https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a45079187/20-years-later-peep-show-and-little-britain/
>Sometimes pop culture throws up weird coincidences, and we’re about to hit one of them. On 16 September it’ll be 20 years to the day since the first episodes of both Little Britain and Peep Show aired. Two of the biggest British comedies of the decade, on the same Tuesday evening. It’s not exactly The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’ and Dr No coming out on the same day in 1962, but it’s quite interesting.
>Peep Show is the bigger deal here. It’s about two flatmates who are particularly Gen X kinds of horrors: Mark Corrigan, the uptight salaryman who’s old before his time; and Jez Osborne, who will always be about 15 years old. In that first Peep Show episode, ‘Warring Factions’, Mark tries to make a move on their neighbour Toni by telling her about the Red Army murdering its own soldiers at Stalingrad, while Jez puts the finishing touches to his new masterwork ‘Outrageous’ (“This is outrageous / This is contagious / AAAAARRGHHH”) before walking in on Mark and Toni laughing at it. It’s exactly as deliciously mortifying as it ever was. From there, Peep Show managed to just about avoid being binned after its third series thanks to some very healthy DVD sales, and became a proper Channel 4 institution.
>Little Britain had almost exactly the opposite trajectory. When Little Britain first arrived, you could have expected it to be something from the more lurid end of British alt comedy. Steve Bendelack, who directed that first series, had directed The League of Gentleman, while the League’s Mark Gatiss script edited the first series, and both David Walliams and Matt Lucas were Vic and Bob alumni. In that first episode there’s Vicky Pollard, Lou and Andy, Sebastian the Prime Minister’s secretary, Dafydd, all those guys you remember and probably loathe, but there are streaks of the genuinely unsettling in there too, especially a one-off about a 20-something guy who comes onto his mate’s grandma.
Journalists don't understand 20 year old shock humour and just assumes its pointlessly offensive for no reason. I'm absolutely shocked of course.
>People over the age of 50 still sometimes say, “Computer says no,” but all of the other catchphrases that filled Little Britain – and by the end of the third series, it really felt like there wasn’t much else there – have withered. Walliams and Lucas have apologised for blacking up and using prosthetics to play characters of different races, and even at the time it looked classist and retrograde in dozens of different ways. Walliams has been damaged personally by making off-colour remarks about Britain’s Got Talent contestants too. Peep Show, though, gradually worked out its niche then invited viewers into it, and introduced the world to Olivia Colman.
>On the face of it, Peep Show and Little Britain are absolute opposites. Peep Show is almost deliberately alien and aggressive; Little Britain wanted to be huge. Little Britain very quickly came to rely on the same gags; Peep Show perhaps went on a little too long but stuck its landing and is a part of the British sitcom canon. If Little Britain-mania now feels like a fever dream, Walliams and Lucas’ follow-up Come Fly With Me feels like the kind of waking fugue state you go into after a particularly tropical case of the shits.
>Little Britain very quickly came to rely on the same gags
It's an intrinsic part of the format. These journos have no idea what they're talking about.
Yep, repetition is a big part of popular comedy.
Not really. Just repeating the same punchline is lazy comedy. There's a distinction between that and having a recurring character with particular mannerisms.
>Come Fly With Me
I recall seeing the first episode when it came out and was shocked by both how bad it was and how crappy of a premise for a show it had. It’s as if they gave them carte blanche and deliberately made the least interesting show ever. I also haven’t thought about it since then until this moment.
did mitchell & webb ever apologise for blacking up
They will now you've brought it up.
You have a problem with him picturing his mom having sex with a black man? That's pretty racist, Anon.
Not as far as I know, but they cut the blackface scene from Netflix. It's possible Netflix would've had to get proper permission to do that.
>cries about racism
>describes diarrhea as tropical
no fucking self awareness
PROBLEMATIC
RACIST
TRANSPHOBIC
Don't even need to read the article
>Their views of mid-noughties Britain, a country which was still working out what to do with itself now it didn’t have the Millennium Dome to complain about anymore, aren’t that different though. There’s a feeling of post-Blair rot in both Peep Show and Little Britain, and after the death of David Kelly and the Hutton Inquiry that September of 2003 was a particularly low ebb.
