Been watching a lot of British TV lately for some reason and I just can’t put my finger on why I don’t like their comedy. It seems like they prioritize silliness whereas American comedy is more satire/sarcasm?

Can someone articulate this better?

36 comments

  2. They like toilet humor more than us, I notice.

    Also we don’t get their sarcasm, but they don’t understand ours either. Like two ships passing each other in the night.

  3. In my experience, American comedy tends to derive humor from awkwardness while British comedy tends to derive humor from absurdism. This isn’t universal of course because there are exceptions on both sides and of course both groups dabble into other styles of comedy. It’s just the general trend I’ve noticed.

    Edit: I should note that absurdism isn’t just silliness. Silliness is a form of absurdism, but it isn’t the only form it takes.

  4. Their comedy has more wit and cleverness. Our comedy comes from slapstick and stand up so it’s more straight forward and blatant and you don’t always have to think it through.

  5. I find a lot of British comedy leans on references — either cultural, language, peculiarities of types of Europeans. Like if Americans make a joke about a certain state or city. Brits might not understand why we think it’s funny.
    Also, British humor is sometimes very subtle. The joke is easy to miss if you aren’t keyed in. Brits are also more staid culturally so fart and dick jokes are big.

  6. The comedy is actually quite similar, which really seems to annoy them. They want to desperately to believe we don’t ‘get’ their humour when in fact some of it just isn’t that funny.

    It is a bit more dry on the British side and they are more inclined to be vocally juvenile.

    We are better at slapstick and big picture running jokes.

    Anybody who thinks they are significantly different just hasn’t experienced enough of it.

    Edit: I say this a somebody who watches at least as much Brit TV as American and I love several British shows.

  7. Brits tend to get a good laugh out of unpleasantly awkward situations. (To an uninitiated American, you may need to turn off your empathy response in order to see the humor in it)

    Americans tend to get a good laugh out of the antagonist getting what’s coming to him. (To an uninitiated Brit, you may need to turn off your sense that laughing at someone else’s expense is a problem in order to see any humor in it)

    Maybe more succinctly, in British humor, you identify with the person getting laughed at. In American humor, you identify with the person laughing (and try not to feel bad about it).

  9. Idk about comedy in general as it can comprise of very different mediums so I’ll focus on film.

    I find that British comedy films tend to be layered and pack more into them. This tends to give them a better re-watchability. So much of American humor is shock or situational humor that it loses the funniness quickly.

    For instance I think I probably laughed as hard/as much during my first watches (as a teenager) of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Hangover. However subsequent watches of The Hangover aren’t nearly as enjoyable as rewatches of Holy Grail. This goes for a lot of my favorite American comedies. I don’t think Aminal House, Spaceballs, Caddyshack, or Tropic Thunder were as funny on the 2nd watch and most are borderline not funny at all by your 10th watch. A notable exception to this from America to me is Blazing Saddles but it’s still not as dense as these Birtish films I’m comparing it to.

    I do not feel the same way about Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, or a Fish Called Wanda. On the second and third watch through I find myself laughing at different things I didn’t catch the first time. The jokes are funny enough on their own merit that I can still laugh at parts even after seeing it 20 times.

  10. So apart from everything else, there’s also the use of the language differences. Although we might know what they are saying. How they use the same words could be very different. It could be very confusing and the jokes wouldn’t make sense because of that.

    Just on a personal level my British friends who are now American now like banter a lot more than any of my other friends. It’s also not as direct, and often you have to read into it a bit more. But that’s where the language part really comes into play

  11. The eternal question!

    I’ll say historically there is a difference. American culture split off from British culture about a century before a massive rerouting of British culture in the Georgian era. That era saw Britain adopt a lot of its “stiff upper lip” stuff (it’s extremely common to see references to men weeping and kissing each other as an expression of friendship before then), saw the Brits actively drop the hard R, and also saw it actively work to alter its humor to have a lighter touch. Basically, they tried to make British culture more “European” and “sophisticated,” while Americans, culture already established, and living in a rough environment anyway, kept the more forward Stuart style (and hey, it was good enough for Shakespeare).

    Realistically, as a massive fan of both, if I compare the good stuff of the two, I think that holds. There is a definite difference between the two. I’ve got a British friend who described Frasier as a British comedy done by Americans. Meanwhile, Seinfeld totally fails to translate culturally. Look at something like Tough Crowd vs. Mock the Week, which have similar premises. They are different.

    I think ultimately American comedy is much more forward and brazen. British comedy has a certain reservedness about it, silliness masking its harsher statements, which are very much there but left unsaid.

    I also do think there’s something to be said for the common observation that British humor identifies with the people at the bottom, and American humor doesn’t as much. Perhaps British humor depicts people as they are, while American humor depicts people as they wish to be. Though, there are exceptions. Seinfeld didn’t do that, and yet failed to translate. Standup doesn’t, and Americans dominate that (sorrynotsorry).

  12. I’ve seen a lot more American comedy, but most of the best quotes for inside jokes are from the Bri’ish

  14. I like British comedy probably more than American comedy and I don’t know why. I don’t like how there is almost always a puking scene in every British show.

