The real difference between British and American sitcoms.

[Nickolai77]

I think a lot of it is to do with the way the BBC is run. It isn't a profit driven organisation and has a guaranteed income from TV license fees. This means the BBC has more room to experiment, as it can afford to take more risks, leading to more original comedy's that a profit driven corporation would deem too risky. It also means, as some other posters have suggested, that BBC comedy's don't feel so commercialised as American ones.

There also appear to be stylistic differences between American and British scriptwriters, certainly British sitcoms are generally more internal and character-driven and American ones more external and situation-driven. I'm not entirely sure why though.

 

[maxben]

British humour tends to have meaner, snarkier characters delivering. American humour tends to use a lot more lovable goofball characters. Compare My Family to Married with Children or Coupling with Friends or Veep with The Thick of It.

But I do agree, there are less external events in British Comedy. You don't see a character from My Family going on a gameshow for example.

 

[Saetha]

Err, no offense, but don't you think your view might be a bit skewed by the fact that only the best American sitcoms and shows would really spread outside of America? It's like how some anime fans think anime as a medium's inherently superior to anything the West makes. They only think that because the cream rises to the cup. All the good anime gets dubbed or subbed and brought over to America, all the awful anime dies a slow, obscure death in Japan. Brits get the good sitcoms like Arrested Development, Americans have to put up with crap like Two Broke Girls until it withers in obscurity and gets cancelled.

It's a filter, really. All the people who complain about how American sitcoms suck and British sitcoms rule? They'd probably think the opposite if they actually lived in Britain and had to put up with all the sitcoms that don't quite make the cut.

Isn't the main difference that the British sitcoms tend to have much shorter seasons (or series) and end before overstaying their welcome?

This too. It's also the reason (Well, a reason) why I avoid television like the plague. I can't stand a story that doesn't know when to end, and American televisions shows tend to run themselves into the ground before finishing with a lackluster "finale."

And this is to say nothing of the other stuff on television, all the reality shows and police procedurals and dear God I really hate American television.

 

[game-lover]

It's a cliché but I think it's true that British humour is more willing to be self-deprecating than American humour. I think it's one of the main reasons why The Apprentice has been so successful. We can laugh at ourselves but we also like seeing others fail too, and our humour is generally pretty dry too.


I find American humour too wet. Too chummy almost.

You know, I might be inclined to think you have a point.

Anyone remember "The Weakest Link" game show? It was awesome. And a lot of the humor was aimed at some insults of the contestants. Know what happened to it when it came to USA TVs?

First, the host lady left and was replaced by this American dude who was obviously in the friendly gameshow host thing. And then it got cancelled. Because it sucked and no one wanted to watch it anymore after the original host was gone.

My mom thought our country just wasn't ready for a woman being mean. But maybe it has a lot to do with this.

 

[Rellik San]

Err, no offense, but don't you think your view might be a bit skewed by the fact that only the best American sitcoms and shows would really spread outside of America? It's like how some anime fans think anime as a medium's inherently superior to anything the West makes. They only think that because the cream rises to the cup. All the good anime gets dubbed or subbed and brought over to America, all the awful anime dies a slow, obscure death in Japan. Brits get the good sitcoms like Arrested Development, Americans have to put up with crap like Two Broke Girls until it withers in obscurity and gets cancelled.

It's a filter, really. All the people who complain about how American sitcoms suck and British sitcoms rule? They'd probably think the opposite if they actually lived in Britain and had to put up with all the sitcoms that don't quite make the cut.

I wouldn't worry, we get shows like the afforementioned Two Broke Girls, Awkward, The Hard Times of RJ Berger et'al too, believe me, we get the gammut of the best and the worst. But as you say the cream also rises, shows like Reaper which has has received heavy syndication in the UK.

But I'm with you on that, much of it is a filter.

As an aside, most of the top UK Sitcoms in the past decade have come fro Channel 4, which is an advertiser supported channel and as such profits do drive their programming. You'll find that BBC International is also run as a for profit business often obtaining the international distribution rights to these shows, unlike the BBC UK, hence why you'll find many of these sitcoms on syndication via BBC International.

