In 2000, Douglas Adams made an interesting observation that I keep returning to.A user on Slashdot named “FascDot Killed My Pr” had asked the following question (where HGttG = Hitchhiker’s Guide to…
In 2000, Douglas Adams made an interesting observation that I keep returning to.
A user on Slashdot named “FascDot Killed My Pr” had asked the following question (where HGttG = Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy):
Comedy….or Tragedy?
First, a big thank-you. You’ve made a lasting contribution to “our” culture (or should that be “culture”?)
I first read HGttG in my early teens. I doubled over laughing the whole time. I read and reread the entire series, bought both Dirk Gently books AND Last Chance to See. Loved them all and wouldn’t trade having read them for anything. (btw, the first mental ward scene in Long Dark Teatime is a no-foolin’, all-time classic.)
However, a few years ago I was talking to a (then) classmate. Very smart, philosophy-major type. He said (paraphrased) “I thought that HGttG was depressing. Such nihilism.” At the time I thought “Hmmm…I didn’t SEE a black beret on his head….”. But every reading of the series since then his comment has struck me as more true–especially in the case of Arthur Dent. In fact, far from being funny, I now find Dent’s character depressing–he’s not just a loser, he literally has no control over his life at all (except in So Long for a while). And the control he does have does him no good (e.g. Earth is destroyed while he’s trying to save his house.)
So my question is: When you were writing these books did you feel you were being gaily whimsical or did you instead feel frustrated and cynical?
I suspect there is a cultural divide at work here. In England our heroes tend to be characters who either have, or come to realise that they have, no control over their lives whatsoever – Pilgrim, Gulliver, Hamlet, Paul Pennyfeather (from Decline and Fall), Tony Last (from A Handful of Dust). We celebrate our defeats and our withdrawals – the Battle of Hastings, Dunkirk, almost any given test match. There was a wonderful book published, oh, about twenty years ago I think, by Stephen Pile called the Book of Heroic Failures. It was staggeringly huge bestseller in England and sank with heroic lack of trace in the U.S. Stephen explained this to me by saying that you cannot make jokes about failure in the States. It’s like cancer, it just isn’t funny at any level. In England, though, for some reason it’s the thing we love most. So Arthur may not seem like much of a hero to Americans – he doesn’t have any stock options, he doesn’t have anything to exchange high fives about round the water-cooler. But to the English, he is a hero. Terrible things happen to him, he complains about it a bit quite articulately, so we can really feel it along with him - then calms down and has a cup of tea. My kind of guy!
I’ve hit a certain amount of difficulty over the years in explaining this in Hollywood. I’m often asked ‘Yes, but what are his goals?’ to which I can only respond, well, I think he’d just like all this to stop, really. It’s been a hard sell. I rather miss David Vogel from the film process. He’s the studio executive at Disney who was in charge of the project for a while, but has since departed. There was a big meeting at one time to discuss, amongst other things, Arthur’s heroicness or lack of it. David suddenly asked me ‘Does Arthur’s presence in the proceedings make a difference to the way things turn out?’ to which I said, slightly puzzled, ‘Well, yes.’ David smiled and said ‘Good. Then he’s a hero.’
In the current, latest version of the screenplay, I think that Arthur’s non-heroic heroism is now absolutely preserved, and I’m pleased with the way he works out.
I think I have more to say about this, and will try to come back and add more here, but meanwhile a few things at random:
-
As a matter of fact, I have read The Book of Heroic Failures (1979) with great enjoyment. (Post from 2011 — I only wrote four sentences of my own, but one of them was “Too many books have been written in praise of competence; this book provides an antidote by celebrating failure as only a British author can.”)
-
I think he is right that this goes over better (generally speaking) in England than in the USA. Of course one can make jokes mocking failure, but someone who fails does not automatically become endearing (in a kind of everyman way) in America the way they would in England. It seems to me that Americans are more likely to feel either contempt or pity than to feel kinship: or at any rate, they regard the failure as a setback or interesting circumstance, rather than the natural/default state of the world. (As someone who is neither American nor English, I am of course not someone whose opinions you should pay any heed to.)
Read the original article
Comments
This is directly relevant to my wife's and my reading of the David Tennant & Olivia Coleman vehicle Broadchurch.
David Tennant's character is notably very bad at his job; that's why he got exiled to a backwater town. He bungled his last case so badly it made national news. In an American police procedural, we would either have some mitigating explanation for his failure, or at least some gritty vice or personal demon that was the real reason he got demoted.
In Broadchurch, Tennant's character just sucks at his job. Every episode of the show conforms to a formula where he gets suspicious of one of the other characters in the show and we spend the episode wasting time while it's finally determined that the suspect of the week is actually innocent. I have to say, it makes for entertaining television. It also resulted in my wife and I chorusing aloud, every episode, "he's SO BAD at his job!!"
(Minor Broadchurch spoilers) At the end when he finally catches the big bad, it's not because of anything he did. A coincidence and some carelessness on the part of the big bad lead to the mystery being solved. Also, every other character on the show had already been ruled out.
Since watching it we've kept a lookout for protagonists who embody the "everyman in way over his head who accomplished virtually nothing himself" archetype. It's fun to know Adams held forth on the very subject.
"David Tennant's character is notably very bad at his job; that's why he got exiled to a backwater town."
Worth noting that in Hot Fuzz (also featuring Olivia Coleman!) the main character is exiled to a rural location for being too good at his job.
That movie is a long series of spoofs nicely spliced together to form a story. To the point that it even works in the reverse, you've seen Hot Fuzz and then years later you watch some other movie and suddenly you realize that's where they got it.
By WalterBright 2026-01-230:362 reply Should watch "Zero Hour" (1957). "Airplane" is nearly a shot-for-shot remake, except it's done for laughs rather than a thriller.
"I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!"
Airplane! also features tons of other TV and movie references doesn’t it? Basically what would have happened in these well known shows and movies when you add absurd scenarios while still playing it straight (the joke is never acknowledged of course!).
By seanc 2026-01-2314:30 We had to pause the movie and explain to our kids who June Cleaver was.
It was a fun echo, because when I was a kid I watched it with my parents, and my Mom had to explain to me who Ethel Merman was.
Not just jokes and scenarios - it's full of many actors that for years (and decades) played very serious "leading man" type roles. Seeing all these all-american heroes just being utter idiots helped make it so impactful.
By fhdkweig 2026-01-2316:15 I was very confused when I recognized Leslie Nielsen in Forbidden Planet. I had never seen him in a non-farcical comedy role.
By jacquesm 2026-01-230:45 Thank you, I will do that. Never heard of it before!
She’s also in Peep Show, which to this day is my favourite British television series.
It’s such a good piece of dark comedy.
And the lesser known "Look Around You" which might also not land so well with an American audience.
Thants.
For season 1 it very much satirises the early morning open university tv educational media format from the 70s through the early 2000s [1]. I'm not sure it'd land quite the same way for other countries or even for gen-z onwards.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/january/op...
By timthorn 2026-01-2220:39 I wondered, but my 15 year old loved it.
By techterrier 2026-01-2311:41 i think the skibidi toilet crew would love spiders on drugs
By Aeolun 2026-01-248:00 That’s actually pretty cool. I can think of worse things to watch in the mornings.
By benjijay 2026-01-238:42 While we're on an Olivia Colman thread, I can't leave 'Green Wing' unmentioned
By CommieBobDole 2026-01-2221:43 What are birds?
We just don't know.
By teknolog 2026-01-241:32 Correct!
I love that 15 years before winning an Oscar she played the mother of a boy with an arse for a face, too.
NSFW, obviously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGvH86wfrzk
And she was terrific in Fleabag.
By gertrunde 2026-01-2313:59 Similiarly vintage classic Coleman...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAssh20BF-k
(Circa 2004-ish?)
(Not really sure if it counts as SFW/NSFW tbh?)
By awesome_dude 2026-01-230:19 For real humour starting Olivia, I STRONGLY recommend get appearances on Graham Norton - she's a great sport
By Insanity 2026-01-2216:31 True! Two “losers” as protagonists
By FrostViper8 2026-01-239:391 reply I personally never liked it. All the characters were deeply unlikable and a lot of the jokes are just disgusting shock humour. When I used to live in a shared house, I always skipped it if it was on the television.
Well depending on your taste of TV shows and the general culture.
When I moved to the UK early 2000s I could understand but can't appreciate that type of humour. I think its rooted in culture. Luckily that was the golden era of British comedies and there were great diversities so you can pick and choose what flavour you like.
> Luckily that was the golden era of British comedies
You'll find people saying that about every era.
By FrostViper8 2026-01-2311:332 reply TBH there is a few standout really good British shows and the rest is forgotten about. A lot of humour in some of shows was really tied to the time of making and a lot of audiences won't get the joke.
If you watch Today Today or Brass Eye, unless you grew up at the time, it isn't funny. Most people under 30 won't know who any of celebrities are in the show.
There are some which seem timeless. 80% of Yes Minister could apply today
By FrostViper8 2026-01-2313:57 I think Yes Minister has some good clips on YouTube but I can't watch it for a whole episode.
By dumb1224 2026-01-2311:56 Yes it's only relevant if you know the reference at that time. The day today and the other satire shows aimed to follow certain general formula though so even if it's not funny for some its archetypical characters still fit in that genre of comedies in my opinion.
By dumb1224 2026-01-2311:24 True that. So it's down to our preferences : )
By FrostViper8 2026-01-2310:34 I actually didn't see that era as a Golden era and actually much prefer the sketch shows in the 80s and 90s such has the Fast Show.
I don't like any Mitchell and Webb stuff and don't particularly find either of them very funny.
David Mitchell's (at least on panel shows) brand of comedy is just doing a stupid face and making sardonic/cynical remark which is often some thinly veiled political jab, that the target audience often already agrees with. That isn't comedy. It is activism. Once you can see it, you can't un-see it and I find nauseating.
By hbarka 2026-01-235:49 In the 12th century a Welsh writer named Walter Map wrote the line "no good deed unpunished, no bad one unrewarded". Not quite English but maybe he was already expressing the whimsy of the English kingdom.
By Cthulhu_ 2026-01-2311:05 A lot of people cite Hot Fuzz as one of the best examples in filmmaking. Almost everything is a setup for a joke or scene that resolves later on in the film.
By nebula8804 2026-01-2217:461 reply Warms my heart to see fellow Edgar Wright fans here. Felt bad about his recent film results. I waited years for that. :/
By tialaramex 2026-01-231:531 reply I saw Baby Driver, which I really liked but I haven't seen any of the three movies since that.
The Cornetto trilogy are excellent. I'm a big fan of Three Colours (my favourite is White) and I think that actually in the same way that Kieślowski clearly doesn't care about the supposed theme, he just wants money to make movies, we can say the same for the Cornetto movies. We're bringing the commonalities to it in our interpretation, Wright didn't pour great effort into ensuring that these movies "work" as a trilogy, but they do if you squint, in the same way that Kieślowski didn't put great effort into relating his three films to the French flag but if you squint you can make it work fine.
By nebula8804 2026-01-233:021 reply At the end of the day, Hollywood is a business unfortunately and his last two films did poorly
Last Night In Soho was a absolute cinematic treat but had mixed reviews. I was fortunate to see it a week before release in 35mm in NYC and it was truly a special moment. But lets be real, even with films being graded on a curve due to the pandemic, the movie still did poorly.
Ok fresh start a few years later with The Running Man. This time he got big money, three time more than Baby Driver. (34mil vs 110mil) and the result? Baby Driver brought in ~227 mil and Running Man? Just ~69 mil.
Maybe he is better off producing smaller budget films and while I want nothing but success for him since he's my all time favorite director: Hollywood is a business. They will not look kindly on someone that keeps losing money.
To be fair to Wright, there were a bunch of big budget movies in 2025 that flopped: Thunderbolts, Tron Ares, Snow White, etc. There’s definitely a wider phenomenon at work of cinema struggling in general. But I agree, Wright’s big-budget career is likely over.
By nebula8804 2026-01-2318:03 I like to think that if he managed to produce another smash hit maybe studios will take another chance. Studios know he is respected by the fans. Hes just got to show that he can bring in the dough and that Baby Driver wasn't just a fluke. Running Man seemed very sloppy and not what we have come to expect from him and I heard on the grapevine that the studio pushed down a lot of executive decisions. If true, that could explain some things but still surprising given his past history with Ant-Man.
By eli_gottlieb 2026-01-232:00 The older I get, the more I suspect the Neighborhood Watch Alliance of being behind all society's problems.
Hold on, wasn't the flak he got for the case before the show started actually because he was covering for his wife (who was also working on the case)? She was having an affair and left the evidence in her car where it was stolen. He didn't say anything so their daughter wouldn't know, and took the fall for the case's failure, even though it wasn't his fault at all.
I didn't quite get the same read on the show you did. It seemed like the dynamic was that Olivia Coleman couldn't imagine anyone she knew being the killer, contrasted against Tennant being aggressively willing to suspect anyone, which is how they were able to rule the various suspects out.
It's admittedly been years since I saw it; I don't remember the entire mitigating bit about covering for his wife, but a lot went on in that series finale and I've had covid a few times since.
I like your read on their dynamic as foils to each other; I'll have to give it another watch with your read in mind.
By tartuffe78 2026-01-2219:051 reply It's very explicitly explained in the finale.
