Are there any aspects of American sitcoms that would just alienate us Brits or go over our heads?

Do you think the sitcom is a dying genre now due to the popularity of things like Line of Duty, Bridgerton, the many cop dramas ITV and BBC has etc. and people want grittier dramas instead?

39 comments

  2. Nice things, I hate shows like the Big Bang theory where people live in nice houses with lots of colours and decoration.

    I want a comedy with people in a slightly shit situation, crap wallpaper they inherited from the last owners, a nasty stain on the table that they keep meaning to paint over, ect

  3. Many American sitcoms have some guy that we are supposed to empathise with but they are just a whiney fuckbag. Main culprits are Ross from friends, Raymond and Ted Moseby.

  4. American sitcoms – in fact US humour in general – relies heavily on the wisecrack:

    >Something, something, something, funny comment, audience laughs< [repeat every 30 seconds ad nauseum]

    It is an expected formula. In fact scripts are edited to ensure that the rate of funny lines is consistent so the audience is never give more than a few seconds before they need to laugh again.

    This was quite common in the UK in the 70s – 80s but it has died out now as a mechanism. We dont want to keep hearing half funny cracks, we are more interested in the situation, more open to a touch of the ridiculous or surreal. We also appreciate self deprecating humour which is pretty rare in the US.

  5. Lot of little things put me off, nothing really major, but enough to break the immersion.

    It probably works the opposite way too with UK comedies.

    For instance, references to other well know US TV Shows or adverts that were never on in the UK, negates the joke completely.

  6. I don’t think the sitcom is dying, I think it’s in hibernation as British comedy is going through a bit of a change at the moment.

    Things like Stath Let’s Flats, This Country etc are the best examples of British comedy we’ve had for a few years, but they’re a far cry from Miranda or My Hero from a few years back. Not to mention people seem to be getting a bit bored of nothing but the same groups of mates, all of which came through Cambridge Footlights being the only voices in British comedy.

    I personally think British comedy is at its best when it’s a little bit bleak and a little bit self deprecating. The easiest example of this is the UK vs US versions of The Office. The latter becomes a totally different show by season 2/3, which is more in tune with American sensibilities. It ends up being much broader by the end, for example UK audiences would never buy David Brent driving into a lake because his Sat Nav told him to, but with Michael Scott with the broader, louder show it works.

    So I don’t think one would go over the others heads in either direction – they’re just trying to achieve different things. Maybe someone looking for one would feel alienated if faced by the other? but that’s seems a strange reaction to have to a sitcom.

  7. Generally US Sitcoms feel plastic and forced. There’s no natural flow, even in the IT Crowd what’s being said is often asurd but it fits within their lives and it’s a perfectly natural response for what’s going on for them. In something like The Big Bang Theory none of it feels natural, the weird pauses in conversation and the plastic characters don’t feel real.

    I chose those two specifically for another reason, The IT Crowd is aimed at, and made by, nerdy people, The Big Bang Theory is aimed at people who make fun of nerds and as such has a completely different vibe.

    The US seems to make comedy like Simon Cowell makes music, grab conventionally attractive people, take a basic tune, write some inane lyrics and passed off as music. US comedy is conventionally attractive people telling basic jokes and it’s passed off as comedy.

    The UK comedy scene is crafted by people who care, US comedy is often made to fill the gaps between adverts.

    Some great US comedy does exist though, Rick and Morty is truly side-splittingly funny and i’m sure there’s something else made this century I enjoyed, i just can’t think of it right now.

  8. Humour’s fallen out of fashion in general

    In cinema, that’s because so few people go to the movies that every movie has to appeal to as many people as possible, and humour’s a very personal thing

    On TV, that’s because panel shows are so much cheaper to produce

  9. The 2010’s brand of non-laughtrack comedies like Modern Family, Parks and Rec, The Office are WAY too joke heavy. Its like gathering 10 obnoxious comedians in a room and everyones trampling over each other to quip. You need to buy the premise that these are real characters for the sprinkled in jokes to be funny.

    Something like Hacks, feels like a real TV show that happens to have comedy. Theres plenty of reality and plain setup, its not just how many funny lines in 30 seconds can we cram in.

