Little Britain

I loved the first episode. Then it became repetitive. Much like Britain itself.

But I'M the only Gay in the village!

Body Builders

The DVDs contained a run of mini skits featuring David Walliams as the cafe owner/mother pushing Matt Lucas as the bored daughter to introduce herself to customers who might be promising dates.

It always ended with the daughter getting fucked or finger-banged out back while she smokes and reads gossip magazines.

I’ve never been able to find them on youtube.

Yes. Favorites were Vicki Pollard, the passive-aggressive Weight Watchers woman, the social worker being duped by the client in the wheelchair and of course the only gay in the village.

I loved Ting Tong Mackadangdang.

Ewww what is that ???

It was fun when it was first on back in the day but it hasn't aged well.

Catchphrase comedy quickly wears out its welcome since it's just the same sketch repeated over and over again. Same thing with Catherine Tate.

The League of Gentlemen is the only show from that era that still seems fresh....they didn't rely on catchphrases and their characters and plots had more dark complexity.

Also: David Walliams is a complete prat now. So insufferable and annoying.

I think Little Britain will go the way of Monty Python - people will remember some really awesome clips from it, but they will forget that those jewels were floating in a pool of slime: if you watch a whole Monty Python episode now, especially one from the third or fourth season, you will wonder what all the fuss was about. Little Britain had fewer jewels, floating in a larger bucket of slime.

League of Gentlemen, however, lives on.

Hello, Dave.

Genius !!!!

The I’m a Lady sketch was exquisite trans ridicule.

[quote]The League of Gentlemen is the only show from that era that still seems fresh.

"The Thick of It" is still funny

Bitty and the Americans.

Despite the craziness of the bitty part, the Americans reactions are bang on.

And who can forget Ellie-Grace

R13, The best is when the bald guy is offered milk for his cereal the next morning. The look on his face before and after he eats it

[quote] The League of Gentlemen is the only show from that era that still seems fresh....they didn't rely on catchphrases and their characters and plots had more dark complexity.

League of Gentlemen relied heavily on catchphrases as well. All skits had them.

I laughed my head-off at Little Britain at the time, but the thought that it could never get made today stays with you. Little Britain is a bit like the Carry On films - some people want them banned, but you secretly love them.

'Little Britain' presented important British archetypes.

They were as important, lovable and hated as those presented by Charles Dickens.

I went to see them live when they did the live tour and it was fantastic. Of course the show was be destroyed by Twitter these days, everyone's so easily offended.

[quote] destroyed by Twitter

That is just a passing phase. just like McCarthyism and the Bowdlerisers were passing phases.

I wouldn't say I loved them, but like with all skit shows, there are characters I love and always enjoy watching. From Little Britain it was Bubbles and Desiree, Vicky Pollard and Fat Fighters that I always looked forward too.

Same with Catherine Tate, though I liked her show a bit better: Lauren Cooper, Paul and Sam, the Aga Saga Woman, I love them!

R19, I bet it was! I saw Catherine Tate live, and I always enjoyed her show, but the live show was fucking fantastic. She did a version of the woman who pretends she can speak foreign languages ("I can do that!") translating at the UN or similar. That was amazing!

Little Britain and The Catherine Tate Show ruined British comedy. One joke or catchphrase repeated ten billion times. Ricky Gervais created Extras to lampoon this crap. It catered to the lowest common denominator. Little Britain was a rip-off of the far superior The League of Gentlemen.

[quote] League of Gentlemen relied heavily on catchphrases as well.

Hardly. The characters were well-developed and the plots were gothic. Little Britain was childish, surface material. Pure crap.

[quote] I think Little Britain will go the way of Monty Python

No comparison. Monty Python was written and performed by actual talent. Little Britain was written by two hacks.

Sebastian going with the PM on a state visit to the White House was scandalous fun. How on earth did they get away with it?

“Tastes familiar...” 😂😂

I mostly liked Little Britain but you always got the joke and got tired of it long before the telling was half done. Conservative MP Norman Fry was amusing. Daffyd was startling, once. Bubbles and Desiree was grotesque but not funny. Vicky Pollard was kind of brilliant and took longest to get tiresome. Ting Tong Thai Bride was half funny once, but not very cleverly written.

The Little Britain USA version was terrible, it was Little Britain for Americans except that it was really for British audiences to laugh at how dumb humor had to be dumbed down further for the Americans.

The League of Gentlemen, though, was shockingly good.

[quote] The League of Gentlemen

It started and stopped so quickly that we didn't get chance to see much of it and get bored.

Mark Gattissupervised all of Little Britain scripts. They're very similar in tone and both were conceived at he same party. Theres even a video where they talk about this.