By gryfft 2026-01-2219:10 Alas, my think-meat is fallible and forgetful. I shall have to refresh myself and give it another watch.
It's been some years since I watched the show so I've probably forgotten a fair amount, but I remember it differently. I recall Tennant arguing at various points that it's probably the more obvious suspect/explanation. It's the whole you're probably hearing horses not zebras thing. Which in reality is the more competent approach. Crimes usually are committed by the most obvious suspect and pursuing more obscure theories is a worse approach.
But of course in a TV universe that's completely flipped on its head, nobody makes shows about normal straightforward cases.
This same conflict bugged me about the movie Zero Dark Thirty. The main analyst is 1000% sure that her hunch is correct and is constantly aggressively adamant about it, despite a lack of hard evidence. The others analysts are shown being much more rational, giving probabilities to their assessments and grounding conclusions in evidence. But since it's a movie of course you know the heroine is going to be correct and all of the other people seems like indecisive fools. But in reality someone who acted like her would be an absolute train wreck and the sober rational ones would be getting things done consistently with far fewer screw ups.
By deanCommie 2026-01-2321:12 Speaking of Zero Dark Thirty, it has WAY more problems than that - https://www.tiktok.com/@trademoviespodcast/video/75653617056...
By KineticLensman 2026-01-2218:50 > Every episode of the show conforms to a formula where he gets suspicious of one of the other characters in the show and we spend the episode wasting time while it's finally determined that the suspect of the week is actually innocent.
Something like this applies in the UK Midsomer Murders. Specifically, in the episodes where one of the suspects has a prior criminal record, they always get grief from Inspector Barnaby's current sidekick but are then proven innocent of the current crime. However, if an old police colleague from Barnaby's past offers to help, they are always guilty of something.
By IAmBroom 2026-01-2216:15 My take is quite different. EVERYONE in Broadchurch is at least nearly-criminally incompetent.
"Ooh, I'm an investigative detective in a homicide. I think I'll forget myself and beat up somebody in lockup!"
"What's that, evidence? I think I'll withhold it for minor personal reasons."
"Hey, there's a pedophile investigation going on. I think I'll lie about my 'alone time' with a teenage boy to EVERYONE, just to avoid arousing suspicion..."
Tennant's advantage is that, in season one, he's not emotionally tied up in this completely tangled small town. He's got some professional competencies over Miller, but not many.
This very good description makes it sound like a comedy, which it absolutely isn't, although I note that Olivia Colman got her break in dark comedy Peep Show.
By jsolson 2026-01-2217:27 It's so far from comedy that I couldn't make it through the series. When it comes up in conversation, I tend to describe it as "grief porn."
Ah, I should have made that clear, yes. We derived some unintended humor from the mismatch in cultural expectations, but Broadchurch is as serious as a heart attack.
(Didn't stop me and my wife from yelling MELLAR!! at each other across the house for weeks afterward.)*
*(He yells his partner Miller's name a lot in his Scottish accent.)
If you'd like some comedy in your police procedural, watch A Touch of Cloth
It's a parody of all British police procedurals simultaneously. It's the Airplane! of police shows... I won't say it's the Police Squad! of police shows, because that was spoofing US tropes, this spoofs UK tropes, but yes it's full of very serious actors saying very unserious things.
And yes, it has a gruff Scottish man (John Hannah) as lead D.I. Jack Cloth
By jodrellblank 2026-01-2316:35 Thirty years ago there was The Thin Blue Line, a sitcom set in a police station in the UK, starring Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean, Blackadder) and written by Ben Elton (writer on Mr Bean and Blackadder). I suspect it wouldn’t stand up to much rewatching today, but it was a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(British_TV...
By gryfft 2026-01-2219:01 Quite right; please forgive the error in transliteration.
By mjd 2026-01-2215:40 “In an American police procedural, we would either have…”
In the first minutes of the American show “Keen Eddie”, the titular character bungles a project so badly that he is exiled to London.
It unfortunately lasted only one season.
This is also the core conceit of Slow Horses, the Gary Oldman AppleTV show. An office filled with MI5 officers who screwed up and so can’t be trusted with anything important.
I haven’t seen Broadchurch, but I have seen Slow Horses and it doesn’t seem like the description applies. Sure, they are “exiled” MI5 officers, but they also save the day every season, and not through luck. They’re not completely incompetent. Take River: he was sent to the Slough House due to a mistake someone else made. Ho was sent there due to character flaws, despite being the most skilled at his job.
By something765478 2026-01-2318:26 > he was sent to the Slough House due to a mistake someone else made.
No, he was sent to Slough house over his reaction to that mistake. He disobeyed orders, caused panic at an airport, and assaulted a civilian. Now, that would have been fine if he was trying to save lives, but the whole thing was just a training exercise! He deliberately put people in danger just to massage his own ego; he absolutely deserved to be "exiled".
By roesel 2026-01-2313:01 Except in Slow Horses, most of them are exceptional at least in some way. Many of them are too difficult to work with, yes, but they do excel at _something_. That is very different from being _all around mediocre_.
By d-us-vb 2026-01-2216:01 Today I learned that I would make a terrible detective!
When I watched Broadchurch with my family, I thought he was doing a fine job at getting to the bottom of the case. Goes to show much crime drama I watch.
I see now that Tennant's character's actions are a plot device to reveal the drama amongst the other characters, not the workings of a good detective.
By dclowd9901 2026-01-2215:306 reply Slow Horses is so equal-opportunity with how it hands out ineptitude. About the only character on the show who isn't inept is Lamb (Gary Oldman), but is such a wretched character, you could actually hardly find a moment to root for him. It's fantastic.
By ndsipa_pomu 2026-01-2223:46 I like to think of Lamb as an inverse Columbo - he's rude and horrible to people rather than Columbo's charm. They share the grubby look and intelligence.
By biztos 2026-01-236:33 Nooo, the character is such a wretched human that you can't help but root for him.
He's being an ass in order to push people to do better, and at the end of the day (over and over again) he cares about Justice or at least the National Interest, but he cares about the Slow Horses more (in his way).
The flatulanece (et al) works as a filter: can you see past the boorishness?
By PeterWhittaker 2026-01-2216:446 reply I'd argue that Coe is more than competent, just, you know, detached most of the time. Lamb always knows what needs be done, just never shares, and often lets things happen until what needs be done happens on its own or is inevitable.
Coe has extraordinarily high SA and makes decisions immediately. They might seem impulsive, but when he acts, it is always with forethought.
(Yeah, Coe is our favourite character.)
By cryzinger 2026-01-2217:38 Louisa too. Before Coe came along she was for sure the best agent of the bunch; between the two of them it's a tough call imo.
Although I think Standish might have a leg up on all of them, including (sometimes) Lamb... but I'm biased since she's my favorite :)
By DoughnutHole 2026-01-2316:45 Coe is insightful and good at violence, but also (!spoiler for latest season) responsible for the most hilariously unfortunate cock-up of the show so far…
By stavros 2026-01-2719:01 Lamb is more like a teacher, he'll let you make your own mistakes until the situation is about to go FUBAR, then he'll step in and save it and show you where you went wrong.
By dclowd9901 2026-01-2318:10 As you described, because he keeps to himself, he comes off as a loose cannon, which feels to me like something you wouldn't want on a coherent spy team, but nonetheless is so fun to watch, which is the point, really.
> Coe has extraordinarily high SA
What does 'SA' mean? I'm not familiar with it.
By ahazred8ta 2026-01-231:06 situational awareness
By petesergeant 2026-01-237:22 Roddy's portrayed as very technically competent too, just, a knob.
By ragall 2026-01-233:47 I'm Italian and I was rooting for him all along. He's a good chap.
By petesergeant 2026-01-237:21 I would argue Taverner is meant to be very competent, although she of course has her own flaws, and his hardly a character for one whom is meant to feel sorry
By catlover76 2026-01-2215:342 reply > such a wretched character, you could actually hardly find a moment to root for him.
Hmm really?
In the first couple episodes, he definitely is, but I think they level him out a bit later on so that the viewer actually ends up liking him.
In the books, he is much more consistently unlikable.
(Don't bother with the books, IMO--show is better while still hewing quite close to them).
Other way round, IMO of course …
For me the books have depth that the TV series doesn't – and can't – have: some of the plots are dumbed down a bit to give more visual impact, and of course you don't get the same depth of characterisation, or the insights into Lamb's and the others' pasts because much of it comes out in interior monologue, and it's much harder for the shows to, erm, show.
And you miss one of the glories of Herron's writing: as a stylist is on a par with Terry Prachett for cramming wisdom into short witty phrases. He is very good at memorable phrases skewering contemporary life, and particularly politicians. The shows bring some of this out, but there's only so much that you can do in dialogue.
Take this passage from the first book:
> Peter Judd. PJ to his friends, and everyone else. Fluffy-haired and youthful at forty-eight, and with a vocabulary peppered with archaic expostulations – Balderdash! Tommy-rot!! Oh my giddy aunt!!! – Peter Judd had long established himself as the unthreatening face of the old-school right, popular enough with the Great British Public, which thought him an amiable idiot, to make a second living outside Parliament as a rent-a-quote-media-whore-cum-quiz-show-panel-favourite, and to get away with minor peccadilloes like dicking his kids’ nanny, robbing the taxman blind, and giving his party leader conniptions with off-script flourishes. (‘Damn fine city,’ he’d remarked on a trip to Paris. ‘Probably worth defending next time.’) Not everyone who’d worked with him thought him a total buffoon, and some who’d witnessed him lose his temper suspected him of political savvy, but by and large PJ seemed happy with the image he’d either fostered or been born with: a loose cannon with a floppy haircut and a bicycle.
Herron, Mick. Slow Horses: The bestselling thrillers that inspired the hit Apple TV+ show Slow Horses (Slough House Thriller 1) (p. 187). (Function). Kindle Edition.
That is a brilliant piece of characterisation, and if you know anything about British politics, you know exactly who he's describing, and how accurate a character assassination this is. The TV show's Peter Judd goes out of its way to make the character a lot more generic – their Judd is merely 'typical cynical nasty venal politician' and it loses a bit of force accordingly.
Or take the set piece descriptions which start every book: they recreate the seedy world of Slough House in a way that the shows can only hint at.
Not to say the shows aren't very good – they are one of the best things on TV – but the books are even better.
IMO, of course…
By catlover76 2026-01-2415:40 [dead]
By dclowd9901 2026-01-2318:07 Yeah, I mean he has a lot of really strong flaws that almost seem purposefully to put one off (which could be his whole angle, who knows), but between his drinking, terrible health, horrid treatment of his team (who, yes I know, he actually does care for), you're often not on his side, but more eager to see how what he's put in place will unfold.
By jimbokun 2026-01-2219:15 Slough House denizens screw up in blatant, over the top ways. While the Park screw up in ways that leave geopolitical consequences festering for years or decades while being good at covering their own asses.
The plot is generally some evil, corrupt actions the Park took in the past are coming home to roost and only the bumbling losers in Slough House can fix it (kind of, eventually, in a "at least London wasn't blown off the face of the earth" kind of way).
By abrookewood 2026-01-233:14 God that show is fantastic.
By EtienneK 2026-01-2215:55 Yes, exactly my first thought as well. Fantastic show!
By catlover76 2026-01-2215:38 [dead]
By biophysboy 2026-01-2216:323 reply The game Disco Elysium is kind of like this. Just know that the game is 99% reading and rolling dice.
By aetherson 2026-01-234:02 Apropos of nothing besides the mention of Disco Elysium, I present to you the best item in a CRPG: https://discoelysium.fandom.com/wiki/Volumetric_Shit_Compres...
…sort of, but the game does ultimately make clear that for all his faults, the protagonist is (and was, before the amnesia) exceedingly good at what he does.
By biophysboy 2026-01-2219:16 Ha! Not the way I played him as a character :)
By stavros 2026-01-2815:13 Also a masterpiece.
By hoten 2026-01-236:01 Did you know there is a American reboot of broadchurch also starring David Tennant? It's called Gracepoint.
I haven't seen it myself, but I wonder if it conforms to your theory: does the detective in that show have mitigating explanations for his failures?
By danaris 2026-01-2215:12 Sounds like a much-more-fleshed-out version of Inspector Gadget!
That sounds awfully similar to our own reading of Department Q. I'll watch it too.
Department Q is a weird one because it goes with the trope of the acerbic hyper-competent guy, but then… actually, I don’t recall, is he actually incompetent? Or does he just not quite live up to his over-confidence.
Also it is sometimes hard with these detective shows because the screenwriters might want a character to be hyper-competent, but they are people too, limited in their ability to portray super-competent abilities. This can result in characters lucking their way into clues.
By talldan 2026-01-236:08 My recollection is that the main guy is a highly competent at problem solving, but limited by an inability to work with others.
In some ways similar to Lamb in Slow Horses, though I think Lamb is a very good manipulator of people (he gets others to do what he wants without telling them directly), whereas the Dep. Q guy doesn't engage at all.
By kranner 2026-01-233:40 > Since watching it we've kept a lookout for protagonists who embody the "everyman in way over his head who accomplished virtually nothing himself" archetype.
You might enjoy Joyce Porter’s Dover series.
By scotty79 2026-01-2311:22 Well, he was good at not quitting.
