Life's too short

[*Bob*]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> Cringe comedy started with The Office? How about

> Fawlty Towers or Alan Partridge?

Steptoe and Son?

[Annette Curtain]

Cringe has been around for ages.

Love thy neighbour

Rising damp

"Yes CJ, No CJ"

NETTE:-S

[bon3yard]

Hi-de-hi? Made me feckin cringe...

[Alan Medic]

Nette

CJ was in Reggie Perrin not Rising Damp!

[Moos]

Cringe comedy? The Wrong Box...

[Annette Curtain]

Alan Medic Wrote:

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> Nette

>

> CJ was in Reggie Perrin not Rising Damp!

Y-es

I know that.

But thanks anyway.

:-$

[maxxi]

Those you mentioned never made me want to hide behind a cushion or cause my cheeks to clench like a miser holding a groat - they involved elements of cringeing (as did Laurel and Hardy if we're going to be ruthless and let's not even start on Michael Crawford) but-

The Office et al are ONLY about how awful someone can be - same as that US comedy from the Seinfeld fellow - and have an air of reality that 2D caricatures like Rigsby didn't, the embarrassment in The Office is not only of one's Dad dancing at a wedding but also getting his cock out, sticking it in the vicar's ear and shouting profanities at him in the belief it is humourous... Rigsby is merely a panto dame/villain and we experience HIS embarrassment rather than feel it and see it coming.

[Huguenot]

Ok, hands up, I can be a bit stupid with television.

Nobody told me that The Office was comedy when it first came out, so I just thought it was car crash television. I genuinely couldn't watch it, I was mortified. It was only when someone told me it was comedy that I laughed, and even then couldn't make myself watch it.

The one thing that slightly irritates me about Ricky Gervais is that he thinks people have a downer on him because he's successful. I don't. I just don't think he's funny, and I think he's unpleasant about other people to disguise his own shortcomings.

So when other people laugh at Ricky I wonder what their problems is?

[Jah Lush]

Huguenot Wrote:

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"I just don't think he's funny, and I think he's unpleasant about other people to disguise his own shortcomings".

That's pretty much how I feel about Gervais. I remember when I first heard him on XFM back in the day and immediately thinking what an irritating, unfunny little prick he was. He reminds me of a pub bore sitting at the bar and smugly telling a racist joke and thinking it's funny and you should laugh along with him without the self-awareness to realise what dick he is making of himself.