Porridge.
The single greatest sustained piece of comedy writing anywhere, ever, IMO.
Sometimes with only one or two settings, with a hugely dysfunctional cast of characters, Porridge was a once in a lifetime example of writers, producers, stars and supporting cast producing TV gold. Itis such a warm, funny and intelligent show.
The complete scripts is an ever present in our khazi and I can think of no greater TV kismet moment than being alone in the house flicking through the channels of a Saturday and getting to GOLD and seeing it's Porridge day.
And I have the full DVD set.
Even the usually ropey late 70s TV movie is excellent - even though David 'Diddy' Hamilton didn't turn up for the match.

Yes I'd go for Porridge as well. As much as I respect Galton and Simpson and Corbett and Brambell.

Its hard to choose just one episode but the 'Pineapple Chunks', the Godber\Fletcher nighttime bang up (not what you think laddie!) and the working party sent ditch digging are 'king brill

And yes, the film is one of those rare good sitcom movies.

was also remade in swedish as "Albert & Herbert".
Everybody watched it in the 70's ( well we only had two channels back then, so you had little choice ) and everybody but me loved it.
I just couldn't stand the way the actors milked the Gothenburg accent for all it was worth as a comedic effect.
And the two character's personalities and claustrophobic relationship made me slightly uncomfortable rather than amused.

Pineapple Chucks - Series 2 Ep 1 'Just Desserts'
Godber/ Fletcher - Series 1 Ep 3 'A Night In'
and the ditch digging - Series 1 Ep 4 'A Day Out'.
Just got the book down to check this out. That's tomorrow evening gone...
There is a lovely rhythm to the writing which allows you to read the scripts like a book.
Mind, Ronnie Barker, Sam Kelly, Brian Wilde, Fulton MacKay and Richard Beckinsale's characterisation helps too.
As does Biggins', who as Lukewarm is a very underestimated force in Porridge. As were Brian Glover (Heslop), Tony Osoba (McLaren), Ken Jones ('Orrible Ives) and the peerless Peter Vaughan as 'Genial' Harry Grout. He was also phenomenal in 'Our Friends in the North'.
You know what? I yield to no-one when it comes to Porridge - British comedy's finest moment. Three series, two specials and a movie. Job done.
'Going Straight' never took me though.

Is one of the keys to the success of the classic British sitcom that they were not afraid to have superficially unsympathetic main characters?
Basil Fawlty - self-important, rude, prejudiced. Captain Mainwaring - insecure, snobbish, pompous. Fletcher - an 'abitual criminal, manipulative and so on...
The key to their greatness is that you still end up being on their side, even when it's a complete lunatic like Fawlty.
Mainstream recent sitcoms have by and large, I think, tried to have more likeable characters, and they just end up as bland stodge.

I rather fancy "the TV-sitcom in the post-Cosby show era", from
http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/graduateschool/prospectiveresearchstudents/r...

and I'm a huge Good Life fan. Penelope Keith's Margot is one of the finest comic creations of the past 30 years.

... there was a wild lot of shite too.

But I found Steptoe profoundly depresssing - some horrible old man stopping his son from getting on and getting out.

And Some Mothers.. was excrutiating - a bloke with what appeared to be learning difficulties who could barely cope with the world.

Even Fawlty Towers seems tiresome now. It's like watching an angry dog being poked with a stick.

Porridge, Dad's Army, Likely Lads, Rising Damp still hold up and Nearest and Dearest, with the great Hylda Baker, is watchable.

But I think the best sitcoms are from the last 10 years or so - Alan Partridge, Father Ted, Royle Family, Early Doors, Phoenix Nights, Dinner Ladies

Concept, writing, and acting all perfect.

Has anyone else been watching the Simon Amstell comedy "Grandma's House"? I'm herby heartily recommending it.

..Porridge, like Only Fools.. is something that I loved as a kid but wouldn't be able to watch now. From that era, the things I still enjoy today are Fawlty Towers, Steptoe and Reginald Perrin. I think it probably IS something to do with a preference for the nastier characters over the loveable ones.

Similarly a lot of my recent faves draw the biggest laughs from characters who do have a nasty streak (Alan Partridge, most of the characters in Peep Show, Brent and Gareth from The Office and the mother's boyfriend in Grandma's House). The one exception would be Father Ted which is a work of true genius, drawing its laughs from bizzare situations and in many cases the plain daftness of its main characters without resorting to nastiness.

Incedentally - what do the massive think of Pete Versus The World. My take is that its probably not destined to go down as a classic simply because it draws far too heavily from other programmes (Peep Show, The Office, Little Britain and Alan Partridge). That said a couple of episodes have had me in absolute stitches and maybe in this case that means more than the cleverness of the concept. Grandma's House, conversly, is a brilliant concept with some great performances but doesn't have too many laugh out loud moments (hence the comparisons to the black comedy of Mike Leigh).

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads. No problem.

.... always have an element of drama in them.

That's why Steptoe was so good; it was all about an old man spoiling his son's life.

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads was about two young men realising all the responsibilities of adulthood.

Fawlty Towers was about a bloke forever on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Porridge was about coping with being banged up.

The Royle Family was about all the tensions in a family of losers.

The Thick Of It is about trying to maintain dignity in the madness of modern politics.

I am beginning to seriously doubt the value of my input to these threads.