By pfisherman 2026-01-2214:1517 reply Counterpoint: Charlie Brown
A big part of what makes Charlie Brown so endearing is his undying earnestness and optimism in the face of near constant bad luck and disappointment.
He is exactly the lovable loser archetype that this piece says Americans do not dig. Yet the Peanuts comics and cartoons and an American pop cultural institution.
OP here (though I don't claim any special insight, as I said).
It would be interesting to consider the differences between the Charlie Brown and Arthur Dent character archetypes.
One difference seems to me exactly the undying earnestness and optimism you mentioned: in a way, Charlie Brown and other American characters like him are simply not touched by failure (even if bad things happen to them), because of their optimism[1]. This makes them lovable: we appreciate them for this quality that we (most of the audience) do not have.
[1]: (or lack of self-awareness, in some other cases mentioned here like Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin)
Arthur Dent, on the other hand, is not gifted with undying optimism. He's constantly moaning about things, starting with his house and his planet being destroyed. This makes him relatable more than lovable: he's not a “lovable loser” (and for the right audience, does not seem a “loser” at all), he is just us, “my kind of guy” — we feel kinship rather than appreciation. We relate to the moaning (if Arthur Dent were to remain unfailingly optimistic, he'd be… different), whereas if Charlie Brown were to lose his optimism or if Homer were to say "D'oh!" to complain about big things in life rather than hurting his thumb or whatever, they would become less of the endearing American institutions they are IMO.
I would not say that Charlie Brown is untouched by failure. He does descend to the depths of despair. But some how rises from it to try (and fail) again. This trope is seen best with Lucy pulling away the football every time he goes to kick it. Even though he knows he's failed every time, he talks himself into this time being different.
This does not contradict your overriding point, just adding nuance to the claim he is "simply not touched by failure".
By vanderZwan 2026-01-2314:01 I suspect that one difference that gives the impression that the characters in Peanuts are "untouched by failure" is that for the most part they don't have real character arcs. Once their archetypes are established they stay the same. Combine that with being the longest running comic written by a single person of all time and it feels like nothing ever changes.
That's not a critique - being a comforting source of unchanging familiarity is part of the point of a newspaper comic. But it is very different to H2G. Arthur Dent might be a bumbling failure who is flung around by forces out of his own control, but his life still changes and he still changes. He still grows a little bit as a person.
By rolymath 2026-01-2317:44 [flagged]
Sorta. The whole point of the strip is that they don't talk or act like children.
"Schultz" is German for "brown". He's very much the author's adult POV, using a child-looking character to disarm the cynicism.
By unwind 2026-01-239:37 Brown in German is actually, wait for it, "braun".
By impossiblefork 2026-01-237:44 Schultz actually is not German for brown. It's a name deriving from the name of a kind of medieval tax official.
By rags2riches 2026-01-238:48 > "Schultz" is German for "brown".
Beleg fehlt.
By DoughnutHole 2026-01-2316:59 Homer used to complain about the big things. He tried to kill himself in the third episode due to losing his job. The first 2 seasons are honestly comparatively depressing with some of the heavy topics they touch on.
The Simpsons just leant so far into 1-note characteristics that they became caricatures of themselves - and the term Flanderization was born.
By tclancy 2026-01-2312:50 OP, if you’re still lurking, are you familiar with the Flashman series? I feel like it falls somewhere between the poles here. Either way, would highly recommend it to anyone who likes Adams, history, learning or reprobates.
In American storytelling, being optimistic overcomes being a failure. In fact, you haven't failed if you still have hope.
Homer Simpson is an idiot, but he doesn't give up. That's endearing enough to hold the protagonist roll.
Yes, that's the part that Americans miss and the previous commenter missed. Charlie Brown is still optimistic.
To dig the English comedy you need to accept that you are or the protagonist is a failure. Your or their life will never significantly improve and they made peace with it. You covet and enjoy small moments of happiness. Happiness is not the winning big but returning home.
By wredcoll 2026-01-2320:34 It's tempting to see some kind of relationship to class/caste systems here.
A hypothetical english person might feel trapped by their class and station and "win" by accepting it but the american character always has a chance to rise
By jfengel 2026-01-237:17 He's also frequently mean. I don't get the love for him.
That is another aspect of humor that Brits and Americans share, but also do very differently.
By zharknado 2026-01-235:37 Interesting. You have me thinking of Candide as an answer to Quixote.
In very broad strokes, Quixote says my perceptions and ideals are true and apparent evidence to the contrary must be a misunderstanding/ chance/ magic. His agency is to frame the world’s meaning in his own terms. Until finally he gives it up.
Candide accepts societal moral framings (i.e. rationalizations for wrongdoing) naively, but is slowly worn down by the evidence that they’re a sham. But in facing the seemingly intractable harshness of reality, he doesn’t become so cynical as to cede his own agency entirely—“Il faut cultiver notre jardin.”
To me that feels like a wiser response than absurdity or despondency.
Also a counterpoint, but from the other side (from British Speculative fiction): Terry Pratchett's Discworld series
These books, written by a British author, are full of characters with strong wants who are roused into situation-defying action.
These books are also best-sellers on _both_ sides of the pond, and often share shelves with Adams.
By Intermernet 2026-01-237:49 Almost all of Pratchett's greatest characters are highly flawed, morally complex and anti-heroic. This is the main point. This premise includes everyone from Cohen the barbarian, through Vimes, Rincewind, Susan, all the witches, Moist Von Lipwig, all the way to DEATH.
That's one of the main reasons that Terry's work comprehensively bridges the genre gap between "children's books" and "modern philosophy".
By zharknado 2026-01-235:48 My favorite part about Pratchett is that the characters who are most competent choose to act in the best interest of the less competent “normies” who will never understand or appreciate what they’re doing on their behalf.
Pratchett did start the series with a loser protagonist, Rincewind, before pivoting to mostly competent main characters.
Even then, he goes through the typical heroic arc of:
1) Starting the story by Resisting the Call to adventure -- in a way that reveals strong character motivation (a strong desire to live)
2) He suffers a series of trials that slowly push him to the opposite view: That he must act boldly and selflessly if he is to survive (and thereby also save the Discworld)
3) He performs a heroic act (even if only armed with a "half-brick in a sock") contributing to the good side's overall victory
Although to be fair, he does tend to revert by the start of his next story.
By tsumnia 2026-01-2218:03 > Although to be fair, he does tend to revert by the start of his next story.
I'd say that's most of the Discworld series though. Protagonist is living peaceful, MacGuffin ensues chaos, Protagonist (or Arbitrary Thing) saves the day, the Disc goes back to normal, and the Turtle continues to move.
Discworld is my favorite series and I think Hogfather and Feets of Clay should be mandatory reads for people going into AI.
By kergonath 2026-01-239:20 > He performs a heroic act
Does he, though? I don’t think he acts heroically even once. Though I would not be surprise if Pratchett actually defies expectations and made him a genuine hero once or twice; it’s been a while since I read the Discworld books. Rather, acts that look heroic from the outside if you squint happen to him despite his best, incompetent efforts to stay out of it.
By eli_gottlieb 2026-01-232:03 You forgot
4) Confusing pretty young women with potatoes.
By notahacker 2026-01-2220:14 tbf Pratchett was blatantly mocking the heroic arc with that, and the series opens with The Colour of Magic which is basically the Hitchikers Guide to the Discworld in which Rincewind completely fails to avoid having a lot of adventures and actually ends up falling off the edge of the world: the resemblance to Adam's creation surely isn't accidental. Pratchett said Rincewind's narrative role was "to meet more interesting people"
By hshdhdhj4444 2026-01-2214:512 reply 99% of references I see to Charlie Brown in the U.S. are as a sucker who never learns.
By tsumnia 2026-01-2215:01 Referencing does not necessarily equate to sentiment though. Similar to seeing Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes peeing on thing decals isn't representative to the admiration to the comic series. The "woop woop woop woop" adult voice is another core element to US culture making fun of authorative figures, but doesn't dismiss them as unneed aspects to life.
By krustyburger 2026-01-2214:591 reply Those references are to the recurring gag with Lucy and the football.
There’s a lot more to the character than that so I hope 99% is an exaggeration and people are still reading Peanuts and watching the various animated versions. I’m pretty sure they are.
By thaumasiotes 2026-01-2216:33 > Those references are to the recurring gag with Lucy and the football.
Probably, because that's the most popular example of Charlie Brown as a sucker who never learns, but it's a core part of his character and is shown by many, many other gags. There's also a recurring gag with Lucy and April Fool's Day. There's a whole family of them around baseball and Peppermint Patty. There's another recurring gag where he tries to fly a kite.
The comic can't depict Charlie Brown as able to learn - since he never succeeds,† if he could learn, he'd never do anything at all.
† There are a couple of temporary exceptions. When he runs away from home he meets a gang of littler children who respect him. When he has to wear a paper bag over his head at camp, he becomes a success for the duration.
By amiga386 2026-01-2312:40 https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20241205-how-charles-m...
> Back in 1977, Schulz insisted that the cartoonist's role was mostly to point out problems rather than trying to solve them, but there was one lesson that people could take from his work. He said: "I suppose one of the solutions is, as Charlie Brown, just to keep on trying. He never gives up. And if anybody should give up, he should."
I'm enjoying the discussion of Charlie Brown, but while Peanuts is indeed an American pop cultural institution, I never really thought of CB as a 'hero', or even really a protagonist.
While there were cartoons where he's the protagonist (I recently watched A Charlie Brown Christmas), his main medium is the comic strips, and Peanuts generally didn't tell a continuous story (if at all), unlike, say, the superhero comic strips. Instead, they're little vignettes of life, and like most serial comic strips, you're meant to relate to them, get a nugget of wisdom or insight, or a chuckle. We mostly read them as kids who were bored and wanted something like a cartoon until Saturday came around (I realize adults read them, too, but today that seems rare, almost unimaginable to me now). So I'm not sure Charlie Brown really counts as a counterexample, here.
Even the cartoons are not so beloved that they're widely rewatched by adults for their storytelling. People have nostalgia for them because they're something they watched as children. This is the main reason I watched A Charlie Brown Christmas recently, and it's kind of a mostly sad story with a weird resolution. Thanksgiving was practically unwatchable. The Garfield cartoons also do not hold up, imo.
By TacticalCoder 2026-01-234:35 > I never really thought of CB as a 'hero', or even really a protagonist.
Yup totally.
As an european I always saw, as a kid, Snoopy as the hero who had lots of humor and who was likable. I'd describe Charlie Brown as "invisible" as I barely remember him.
By Intermernet 2026-01-237:451 reply CB could be called a "midtagonist", but apparently that would be someone who really likes a particular type of fly-fishing lure.
I realize 'midtagonist' is a standard sloppy internet neologism, but technically it should be 'midagonist', or maybe 'mesagonist' to keep it fully Greek.
(And yes, I'm delightful at parties.)
By Intermernet 2026-01-2312:58 I appreciate the pedantism, and I'm sure I would happily spend hours at parties discussing similar inanities with you :-)
By Melatonic 2026-01-2313:07 Wouldn't Snoopy be the hero ?
By lenerdenator 2026-01-2214:243 reply I'd say there are more. Courage the Cowardly Dog? Very much in the lovable loser camp. The Eds from Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy also fit, but I suppose you could say that's a Canadian show.
By freedomben 2026-01-2215:052 reply Indeed, also a great example of a failing bumbling lovable loser who is frequently considered a hero to many Americans is Homer Simpson. Homer Simpson is a hero to many people in America, especially among the working class. It's not a pure example, because Homer does inadvertently succeed often, but it's almost always because of some crazy luck, not because of some skill or even perseverance.
I largely agree with Douglas Adams assessment of the cultural differences. I think it's pretty clear that he is on to something in a general sense. But there are definitely exceptions in my opinion. It's just way too diverse and way too complex a formula to ratchet down in such a narrow way.
> Indeed, also a great example of a failing bumbling lovable loser who is frequently considered a hero to many Americans is Homer Simpson.
Homer maybe the lowest version of a protagonist "loser" tolerable to American viewers, but he still has far too much agency compared to a British loser. "Lisa needs braces" and "Do it for her" are very hero-coded, and would never happen in a universe where the Simpsons are a British family.
Another barometer is American remakes of British shows, where the loser character is given redeeming qualities or circumstances rather than just letting them be the losers they are, such as David Brent vs. Michael Scott in their respective "The Office" roles. I suspect soaked-in-the-wool loser characters don't poll well in American focus groups hired by studios.
By UncleSlacky 2026-01-2219:22 That probably also explains the (repeated) failure of American Fawlty Towers remakes - Basil Fawlty is a loser, and Americans can't play them convincingly.
Homer is a great example for this. However, at the end of the day, through all his incompetence and bumbling, he wins. He has a wonderful wife, kids and a home. He has friends and always has an upbeat “winner” attitude. You see him and see a happy, successful person inspite of his failings.
Same with Peter Griffin but he is confident and fiercely dominant. He doesn’t feel like a loser.
Even Michael from the office who is a “loser”, has a lot of redeeming qualities like genuine care for his employees, terrific salesman and a position of leadership.
Being a loser who is in a position of leadership isn’t a redeeming quality - it’s an indictment of the system he lives in.
By dyauspitr 2026-01-2323:48 Maybe but for his purposes it’s redeeming.