If you think a skit about a couple drinking piss at breakfast while having toads as pets is more "sophisticated" than some old racist lady puking, you're just an idiot.

They're very similar shows, full of crass humor, some smart situations and a lot of talent. Calling Matt and David hacks and talentless is stupid.

R22 seems bovvered

R21

This is so good. They did it for comic relief. Watch until the end

R28 never actually watched The League of Gentlemen. TLOG was a black gothic comedy, not the childish crap of LB. Fat Fighters was a rip-off of the Job Seekers sketches.

[quote] Fat Fighters was a rip-off

Maybe.

But Matt Lucas really fits into an amazing variety of characters.

He's obviously helped by fantastic make up (and his own private life may be screwy) but I reckon he's very clever.

American humor > British humor

[quote] TLOG was a black gothic comedy, not the childish crap of LB. Fat Fighters was a rip-off of the Job Seekers sketches.

Did you miss the part where Mark Gatiss (main writer of TLOG) wrote and supervised Little Britain? Since you never watched TLOG, just shut the fuck up.

Fat Fighters was not a rip off anything. They were conceived by the same group of people.

As for TLOG, the show you never saw, it has plenty of crass humor, people forcing others to drink piss, a trans taxi driver whose only punchline is making jokes about his penis, a minstrel in blackface kidnapping women for whatever reason, a pedophile priest getting his rocks off, a stupid skit of a shop owner whose only reason to exist is to say Shops for locals only, but wow, it is so superior to Little Britain isn't it?

it's the same crap, with different actors and mostly the same supervising writer.

R34 Sounds wonderful!

yah but, no but, yah but

Herr Lipp from The League of Gentlemen was darkly funny - things were never quite what they seemed on that show. Little Britain, by contrast, was a lot more blatant.

Emily was always my favourite character in Little Britain. And not just because she's a Lady.

I loved it more than peaches.

The first series was mostly very good and so funny.

Series 2 it's as though they listened to all the idiots about who were the best characters and it was retarded because of it.

Sketch shows need to move along...but they had fewer characters on the screen for longer.

Back to retarded, characters like weird Anne going eee eee eee - who found that funny, three year olds?

It was very British 70s in many ways...like Dick Emery which is still funny 50 years later.

Here America! Meet Mandy!

1000 little Vietnamese kids come on stage...

I love you more than double headed dildos.

I liked that older woman character who always says, "He's goooo-rgeous."

R4- Let me correct you there. It’s NOT finger banged its finger FUCKED.

R45, in one skit she’s getting punched in the cunt. I thought “finger banged” sounded more polite.

Little Britain fast became repetitious and although I’m no identity politics queen, some of its later stuff was just mean-spirited. Marjorie Dawes was a triumph of British passive-aggressive hypocrisy; some kindly old woman losing control of her bladder in various situations was just sad.

Even the ‘good’ characters in this respect, like Emily and Bubbles, lost steam because the joke was a one-trick deal, and the writing wasn’t strong enough to hold it up (if it could, given the format). The execrable Little Britain USA showed how poor the writing was as it tried to adapt its ‘voice’ for a different audience when it was already shit in the UK. It ended up slowing down even more and amplifying all the weaknesses in a show with few strengths.

I do love how ‘unacceptable’ it has become for some, especially characters like Ting-Tong and the behemoth love-rival challenger to Bubbles.

Low-grade crap overall with a couple of brilliant moments.

I did enjoy when Rosie O'Donnell paid a visit to Little Britain USA.

Computer says no.

R47, most of us binged the show and forgot the turds.

The show appealed to my inner thirteen year-old boy - especially since it was narrated by thee great Tom Baker.

Loved that r48

I love sophisticated, witty comedy but I do have a soft spot for LB and Catherine Tate....even if the recurring characters got a little much. I can’t take some of the other British low brow comedies, like that Mrs. Brown or whatever.

The Little Britain sketches I return most to are the Sebastian and Prime Minister ones, the “ladies”, and Fat Fighters. I’ve always hated the guy faking needing a wheel chair, Anne, and the old ladies who vomit and pee.

[quote]British low brow comedies, like that Mrs. Brown or whatever.

Yus, my dear?

R52 I agree I’ve always hated the guy faking needing a wheel chair, but the bulk of Matt Lewis' characters are screamingly funny and TRUE to certain people in Britain' Welfare State.

My favorite sketches were Daffyd, Sebastian, Emily, and Ting Tong. Or is that Tong Ting?

It's ting tong macadangdang and I've met so many of them. Manipulating users.

