cult television engl 6650/7650: special topics in popular culture cult television spring 2011 room:...

Cult TelevisionCult Television

ENGL 6650/7650: Special Topics in Popular Culture

Cult Television

Spring 2011Room: PH 308

Day/Time: Tuesday, 600-900 pm

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2/8/11 | Week 4 Cult TV Series of the Week: British Cult Comedy [Absolutely Fabulous, Blackadder, Black Books, Father Ted, The League of Gentlemen, Little Britain, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Red Dwarf, Shameless, Spaced]Required Reading: Amy-Chinn, ECTVR 208; Hunt, ECTVR, 134; Karpovich, ECTVR 7; Landy, ECTVR 166 Recommended Reading: TBASpecial Topics/Readings: The Cult of Cult TV?—Fiddy (225)

Comedy TheoryNotoriously incomplete and lacking in definitive

answers. May well be a “fourth tray”* phenomenon.

Plessner’s thesis in Laughing and Crying.

* “A Civil Servant used to keep four trays on his desk to put his papers in. The first was marked Incoming, the second Outgoing, the third Pending, and the fourth Too difficult.”--Owen Barfield

Helmuth Plessner, author of Laughing and

Crying

Comedy TheoryThree basic camps

•Superiority--laughter reinforces social power.

•Incongruity--humor the result of the “clash of incompatible discourses.”

•Relief--the comic as a vent for repression.

Key Questions:

•Do we laugh at or with?

•Is comedy innately subversive?

•Is comedy congenitally offensive/politically incorrect?

•What is the connection between the body and the comic?

Henri Bergson

(1859-1941)

“Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”

--Horace Walpole, 18th Century

Comedy on TV

Sitcoms

Dramedy

Sketch Comedy

Stand-Up

Animation/Adult Animation

Satire

Comedy in other genres: talk shows, fake news, drama, advertising, etc.

The SitcomA comedic television genre (originating in radio), ordinarily 30 minutes in length, in which a group of characters, related by family, a workplace, or as friends, exhibiting little or no development as individuals, encounters and seeks to resolve on a weekly basis a situation (or situations) in which they find themselves embroiled. Sitcoms on American television are often accompanied by laugh tracks.

Sitcom TraitsExportable and seemingly

universal in appeal;

Tolerant of commercial interruptions;

Dependent on gags, slapstick, and jokes;

Episodic but customarily without memory;

Often the site of controversy

The Sitcom

Workplace (think The Office)

Family (think The Simpsons)

Friend Families (think Seinfeld, Friends)

Unruly Woman (think Roseanne)

•Gay and Lesbian (think Will & Grace)

Studying TV Comedy

The sitcom is one of the most popular and yet least studied television genres. Like the late/great Rodney Dangerfield, it “can’t get no respect.”

The Laugh TrackThe result, in part, of the production practice of taping before a live

audience.

Use of older laughter on American shows.

“Make me funnier here”--in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall.

Laughter on American television has taken the place of the chorus in Greek tragedy. It is unrelenting; the news, the stock exchange reports, and the weather forecast are about the only things spared. But so obsessive is it that you go on hearing it behind the voice of Reagan or the Marines disaster in Beirut. Even behind the adverts. It is the monster from Alien prowling around in all the corridors of the spaceship. it is the sarcastic exhilaration of a puritan culture. In other countries the business of laughing is left to the viewers. here, their laughter is put on the screen, integrated into the show. It is the screen that is laughing and having a good time. You are simply left alone with your consternation. (49)

UK Television

BBC: The Mothership

BBC2, BBC3, BBC4: Boutiquish spin-offs

BBC Wales: A regional branch of the BBC which rebooted Doctor Who and Life on Mars (among others)

Channel 4: An independent known for its arts programing; a frequent producer of independent British film

ITV: Sir Lewis Grade’s more mainsteam independent channel—gave us The Prisoner

British vs. American Humor

Someone once wrote a definition of the difference between English and American humor. . . . He said that the English treat the commonplace as if it were remarkable and the Americans treat the remarkable as if it were commonplace.--James Thurber

Alexandria Palace

What makes comedy cult?

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Absolutely Fabulous (BBC, 1992-1996, 2001, 2004). Created by Jennifer Saunders (pictured).

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Blackadder (BBC, 1983-1989). Created by Richard Curtis (l) & Rowan Atkinson (r).

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Black Books (Channel 4, 2000-2004). Created by Dylan Moran (l) and Graham Linehan (r).

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Extras (BBC, 2005-2007). Created by Ricky Gervais (l) and Stephen Merchant (r).

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Fawlty Towers (BBC2, 1975-1979). Created by John Cleese (l) and Connie Booth (r).

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Father Ted (Channel 4, 1995-1998). Created by Graham Linehan (l) & Arthur Mathews (r)

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The League of Gentlemen (BBC Two, 1999-2002). Created by Mark Gatiss (l) & Jeremy Dyson (r) (pictured) Steve Pemberton, Reece Searsmith.

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Little Britain (BBC Three and One, 2003-2006). Created by David Walliams (l) and Matt Lucas (r).

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Monty Python’s Flying Circus (BBC1, 1969-1973; BBC2 (1974). Created by John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman.

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Monty Python’s Flying Circus

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The Office (BBC, 2001-2003). Created by Ricky Gervais (l) and Stephen Merchant (r).

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Red Dwarf (BBC Two, 1998-99). Created by Grant Naylor (Rob Grant [above] and Doug Naylor [below]).

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Shameless (Channel 4, 2004- ). Created by Paul Abbott (pictured)

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Spaced (Channel 4, 1999-2001). Created by Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes (pictured)