By freedomben 2026-01-2218:45 Great point! Would the Simpsons have done as well had Homer just gotten screwed over and miserable? I would bet not. In the American culture that sort of reality would have shifted the humor into more of a "feels bad man" that probably wouldn't have gone over well.
Courage always overcomes the challenge by being brave even though he is scared.
By SAI_Peregrinus 2026-01-2314:33 If you're not scared, you can't be brave. Bravery is doing something despite fear, it's quite distinct from fearlessness.
Those shows are also on purpose far out and weird in their style and story telling.
By lenerdenator 2026-01-2214:301 reply Courage the Cowardly Dog definitely is. EEnE is, eh, typical 90s cartoon fare, at least to me.
By Forgeties79 2026-01-2214:371 reply EEnE had a strangely surrealist quality to it that stands out in my memory. It’s goofy and slapstick, but it’s basically its own little vacuum of a world and even feels slightly unsettling at times. It’s hard to put my finger on it exactly. It tends to veer between Looney Tunes rules and being grounded in reality, but it doesn’t really spend much time making the two compatible. It just kind of swings wildly between them (see: their mouths when they eat jawbreakers).
Now that I think about it, that’s probably partially why there’s that old copy pasta about it being a dystopian setting. It lends itself well to the concept.
I think the fact that the kids are alone and unsupervised basically all the time is what makes it so unsettling. You never see adults in the show. It's always just the same small group of kids. About the only adult interaction with the kids is through sticky notes.
I think that need and loneliness is also expressed in the show. Which is different from other kids shows which are more cartoony (Dexter's Laboratory, for example, though the adults do make appearances)
Now this is making me wonder if there was a shift at some point… as far as I remember, kids shows in the past were mostly about the kids. Ed Ed and Eddy and the Peanuts might have taken this to an extreme as part of the joke. These shows were for kids, and so the kids were the focus.
I wonder if kids shows nowadays feel a need to include more adults because adults are more likely to be watching.
There's a difference between peanuts and the eds. In peanuts, adults were definitely around but the words they said weren't understandable. As a result they basically were just background noise. It wasn't the case that the kids felt unsupervised. They still went to school, rode the bus, talked with their teachers and parents (even if you never saw them.) And they never expressed a feeling like the adults were missing.
In the eds, if you'd said "their parents have long been dead and the kids are clinging on to what was left", it'd fit right into the story. Eds had dark and serious moments around the lack of adults.
By bee_rider 2026-01-2219:48 Huge difference in tone between the shows, 100% agree. I just think they are both sort of lampshading the fact that they don’t have any focus on adult characters (in completely different ways).
By freedomben 2026-01-2215:08 Oh yeah, this is absolutely a thing, though I think it's more to include a potentially additional audience rather than a way to make it fun for the kids. As a parent, I've loved it because it allows me to be able to stand and even get a joke here and there while watching shows with my kids.
By Forgeties79 2026-01-2220:54 No doubt that contributes but there’s also something about the way they interact with each other and how they physically exist in space/the Looney Tunes style physical gags that really stands out to me. It’s often a little… grotesque? Feels like a strong term but it’s the word that comes to mind
Only a European, and one who grew up on US stuff, fondly so, charlie brown feels very low on the exposed and perceived American ethos / values. I saw a few strips and refs .. but that's about it.
By iterateoften 2026-01-2215:273 reply It’s practically institutionalized at school. Major holidays are marked by watching Charlie Brown in class at a young age.
By alistairSH 2026-01-2215:331 reply I don't recall EVER watching Charlie Brown shows at school (Fairfax Co, VA in the mid 80s).
By interloxia 2026-01-2216:041 reply I only remember watching Flight of the Navigator year after year.
By cgriswald 2026-01-2310:13 I watched it at school too but just once. We all sat in the gymnasium. We also had a magician perform, some type of band, and some other activities over the years. Looking back I think there was always some “special” day right around the corner.
Unrelated, in high school we watched History of the World Part I in World History and our teacher had a piece of cardboard that said “censored” or something that he put in front of the screen during various scenes like “Bishop humps Queen” but allowed the audio to play through.
So it's very much present as inner culture but not much an influence big mainstream productions (tv shows, movies) that we see as exports, is that right ?
By msabalau 2026-01-2218:17 I think it depends where you live. Peanuts seems to have fairly large presence in Taiwan and Japan--it's currently owned by Sony. It's one of the tentpoles on Apple TV.
According to Wikipedia, as a franchise it's brings in more revenue than Star Trek or the Avengers.
By jimbokun 2026-01-2219:26 As iterateoften points out, the TV shows are mainly tied to US holidays, or at least how those holidays are celebrated in the US. This also makes Peanuts merchandise tied to those holidays very popular.
Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas are the major ones. I think New Year and Easter were added at some point but not as well known.
Having said that, it makes sense that those shows wouldn't translate as well to a non-US audience.
Honestly, in my experience the original stuff largely disappeared. I vaguely remember watching some of it back in the early 90's, but never in school. The holiday specials would be on TV if you went looking for them, but that's about it.
Snoopy was more ensuring than Charlie Brown, but even that was more "cute cartoon" than anything to do with any message.
Edit: I see some sibling comments that it's making a comeback, though I've no idea if any of it is all that faithful to the original.
Charlie Brown had a lot of Christian messaging reflecting Schultz's devout beliefs, and I doubt any of that will show up in whatever Apple and Target and current schools are putting together.
By agumonkey 2026-01-2217:49 talking about snoopy, it was quite popular in france in the 80s, i even have a kid thermos (https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1478487195/thermos-snoopy-an...). but yeah it felt acultural to me at least (to be honest i would have said it was english)
By Izkata 2026-01-231:10 > Honestly, in my experience the original stuff largely disappeared. I vaguely remember watching some of it back in the early 90's, but never in school. The holiday specials would be on TV if you went looking for them, but that's about it.
Yeah, my dad (a Baby Boomer) loved these and would make sure to watch them every year. I and my Millennial siblings didn't really care, it just felt old-fashioned. I had no idea it was still popular at all.
Nope. Schoolhouse Rock, multiple Monty Python films, The Last Samurai, The Magic Schoolbus, Romeo and Juliet... but never any Charlie Brown. Oh yeah, and The Sandlot. 2 or 3 times I think.
By alistairSH 2026-01-2219:29 Huh, we didn't get those either. Except Schoolhouse Rock. The only other TV I remember was we'd watch every Space Shuttle launch, up until the Challenger explosion, then we didn't watch them any more.
And of course, there was the Oregon Trail video game in middle school. But, as far as I can tell, that was a pretty short-lived thing.
Charlie Brown does feel more like a symbol of a bygone era rather than an embodiment of the 21st century American psyche
By jimbokun 2026-01-2219:28 Yes, a time when children entertained themselves outside interacting with other children, and adults were so peripheral to their lives that they could be portrayed always off screen by a mumbling voice.
By t-3 2026-01-2218:02 Yeah. I remember thinking it was old and boring as a kid in the 90's... Have children born after the millennium even ever seen a newspaper, let alone read the comics?
By MrVandemar 2026-01-233:381 reply Not just Charlie Brown. The entire cast of the comic.
* Charlie Brown will never talk to the Red Haired Girl. His kites will always be eaten by a tree. He'll never win a baseball game. He'll never kick the football. He has abominably low self-esteem.
* Lucy's infatuation with Schroder is clearly one-sided; likewise Peppermint Patty / Charlie Brown; also Sally/Linus.
* Snoopy will never get the Red Baron, nor enjoy publishing success
* Linus will never stop believing in The Great Pumpkin and is disappointed every year.
Probably loads more. The comic is about losers, and losing.
By lionsdan 2026-01-2313:31 He did eventually win a baseball game. https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/march-30-1993-after...
He has more modern versions in Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin. But most of the failures or misfortunes they experience are quite mild or temporary, all things considered.
By yellowstuff 2026-01-2217:29 From Stephen Fry: "You know that scene in Animal House where there’s a fellow playing folk music on the guitar, and John Belushi picks up the guitar and destroys it. And the cinema loves it. Well, the British comedian would want to play the folk singer. We want to play the failure."
Homer and Peter Griffin are idiots but they smash the guitar. Charlie Brown gets his guitar smashed.
I think this is a distinction between comedy and non-comedy genres.
There are many examples of protags in American comedies who never get their way -- Party Down, Seinfeld, Always Sunny. Part of this is the need for American sitcoms to maintain the status quo over dozens of episodes / several seasons.
You rarely see Hollywood action heroes who are beset with unrelenting disappointment -- they usually go through hell, but by the end of the third act, achieve some sort of triumph.
A notable counterexample is Sicario, but I wouldn't call it a "Hollywood action movie."
In the first Indiana Jones, the hero makes no positive contribution to the outcome in the end. He is just along for the ride.
To be fair, it requires a little bit of thinking to see. The general audience might see it as success because the outcome was "good" even if it had nothing to do with anything Jones did.
By raattgift 2026-01-2219:41 Indy led Belloq to the Ark. Belloq was looking in the wrong place because he only had the side of the headpiece of the Staff of Ra that was seared into Toht's palm, thus without Jones in the movie, the Nazis might never have acquired the Ark, failing to "take back one kadam to honor the Hebrew God, whose Ark this is".
Moreover, if Indy had not gone to Nepal, then Toht (having obtained the headpiece) and Belloq might have used a staff of the right length to find the Ark. Had they also captured Marion and taken her along to their secret island base, Jones would not have been there to tell her not to look, and thus her face would have melted off too.
Of course, Toht and his henchmen might also just have killed her in Nepal.
Alternatively, as Toht and company followed Jones to Marion, and might not have found her otherwise, they might never have had even half the headpiece of the staff of Ra, and the Ark thus would have remained undisturbed in its resting place, leaving the baddies to deal merely with the wrinkles and creases associated with aging appearing on their faces in the fullness of time.
So: Jones keeps Ravenwood alive, and puts the Belloq and his Nazi colleagues in a position to have their faces melted off. Jones also offed a couple of Nazis and other baddies along the way.
By owisd 2026-01-2217:19 After the Nazis opened the Ark, Jones was able to tell the Americans where to pick it up from. Otherwise when the Nazis sent a crew to look for the missing men they’d have just found and taken the Ark again.
By krapp 2026-01-2216:53 >In the first Indiana Jones, the hero makes no positive contribution to the outcome in the end. He is just along for the ride.
I think that's just bad script writing.
By eli_gottlieb 2026-01-232:07 > it had nothing to do with anything Jones did
To be absolutely fair, I think in that era of American cinema there was a norm that you very clearly delineate apart what the protagonist accomplishes from what comes about by an act of God. Indiana Jones does nothing because the Nazis have to get their comeuppance for blasphemy.
By Der_Einzige 2026-01-2215:084 reply Charlie Brown is dying in America. Gen Z doesn't know who he is.
By panzagl 2026-01-2216:01 Charlie Brown is actually pretty big right now- my gen z daughter has her entire classroom decked out in him and he's over Target, etc. He fits in with the cozy subculture part of gen z.
By tsunagatta 2026-01-2215:521 reply Bro literally everyone I know has watched at least the Great Pumpkin and Charlie Brown Christmas. People my age regularly make memes based on the football gag. It’s a cultural icon.
As a general rule actually, I’d say that Gen Z is more likely than may be expected to know about culture from before our time - the internet, after all, is a back catalogue of the best hits of humanity. That’s why spotify thinks we all have a listening age of 70.
By pseudalopex 2026-01-2220:12 > As a general rule actually, I’d say that Gen Z is more likely than may be expected to know about culture from before our time - the internet, after all, is a back catalogue of the best hits of humanity. That’s why spotify thinks we all have a listening age of 70.
I heard many people who grew up before 2000 remark younger people listened to more varied music than they did at the same ages. And I heard none remark the opposite. But some of the same people remarked knowledge of older television and movies had declined seemingly. And none remarked the opposite.
By GMoromisato 2026-01-2216:091 reply Apple just created a new Charlie Brown series and my 6-year-old daughter has already devoured it. I'm trying to get her to say "good grief!" more often.
By sfink 2026-01-2218:50 Be very, very careful about what you wish for.
By Melatonic 2026-01-2313:10 .....Snoopy is literally making a huge comeback with that generation
By throwaway132448 2026-01-2214:27 I don’t know anything about Charlie Brown, but I’m not sure constant bad luck and disappointment capture the spirit of the British humour being discussed, as that can just as easily be used to describe slapstick humour. Perhaps it’s the existential futility/resignation that’s missing? Charlie Brown is a child, so they perhaps have optimistic naïveté instead (such that their failure be viewed with pity instead of kinship, which is really the distinction here).
Columbo is anything but a failure, though, and the audience knows that. His genius is leveraging humility to convince killers that he's a bumbling idiot, while in reality he's onto them from the first encounter.
_Slow Horses_ came up in another thread. I'd argue that Columbo has more in common with Jackson Lamb than with Charlie Brown.
By ndsipa_pomu 2026-01-2311:29 There's similarities between Columbo and Slow Horses. Lamb is similarly dishevelled, but is the polar opposite of Columbo's charm.
By stronglikedan 2026-01-2216:35 As with everything else, sweeping generalizations about "culture" rarely hold up in the modern world.
Most Americans wouldn't consider Charlie Brown the "hero" of his strip, they would consider him a loser who gets what he deserves, and that's the joke. He isn't cool the way Snoopy is cool.
