My last blogpost on British TV comedy classics was shamefully incomplete. Of course such lists cannot be expected to be exhaustive, but I did leave out two major classics and for that I must repent. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Keep the lions at bay as I make amends!
Mind Your Language
Mind Your Language was a show which ran in the late seventies. The first season was broadcasted before I was born, but I did get to watch it as a kid in Mauritius since the show was immensely popular in the entire Commonwealth. The humour in Mind Your Language is universal and as such it has aged like fine wine. I reckon it is just as funny today as it was back then, if not more given the quality of the puns - a bull's eye each and every time.
Be warned though, the show is thick with stereotypes. Mind Your Language was produced in those days where being politically correct didn't matter as much as being artistically creative. The racial stereotypes - which might make Americans uneasy - are also accompanied by generous splashes of sexual innuendo here and there. That notwithstanding, the show remains very bon enfant. It was the spirit of the times. The seventies. Anyway, as I see it Mind Your Language celebrates multiculturalism through laughter. Everyone gets their share and all the characters in this show are quite charming.
You'll quickly want to fit in that class of looneys too.
Spitting Image
Spitting Image was a puppet show which ran in the eighties through the mid-nineties. It was a satirical depiction of royalty and politics. The show inspired the French equivalent Les Guignols de l'Info which currently enjoys similar popularity in France as Spitting Image did in the Commonwealth. Most other satirical puppet shows on politics and current affairs find their roots in Spitting. To be fair, this type of humour - heavily contextual and culturally specific - doesn't age very well. In fact, it's so not funny anymore that I'll spare you the clip. But it deserved to be mentioned as a classic.
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