  11. How much of a caricature everyone is.

    It’s the difference between a character having traits, and a character being their traits, like everyone is Flanderized by default. It just makes me watch one episode of something, think everyone is an idiot, and not want to continue with it.

  12. They’re too bright and shiny, everyone is too rich and young and uniformly gorgeous. Sitcom characters shouldn’t be “aspirational”. I imagine American viewers find ours too grimy and depressing with too many ugly people to be fair.

  13. Think Roseanne was the last sitcom that had a kinda British feel to it. Very ordinary working class characters and backgrounds. Everything now is too glossy and characters too pretty to reflect real life

  14. The moralising/learning and the lack of anything ‘too’ rude.

    American sitcoms are basically just kids TV. Everyone has to always ‘learn a lesson’ and ‘grow as a person’, and there can’t ever be nudity, swearing or anything not family friendly.

    Watch something like Auf Wiedersehen Pet, full of tits, swearing and characters who never learn anything, and it’s great, but a humongous difference to US comedy

  15. It’s about applicability and being able to empathise with characters;

    Shameless UK and Shameless USA was a great example, both did well in their respective locations because they made characters where people could watch and say; “x is just like him/her” and “‘kin hell I knew someone like that” but turned up to 10. But they didn’t do great when crossed over.

    Office did well on both sides as the UK and USA versions were very different catering to their audiences, and did a great job of playing their strengths. Both with OTT cringey bosses in their respective habitats with applicable UK/US humour.

    Inbetweeners and IT crowd died on it’s arse due to trying to shoehorn the exact same jokes into different settings and losing any humour while doing it.

    Sitcoms and Dramas are like chalk and cheese, both are going nowhere but there’ll always be new ones to scratch that itch.

  16. One of the biggest differences to my eyes is how the people in American sitcoms are often just repositories of jokes and one-liners, not true well-rounded “characters”. A character is more than a person with a bit of a quirk or a minor personality defect.

    There are plenty of little things as well, but stylistically I think this is the most obvious difference. A typical American sitcom usually has a huge number of writers, and it seems they are all jockeying for position to get as many jokes as possible in, I suspect this has something to do with it.

    But having said that, I think if you watch enough sitcoms there are probably fewer obvious differences than people think.

  17. Cultural references aside, I don’t think any of it really goes over British heads, it’s more the other way. Most of the American side is pretty basic, and imo a lot just isn’t funny so we don’t care for it. That said I don’t get the hype with some of the more recent British sitcoms either. I’m sure every era has their bad and good though, and we’re far more likely to forget the bad.

    Do love Seinfeld, Fresh Prince, and their animation comedies are pretty top notch, at least until they jump the shark.

  18. Definitely language. Was watching the Golden Girls as a kid with my great aunts and uncle. Blanché said to a group of older flirting men ‘Who wants to spank my fanny!’. The room went silent as my older aunts and uncle in their 70s processed what she just said. We all just felt uncomfortable. Like when animals start humping when a nature documentary comes on tv.

    Or on comedy shows like Married with Children when an actor enters and the audience cheers and starts shouting. Its ok at first but gets irritating after a while.

  20. There is definitely a cultural divide between US and UK sitcoms. I am an oddball in that I am British but have always watched American sitcoms. I find some British sitcoms a bit dreary, crass and childish. However, that isn’t the case for absolutely everything. I loved Spaced, and Peep Show. Conversely, I have friends who hate US sitcoms which I love, like Community and Arrested Development, because they find them too slick and smug. So yeah, there’s very, very different styles and cultures at work. Sitcom style is a big divide between US and UK culture, which is probably why things like The Office were remade for the US.

  21. It’s all funny and relatable. We Brits are baffled about why you need an ‘American version’ of our shows. We don’t get it.

  22. Stuff like Always Sunny, despite a lot of it being very entrenched in American culture, has very British cynicism and dark humour in some ways.

  23. Friends is a good example of something I’ve noticed, they’ll happily say slut or whore but hardly ever shit or bollocks etc.