I think the article is correct that Americans don't feel sympathy for the underdog who doesn't overcome and succeed in the end so much as contempt, due to their inborn sense of entitlement and belief that failure is caused by a lack of moral fortitude and excess of laziness rather than systemic injustice and inequality.
Americans are a pretty diverse group, but the most iconic image anyone has of Charlie Brown is perseverance. Lucy sets up a football promising potential success, and despite the fact that she's pulled it away from him at every opportunity, he still tries to kick it anyway.
I think that's a quintessentially American fable. Most people will never achieve great success, but they can experience the thrill of imagining opportunity, and even if they know it's illusory, that moment of faith and effort before failure is the heroic action.
People will do stupid things like bet their life savings on a game or a bad idea, but they feel heroic for having tried regardless, knowing that if enough people keep trying, someone is going to succeed, and they get to experience that success vicariously in some small amount because they tried just as hard as the one who succeeded, experienced the same struggle, and somebody made it, even if it was never going to be them.
The football bit has a subtle touch that I’ve not seen mentioned anywhere. Because it’s not just kick(trust/risk) or not kick(distrust/preservation). When he kicks, he gives it his all, resulting in massive failure if he’s tricked. Yet, he never gives it half effort. Half effort would mean even if she moved the ball, he would still be standing there with only a minor whiff. Then he could slap the ball out of her hand and make her the laughing stock. Point is, he has a lot more than two options that are presented. And I think this says a lot about his character. He’s portrayed as a kid who will likely be a better adult than child. He’s more mature than his peers. I think that is the subtle part of his personality and character that is a little deeper than the obvious.
By Melatonic 2026-01-2313:12 Agreed
By alistairSH 2026-01-2215:382 reply Perseverance like CB's is just pathetic insanity.
That's how I see Charlie Brown, as do many of my friends. We frequently use the "CB missing the football" as an analogy for the Democratic Party - over the past several decades years, the party has been a long series of swing-and-misses (notably their ability to win the popular vote but lose an election, and even more their inability to beat Trump, twice).
That works as reference to a frustrating situation, but Charlie Brown doesn't just miss. We assume that if the football was left where it was promised, he would have kicked it.
Maybe you suspect a similar situation with the Democrats, that those holding power sabotage their efforts, or maybe the analogy doesn't work in that way, but I think that people like this Charlie Brown trope because his failure isn't the result of a lack of ability; it's an excess of hope and trust.
I've heard plenty of people say that Americans are idiots because they don't realize the system is rigged against them and they believe the American Dream that anyone can achieve success. I think plenty of them know that the world is a harsh place with untrustworthy and adversarial people and that they are at a personal disadvantage compared to the wealthy and powerful, but they choose to persevere regardless because they believe hope is better than nihilism.
That can work against them. They might vote for a political party even if it fails them. I'm not saying that kind of hope is sane or rational from a game theory perspective, but it's very American to keep it up anyway.
By thaumasiotes 2026-01-2222:37 > but Charlie Brown doesn't just miss. We assume that if the football was left where it was promised, he would have kicked it.
You shouldn't; when Lucy doesn't pull the ball away, he does indeed miss, kicking her in the hand and putting her in a cast.
Charlie Brown never succeeds at anything.
By kevin_thibedeau 2026-01-2215:58 They turned their back on their base voters to cater to tiny special interest groups. It's not surprising that the other side was able to draw them in with deceptive messaging. The funny thing is that the other side has perfected the art of constantly pulling away the football while blaming others to reinforce their support.
> Most Americans wouldn't consider Charlie Brown the "hero" of his strip, they would consider him a loser who gets what he deserves, and that's the joke.
I don't think you speak for most Americans. That's the cruelest interpretation I've ever heard of Charlie Brown.
Real life is cruel to the Charlie Browns of the world.
And from what I've seen of the cruelty and lack of empathy in American culture, I stand by my assessment.
The enduring success of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special (despite its hokey Coca-Cola sponsored origins) strongly runs counter to this idea. The other kids in the special are outright mean to Charlie, but at the end no one identifies with the other kids' perspective, nor do they themselves.
Part of the reason the Halloween Special never gained the same cultural relevance/popularity is probably because it doesn't have the same progression. The other kids are mean to Linus and he persists despite it all, but ultimately it ends with no resolution to the mocking.
[Content warning: this post has been written while the author is on cold medicine and before having any coffee. Read at your own risk!]
But you know those other kids are going to go right back to being assholes as soon as "the magic of Christmastime" wears off.
It seems like the message is kind of, "It's ok to be an asshole, as long as at certain, 'special' moments, you show a token gesture of goodwill."
I haven't watched the whole show through in decades, so it's possible my memory is faulty, but I don't recall any of the mean kids making any sort of apology or atoning for their behaviour. It's just "and now we're all friends because Christmas!"
And then the next day, Lucy's back to tormenting her ostensible "friend".
By d-us-vb 2026-01-2216:21 It's easy enough to interpret Peanuts as being that. But Charles Schultz was not trying to present that. He was presenting the world as it is, and how one person can still maintain his optimism in spite of all that. This is made abundantly clear in some of the other strips, like the Father's day strip where he explains to Violet that no matter what, his dad will always love him, and he doesn't care that Violet's dad can buy her all the things.
Schultz was a relatively devout Presbyterian (though still very much a free thinker and criticized the direction American Christianity was going and its attitude about the various wars during the 60s-80s). He was incredibly optimistic about humanity, but he showed in Peanuts the reality of our "default" state, especially among kids.
Keep in mind that these are all 2nd and 3rd graders in the story.
By AlanYx 2026-01-2216:16 In the Christmas Special, the kids come to see Charlie Brown as right and are fairly vocal about this ("he's not a blockhead after all", etc.). It is somewhat tethered to the religious elements voiced by Linus, which gives the turnaround to Charlie's perspective a kind of cultural weight, i.e., the audience is intended to understand the kids as wrong in some kind of fundamental way. It's not as simple as "the magic of Christmas".
In the Halloween Special, the kids don't do the same for Linus, apart from Lucy who pulls him out of the cold and tucks him into bed.
The dynamic between Lucy and Charlie is a lot deeper than her cynical kicking the ball trick. Schultz uses their interactions (the psychiatry booth, him keeping her on the baseball team even though she's consistently terrible) to reinforce an overall theme that optimism is better than pessimism. Occasionally he directly peels back the layers behind Lucy's crabbiness like when Charlie's in the hospital.
By jimbokun 2026-01-2219:36 The message is that kids are often assholes to other kids, picking one or a few to gang up on. Which is true.
It appears from your other comments that you're American too. So the question is, are you that cruel too, or you do posit yourself as the one magical exception to the rule?
I'm not the one magical exception, no. But I and Americans like myself are clearly not representative of mainstream culture or politics here. You can't argue for the overall humanism and empathy of American culture after we voted for Trump twice and while 40% of us still support the administration, ICE and everything that's happening here.
And of course when I say "mainstream" culture I mean "white." The cultures of oppressed people necessarily harbor more empathy than the culture of the oppressors, because their survival depends on it.
And yes I'm white, too. Your gotcha didn't work. Better luck next time.
> 40% of us still support the administration, ICE and everything that's happening here.
This number is misleading. Overall job approval does not entail equal approval for "everything." Typically, job approval depends a lot or even mostly on the economy. There was a famous expression from the Bill Clinton Presidential campaign...
Anyway, back when I studied math, 40% represented a minority, not a majority. And I'd like to see your polling on Charlie Brown; it feels like you're just projecting your personal feelings onto that rather than relying on any empirical data.
98.15% of American voters in 2024 voted either for a party funding, arming, and abetting a well documented genocide; or for one that promised to fund, arm, and aid that genocide even more.
Those same parties have raised ICE's budget every year since its inception, inflicted sanctions that have killed millions of innocent civilians over the last couple decades, and spent trillions upon trillions in a 'war on terror' that has only increased instability. Not to mention the bipartisan support for torture, mass surveillance, surveillance of world leaders, threats to ICC judges, sanctions on UN Rapporteurs, threats to The Hague, massive subsidies to polluters, etc etc etc etc etc.
You can argue all you like that the voters were trying to be practical, that there were no other truly viable options, or try and say that history's most documented genocide of all time wasn't a real genocide somehow...
But it says an incredible amount about the character and quality of modern US society. None of it good.
By eli_gottlieb 2026-01-232:161 reply Right, so you don't really have any strong evidence for opinions about Americans at all. You have extremely strong opinions about Israel/Palestine which you're transferring onto Americans.
By Schmerika 2026-01-2318:49 Ok Eli.
By K0balt 2026-01-2214:42 Systemic? It goes way beyond that.
Nature itself ensures that life is short, brutal, violent, and punctuated with horrors. Happiness is a transient state that loses its power if it is present more than part of the time, and joy can only exist in a backdrop of disappointment, or it just becomes another day in the life. We are wired for a life of failure, disappointment, trauma, tragedy, and loss.
That we have wrested a comfortable civilization from these dire circumstances is a great testament to the resolve and resourcefulness of men and women.
We have the great privilege and responsibility of living in this elevated plane, with a long (as biologicaly possible) life lived in relative comfort, and even insulated from the horrors of life by the drapery of civil machinery.
Even so, the only justice in this world is the justice we create ourselves.
The universe owes us nothing, and sometimes collects its debt for the entropy we take from it.
By jimbokun 2026-01-2219:31 Charlie Brown is more like Peter Parker.
He always does the right thing. In spite of always being punished for it.
By bigstrat2003 2026-01-2217:181 reply When you go out of your way to bash American culture for no reason (with some bonus racism thrown in a few comments down!) it really drags the discussion down. I really wish you wouldn't do that, it's just making the site worse for everyone.
By krapp 2026-01-2218:49 >When you go out of your way to bash American culture for no reason (with some bonus racism thrown in a few comments down!) it really drags the discussion down.
This discussion is about American culture, and I have reasons for my criticisms. That you can't conceive of any such criticism as having any possible rationale beyond randomness and racism is what makes good faith discussion difficult here. Forgive me if I've given up even attempting nuance after having my efforts be met with snark and midwit dismissals time and again.
But in the future I will keep in mind that only pro-American views are allowed in threads like these. I keep forgetting this is supposed to be a safe space for the very people responsible for the myriad problems we're not supposed to mention. Sorry for harshing the vibe.
I think the fact that most Americans call it "Charlie Brown" when the name of it is actually "Peanuts" proves you wrong.
By t-3 2026-01-2315:19 The cartoon is Peanuts, the movies and TV specials all have Charlie Brown in the name. The name "Snoopy" is also common, but probably only among older people? Snoopy doesn't seem to feature much in any of the stuff I saw as a kid.
I think that doesn't actually prove anything beyond the name of the character being more memorable.
By Supermancho 2026-01-2219:00 Baby Yoda show vs Mandelorian, sure.
Even at the height of popularity, it was never the "Bart" show, it was always the Simpsons.
The specials are largely how people are introduced to Peanuts today, are from shows that are named:
* A Charlie Brown Christmas
* It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
I think the takeaway is that the character name is more memorable because Charlie Brown is more recognizable due to being better marketed, today.
By JumpCrisscross 2026-01-2214:572 reply > they would consider him a loser
What about Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes?
By piltdownman 2026-01-2310:58 Stu from Rugrats was a wonderful homage to the 90s everyman and the incoming new reality of men taking up some of the domestic drudgery. It was one of the few shows at the time that had some incredible adult insight and humour for a 'kids' show and never spoke down to its audience - Hey Arnold being another exemplar.
The episode where Angelica breaks her leg and Stu is basically forced into indentured servitude as a result is a masterpiece:
Didi: Stu? What are you doing?
Stu: Making chocolate pudding.
Didi: It's 4:00 in the morning. Why on Earth are you making chocolate pudding?
Stu: Because I've lost control of my life.
Calvin is such an interesting character. He never "learns", similar to Charlie Brown, but his outlook is that of a scientist who just wants to "see what'll happen". Anything to occupy his hyperactive mind, whether it be spaceman spiff or a trip to the Triassic, or closer to reality, pranking Susie Derkins or trying to get the better of Moe (or Hobbes for that matter). He's not optimistic, but cynical. But his cynicism is irrelevant because he's driven by his avoidance of boredom.
By kstenerud 2026-01-234:57 To this day, the C&H strip I remember most is https://cl.pinterest.com/pin/313633561533127275/
By workmandan 2026-01-2214:0111 reply Stephen Fry made the same remarks in a Q&A session some years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2AbqTBxao
As a Brit I can't agree more with both, I find American humour so hard to relate to but I guess it's just a culture thing
By deltarholamda 2026-01-2214:212 reply His point of high church vs. Protestantism is a good one. We in the US practice a kind of competitive Protestantism designed--at least partly, if not mostly--to make the adherents feel good about themselves. There is a distinct difference between submission and proselytizing.
There is also something to the state of empire as well. The British empire had been in steady decline for a very long time before Adams or Fry started making people laugh, whereas the American empire has been ascending quickly since WWII. This sort of gestalt is hard to ignore and will certainly influence things. For example, would a 'Blackadder' sell as well in 1890? This is around the same time 'King Solomon's Mines' was selling briskly, and Haggard's story is instantly recognizable by any modern Hollywood writer.