British humour tends to have meaner, snarkier characters delivering. American humour tends to use a lot more lovable goofball characters. Compare My Family to Married with Children or Coupling with Friends or Veep with The Thick of It.

Veep and The Thick of It is an interesting comparison point actually; as Veep is created by the excellent Armando Iannucci. Oddly enough the ABC network attempted to do an American version of The Thick of It with the same title, but heavily sanitised and lacking the improv, it suck Iannucci distanced himself from the project and had no control, unlike with Veep where he is a writer.

 

[Vault101]

Err, no offense, but don't you think your view might be a bit skewed by the fact that only the best American sitcoms and shows would really spread outside of America? .

if thats true then why the fuck was Australia subjected to years of Two and a Half men? huh? huuuuuh? (we got two broke girls too)

 

[Rellik San]

Err, no offense, but don't you think your view might be a bit skewed by the fact that only the best American sitcoms and shows would really spread outside of America? .

if thats true then why the fuck was Australia subjected to years of Two and a Half men? huh? huuuuuh? (we got two broke girls too)

To be fair... the man (I assume?) has a right to be angry, in any other time, that would have been grounds for going to war with a nation.

 

[Vault101]

To be fair... the man (I assume?) has a right to be angry, in any other time, that would have been grounds for going to war with a nation.

I think a lot of my hate to Two and a half men stems from the fact I myself am not a man ;P, sure I get the fact its aware of what a douche Charlie is suposed to be but....ehhh also mainstream traditional sitcom American comedy tends to be a little more...mean spirited, I think thats what I hate most about Two and a half men...its just mean, I do however like Bertha and Rose, but thats it

also this is pretty unrelated I really fucking hate the sterotpye "oh we should feel sorry for this guy because he has to break it off with his GF who isn't a 10/10 unlike the girl he's seeing/has a chance with" I mean fucking really?

 

[Stasisesque]

Err, no offense, but don't you think your view might be a bit skewed by the fact that only the best American sitcoms and shows would really spread outside of America? It's like how some anime fans think anime as a medium's inherently superior to anything the West makes. They only think that because the cream rises to the cup. All the good anime gets dubbed or subbed and brought over to America, all the awful anime dies a slow, obscure death in Japan. Brits get the good sitcoms like Arrested Development, Americans have to put up with crap like Two Broke Girls until it withers in obscurity and gets cancelled.

It's a filter, really. All the people who complain about how American sitcoms suck and British sitcoms rule? They'd probably think the opposite if they actually lived in Britain and had to put up with all the sitcoms that don't quite make the cut.

I've never seen Arrested Development on TV here, but we had Two and a Half Men for fucking years, Two Broke Girls is on E4, we even have Brooklyn Nine Nine, though I don't know whether or not that's considered good in America. What we don't get over here are a lot of the really good old sitcoms from America. We used to have Diff'rent Strokes but it hasn't been shown in years, I've never seen The Facts of Life or Family Matters, for instance. Soap did get shown a lot back in the early 2000s and I think Friends still gets the occasional showing on Comedy Central.

On the flip side, there really aren't that many British sitcoms which don't "make the cut" simply because they tend not to get made in the first place. There's a lot that I don't find funny, Rev for instance, or The Office (I actually prefer the US version, and I don't even like that very much).

Edit:

Honestly, Faulty Towers is the most American sitcom I've seen come out of Britian; mostly because it was inspired by American sitcoms, and a particularly unproffesional hotel manager working there. To the point where it would get two American adaptations that had a shorter life than what source material they had. They both sucked. Really bad.

Where did you get the idea it was based on American sitcoms? Everything I've ever read state Cleese was inspired by a stay at a hotel in Torquay while with the Pythons.

There were four American "remakes".

