Funny?
BBC Top Gear presenter James May has said he believes the Corporation’s flagship car show is verging on a sitcom and that he now plays a character in the BBC Two show.
The 47-year-old revealed his frustration at the direction the show had taken in an interview with the Radio Times, stating: ‘It’s really almost a sitcom now, so we are characters … When I started, Top Gear was a car show about cars, and I was interested in the technology but also the sociology and the artistry of them … the shapes and the colours. That was something I’ve always been into. But it’s a different programme now, it’s turned into something else.’
So, if Top Gear is becoming a sitcom, where would you rank it in the grand scheme of British comedy? Fairly low I reckon … the situation is weird (an aircraft hangar), the characters are unbelievable (I find it very hard to emotionally invest in Jeremy Clarkson) and the script is poor (it primarily relies on my willy is bigger than yours jokes, casual racism and ‘shock-your-dad’ tactics) … it might have done alright in the 70s I suppose?
But as we all know, humour hasn’t always been an essential ingredient in British comedy commissions … so I’m looking for five real sitcoms that I believe are worse than Top Gear (if it were marketed as a sitcom) … feel free to write in with your own suggestions:
PC gone mad or a riot of a comedy?
1. All About Me (2002-2004)
Rating: 3 out of Top Gear
It’s Jeremy Clarkson’s worst nightmare … the most politically correct sitcom ever made. Like many of the worst BBC shows, this woeful attempt at portraying modern life in Birmingham was recommissioned not once, but twice … yep it enjoyed 22 episodes in the end.
Jasper Carrot played an ordinary white Brummie man married to a woman of Asian origin (initially played by Meera Syal – but replaced by Nina Wadia after one season when Syal saw sense and got out.)
Jasper had white kids from a previous marriage, and the family were completed by Rupinder’s half-sister Sima and her two children … one of whom was wheelchair bound with cerebral palsy and narrated the show.
The writers were so concerned with ensuring the programme was ground breaking in political correctness terms, they forgot to write any jokes … oops.
Very clever title
2. Babes in the Wood (1998-1999)
Rating: 2 out of Top Gear
What do you get if you mix Denise Van Outen, Samantha Janus (now Womack) and Jacko out of Brush Strokes (Karl Howman)? The answer, a fifteen episode bloody nightmare in the late nineties on ITV.
It was one of those shows that was seemingly written around the title. You can imagine the pitch: ’It’s about three BABES living in St John’s WOOD, and we’ve got Denise Van Outen attached.’ ‘Make it now’ replied Mr ITV, and the rest was history.
As much as Howman brought some wooden cockney charm to the series, the concept of three attractive late twenties girls hanging around with him never really held up … oh, and the jokes were telegraphed, crass and, yes, crap in equal measure.
3. Baddiel’s Syndrome (2001)
1 out of Top Gear
Oh dear God, this was unfunny.
Sky One gave David Baddiel one series (13 episodes) to make the British answer to Seinfeld … he failed.
Written by Mr Baddiel and Peter Bradshaw the show followed the fortunes of a man imaginatively called David (played by David) as he tried to make sense of his life with recourse to therapy.
Baddiel proved almost instantly that he was not a leading man, and pretty quickly the show descended into funny foreigner jokes to try and prop up its ill conceived premise … particular attention should be paid to the posh sneering neighbour … what a wonderfully original and well executed character.
Beautifully made?
4. Duck Patrol (1998)
4 out of Top Gear
He was one of the nation’s favourite comedy actors at the top of his game when Richard Wilson crossed the floor to ITV to prove that Victor Meldrew couldn’t be exported to a riverside police station on the banks of the Thames.
Joined by a young Doctor Who (David Tennant), the series hilariously portrays the lives of eight officers who patrol the banks of the river.
But there’s nothing to do … so the characters have to make their own fun by acting like arses and coming up with mad cap schemes …
It’s sort of reminded me of Last of the Summer Wine with a slightly younger and less endearing cast.
Not many people were mad about the show
5. Mad About Alice (2004)
1 out of Top Gear
Wow, the only thing worse than this mournful attempt at comedy was the theme tune, which was sung by the shows stars Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston.
Following the story of a divorced couple who were forced to stay in contact for the sake of their nine-year-old son, the show was filed with noughties Zeitgeist, but sadly it wasn’t filled with jokes.
Both Theakston and Holden looked like they were reading the lines from an auto-cue (which they might have been for all I know) resulting in one of the most memorably wooden and unfunny sitcoms of the modern age.
There’s no doubt Carry On Top Gear would have beaten it hands down.
The thing about bad sitcoms is they have to be REALLY bad to be remembered.
There were also shocking ones in the 70s and 80s – in fact I’m surprised the oft referred to “Mind Your Language” and ” Trippers’/Slingers’ Day” aren’t mentioned.
And then there are the ones that went from good to bad, notably “Last of the Summer Wine”, usually because they ate themselves up.
G
Thanksm thanks for reminding me about All About Me. Absolutely shocking. Can’t remember the other 4.
No mention of My Family or that Ardal O’hanlon superhero one (my hero?). Amazing not because of the poor quality as such – more the fact they were recommissioned so often.