On some level Americans are British people time-displaced by a couple of generations.
"On some level Americans are British people time-displaced by a couple of generations."
At a certain level I don't think the UK ever recovered from WW1.
I think there is a lot of truth in that. It led to the death of patriotism (which is now considered embarrassing outside of sport), national purpose, institutions, empire, and coincided with the decline of heavy industry (which only happened much more recently in the US).
EDIT: Saying that, there is still a strong positive national identity. We're just too embarrassed to express it strongly (see patriotism), because of our fall from grace.
I also think there is a breaking point, and we're seeing the resurgence of right wing parties in the UK and across Europe as a backlash to anti-patriotism and praise for everyone except those with a long history in their own nation.
By eli_gottlieb 2026-01-232:225 reply "Anti-patriotism" doesn't really sum up the sense that many among Europe's owning and intellectual classes would prefer to "dissolve the people and elect another" via immigration. The example that shocked me, as an American, was when a story came out that certain schools in the UK had stopped teaching about World War II and the Holocaust because (second-generation, in many cases) immigrant parents objected to their kids being preached-at about the history of someone else's country. This was presented by, IIRC, the Guardian or the BBC, as a fairly reasonable objection.
To my American mind, for everything wrong with our country, come on, if you're an immigrant to the USA, it's your country. Taking on American history as your history is what it means to be part of the common civic project, and insisting that "the Allies beat Hitler and built the liberal international order and then we saw off Stalinism too" is somehow insulting to your family because those Allied soldiers weren't your blood ancestors sounds outright treasonous.
The history curriculum is (like nearly everything else) nationally set. The content of the leaving exams is also not set by the school (but by the national boards). It's possible that one school has decided to do something daft, but honestly not likely.
The story reads like ragebait, TBH. Brits are absolutely as keen on extolling WW2 heroism as anyone else.
By 2b3a51 2026-01-2311:06 "In England, by law children are to be taught about the Holocaust as part of the Key Stage 3 History curriculum; in fact, the Holocaust is the only historical event whose study is compulsory on the National Curriculum. This usually occurs in Year 9 (age 13-14)."
https://www.het.org.uk/about/holocaust-education-uk
So not Province of Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales. Note that WW2 is not a statutory requirement in any of the key stages although it does feature in the examples (which are non-statutory). And a reminder that history is a required subject only to Key Stage 3, so many students won't take it after they are 14 and won't study for an exam.
Reporting on education in the UK does tend to be rage-baity and most situations are more complex when you look at them a bit closer.
(I have never taught history and never taught in the school sector)
By ljsprague 2026-01-238:22 >"dissolve the people and elect another" via immigration
This is happening almost everywhere in the West, just at different rates.
By laurencerowe 2026-01-2318:12 I would really like to see the source of that because as mentioned elsewhere in the replies the Holocaust is a compulsory part of the National Curriculum and has been at least since I was in high school in the 1990s.
To the extent that the Holocaust is part of British and American history it is that we knew very well what was going on in 1930s Germany and strictly limited the number of Jewish refugees because of domestic concerns over the level of immigration.
By watwut 2026-01-238:25 Americans lying about Europe is common disease. That being said, right wing people lying about everything is basically a pandemic now.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-01-236:241 reply WWI "coincided with the decline of heavy industry" ? I can't think of any UK-based heavy industry that didn't dramatically expand between the end of WWI and say, 1958.
By biofox 2026-01-250:23 The UK dominated the world in coal production, shipbuilding, factory machinery and textile mills before WW1, and went into steady decline post-war.
E.g. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mikael-Hoeoek/publicati...
Going by the variety of flags i see people flying I'd say there is quite a lot of patriotism about - just not for the UK.
By arethuza 2026-01-2314:45 To be clear - I'm in Scotland and the flags I see are the Scottish flag and the EU flag (often combined). I know there has been a spate of flag flying for other reasons but I haven't actually seen that myself.
By brnt 2026-01-2314:59 When I visit the UK, it strikes me, the number of British flags and symbols. Perhaps most so on supermarket products. We have none of that here.
By spacebanana7 2026-01-2216:08 Totally agree, WW1 is really the root cause of all of Britains problems.
Victory wasn't worth the cost. It would've been better to give the entire empire to the Germans to maintain peace. It'd be lost anyway in a short amount of time. Even forcing King George and Kaiser Wilhelm to marry would've been better for them than German Republicanism and the British Royals becoming Kardashians with crowns.
A large portion of the UK hasn't really accepted or internalized the fact that the British Empire is no longer a thing, and they're not the most powerful nation in the world, nor anywhere close to it.
(...And yes, that does sound like what it looks like is coming for the US, though it's not quite there yet.)
By arethuza 2026-01-2215:22 I do know the type of person you are talking about and I don't think it's the Empire as such (which is long gone) but the lingering on of the kind of exceptionalism that was used to justify the Empire. Wonderful sayings like:
"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life." Cecil Rhodes
Mind you - perhaps I'm just bitter because I'm a Scot ;-)
By hydrogen7800 2026-01-2216:413 reply I visited London several years ago, and in the house we were staying was a relatively short book describing, for lack of a better term, "British exceptionalism", and it resonated with me as an American. I don't recall that much, but I do remember the idea, for example, that the European Union was seen to be a good thing in the eyes of the archetypal Brit "for the continent", and not for the British isles. Always exempting themselves from international cooperation/norms/laws, etc. I think America inherited a lot from the British (certainly not an original idea of mine).
By arethuza 2026-01-2216:49 Yes Minister explains it nicely:
"Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?"
> the European Union was seen to be a good thing in the eyes of the archetypal Brit
It wasn't, hence Brexit. We were dragged in via a Customs Union against the will of the British electorate at every turn.
By barrucadu 2026-01-2313:21 Read the rest of the sentence.
By deltarholamda 2026-01-2313:52 For a small island nation, Britain has had an outsized influence. Culturally, politically, technologically, etc. There are many reasons for it, some accidental (like geography) and some purposeful, but it remains that Britain has punched above its weight for a very long time.
America has followed a similar tack, and for many of the same reasons. High-minded ideas like "international cooperation" sound especially good to those nations who are not sitting at the top, but for those that are it does seem less than ideal. I.e., I'm sure that Montenegro is big on international cooperation, but China will justifiably ask "cui bono" (but in Chinese).
By globular-toast 2026-01-2216:25 That's quite true. On a recent trip I got talking to a girl from somewhere in Europe. She spoke perfect English, of course. At some point she remarked, rather bluntly, "It must be strange for you guys because you used to rule the world." I made a joke but internally I was reeling: used to? I'm almost 40 and still hadn't realised this.
Later I was talking to another 20-something, British this time, who didn't know Dr Martens were British. I asked where he thought they were from, "I guess I assumed they were American". Sigh...
By alimw 2026-01-2217:12 And yet... TFA
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-231:511 reply and that's a very good thing. I only recognise our nation from 1945 onwards, establishment of the welfare state, the idea the government cares for its people. The idea that victims matter. While it wasn't just overnight and was many years in the making, there was this element of cruelty, a survival of the fittest, seen in the victim blaming of street urchins with rickets in the early 20th century.
In 1966 there was an industrial disaster where a school was submerged in coal waste and 116 children died. The coal company offered £50 per child as compensation. There was a national outcry that marks the change in attitude and the compensation was increased tenfold to £500 (quite a lot back then). Did we see this in Flint with the polluted water, or in Ohio when that train derailed with all the chemicals?
There's something about having absolutely everything in the world and then pissing it all away in an enormous own goal of world wars that is extremely humbling and I'd like to think that plays a key part in the British psyche and I think its for the better.
My grandparents were the war generation I knew, having lived through the blitz, and all they wanted was to sit in the garden and have a nice cup of tea. They didn't want to be the best or were looking externally for validation. Just a nice sit down and a chin wag and I think that's a positive way to be, as opposed to what I imagine was the driving force of the Imperial era in always wanting more and trying to prove how "great" our nation should be. We proved how great we are in two of the most destructive wars in the world's history where the entirity of Europe lost. We suck.
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-01-236:252 reply > pissing it all away in an enormous own goal of world wars
in what sense were WWI and WWII British "own goals" ?
Britain won, but it cost them pretty much everything. And while a lot of pride is connected to winning them, neither were wars Britain really had to fight.
WWI was caused by every European power thinking they could benefit from a war, leading to powder keg that blew up from a completely inconsequential event. For the British one of the motivations was getting Germany's African colonies that were in the way of building the Cape to Cairo Railway, which ended up never being completed anyways.
WWII at least had a clear villain. But it was a villain that made every indication that he didn't actually want to fight Britain. Maybe that was a ruse and Hitler would have attacked Britain after securing the continent, maybe it wasn't and a British and German empire could have coexisted. We will never know. What we do know is that fighting WWII required Britain to bleed its colonies dry, followed by losing most of them in the years after the war
I'm not going so far as saying Britain shouldn't have fought the world wars. At least WWII had justification beyond what can be seen on map. However without participation in those two wars Britain would have had a shot at continuing to be a wealthy empire
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-2318:48 I don't mind the rationale for WW2 so much, I think the idea that Britain "didn't have to", doesn't scan. What the Third Reich was doing meant it would always be an existential threat that would ultimately result in conflict. So it was better for Britain to fight the Nazis than stay neutral.
I would however suggest that the two wars are basically the same war with just a big ceasefire in the middle, that's why I would treat them as the same mistake.
By Quarrelsome 2026-01-2318:44 Britain mostly bankrolled WW1 and was broke by 1916. If you consider the British position prior to the war and after the wars, its an extroadinary failure. Especially considering how all the monarchs of Europe were directly related and had ample opportunities to prevent the wars. They were conflicts of hubris, over-confidence based on mostly fighting the developing world and never having to appreciate the horrors of modern artilery against their own ranks. If you look at the opening battles of the first world war the quantities of casualties are absolutely staggering. They were not prepared and under-estimated what it would take to fight these wars.
All that wealth and power wasted on turning Europe into a wasteland and sacrificing generations of young men.
In Japanese culture the failed hero is also revered, but in a solemn rather than comedic way.
Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Kusunoki Masashige, The Standing Death of Benkei, Saigo Takamori (the last samurai), the Kamikaze pilots, even Yukio Mishima...
What's interesting is that unlike the British fatalism, Japanese failed heroes are driven by duty and honor and tradition above all (even at the cost of themselves). To an outsider they are foolishly stubborn and unwilling to accept an imperfect or changing world. But in Japan that is something to be admired.
By t-3 2026-01-2315:36 Many of those are not failed heroes. They are heroes who found success by dying honorably. "Death before dishonor" is something now known only to the criminal classes in the West, but was the norm for any feudal society (ie, Japan before being conquered by the US).
By oneeyedpigeon 2026-01-2214:043 reply I find more modern American humour much easier to relate to, probably because it has veered more in this direction. A show like Always Sunny seems incredibly British-compatible because it's about terrible people getting their comeuppance, yet still being sympathetic despite their failings.
To go full British, you need characters like David Brent, who aren't sympathetic. They have no redeeming heartfelt goodbye. No-one is sad when they're gone, life moves on.
I would also say that the Always Sunny gang really aren't sympathetic either, but it's a para-social trick of having spent so much time "together" with them over so many episodes.
I suspect a new viewer coming to watch the latest series of IASIP would not see them as sympathetic. That's quite different to The Office (US), where a new viewer skipping to later seasons would not have the same opinions as a new viewer watching season 1, where Scott was much closer to a Brent type character, before he was redeemed and made more pitiable than awful over the seasons.
I'm not sure it's generally true that funny English characters aren't sympathetic.
By xnorswap 2026-01-2214:42 You're right, there are plenty of sympathetic ones too, but it's the unsympathetic ones that really don't do so well to a US audience. There's a reason that The Office (US) hard pivoted Michael Scott after season 1.
By Beestie 2026-01-2214:43 Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) is both hilarious and sympathetic so there's that.
By jccalhoun 2026-01-2216:32 A more recent show to compare would be the UK vs the USA version of Ghosts. I like both shows but it is interesting how in the USA version all the main Ghosts are basically good people while the UK Ghosts have more serious flaws. And in the UK version, money is a constant problem while in the USA version it isn't nearly as big of a problem.
By retsibsi 2026-01-2218:41 > I would also say that the Always Sunny gang really aren't sympathetic either, but it's a para-social trick of having spent so much time "together" with them over so many episodes.
I'd say they're charismatic and funny, but irredeemably bad people. It was refreshing that the show didn't shy away from that; in lots of comedies, the characters are basically psychopathic if taken literally, yet we're still supposed to like them and to see them as having hearts of gold if they make the occasional nice gesture. Always Sunny just leaned hard into portraying them as terrible people who were only 'likable' in the shallow sense needed to make the show fun to watch rather than an ordeal.
But I think the creators eventually lost sight of that -- I remember the big serious episode they did with Mac's dance, and I just find it baffling because in order to buy into the emotion we were evidently supposed to feel, we needed to take the characters seriously. And as soon as we take the characters seriously we are (or should be) overwhelmingly aware that we're watching people who have proven over the previous umpteen years to be irredeemable sociopaths, which kind of takes the edge off the heartwarming pride story.
I only watched the first few seasons of IASIP, but I don’t remember them being sympathetic characters at all. The whole concept, and what made it funny, I thought, is that they really are all terrible people who just drag each other down.