 

[Ikasury]

snark... whole lots of butt-loads of snark... that's why i love British comedies... and PBS for showing them while i was growing up...

i would watch things like Fraiser, Full house, Roseanne, Married with Children, etc. etc. ad nasum... and they all seemed the exact same: typical -insert lifestyle here- with some wacky hijinks... cue~ ._. they were funny a few times but the humor always seemed more dumb, and while i do find bits of Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother funny they all seem to devolve into the same hash-browns that every other sitcom has done before... are American sitcoms extremely inclusive, pull the audience in, and have them just laugh at nothing-attached-hijinks? yea... they do... and that's why they're boring... you can put whatever you want on hash-browns, they're still hash-browns... better then tofu, but still hash-browns...

while the british comedies i watched as a kid were hilarious then, and still are now... like Are You Being Served? 'Allo 'Allo, Waiting for God, Keeping up Appearence, etc. maybe it was just the 80s-early 90s brit-coms that i love, but i would rather that kind of humor... snark, snark, and more snark... everyone undermining everying... some social-political satire with everyday random niche knowledge... the joke was funny in itself, then there's about three other ways to interpret the joke and each one is funny along with one that stings, another that cuts, and one that's sad... its multilayered and makes you think... you can be a sociopathic asshole and just laugh at the cruelty or be sincere and have the old woman with her walking stick beat you upside the head for being a pansy (I absolutely LOVE Diana from Waiting for God ) though i should probably check out some others, and they usually are rather short... think the last brit-com i watched was 'Mongrals' and loved it... and hated that it was only 2 seasons ._. *shakes fist at the BBC* muragh!!

suppose it is a perspective thing... OP for all the reasons you like American sitcoms over British ones are all the reasons i dislike them, and all the reasons British sitcoms are 'morose' compared to American ones are why i like them... a subtle dark humor without being bluntly stated as dark humor... muhahahaha *goes and watches Waiting for God while cackling along with Diana*

 

[Saetha]

Snip

I've never seen Arrested Development on TV here, but we had Two and a Half Men for fucking years, Two Broke Girls is on E4, we even have Brooklyn Nine Nine, though I don't know whether or not that's considered good in America. What we don't get over here are a lot of the really good old sitcoms from America. We used to have Diff'rent Strokes but it hasn't been shown in years, I've never seen The Facts of Life or Family Matters, for instance. Soap did get shown a lot back in the early 2000s and I think Friends still gets the occasional showing on Comedy Central.

On the flip side, there really aren't that many British sitcoms which don't "make the cut" simply because they tend not to get made in the first place. There's a lot that I don't find funny, Rev for instance, or The Office (I actually prefer the US version, and I don't even like that very much).

Arrested Development's a Netflix show, so I don't think it actually plays on TV but you get it through Netflix. I may be a bit mixed up on that point, though... And I only see Family Matters on Nick at Nite anymore. I've never even seen the other two. So that's probably why they don't play very much - they aren't really thing here anymore either.

 

[Stasisesque]

Snip

I've never seen Arrested Development on TV here, but we had Two and a Half Men for fucking years, Two Broke Girls is on E4, we even have Brooklyn Nine Nine, though I don't know whether or not that's considered good in America. What we don't get over here are a lot of the really good old sitcoms from America. We used to have Diff'rent Strokes but it hasn't been shown in years, I've never seen The Facts of Life or Family Matters, for instance. Soap did get shown a lot back in the early 2000s and I think Friends still gets the occasional showing on Comedy Central.

On the flip side, there really aren't that many British sitcoms which don't "make the cut" simply because they tend not to get made in the first place. There's a lot that I don't find funny, Rev for instance, or The Office (I actually prefer the US version, and I don't even like that very much).

Arrested Development's a Netflix show, so I don't think it actually plays on TV but you get it through Netflix. I may be a bit mixed up on that point, though... And I only see Family Matters on Nick at Nite anymore. I've never even seen the other two. So that's probably why they don't play very much - they aren't really thing here anymore either.

Arrested Development is a Netflix show now, but it started out on Fox. I think it might be, or has been on Netflix UK, but I'm really not sure how popular Netflix itself is here.

 

[Thyunda]

Snip

I've never seen Arrested Development on TV here, but we had Two and a Half Men for fucking years, Two Broke Girls is on E4, we even have Brooklyn Nine Nine, though I don't know whether or not that's considered good in America. What we don't get over here are a lot of the really good old sitcoms from America. We used to have Diff'rent Strokes but it hasn't been shown in years, I've never seen The Facts of Life or Family Matters, for instance. Soap did get shown a lot back in the early 2000s and I think Friends still gets the occasional showing on Comedy Central.

