Fallible wrote:

Mazille wrote:Jesus.

Do you kill and dissect rainbows a lot, Fall?

No.

Spinozasgalt wrote:By who? Some hideous transcendental I? Some horrific public that is simultaneously everyone and no one? Some apolitical entity without any firm identity of its own except for designation?

Fallible wrote:What you don't realise is that my entire contribution on this forum has been ironic.

Fallible wrote:What you don't realise is that my entire contribution on this forum has been ironic.

Fallible wrote:

Spinozasgalt wrote:By who? Some hideous transcendental I? Some horrific public that is simultaneously everyone and no one? Some apolitical entity without any firm identity of its own except for designation?

Whom.

Fallible wrote:

The_Piper wrote:

Fallible wrote:_snipped for space-

I don't think I ever have...audience laughter was par for the course in 80s and 90s comedy in the UK.

We differ quite a lot on what we find funny, you and I. Blackadder is a mixture of very dry wit, pun, innuendo and slapstick, like in the first clip here. I've only recently become aware that pretty much everything we say over here is said with a note of sarcasm (if someone even simply says 'nice day, isn't it', it's more than likely that the weather is shit), but surely a gag involving someone bearing the brunt of a demonstration of the different strengths of punches, repeatedly falling over and getting booted up the arse is funny the world over. OK it might add a different dimension if you know the butler (Blackadder) and the Prince Regent have swapped places in that skit and so the butler is punching his master in the face with much enjoyment while his master has to just take it, but still, casual violence and pratfalls are staples of comedy.

You're the first American I've come across who doesn't know House. Anyway, the character of Blackadder is always (apart from the first series) the intelligent, switched on - although put-upon - one who highlights the idiocy of his 'betters' with his wit and dead pan stares - that's why I brought it up to begin with in relation to your comment. People elsewhere often only know Rowan Atkinson from Mr Bean, which is OK, but when I see it said that he's better off sticking to roles he doesn't talk in, I want to say that's just not correct for anyone who's seen him in pretty much anything else where he does talk, and eloquently. I'd go so far as to say that he's known for his wordplay and unique delivery. Johnny English is an anomaly.

Incidentally, the characters in those clips all have varying strengths of upper class English accents. Although I'll concede that Miranda Richardson is adding a French affectation to hers, as I think was the fashion in the Georgian era.

Ok I've seen a few minutes of House. I think knowing who is the Prince and not in the first clip does add another dimension of humor, but yeah, the punching bit wouldn't amuse me either way anyway. I did use to laugh at Three Stooges for instance when I was a kid, but it wasn't so much the violence that I liked. (I can't remember the show anymore to say what I did like about it)Cartoons, same thing. I think it was the one-liners that I liked. Hence my Fletch fandom now. That's a very dry, witty, sarcastic humor imo, with a light dose of slapstick thrown in.

The woman in the second clip was hard to understand, but the other character too, made my brain have to work extra to process what they were saying.

The other character was Edmund Blackadder.

I actually didn't pick up on the French affectation, and I'd never heard the term "Georgian" before. I'm very non-British.

It's the name for the period in British history when the George kings were on the throne - 1714-1830. The George in this show is the Prince Regent, George IV, who stood in for his father, George III, because he became mentally infirm. The Prince Regent was known for his extravagance and frivolity. There was also a craze for all things French among the posh bastards at this time (French Revolution had happened earlier and many posh bastards had escaped to here); French fashions were very popular, French was spoken to impress and some people even manufactured a French accent for themselves. The female character was either doing that, or was one such refugee who had given herself an English name.

Some of my favorite music (and Monty Python) are British, it's not that I have anything against liking British things, but some intricacies certainly go over my head about everyday British pop culture.
That clip had one part that amused me, when he wanted to change the words, and then scribbled out the words on the paper. The entire scene with the wee-nosed woman was lost on me. The audience roared with laughter when she said a pixie may have given it to her. I don't know why that was funny.

Because of the sickly sweet, infantilised, cutesy language which shows the woman to be a complete upper class drip; drip as in weak and ineffectual. She's presenting herself as a parody, the perfect meek and helpless little girl which it was perceived an upper class man might want to marry - useless and limp and soppy, completely out of touch with reality and certainly would never have done a day's work in her life, and at the same time she is seen as a completely pathetic and ridiculous cliché by everyone now. She overdoes it quite a lot, deliberately. It's relevant to what follows, but you don't need to know that to find it funny. We all know the caricature of the woman who acts 'wike a widdle girl' in front of men, don't we?

Then Blackadder says "He continues" and the audience laughed again for some reason.

They're laughing because she's just put on this ridiculous display of 'widdle girl', and then it cuts to Blackadder completely dead pan and unmoved by it, who simply gives a slight pause, then continues reading the letter as though nothing had happened. He's remaining outside of the outrageous frivolity, not engaging or colluding with it, and at the same time highlighting just how stupid and puerile it is. There is a huge amount of this in the show. I hadn't perceived it as particularly subtle until now (we all do this shit - sometimes no facial expression at all is all that's needed to express incredulity), but maybe it is. Blackadder's character spends a lot of his time making clear his feelings about others with just blank looks or slight facial movements, or seemingly ignoring the stupid thing they've just done or said altogether. Wow, this really lose a lot of its humour when it's explained.

She said the Prince has a reputation of a "boy house dingle dangle" ? I don't know what she said, but the dingle dangle I heard right, and I don't what that means. Etc.

Yep - boy COW's dingle dangle. Basically he's known to be a massive dick.

Sorry to dissect the 2 clips you posted. I'm sure there would be things in that show I'd find funny. In fairness to myself, I did write about Johnny English/Rowan "In fairness to him, the movie had no chance of being good, no matter who played English."
Rowan Atkinson was not funny in that movie. I'd only seen him in Mr. Bean before that, which I loved, it was hilarious. I did see the Mr Bean movie, which I thought was terrible. They used the same exact jokes as the show.

I'm not fond of Mr Bean, probably because he'll always be sardonic and eloquent to me and much more than just an elasticated face, none of which is evident in that show. I just try to forget that Johnny English ever even happened.

We all know the caricature of the woman who acts 'wike a widdle girl' in front of men, don't we?

Fallible wrote:What you don't realise is that my entire contribution on this forum has been ironic.

scott1328 wrote:Half decent sums it up nicely