By sanderjd 2026-01-2215:28 Yeah, the conceit of Seinfeld was that the characters were crappy, but you liked them because they were funny. But they didn't actually lean into that as hard as, say, the finale would suggest. All of the characters have something sympathetic that you can like about them, even if you can buy the thesis that they are unsympathetic broadly.
The genius of IASIP is to just lean all the way into this trope. The characters are never sympathetic and never redeem themselves. It's almost an experiment in whether you can make people feel sympathetic toward awful (but entertaining) characters just through long familiarity with them. (Yes.)
By lotsofpulp 2026-01-2214:361 reply It would be disturbing to find out people sympathize with the IASIP characters.
They were more human and relatable in the very early seasons. It was just a bunch of people dicking around trying to run a bar (for the most part).
As time went on, they become more and more awful.
I'd say it has a pretty decent parallel with Breaking Bad. In season 1 almost anyone can relate to and cheers for Walter. By the last season, you hate him and are happy he dies.
By lotsofpulp 2026-01-2215:362 reply They were committing various felonies in the first season, if I recall. It couldn’t have been more clear that these characters are bad people who will do almost anything to get what they want. The humor lies in the arbitrary and inconsistent boundaries they set for themselves and each other.
Contrast with the initial good intentions of Walt in Breaking Bad. The IASIP characters never had good intentions.
By watwut 2026-01-238:28 Walt never really had a good intentions. That is what first season done - he had an out and legal access to money. But he was likable and all of the consequences were not yet known.
I don’t believe most Americans would hate Walter, even at the very end. Americans hate Skylar.
No way. Everyone hates Walter at the end. If he had plausibly maintained the "I was doing it for my family" pose, then maybe, yeah. But the whole point of the last season was putting that idea to bed, demonstrating that it was always destructive selfishness.
Yes rationally he should be hated, it just doesn’t appear he is from a lot of discussions and forums online.
It's just not gonna generate a lot of discussion to say "the intended interpretation of the character is correct". The reason Skylar gets a lot of discussion is that there's a lot of disagreement on the interpretation of that character.
By neutronicus 2026-01-2218:291 reply On that topic, I think the perspective you're replying to is cope. It would have been better for everyone (else) involved if he took the money from his smarmy friend, took the abuse from his dick boss at his second job, took the abuse from his asshole rich student, took the subtle jabs from his family. Generally, if he swallowed his pride.
Of course, the whole reason the show had a plot is that he was too proud, too toxically masculine, to go that route. And I think the show's implicit thesis is that self-immolating as Walter did was preferable to enduring the indignity of his life. Certainly, it was more fun for the audience.
This is contrary to you and GP, making the (what I observe to be) common assertion that the show is a parable about the danger of toxic masculinity, and anyone who doesn't believe this is too stupid, sexist, or both to "get it" (parenthetically, where you differ I agree with you - people who think Walter is cool and Skylar annoying are legion). The reason I'm calling this "cope" is that reading the show as a morality play condemning toxic masculinity allows one to enjoy it without guilt. This is moral art! If only all that human filth on the internet were smart enough to realize it!
I just don't buy it, though. I think the show is about how being a monster is cooler than being responsible, in large part because all the people who depend on you to be responsible are so damn annoying.
It's not about masculinity at all, it's just "pride comes before the fall". That is not gendered. Both men and women are entirely capable of being destructively prideful. The reason Walter is a villain is that his prideful destruction isn't merely a self-destruction. He also tears apart a bunch of other lives, including those of his wife and children. Again, I'm sorry, but gender isn't the issue with this, if it were a woman who carved a path of destruction through her family and community, she would also be a villain. (And of course these stories exist too.)
The binary options you've proposed to somewhat vindicate Walter's choices were not the only options available to him. The whole point is that he's so brilliant that he can take over a whole regional drug trade in like a year. Well I'm sorry, but if he could do that, he could also have put his brilliance toward some other wildly successful business venture that would not have required blowing people up and putting his family in danger from like three different gangs of violent criminals. There were other options besides eating shit from his rich friend and boss.
He did what he did because he liked it, and he's responsible for the damage that did to the people around him.
By neutronicus 2026-01-2221:361 reply Hmm. Well.
I'll admit I gendered it because that's the discourse I always see.
But anyway - you're speaking to whether Walter's actions were moral. I'm more interested in what is the show's attitude towards his actions. Is the show condemning, or glorifying. I think it's closer to the latter, regardless of how poorly things went for Walter in the end.
> The whole point is that he's so brilliant that he can take over a whole regional drug trade in like a year. Well I'm sorry, but if he could do that, he could also have put his brilliance toward some other wildly successful business venture that would not have required blowing people up and putting his family in danger from like three different gangs of violent criminals.
Sure. But, again, I think this is just another implicit thesis of the show. It's easier and more fun to be an amoral asshole without regard for any of your obligations to anyone else.
By sanderjd 2026-01-230:33 Right, the show's position is that he took the "easier and more fun" way, because of his selfish pride, and ended up hurting everyone he cared about, which is why he's the villain. It's very clear about this!
By sanderjd 2026-01-2219:34 I'm pretty sure this is one of those noisy minority things. But who knows, I'm not gonna do a scientific survey to figure it out :)
> Everyone hates Walter at the end.
Hate? Nah. He's tragic.
Does he do evil, despicable things? Absolutely. Are most of those things done because of jealousy, rage, or a failure to bother to understand the context in which he's operating? Definitely. But, like, unless you've never been jealous, blindingly angry, foolish, or far too hasty, you can see where (assuming turning yourself in to the cops isn't an option [0]) you might end up making similar choices. [1]
Is he prideful, wrathful, did he do many evil things? Yes, yes, and yes. It's not unreasonable to call his (in)actions -on balance- monstrous. But he's also relatable/understandable in a -er- "Greek tragedy" sort of way. He's a blunderer and a wrecker who probably deserved far worse than he got, but I find it dreadfully difficult to hate him when I consider the entire story.
[0] Which it pretty much immediately absolutely was not. Even at the start, all the money he made would have been forfeit and (because the USian "Drug War" is batshit crazy) prosecutors probably would have found a way to take the house and cars, leaving his family way worse off than if he'd done nothing at all.
[1] Having said that, there are so many points of decision that the odds that you'd walk his path exactly are approximately zero.
By sanderjd 2026-01-2219:35 Hate at the end, yes. Tragic, also yes. There's no contradiction here!
Yeah this does seem right. Maybe as our own empire has been collapsing, our culture has been edging toward the brits'.
No, nationalism and patriotism started to be embarrassing to the educated classes in the US after the USSR collapsed. We had "won", and slavish obedience and loyalty are really not consistent with the values of liberalism and democracy, and empire is quite uncomfortable if you believe in human rights and self-determination, etc. Our society has been changing because it's running into the contradictions of a culture designed to foster the unity necessary to win wars and dominate the world and an idealism that says all humanity is equal and freedom and self-determination are inherently good.
Another great example of this is British SF, especially 20th century Doctor Who and Blake's 7, vs American SF such as Star Wars/Trek. The British version can be much bleaker. And of course Red Dwarf, which doesn't translate at all into American. (There was a single pilot episode)
Edit: someone downthread mentioned Limmy's Show and Absolutely, to which I would add Burnistoun. Scottish humor is even more grimly fatalist than English.
> The British version can be much bleaker.
I think this one is a miss. TOS is inspired by _british_ naval history. Loss, fear, and failure are central to the show. In this era of TV, leading characters still had large flaws. Kirk is frozen by choice, Spock believes himself superior, Bones is a bigoted luddite. We as viewers get to see the pain this causes and their efforts to improve. It's wholly different than modern US television including all other ST media. Meanwhile, 70s Dr. Who is packed with automatic weapons fire and explosions and the formula has always been the Doctor knows best. (I am a huge fan of all the mentioned shows.)
For a good, modern example we can look at Ghosts (suddenly renamed "Ghosts UK" on my streaming services) and Ghosts US. The adaptation is agonizing. They stripped the important aspects of the story but kept a boy scout, toy soldier, and an interracial marriage. I found that telling.
By kstenerud 2026-01-235:31 I'd argue that DS9 was pretty stand-outish as well.
Worf continues to grapple with honor and restoring his family name, but he's too stubborn and proud to "debase" himself to defeat his political opponents.
Sisko refuses to accept that his fate is preordained, leading to one disaster after another every time he tries to go his own way. His loyalties are also split because of his status as Emissary, straining his relationship with both sides - not to mention the cultural issues.
Odo's pride is his constant downfall, and despite arguing that he's an island unto himself, he's miserably lonely and constantly pining.
Kira can't get over the trauma of her past, and although she does mellow out as the series goes on, when she gets triggered she goes on a rampage.
Dax's past hosts leave her in constant conflict, and she's usually trying desperately to appear in control, even when it's obvious she is not. In Jadzia it's particularly bad due to her issues with Curzon and Joran.
Nog is desperate for adult approval, and is in constant search of ways to gain respect, sometimes to disastrous results.
By GJim 2026-01-2216:28 > Scottish humor is even more grimly fatalist than English.
Typified by Rab C Nesbitt. "An alcoholic Glaswegian who seeks unemployment as a lifestyle choice".
By vintermann 2026-01-2215:015 reply Does the Office have heroes? It turned out to translate very well into American.
That Red Dwarf pilot was actually fine except for the bizarre choice of making Lister a hunk. Rimmer was fine, Holly was great.
I think there is a divide, but it isn't the Atlantic ocean.
As I just commented above, I do think The Office fundamentally maintained this foundation of comedic failure, but I also think it wouldn't have worked as well for American audiences (and indeed, wasn't working as well in the first season because of this) if not for the much larger emphasis on the likable-character love story with Jim and Pam. Maybe the upshot is that you can have a British edge in American comedy, as long as you sand it down a bit with some other element.
I see a similar kind of dynamic in Parks and Recreation, which is maybe a more culturally native take on the same kind of show, where Leslie is also ultimately a comedic failure, but with the edge sanded down by a certain amount of (mostly fruitless) competence and especially a seemingly inexhaustible well of enthusiasm and optimism that can't help but infect most of the people around her.
By red-iron-pine 2026-01-2219:001 reply man it has nothing to do with American watchers.
the UK Office had fourteen (14) episodes. The US one had 201 episodes.
if you don't lean on things like inter-office romance there is nothing to put on screen.
the jim-pam thing was a direct riff on the tim-lucy interactions in the UK version, they just didn't, you know, have 100+ more episodes to build on it.
hell, you can even see when that ran out of steam in later seasons of the US version and they just start jamming celebrity guest stars in there
Fair!
But I also think it's correct that the US version is much softer-edged and that it would not have been so wildly popular were that not so.
I mean, there are harder edged comedies in the US, but they certainly aren't as popular. Would they be more so in England? I dunno, maybe. I suppose the US version of The Office was probably more popular across the pond than the homespun version as well?
By vintermann 2026-01-2220:511 reply I have only seen very little of both, but I did get the distinct feeling that the US office was just plain better executed in many ways. I do remember that reading online forums, fans of UK Office scoffed at the US version at first, but that turned around.
By sanderjd 2026-01-2220:57 True, after the first season. But I kind of question whether there is really a difference between "better executed" and the cultural difference we're discussing here. It's rare to have a show change tone from one season to the next, so it gives us a pretty unique way to look at what changed. I'm not sure what the "execution" issues were in the first season, except that it seemed (to me, as an American) more cold and self deprecating, where later it was warmer and more lovable. It had the same actors and sets and everything, but just different writing and changes to the personalities and storylines of the characters. But I think this might just be restating the differences between American and British humor that kicked this thread off?
By GJim 2026-01-2216:30 > That Red Dwarf pilot was actually fine except for the bizarre choice of making Lister a hunk
I doubt the character of Ace Rimmer [what a guy!] would have translated at all.
By drdec 2026-01-2215:56 Jim is the hero of the US version of the Office
He doesn't succeed so much at work but he does in his personal life
By Der_Einzige 2026-01-2215:11 Robert California and Dwight were the clear heroes of the American version of the office.
By torginus 2026-01-2217:59 Tbf, Star Trek TOS was also a sci fi show with an FX budget of two shoelaces and a pack of gum, and had to be carrier by great actors and writing, which it absolutely was. It's still my favourite Star Trek to this day.
I think the problem with how the US makes shows is that once something get successful, it gets a budget, which means the writing needs to appeal to a broader audience, which makes the whole thing blander.
I might be ignorant of US television pop culture, but I think, at least before the 90s, the UK produced much more memorable scifi shows (and even in the 90s, a lot of those US shows were secretly Canadian)
By dwd 2026-01-236:07 "Greetings"
The ending to Blake's 7 doesn't get any bleaker.
Red Dwarf was hilarious. Highly recommend the books, as they contain a lot of jokes that wouldn't translate to screen easily and would resonate with anyone who enjoys humour in the vein of Adams.
By furyofantares 2026-01-2312:40 > And of course Red Dwarf, which doesn't translate at all into American.
The American version is Futurama (agreeing with your point and with the cultural differences discussed throughout this thread.)
By kstenerud 2026-01-236:00 Also mustn't forget Derry Girls. Uncle Colm is a classic.
“So I says to the taller fella, I says… although there weren’t more than an inch between ‘em…”
By t-3 2026-01-2316:01 The American version of Shameless is in some ways bleaker than the original British version though.
