Arts Category. The series featured puppet caricatures of celebrities famous during the 1980s and 1990s, including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and fellow Tory politicians, American president Ronald Reagan, and the British Royal Family. The Series was the first to caricature the Queen mother.
The League of Gentlemen is a British sitcom broadcast on BBC Two over three series from 1999 to 2002. In the fictional Northern England town of Royston Vasey—based on Bacup, Lancashire—the lives are explored of dozens of bizarre citizens, much of whom are played by three of the show's four writers—Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith—who, along with Jeremy Dyson, formed the titular comedy troupe in 1995. The programme was followed by a film in 2005, and a three-part revival miniseries in December 2017 to celebrate the group's 20th anniversary.
Five strangers receive blackmail notes from an anonymous source, leading them on a dark and surreal journey as their lives unravel, featuring bizarre characters like a man-child, a one-handed clown, and a blind millionaire.
An American sketch comedy television program hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin.
A British comic fantasy containing humour and pop-culture references. Episodes often featured elaborate musical numbers in different genres, such as electro, heavy metal, funk, and rap. The show has been known for popularising a style called "crimping"; short acappella songs which are present throughout all three series.
French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring comic duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act.
Tim and Eric's dark comedy anthology series.
A comedy sketch show featuring David Mitchell and Robert Webb.
Mr Bean turns simple everyday tasks into chaotic situations and will leave you in stitches as he creates havoc wherever he goes.
A British comedy television series with turns of phrase and elaborate wordplay, written by and starring former Cambridge Footlights members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.
The Carol Burnett Show is an American variety/sketch comedy television show starring Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway. It originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 278 episodes and originated from CBS Television City's Studio 33. The series won 25 prime time Emmy Awards, was ranked No. 16 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time in 2002 and in 2007 was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Best TV Shows of All Time."
The Fast Show is a multi BAFTA award winning sketch comedy show written and produced by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson.
Shooting Stars is a British television comedy panel game broadcast on BBC Two as a pilot in 1993, then as 3 full series from 1995 to 1997, then on BBC Choice from January to December 2002 with 2 series before returning to BBC Two for another 3 series from 2008 until its cancellation in 2011. Created and hosted by double-act Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, it uses the panel show format but with the comedians' often slapstick, surreal and anarchic humour does not rely on rules in order to function, with the pair apparently ignoring existing rules or inventing new ones as and when the mood takes them.
A spoof of the British news - including ridiculous stories, patronising vox pops, offensively hard-hitting research and a sports presenter clearly struggling for metaphors. Adapted from Radio 4 series 'On The Hour'.
