Posted: Jun 03, 2013 8:18 am
Scot Dutchy wrote:Mike_L wrote:There was plenty of clever humour in Frasier... including irony, sarcasm, double entendre, puns, etc.
The excellent Seinfeld relied mainly on comedy-of-the-absurd.
But most of the American sitcoms seem to rely on innuendo as the chief mechanism for humour.
I think it's a generalisation to suggest that American sitcoms are somehow lacking. But yes, they're certainly different to British fare.
American sitcoms rely on basic primitive humour and as you say plenty of innuendo.
It depends on the sitcoms. Keep in mind that the stuff that makes it overseas (from any country) tends to be the least-common-denominator stuff that is able to appeal to people outside the national cultural context. What people tend to regard as intelligent humor doesn't tend to make it across cultural or language borders.
Things like Friends, Big Bang Theory, The Office etc are what tend to travel well.
Other shows like Arrested Development and The Venture Bros rely on a lot of cultural familiarity to "get" and as such they don't make it as far.