On the flip side, there really aren't that many British sitcoms which don't "make the cut" simply because they tend not to get made in the first place. There's a lot that I don't find funny, Rev for instance, or The Office (I actually prefer the US version, and I don't even like that very much).

Arrested Development's a Netflix show, so I don't think it actually plays on TV but you get it through Netflix. I may be a bit mixed up on that point, though... And I only see Family Matters on Nick at Nite anymore. I've never even seen the other two. So that's probably why they don't play very much - they aren't really thing here anymore either.

Arrested Development is a Netflix show now, but it started out on Fox. I think it might be, or has been on Netflix UK, but I'm really not sure how popular Netflix itself is here.

There's a new series of Arrested Development that is a Netflix original, whereas the previous series were on TV before getting cancelled.


In relation to the OP, I've always been more into British sitcoms and TV in general, purely because I've always felt British sitcoms didn't require a 'good' character to root for. Most American sitcoms seem to revolve around an asshole character getting his comeuppance, or an awkward character getting into endearingly stupid situations. Blackadder the Third, arguably his most calculating and abusive incarnation, was essentially rewarded by the end of the series for his behaviour, whereas an American show is far less likely to permit a morally dark-grey character to succeed. In fact, now that I think about it, every American sitcom I've seen generally involves decent characters with one or two 'quirky' flaws, and those flaws tend to be what create the contrived shenanigans the show rides on.


And this is without including my hatred of Big Bang Theory. Everything I have seen of that show just infuriates me further. It's almost as though every joke relies on two sides of one coin. Either your audience can relate to the joke, or they can't, and both are equally 'amusing'. Example reactions -
"Oh I also do that quirky and nerdy thing, haha this show understands my culture."

Or

"Hah, that's a nerdy thing to talk about. I think I heard about it one time, but look at these nerds. This is funny because I'm too cool to get it."

Though that probably says more about the people that enjoy that idiotic show.

 

[peruvianskys]

This will maybe get jumped on or criticized but my experience watching British television comedies is that there is an *intense* sense of self-satisfaction or like, self-awareness that I cannot stand. I find laugh tracks in sitcoms generally obnoxious, but it feels like a lot of British television has what amounts to a laugh track built into the direction and acting; half of the time I expect the actor to turn to the camera after a line and say, "Wow, wasn't that hilarious what we just did!"

American sitcoms are often dumber, and almost always less clever, but they lack the incredibly grating self-congratulatory tone that a lot of British television has, at least to me. A sitcom like How I Met Your Mother, which I don't really like, at least seems to just lay its jokes out on the table and trust that you'll laugh because you find them funny. A lot of British television shows I've tried to get into, I end up feeling far less like I want to laugh and far more like the tone and direction are pushing me to acknowledge that something is funny. I'd rather have an average painting I just get to look at than a great painting that comes with a guy who whispers in my ear every two minutes, "Wow, this is a really great painting I just made."

 

[Thyunda]

This will maybe get jumped on or criticized but my experience watching British television comedies is that there is an *intense* sense of self-satisfaction or like, self-awareness that I cannot stand. I find laugh tracks in sitcoms generally obnoxious, but it feels like a lot of British television has what amounts to a laugh track built into the direction and acting; half of the time I expect the actor to turn to the camera after a line and say, "Wow, wasn't that hilarious what we just did!"

American sitcoms are often dumber, and almost always less clever, but they lack the incredibly grating self-congratulatory tone that a lot of British television has, at least to me. A sitcom like How I Met Your Mother, which I don't really like, at least seems to just lay its jokes out on the table and trust that you'll laugh because you find them funny. A lot of British television shows I've tried to get into, I end up feeling far less like I want to laugh and far more like the tone and direction are pushing me to acknowledge that something is funny. I'd rather have an average painting I just get to look at than a great painting that comes with a guy who whispers in my ear every two minutes, "Wow, this is a really great painting I just made."