>Mark’s trapped in his own home by some delinquent kids who keep calling him a paedo (“I know it must be difficult being a kid, not a lot of schemes. But, you know, I'm not the borough. I wish I was, but...”), and Jez’s ‘Outrageous’ comes with a music video where Mark/Jez in a George W Bush mask leads Jez/Mark in a Blair mask around on a dog lead. Meanwhile Little Britain’s most interesting bits are usually in the few seconds between sketches, where a scrap on a school playground turns out to be between two teachers, or two Nazis – one white, one black – laugh as they leave a village hall.
>That malaise and cynicism powers both shows, but where Peep Show’s POV style and internal monologuing turned it all inwards for characters to lacerate themselves with, Little Britain sprayed it outwards at as many different groups of freaks and oddballs it could.
>the death of David Kelly
still too cowardly to say he was murdered 20 years later
im 38 and nobody my age watched little britain even like once. it was for poor people's mums
>it was for poor people's mums
Oh fuck off homosexual, literally every bloke watched Little Britain when it was out. My father and uncles who were in their 40s at the time watched it and me and my mates who were teenagers watched it. Blow it out your arse, it was massive.
ok and would your family by any chance be working class?
Well yeah Richie Rich. Most people are fucking working class.
not really and the people who watch little Britain were more 'poor', than working class, i just thought if i said that it would be confusing because who knows whether poor people consider themselves poor. But you probably had like people in your actual circles like these characters, right?
>no one watched it
>apart from the majority of the population
shut up you absolute dunce
never knew the poms imported Summer Heights High. Did you like it?
It's on BbC3 so not that much. Probably it was a cheap acquisition.
im an american and i love summer heights high. better than both of these british shows
They used to air Summer Heights High on HBO, it was pretty popular but I he made fun on Pacific Islanders so it's banned now
Everything I’ve seen by Chris Lilly was great, I’ve mostly seen angry boys or whatever it was called which was pretty damn funny.
No one watches bbc3 except for the chronically depressed and you know it.
>it was massive
yeah, and it was also shit. Keeping Up Appearances was massive too, I bet you and your mates and your fucking dad loved that eh?
It was 'cutting edge' comedy and lauded by everyone despite being as funny as Mrs. Brown's Boys wet farts. The beginning of the end of British comedy.
Total Journo Death.
Mate, what? Everyone watched that shit. You Scottish?
Not that anon but funny you should ask that as I was about to reply and say it seemed like a show southern English people watched. Like that Catherine Tate sketch show.
They were both just shows for "non-discerning comedy viewers", as opposed to the intellectual comedy hipster who watches Darkplace and Brasseye probably.
>it's embarrassing when your nan's a bit racist, right? Who relate to that?
>eugh, aren't Chavs gross? I wish they would hang them all!
>euuuugghhh, disabled people!
As much as you might turn your nose up at this, it does have a huge audience.
Basically people who aren't super smart, and just like to laugh at people they don't like.
and just general low class retards as the other reply already explained in their own way
you obsess over liking high brow stuff because there’s zero evidence of your alleged intellect otherwise. it’s a very common coping mechanism. didn’t go to oxbridge but hey, you don’t like this dumb comedy, so that means you can larp as someone who did
You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes ya feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah. You're right. I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you, but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me. I'm not changin'. I like me. My kids like me. My friends like me. 'Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.
I also didn't watch it but everyone at my job was shouting the catchphrases.
Im 26 and when the reruns were airing on tv my entire class in middle school quoted little Britain
>Its sketches tried to be both traditional and subversive at the same time, tying together those panto-ready Seventies icons Walliams praised with the kind of no-sacred-cows attitude that South Park had made cool.
>That hasn’t aged particularly well, to put it mildly. But these two shows are tied together by more than that fluke of arriving on the same day. They’re a weirdly evocative picture of where Britain was at and giving it a lampoon. A simple lampoon.
It's not that meaty an article but its interesting they both premiered the same day. I fucking hate Little Britain tbh. Not because it's un-PC, just because it's hacky.
Say what you will but they nailed trans people.
>man on the beach, you know I'm a lady don't you?
>no, you're a bloke
Honestly this show was a bit weak at the time but it's aged astonishingly well.
This show is awful but this specific character has aged to perfection.
That it relied too hard on catchphrases is fair. Everything else is just woke bullshit.
Brits love peep show, don't listen to any nonsense this article spits out
That's what the article is saying...
This is a movie and tv board not a reading words board
> peep show
Awe you're sweet (mature, interesting social commentary. No laugh track. Audience can decide for themselves what to make of it).
> little Britain
Hello human resources. (Cringe comedy, satire of MSM talking points. Laugh track forces audiences to respond to what the makers think is funny).