I am a simple soul who believes that an hour with Del, Rodney & Albert is never wasted.

its just that overfamiliarity (ie 'oh we have a space in our schedules, lets bung on a repeat of that one with the chandelier') has dulled its appeal in the same way that Fawlty Towers has been overexposed.

Avoid it for a couple of years, come back and they are like meeting an old funny mate whose been away.

Saw this weeks 'Pete vs Life' and thought it was too juvenile and crass to be mentioned in the same breath as the things it draws from
Simon 'Meerkat' Greenall was the best thing about it as he is in most things he is in. Especially the dire 2nd series of 'I'm Alan Partridge' which had its moments but not enough of them

Think the last 3 "specials" were bordering on dire, but Del & Rodders as Batman & the boy wonder - arguably sitcoms finest moment I think.

Porridge, Good Life, Reginald Perrin, Fawlty Towers all excellent and quit while they were ahead.

OFAH great until the last few episodes/specials. John Sullivan kept saying he'd never write more and then he did. He should have stuck to his guns. ALthough I enjoyed it more when they replaced Grandad with Uncle Albert (and I know this was triggered by the actor's death - I'm not saying that that was a good thing). Come to think of it, did OFAH actually start in the 70s? Perhaps it shouldn't be in this discussion at all.

Some Mothers Do 'ave 'Em was funny at the time. But I was young.

And Sally Geeson made Bless This House watchable.

And, talking of that sort of thing, Man About the House was watchable because of Sally Thomsett and Paula Wilcox. Again, I was young!

Wot, no mention of Nellie Pledge, lying prostitute on the floor? Or her would be suitor "being a right bosanova"? Or Nellie (the great Hilda Baker), falling over her brother Eli's bike in the hallway, accusing him of "leaving his contraceptive in the lobby"? A one trick pony, I ken, but wot a trick. Have you been, Walter?

A wonderful, gentle Peter Tinniswood affair with some lovely wordplay.

"I 'eard that, pardon"

.. this clip was on BBC4 recently and had me in stitches..

I hear that the man who reads the weather on Anglia television was a possibility.

I'm 30 and agree that Porridge is peerless, as are WHTTLL? and Rising Damp, but I've been re-watching Early Doors lately and it is easily the best sitcom of the last 15 years for my money - and that includes Father Ted, which I also loved. The pathos in the football card scene (below) is staggeringly tremendous:

The 70s was no more a golden age of British sitcom than now or any other era. In the 60s and 70s, both BBC and ITV put on at least two sitcoms a night. Most of them were absolutely appalling. We remember the few goodies, sure, as above, but that's probably about 5% of the output of the era. Terry And June? The Cuckoo Waltz? Father Dear Father? Love Thy Neighbour? There's probably about the same amount of quality sitcom produced in the UK now as there was then.

What is interesting, I think, is the same standard ideas developed then keep coming through in new shows.

The classic is the 'Two stupid men, one of whom is not aware that he is stupid' scenario first introduced by Laurel and Hardy, and then through Abbot And costello, Morecambe And Wise, Father Ted and now The IT Crowd. Even 'The Office' was a slight twist on this, in that David and Gareth were 2 stupid men who weren't aware they were stupid.

The second, as already discussed, is the peculiarly British idea that being trapped in an unpleasant relationship or situation is rich grounds for laffs, something that was never seen in US sitcoms. -Fawlty Towers, The Likely Lads, Steptoe, Porridge, Father Ted, et al. Fairly obviously, I think, this comes out of the reality vis a vis the fantasy of the 60s - somewhere out there, swinging London was happening, but most of the populace were in a council flat watching a biscuit disintegrate into a cup of cold tea.

That said, I'd put 'Whatever Happened To the Likely Lads' down as the greatest ever Britcom. Terry has already attempted to make his break via the army, but ultimately it's not in him, and essentially he's happier with warm beer and whinging. bob, the proto-yuppy, attempts to better himself but in the end is almost willingly pulled back down into the mire.

Interestingly, a few years ago the writers presented an idea for a third series in which the New Labour society in which the character's positions were replaced - Terry's a successful enerpreneur, Bob's a victim of repossession. That would have been interesting.

Made by a British company, but surely Fr Ted is an ostensibly Irish creation in cast, spirit and humour.
'You will, you will, you will' etc...

than when Mrs Doyle guesses the priests names in the Fr Todd Unctious episode?

In ACT, Mrs Doyle, in a misguided attempt to guess a priest's name, extemporises the names of imaginary priests for almost an hour (fortunately a large chunk of which is cut out). Thanks to the appalling sadness of Colm O'Laoi, here they are.
Fr. Andy Riley, Fr. Desmond Coyle, Fr. George Byrne, Fr. David Nicholson, Fr. Declan Lynch, Fr. Ken Sweeney, Fr. Neil Hannon, Fr. Keith Cullen, Fr. Ciaran Donnelly, Fr. Mick McEvoy, Fr. Jack White, Fr. Henry Bigbigging, Fr. Hank Tree, Fr. Hiroshima Twinkie, Fr. Stick Bubblecart, Fr. Johnny Hellzapoppin' , Fr. Luke Duke, Fr. Billy Ferry, Fr. Chewy Louie, Fr. John Hoop, Fr. Hairy Cakelinum, Fr. Ebula Conundrum, Fr. Peewee Stairmaster, Fr. Tight Head Lips, Fr. Jemima Racktouey, Fr. Jerry Twig, Fr. Spodo Komodo, and of course Fr. Canabrana Lammer.

From http://bit.ly/bKAVPk

I see that and I raise you