Good for its age?

Chris Hallam wonders why some comedies date better than others

Why does some comedy date so much worse than others?

Why, for example, is the groundbreaking Fifties radio series The Goon Show now almost entirely incomprehensible to anyone under the age of 60 while the Ealing comedy Kind Hearts And Coronets – which is older - still seems fresh as a daisy?

I’m not talking about fashion here. Kind Hearts is obviously in black and white and is recognisible as a post-war film even though it is set in Edwardian times. The long hair and flared trousers of Fawlty Towers likewise place it firmly in the Seventies.

Yet the humour has endured in both these cases whereas The Goon Show’s hasn’t. This is not to deny it wasn’t brilliant and hugely influential in its time or to deny the talent of the performers involved: particularly Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. But funny? You really would have had to be there at the time.

One would expect Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which is later but of a similar lineage, to have aged similarly badly. But speaking as a thirtysomething born after Python’s TV run ended, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Much of the Python series, Spanish Inquisition, Silly Walks, Funniest Joke in the World is hilarious, much of it unfunny. But I’m prepared to guess this is more because of the patchy experimental nature of show rather than because it has dated. I am guessing what was funny or unfunny then remains the same now. And the film Life of Brian still looks great, perhaps even improving over time.

Nobody designs a TV show with a view to how it would look in 40 or 50 years time, of course. There is no way of knowing which comics will endure and which will end up looking like Paul Whitehouse’s Fast Show character Arthur “Where’s me washboard?” Atkinson memorably shouting inexplicable catchphrases (‘I've seen you wrapping presents when its no one's birthday!’) to an appreciative audience.

Topical comedy is traditionally seen as having a short shelf life. This is perhaps why That Was The Week That Was which was so groundbreaking circa 1963 appears almost completely unfunny now. But actually I don’t think TW3’s topicality is the reason for this. The satire of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore from the same period still remains funny as do episodes of Not The Nine O’Clock News from twenty years later.

Old editions of Have I Got News For You as viewed on Dave still amuse provided the viewer knows what stories are being talking about. Even Drop The Dead Donkey, the sitcom supposedly founded around its topical nature 20 years ago, (episodes famously recorded the day before transmission to allow last minute topical jokes to be included) still looks pretty good today. The reason? It was actually a good sitcom anyway; it didn’t rely on its topical jokes.

TW3 and to a lesser extent its 80s equivalent Spitting Image got by largely on the novelty of their premise. Had TW3 been genuinely funny rather than just shocking, it would perhaps still endure today. Although, this is perhaps unfair to Spitting Image, which remains very funny on occasion.

Social changes have obviously proven fatal to many comedies. Racism is of course no longer acceptable as a source of humour on TV. This is fine with shows like Mind Your Language or Love Thy Neighbour which most people would be happy to consign to the dustbin of history anyway. It’s more problematic with the likes of Rising Damp, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Till Death Do Us Part and even, one could argue, Manuel’s character in Fawlty Towers. All these shows undeniably have their merits but contain levels of racism uncomfortable for modern audiences.

Incredibly, despite being sexist to an insanely politically incorrect degree, the Carry On films by and large avoid racism and so still remain acceptable for broadcast where many other films and shows have been judged otherwise. Sitcoms The Good Life and Dad’s Army, both from the Seventies also seem almost miraculously to have escaped including anything which might make them unacceptable today.

Other shows are only affected occasionally by such things. Despite producing a memorable satire attacking apartheid in South Africa, even The Goodies featured occasional racial caricaturing. Then there’s the episode of Open All Hours where Granville dresses up as an Asian woman. Or the episode of Only Fools and Horses where Rodney is burnt crimson after falling asleep on a sun bed. In the wake of skin cancer warnings this seems funnier then than it does now.

The same could be said of the episode of Yes Minister where a drink-drive incident involving Jim Hacker is played for laughs. This was in 1984 and would surely have not been included even a year or two later.

It’s not just changes in society though. Some things just don’t seem as funny after the passage of years as they did at the time. Perhaps it’s a personal thing but The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (the original version), Blackadder and The Office still seem funny today, while The Young Ones, Gavin and Stacey, Little Britain and much of French and Saunders’ work already seems to be failing the test of time.

Consider: Peep Show, Rev, My Family, The IT Crowd, The Inbetweeners, Borat: which of these, if any, will we still be laughing at in the 2040s?

Published: 21 Feb 2012

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