Might as well compare black books to fucking Blackadder holy shit. Also speaking as a Brit we've made way too many shitty comedy shows since 2000.
You’re right, in the sense that Black Books is a laugh a minute and Blackadder was never be funny not even once
Filtered.
Little Britain was funny for one series, and then was annoying. Everyone agreed on that at the time.
Britain bought into cultural marxism and this is the logical end-point. subversive comedy from 20 years ago is now viewed as racist and outdated itself. Britain is a disgusting culturak ouroborous eating itself alive until it chokes to death on its own hubris and stupidity.
fuck britain and fuck british "people"
delectable booba
Fucking implying that little Britain was subversive. It's about as deep as a fucking puddle m8.
nathan barley couldn't be topped and it was downhill from there
Nathan Barley brings the "I didn't know Idiocracy was meant to be a documentary" meme to reality
Little Britain was never "subversive". It was peak mainstream for the time. It was watched by the same people who watch Ant & Dec and Strictly Come Dancing today.
20 years ago I would've been 23, and I didn't watch either of these shows. I saw the odd scene on TV, but never found them remotely amusing.
What is image sauce and why is google image search fucking useless any more
The Day Today with Chris Morris
Thank you. I think I have actually seem Webms of it before come to think of it.
TDT and Brass Eye are still great today.
It’s Funny
Little Britain was always a safer, worse version of the league of gentlemen.
League of Gentlemen was so much better. It's a shame it was forgotten. Even Inside No 9 is pretty unheard of by most people.
Monkey Dust shits on both of them.
Stop forcing this meme. Monkey Dust was weird and sadistic. Not funny.
Filtered.
Monkey Dust was the sort of show people who emailed each other BADGER BADGER BADGER Flash links would watch
Lapdog of the state triggered
I remember being 13 at the time and finding the first series of Little Britain funny. But then series 2 came out and it was literally the exact same shit with the same catchphrases. There's only so many times you can laugh at 'yeah I know' 'am I bovvered tho' and 'the only gay in the village'.
can you explain why you would laugh even one time at those?
I was 13
Peep Show is a good window into life for singles (and outgoing people) in the early 2000s.
Little Britain at the time was offensive humour, in that it wanted to get a reaction and push just as far as they could. Pushed harder than most BBC shows would, helped by its high ratings. The edgy stuff was mostly on C4.
Little Britain was good and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. Having said that Matt Lucas carried the show with his surreal and chaotic performances.
Peep Show >>>> Little Britain
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>You got 95%, well done. I particularly enjoyed your diagram of a wotsit.
is Cinemaphile Jeremy and reddit Mark?
Jeremy and mark are both different facets of Cinemaphile. Gerard and dobby were Reddit
>Gerard and dobby were Reddit
Weirdly accurate.
>Mark browses /misc/ as a secret guilty pleasure
>Jeremy finds Mark's laptop open but sees it's Cinemaphile and notices the dicky
>He thinks Mark is a peadophile
>Sophie believes she is ready to settle down with Mark so they meet for a reconciliation
>Jeremy brings up the dicky and Mark struggles to explain it
>Johnson is also there and when mark opens the laptop to explain Cinemaphile, it opens up on BBC spam porn.
>Everyone thinks Mark is a freak
>Super Hans is also in the scene and says "Mark you're based as fuck"
>Everyone leaves disgusted as superhans begins to talk about goonmaxxing while Mark sits defeated
>*I'M NOT SICK BUT I'M NOT WELL*
>some crack goes great with a goon sesh Mark
For me, it's Peep Show, the best British comedy to debut in 2003
Little Britain has always fucking sucked.
This is the worst thing BBC3 ever shat out
Otherwise, I miss playing Halo 3 on Xbox 360 on a friday night with all my friends from school with BBC3 droning on in the background
>'Comedy genius' - Daily Mirror
The best and only good thing he did was storm the stage of Theresa Mays disastrous conference speech and that wasn’t really because of him as an individual but it added and extra chaotic element to it.
This is the worst abortion of a comedy show Britain has ever produced.
>Two Pints of Larger
>Jeremy Kyle
>Shameless
Any other essential /doledossercore/?
Ideal was actually good.
>all the people who liked unfunny normie crap in the 2000s now tell you it's not okay and you have to like the pozzed shit they like now
Peep Show was always miles better. "Ageing" doesn't play into it. They're not even the same genre of comedy so it's weird to compare them.