If you're referring to the pauses, it's so you don't laugh over the next joke. A silent laugh track, if you will.

 

[putowtin]

American sitcoms, "Oh look it's another Chuck Lorre sitcom, same plots, different living rooms"
British sitcoms (from before 2000) Comedic talent at its best, new fresh ideas
British sitcoms (from 2000 onward) oh look we're trying to be like America

Another big difference I?ve noticed is most American sitcoms are written by a team of writers whose experience is writing sitcoms. A lot of British sitcoms are written by comedians that started out as stand ups/ radio comedians, giving them more experience to work from.
However there are far too few genuinely funny sitcoms that don't very quickly wear out their welcome any more.

 

[AnarchistFish]

It's a cliché but I think it's true that British humour is more willing to be self-deprecating than American humour. I think it's one of the main reasons why The Apprentice has been so successful. We can laugh at ourselves but we also like seeing others fail too, and our humour is generally pretty dry too.


I find American humour too wet. Too chummy almost.

You know, I might be inclined to think you have a point.

Anyone remember "The Weakest Link" game show? It was awesome. And a lot of the humor was aimed at some insults of the contestants. Know what happened to it when it came to USA TVs?

First, the host lady left and was replaced by this American dude who was obviously in the friendly gameshow host thing. And then it got cancelled. Because it sucked and no one wanted to watch it anymore after the original host was gone.

My mom thought our country just wasn't ready for a woman being mean. But maybe it has a lot to do with this.

Yeah, and think about programmes like The Inbetweeners which just didn't fit into the American model.

 

[shootthebandit]

Yeah, and think about programmes like The Inbetweeners which just didn't fit into the American model.

Thats because inbetweeners was a parody of american high school comedies and dramas. Inbetweeners was great because not only was it relatable to people in the UK (american highschool sitcoms just werent relatable to us) but it painted a pretty realistic picture of what school in the UK is like.

The guys were likeable and each of them were very relatable.

As others have said self-depreciation is popular in the UK (hence our banter culture). US comedies are a bit too friendly

I just cant put my finger on why the US inbetweeners was dreadful but the UK one is one of best sitcoms ever made

 

[Eddie the head]

I not exactly an connoisseur of sitcoms, but the only two I have ever really liked that much where american.

 

[Something Amyss]

But here's the truth, there are just as many that rely on slap stick as much as they do perceptive humour:

To an extent, yes, though I think there are elements within the slapstick that are different even. Basil Fawlty going nuts or getting abused still looks subdued compared to a lot of American sitcoms. I think that's a pretty big difference in terms of presentation of both the slapstick and the observational humour.

Growing up on a lot of British reruns on PBS, American comedies seemed too much to me most of the time.

Isn't the main difference that the British sitcoms tend to have much shorter seasons (or series) and end before overstaying their welcome?

It is hard to outstay your welcome when you last ten years and only product fifteen episodes.

Isn't the main difference that the British sitcoms tend to have much shorter seasons (or series) and end before overstaying their welcome?

Not quite. Red Dwarf, for example, had about 6 episodes per season, but there were at least 8 seasons. So they still did a lot of episodes overall.

But that's compared to shows that run 7 seasons or more with 13/20+ episodes. 7 years of The Big Bang Theory has led to 159 episodes compared to 61 for Red Dwarf. Even with some bad or lackluster RD material, it comes off as fresher (at least, to me) because it's got just over a third the content.

Longer seasons can often lead to filler material, too. I love Frasier, but I remember a few episodes where they seemed completely phoned in. Didn't kill the series for me, but it did leave me wondering why they were made.

if thats true then why the fuck was Australia subjected to years of Two and a Half men? huh? huuuuuh? (we got two broke girls too)

because it's considered the "best" of American sitcoms. Or, alternatively, we were having a little fun with the rest of the world.

I think a lot of my hate to Two and a half men stems from the fact I myself am not a man ;P

I'm not sure that's the case.

Then again, when I looked up demographics for TV shows, and I had trouble finding any specific information for women as a discrete group. The groups were basically men 18-34, men 35-39, men overall, kids, and people overall.