I love Little Britain and The League of Gentleman as well, they are both brilliant shows even if they arent always completely consistently funny. The not so good bits are well worth sitting through for the best parts, and there's more of the latter. League of Gentlemen does have a plot thread tying the whole show together, rather than a set of disconnected skits, just two different formats. Of course they are both crass, vulgar low brow humour, but I'm crass vulgar and low brow so I am the target audience.

I loved all the Little Britain characters, there is one particular piece where Emily Howard is at the seaside and diagnoses and expertly fixes a broken down van for the driver all the while disclaiming "I'm a Lady" that I just cant find anywhere.

And linked is League of Gentleman's Babs Cabs....

They won't let you see what I see.

League of Gentlemen had a catchphrase here and there ("It's a Local shop! For Local people!") but NOTHING to the extent of Little Britain and Catherine Tate.

And, don't get me wrong....I really enjoy both LB and especially Catherine Tate, but pretty much EVERY sketch and character had a catchphrase...or two. And, they still stick in your head (I use "Computer says no" at least once every couple of weeks). But, to be honest, all the sketches just blur into one big catchphrase after awhile and you don't really remember anything else. It's just endless repeats of the same bit.

I blame Saturday Night Live...they were bad influencers when it came to the catchphrase. Python didn't do it. French & Saunders didn't do it. Kids in the Hall didn't.

Comedians have been using catchphrases for at least a century.

[quote] Did you miss the part where Mark Gatiss (main writer of TLOG) wrote and supervised Little Britain? Since you never watched TLOG, just shut the fuck up.

Fat Fighters was not a rip off anything. They were conceived by the same group of people.

You’re an idiot. FF is a blatant rip-off. Mark Gatiss didn’t write this shitshow. Shit down, shit got brains.

[quote]Did you miss the part where Mark Gatiss (main writer of TLOG) wrote and supervised Little Britain? Since you never watched TLOG, just shut the fuck up. Fat Fighters was not a rip off anything. They were conceived by the same group of people.

You’re an idiot. FF is a blatant rip-off. Mark Gatiss didn’t write this shitshow. Shit down, shit for brains.

R60, not like those two shows.

Thank god Little Britain is now banned.

WANT THAT ONE...

I grew up with it and found it hilarious at its peak and it’s startling how mainstream. There’s no way a fraction of it could ever be made now

[quote] There’s no way a fraction of it could ever be made now

We're going backwards. We're behaving like our grandparents.

R66 or more further back - we're behaving like the Puritans

There was another skit comedy show called Burnistoun, but it's from Scotland and the dialogue is so difficult to understand, and the subtitles are all wrong.

The same pair also did a show about working at Heathrow airport which was pretty funny.

I loved Little Britain. Only skit that was obnoxious was the breast-feeding one where an adult man nurses and says "Bitty."

Another Burnistoun clip.

[quote] The same pair also did a show about working at Heathrow airport which was pretty funny.

It featured Lindsay Duncan as the narrator. Loved it. The sleazy scam artist using a children's cause to visit places he wants to go and even trying to get a Knighthood was hilarious.

R70 cakes with willies haha!! I must say I find both the bakers to be pretty hot.

Best thread here at da ‘Lounge in ages.

Bubbles Devere is the best!

Bubbles - "I'm winking".

I love it too. Love Bubbles, Vicki Pollard, Carol Bearse, Ann the Psycho, Davith all the crazy cast of characters.

R74, I am not un-convinced that Bubbles wasn't the inspiration for Tom Ford's Big Beautiful Beauties dancing in the Nocturnal Creatures intro.

I like Dame Sally Markham.

"Have you heard of the bible?" said Lord Harper? "No," replied Geraldine, "I’ve never even heard of it." "Oh, it's really good," Said Lord Harper. "Let me read it to you."

I love when Matt does Dame Shirley Bassey. “She hasn’t got the RANGE!”

^ Me too!

What in the world accent is Bubbles affecting at OP's video. At times, it sounds like a southern (U.S.) accent.

Happy couple:

R81 Bubbles talks in a nasal upper-class British accent, mispronouncing many words including marriage (marri-Age), dangerous (dangereuse) and divorce ("Diworce").

She's like Auntie Mame ( Life's a banquet and some people are starving!)

Emily Howard got it right. She’s exactly what trans people are about, asking us to play a role in their little psychodramas, starring them.

OP, whenever two bitches fight here on Datalounge, I'm going to imagine them as Bubbles vs. Desiree.

"I wouldn't have that Munch Bunch yoghurt if I were you, darling."

"Why's that, baby?"

"You already look like a hippo, darling."

"Oh. Do I, baby?"

"Yeah, 'baby'. Hippo like you belong in the zoo."

"Maybe baby's right. Maybe I shouldn't have this Munch Bunch rrrrrrraspberry yoghurt after all."

"You little slut!"

"You fat bitch!"