  17. There was an interview with a British comedian–I can’t remember who, unfortunately–talking about the differences between American and British comedy and I’ll say what he said the best I can remember it:

    >Remember that scene in Animal House at the toga party when John Belushi smashes the hippie’s guitar, mugs at the camera and says “Sorry, it had to be done.” That’s a very American way of humor. You make your movie about the funny guy who always knows what to do and say at the right time. Well, the Brits would make a comedy about *the guy who gets his guitar smashed*.

    I think his reasoning is that the “personality” of Britain is rooted in having this proud and mighty empire, but that has obviously fallen to the wayside. So now (“now” being from roughly Monty Python onward) Brits find the humor in pathetic people in pathetic situations.

    Again, that’s the best I can remember it.

  18. I feel that British comedy can go harder in the paint compared to Americans. British comedians as well as their audience understand it’s not literal. I also believe British humor is a lot more dry and also quick. People such as Richard ayoeda Sean lock, and lee Mack are very different than bill burr, segura, chapelle and more. I would say American say something absurd, but often walk it back through jokes and stories about what their point is. They also play to both sides. I mainly watch uk panel shows but not that uk stand up. I do watch us stand up.

  19. British humor is darker and more absurd. They have a history drawn from theater and from medieval literature, which dealt with their class system. As such, there tends to be an emphasis on witty remarks.

    Whereas, yes, American humor relies moreso on more overt satire and sarcasm. I think the print media and comics being large in America makes it so there’s an emphasis on over the top satire and situations. By that, you can break the fourth wall and point at the situation or roll your eyes or whatever.

  21. While there are definitely some funny American shows, British humor is much funnier

    The movie Airplane reminds me of British humor

  22. British humour tends to be extreme in that it’s either really sarcastic, to the point of not even being sarcasm (but you know it’s a joke only because you’re told it’s a comedy) or it’s so silly and ridiculous that you swore it was written by a 7 year old.

  23. One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned here yet is American comics are staying away from race/sex/culture jokes except in the case of designated targets. You can still fire away at the other political side, cishet White males, and fat people for example without getting cancelled. Or if you’re a member of a certain group you can make fun of your own.

    British humor doesn’t seem to have as many sacred cows. This is both good and bad IMHO. I appreciate that American culture is rejecting lazy or outright hurtful stereotypes, but I miss Southpark style equal opportunity humor.

  24. American: HE FUCKED THE PIE! HE FUCKED THE PIE! HE FUCKED THE PIE!

    British: Look mummy! The man on the telly is acting silly! He’s so silly mummy! He silly walks, silly talks, in the silly telly box!

  25. british comedy used to be funny in movies on TV with all the carry on movies etc ,not sure if its the same as it used to be as TV dont play any british comedy lately ,but most americian comedy is not funny to me at all

  27. I’m on the opposite side of the fence. In a lot of American TV comedies, it feels like they come up with a funny joke and write a scene around it (Family Guy is the best/worst example). I think British comedies tend to come up with a naturally absurd setting and see where it takes them.

    I prefer the dryer and subtler way that Brits do sarcasm. It makes the pay off bigger when you spot the joke. It almost sneaks past you before you catch it.

    I have heard someone say that, if Seinfeld were a British TV programme, George would have been the main character.

  29. My feeling is that any real analysis of the “differences” would require so many qualifications as to make it pointless.

  31. They both have their various sub genres which make this difficult.

    For the British There’s Monty Python. Absurdism and then there is BBC quick wit. There’s even a degree of physical humor that you see with Mr. Bean and Benny Hill.

    American humor is either awkward like anything with Michael Cera in it, Abrasive like Andrew Dice Clay, or nonsensical like Will Ferrell, John c. Riley, SNL stars movies.

  32. Idk about those differences but as a non-white non-black American I don’t understand either American or British comedy.

  33. Steven Fry explained it like this. In the movie animal house there was a scene where a guy was sitting with a bunch of women playing guitar for them, trying to impress them. Then one of the characters walks up and smashes the guitar.
    He said in the America comedy the American would be the guy smashing the guitar. In the British comedy the British guy would be the one that had the guitar smashed.
    The British one is like a meek person that can’t even seem to win. The American one is like a clueless animal that acts on instinct.

  35. Some of British humor involves finding comedy in other people’s suffering, a la the German *Schadefreude*. Some is a different appreciation of absurdity – particularly the absurdity of social conventions and the violations thereof, so it’s sort of implicit satire.

    A lot of Monty Python is that sort of cultural satire when you looking deeply enough into what’s going on, although some (like the “Dead Parrot Sketch”) just seems to be general absurdity.

  36. At the spam-a-lot musical (which was satirical Monty python), I laughed a lot. The people in front of me, at intermission, complained that it was “guy humor”. To me. A female. Who just spent the last hour laughing at it.

    😂

    It is silly, which I guess I find funny.

    And if you don’t like it, I’ll bite your kneecaps

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