By anthk 2026-01-2216:23 Star Wars is not scifi. Star Trek has nothing to do with SW.
By RickJWagner 2026-01-2214:134 reply As an older American, I’ve always found British humor of the Monty Python type hilarious.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found a lot of newer material of this type. I may have to look harder.
What do you mean by "this type"?
The sketch show format has been pretty much entirely killed off by TikTok & Instagram.
It's very hard to do a sketch that hasn't already been done on TikTok with a tiny fraction of the budget.
Absurdist humour still exists everywhere, it's less popular than either Python in the 70's / 80's, or the flash era in the 2000s, but it's still everywhere, but I'd also wager it is not to your taste.
At the risk of offending just about everyone, I would suggest that something like "Skibidi Toilet" is just this generation's badger-badger-mushroom, which in turn was that generations' "Bring me a shrubbery!".
Sketch shows in particular don't work well for TV in this era. Mitchell and Webb tried hard to return with one this year and it just fell flat, the jokes feel telegraphed from a mile-away, taking a minute to get to a punchline in a era when the same jokes are told in a 10 second short.
The downside of the tiktok/insta model, is that the more successful people on Insta end up just re-telling their one good joke over and over. ( Or indeed, re-recording someone else's one good joke. ).
Not that sketch shows didn't also repeat jokes sometimes, but they could at least play around with a punchline in unexpected ways, or have callbacks and nods to earlier sketches in a series. That kind of non-continuity doesn't work when you don't know which tiktoks will go viral, or which order your audience will see them in, as the algorithm dictates all.
By cogman10 2026-01-2215:00 I think there's something to this. But I'd also say the reason it feels so dead is because consumed media has shattered into a million pieces. With the death of broadcast TV and somewhat the death of movies, it's actually getting increasingly harder to find shows with common consumption.
The reason "Bring me a shrubbery" is funny and why people endlessly quoted Holy Grail is because almost everyone in the US watched Monte python at one point or another. Part of what made people do those quotes is the fact that regardless audience, you know you'll get a laugh because they too know the context for the phrase.
I don't think there's a single piece of media like that. Not at least in the last 10 years. I mean, funnily, I think you've nailed Skibidi as a rare exception, at least for the younger generations.
If you are saying sketch shows like "Thank God You're Here" "Fast & Loose" and "Who's Line is it Anyway" are being killed off by short/low budget replacements on TikTok, we must be living in different worlds.
I haven't seen anything like them on TikTok and I'm on there enough to have noticed. Maybe you're talking about the dumb alien short videos of them telling a joke to each other and snickering, that doesn't compare.
"TikTok doesn't live up to the best of TV" is true, but that's not the argument I'm making.
OP asked for "newer", and yet you've not named anything created in the last 10 years. ( And named a 30+ year old improv show, which is definitely not the format I'm talking about. )
You're not alone, one second-cousin comment even went with the phrase "more modern", then named a range of shows that are at least over 20 years old. Green Wing was the 90's, that's closer to the time of Python's Life of Brian than today.
Clearly things aren't fine if there isn't fresh blood coming through.
Sketch shows never were the best of TV, they are a format where you throw a lot out there and then the very best bits of each episode might be particularly funny, with a bunch of filler in-between.
That can't compete with a medium where people just swipe the second they're not finding a particular piece funny or to their taste.
By m348e912 2026-01-2217:11 I agree the shows I named have aged, but I think my point stands. There really isn't anything _like_ those shows on TikTok that I am aware of, and maybe you've made a bigger point that there isn't anything like these shows at all anymore. (To be fair I don't watch much traditional TV anymore -- maybe that was your point all along and I just missed it)
>"Thank God You're Here" "Fast & Loose"
I've never heard of these shows, where are they out of?
>we must be living in different worlds.
While I'm not on social media like that, I do think so.
By m348e912 2026-01-2217:06 Australia and the UK respectively. Many of the best bits are available on YouTube.
By idibiks 2026-01-2215:31 > I would suggest that something like "Skibidi Toilet" is just this generation's badger-badger-mushroom
Beyond the first minute or two, I'd not class Skibidi Toilet as any kind of humor. It's a serialized silent (late-era-style silent with synced foley but no dialog) sci-fi action war epic told without intertitles.
As in surreal British sketch comedy? You'd like
- The Goon Show (it's this 1950s radio serial that inspired the Pythons... it's surprising how many tropes the Pythons borrowed from it)
- The Goodies
- The Kenny Everett Television Show
- Absolutely!
- The Mighty Boosh / Unnatural Acts / Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy
- Vic Reeves' Big Night Out / The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer / Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer
- Big Train
- The League of Gentlemen
- On the Hour / The Day Today / Brass Eye
- Jam / Blue Jam
- The Armando Iannucci Shows
- Limmy's Show
Also, to throw in a US programme, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson was pretty good
By internet_points 2026-01-2214:50 - A Bit of Fry and Laurie
with Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry
Can we fit in 'Not the nine O'clock news'?
And what about 'Spitting Image'?
By amiga386 2026-01-2311:59 They're both fine shows, but I'd say Spitting Image is satire, spoofing current affairs of the time, rather than surreal.
Although, that said, Monty Python also threw in a number of current affairs references, e.g. references to Reginald Maudling, and spoofing other TV programmes and BBC continuity.
By technothrasher 2026-01-2214:39 > The Goon Show
I had the opportunity to meet and talk to Harry Secombe just a couple years before he died. He was quite surprised to run into an American who knew who he was. Most American's only know Peter Sellers.
By gizajob 2026-01-2215:02 I feel like Jam/Blue Jam was about the zenith of British surreal and nihilistic comedy.
By sanderjd 2026-01-2215:34 I was looking for I Think You Should Leave, which I think is great. But it might be the exception that proves the rule, at least for newish shows in the US.
Key and Peele and Chappelle's Show were also this kind of show, but are pretty old now.
By UncleSlacky 2026-01-2219:40 Also:
- Monkey Dust
- The Fast Show
By RickJWagner 2026-01-2219:38 Thank you!
By technothrasher 2026-01-2214:28 As a fellow older American who loves Monty Python, the more modern British shows I've enjoyed the most were Green Wing, League of Gentlemen, Peep Show, and Doc Martin. Of those, League of Gentlemen and Green Wing have the most Python-like absurdity, while Doc Martin has the most subtle humor. Peep Show is hilarious, but the most crass humor of those listed, although League of Gentlemen doesn't shy away from crassness either.
By lanfeust6 2026-01-2216:54 If you're a gamer, pick up Thank Goodness You're Here!
By freedomben 2026-01-2215:153 reply Yes, definitely a culture thing. I had a very difficult time finding most British humor funny when I was younger, but my personality combination of loving humor and comedy and also being incredibly interested in people, drove me to want to understand why British humor was funny when most of the time it just seemed so absurd.
It was a multi-decade path so it's very difficult to identify progression points, but slowly through exposure I began to "get it" and now I adore British comedy and humor. I still adore American comedy and humor as well, but the more exposure to the culture I got, the more I understood it.
Obviously that's just anecdotal, but I personally find it strong evidence that the humor divide is indeed cultural. The more similar cultures are to begin with, the easier the leap is.
To me the most exciting part of this is that it means there are thousands of other cultures on this planet that have humor that I have not unlocked yet. Someday I hope to!
Edit: for a very fascinating example of differences, I love comparing the UK version of the office to the US version of the office. To many Americans, David Brent mostly just came off mean and an asshole, even a poisonous one, whereas Michael Scott comes off as eccentric and clueless and unable to read the room, but overall a mostly good guy. That perception makes David Brent kind of hateable whereas Michael Scott kind of lovable.
Another fascinating point of comparison is the UK version of ghosts, versus the US version of ghosts. I'll leave comparisons and contrasts on those to others as I haven't watched all of the UK version of ghosts yet. I'd be fascinated to hear what others think of that, and the office for that matter.
By torginus 2026-01-2218:02 It's the opposite for me - the 'you can't change anything, the world sucks, the best you can do is endure and be snarky about it' attitude appealed a lot more to me when I was younger.
By JCattheATM 2026-01-2220:04 I watched both versions of Ghosts, and found them to be quite similar honestly. The US version can be a little more slapstick and a little more goofy, but that's about it.
David Brent is poisonous, and indeed hatable. The point of the British version of the show is not that he's more tolerable or likeable to the British. If anything it's more pointed how awful he is this side of the water, given the preponderance of bosses exactly like this. What makes the show work in the UK (and Ireland), is a greater cultural willingness to see the worst aspects of reality reflected in entertainment. Versus the focus on escapism in even the most grim US television - i.e.: Tony Soprano is a monster, but he also has charisma and glamour. Walter White is dying and becoming more and more amoral, but he also goes from being a dork to a badass. Both characters are utter glamorisations of what their real life counterparts would be like. Along with the surrealism there's a genuine existentialism to the darkest of UK comedy - from early Alan Partridge to Nighty Night. An actual interest in examining the nature of cruelty and suffering.
By freedomben 2026-01-2218:43 > Versus the focus on escapism in even the most grim US television
Interesting observation, thank you! Lot to noodle on there :-)
By PaulDavisThe1st 2026-01-236:311 reply > i.e.: Tony Soprano is a monster, but he also has charisma and glamour. Walter White is dying and becoming more and more amoral, but he also goes from being a dork to a badass. Both characters are utter glamorisations of what their real life counterparts would be like.
I'm not actually disagreeing with you, but I wonder how you think you know this to be true?
By dbspin 2026-01-2619:24 Well for one, no real life mob overlord has a killer sound track and the best DOPs in the business making him look 'cool'. Real life violence doesn't cut away. Real life doesn't have moments of humours for the families of the murdered left behind etc etc.
I'm a filmmaker myself, and the nature of narrative television is to glamorise.
Very interesting! Except I noted that he referred to David Brent from The Office, and we have a direct corollary to that character, of course, in Michael Scott from The Office. They really didn't change the formula for American audiences, he's absolutely still a comedic failure. Starting in the second season, he becomes a bit more of a lovable comedic failure, but the basic point of the character stands. And he is beloved by American audiences!
By FridayoLeary 2026-01-232:361 reply So the exact opposite of David Brent. As the show goes on you don't discover a single thing to make you like him.
By sanderjd 2026-01-2317:22 This is true of the Michael Scott character in the first season (which follows the same plot points as the British version).
And even in the next few seasons, the core run of the show, he's only a bit more lovable. He's still pretty bad!
But certainly as they went further and further along he became more and more of a lovable doofus, very unlike David Brent.
By teekert 2026-01-2214:40 I also really enjoyed After Life (with Ricky Gervais). I wouldn't call him a hero, but then again maybe I would. So honest, so pissed off, so intelligent.
Sick Note with Rupert Grint, same thing. Brilliant.
I'm currently reading the Bobbiverse series. Sure the guy is sort of a hero. But he is also an antihero forced to do heroic things, while he just wants to geek out and enjoy his coffee while making star trek references.
I'm not British btw.
By ajkjk 2026-01-2314:21 don't worry lots of americans can't stand the american humor either
a lot of stuff here keeps existing because of the weird ouroboros of it being popular so people make more of it so it stays popular. but if other things were made and thrust on the mainstream instead they could easily be popular also.
By FrostViper8 2026-01-239:49 As a Brit, I generally prefer American Humour when it comes to comedy. My favourite films are Happy Gilmore and Tropic Thunder. A lot of British Humour is around that everything is crap, it gets tiresome after a while.
By JCattheATM 2026-01-2219:561 reply > I find American humour so hard to relate to but I guess it's just a culture thing
These kind of comments always puzzle me. Hollywood makes stuff for the entire world, not just for a domestic audience.
Shows like Friends, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, pretty much any big sitcom you can name is in syndication in most countries around the world, because of how relatable it is.
It's often not sophisticated, and can be quite shallow (See Two and a half men or Big Bang theory), but it being hard to relate to is unlikely to be an issue.
By peterashford 2026-01-2223:571 reply Don't underestimate the power of big media corporations to push a world view. When I was a kid in NZ, British culture was impressed on us via the media. These days, there's more American influence. I don't think that's to do with the inherent quality of those cultures.
By JCattheATM 2026-01-230:12 Of course not. But I think the US is unique in having it's shows be syndicated to such an extent globally, that isn't true for most other countries even English speaking ones. I assume that feeds back to them having that in mind and trying to please the lowest common denominator.
By mrsvanwinkle 2026-01-235:33 As an American I'm a huge fan of HHGG and Rowan Atkinson (not just his Bean character). I'm also a huge fan of Conan O'Brien and his Harvard generation's work for The Simpsons. Would be far ahead of Adams' time. Though while I find them _okay_ I never laughed so hard that my face and stomach hurt from laughter when watching Monty Python anything, not even Black Adder. For other American comedy what made me really, really laugh so hard was Kenan & Kel and The Lonely Island's work for SNL.
I've tried to find something as funny as HHGG for so long that I've read P.G. Wodehouse as Adam's main inspiration. Also watched Fry & Laurey. I guess Sacha Cohen as British humour? Since he's Cambridge Highlights alum after all. Found his works extremely hilarious though the parody of racism was disgusting.
Here is Conan's best (natural) performance roasting the Google CEO and gOogLers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7TwqpWiY5s