  24. Anyone else hate cop shows and medical shows? I’m not anti police , I’m just anti crap shows on the telly

  27. I hate that people live in houses, apartments, accommodation they clearly can’t afford in American sitcoms…

    Oh yes I wait tables for a living, but live in this spacious, two bed apartment in the middle of Manhattan, on my own 🤔

  28. The archetypal American sitcom protagonist is a successful person on the up. A man with a big apartment who gets the girl.

    The archetypal British sitcom protagonist is an unsuccessful person for whom everything goes wrong. A man who lives in a travel tavern and doesn’t get a second series.

  29. Everyone being upper middle-class being struggling with money.

    They seem to have huge houses but are struggling. In real life you’d downsize slightly and live a good life with a house at that value.

  31. American sitcoms generally aren’t funny. That’s just how things are! The laughter track they use simply highlights how dull these shows are.

    Humour is found in reality, and American shows are very Bollywood. Very glitzy, everyone is rich, everyone has a great family and/or friends. American shows are just too fake. Perhaps Americans need escapism more than other countries?

  32. Most American sitcoms follow a drab writing formula of staccato breaks to spoon feed a studio audience regular intervals to “laugh” at.

    Obviously there are exceptions (Community, Parks and Rec, etc) but generally I find it absolutely destroys any natural flow that you’d want in anything situational… Which of course has a profound effect on that most crucial element of comedy, timing.

    Then of course there’s the studio sets too. They’re all way too big to be believable and dressed to the nines as opposed to looking realistic and lived in. America sitcoms are trying to break away from these sets in recent years, but they’re being pretty tentative about it still.

    Compare that to British sitcoms like People Just Do Nothing or This Country in recent times, Peep Show going back a bit and The Last of The Summer Wine (not my fave) or even Some Mothers Do ‘ave ’em and The Goodies going back further. They all use a broad spectrum of real world settings which helps create a more believable context to frame even the most absurd scenarios. It’s that contrast that amplifies even the most subtle or nuanced comedy moments to ones of great stature.

  33. Generally sitcoms are pants, especially American.

    Ones that presume you are so dumb you aren’t sure which bits are funny, so they have to have canned laughter. Also ones where it’s literally a ‘laugh’ a sentence.

  34. I know it’s not universally but a lot of people I know do not like Ted Lasso as they find the premise too unbelievable and it too “feel good”. And Americans are typically shocked by this.

  35. I loved Frasier glad they’re bringing it back.. please don’t ruin it

    Someone mentioned hating the whiny male main characters of most US shows and yeah I totally agree. I think its the successful / failure that Frasier is that makes it work.

  36. Not a sitcom but I get pulled out of the immersion of the show so quickly if they have something to do with medical situations.

    Example; cobra Kai’s fundraising nonsense for the kid that broke their arm or whatever.

    Fucking unreal to me that is even considered normal.

  37. I think the un relatable characters and the comedy of them being in blandly “made up funny” scenarios in their perfect little life, and people being able to make up this “oh aren’t those guys a hoot, I wish I had their zany, amazing life” universe in their head.

    A lot of British sitcoms (especially the older ones) were about being able to project your life into relatable characters in an environment that looked very similar to your own, rather than living in an “ideal”. The comedy itself is usually making light or seeing the irony/funny side generally based around some kind of adversity or struggle, or misfortune.

    Tldr:
    American comedy= aspirational/escapist

    British comedy= relatable/acts like a pressure valve by being able to project your own woes and frustrations onto a situation that makes light of them.

    Edit- the thing I think Americans do *really* well is absurdist comedy. Parks and Recreation, Always Sunny, Curb you Enthusiasm etc etc. British absurdist humour leans towards the pure “silly satire” end (Monty Python, Kenny Everett, Garth Merengies Darkplace) which while very good, I don’t think is as refined

  38. I’m not gonna get into an analysis of what I think the problem is with American sitcoms but if anyone is looking for a US sitcom that is actually amazing then watch it’s always sunny in Philadelphia

  39. I can only speak for myself but I can’t stand the need to always have a schmaltzy romance shoe-horned in, with a big sugary wedding episode and drama over whether the big couple will “make it”. The Office, Parks & Rec and Brooklyn 99, I’m looking at you.

    Veep didn’t have much of that which I put down to Iannucci’s influence, who is just the type of cynic I want writing my sitcoms.

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