Very true - at the time it was obvious that the mainstream acceptance of the show forced it to adapt to an uber-conformist demographic - Daily Mail readers. Probably didn't get the bitty jokes.
tbh this illustrates quite nicely why so many British comedy programs used to have three series of six episodes. I never really thought of it in the purely mechanical terms of writers having time and energy and motivation to write, but it makes sense, it has the useful side effect of not stretching quality too thin and ensuring that you go out on a high - preferably with everyone who was involved in the beginning is still willing and able to be involved by the end.
If I didn't know better I'd think Little Britain was a collective fever dream we all had around 2005. But seriously, even though I was super young at the time, I still remember fucking EVERYONE being obsessed with it and quoting it constantly for a couple of years and then it just seemed to... disappear. I actually brought it up in conversation a while ago with someone who would've been a teenager during the Little Britain boom and all I got was a blank stare.
+RetroTellyFan I remember at work a while back when I was told a new woman called Anne would be starting soon, I made the 'UH UH UH' noise of Little Britain's Anne and got blank stares. It really has fizzled out. The same thing happened with the Catherine Tate show, I got so sick of hearing 'Am I bovvered?' But now it's like that show never happened.
@@Stubagful Oh, yeah. I think the big difference there was he left the BBC to make a sketch show for Sky and that killed his career. Last I saw him he was the villain ina kid's movie called "Tooth". But hello there, most excellent video BTW, I must sub to you!!!
@@BritishBriggsy That actually had a sketch in it where they basically said that Little Britain was a bunch of rejected Harry & Paul sketches that Walliams found in skip.
That’s definitely why doctor who series 10 was as good as it was. It took 2016 off, Moffat rested his massive brain, and it ended up being pretty good in the end.
Yeah it is weird how it's faded into distant memory, i recently made an "only gay in the village" joke about Nardole, and instead of people getting the joke i got essays about how wrong i am 😂
Hey Stu, did you ever knew there was a russian adaptation of Little Britain called Our Russia (Наша Russia)? Although everyone involved with it kept saying how it was their original idea and it's just a coincidence, it's all bullcrap, as it has the same font , the same type of narration between the sketches, the same format basically. But every character is original to the show as it adaptates to Russian stereotypes. Interestingly enough that garbage lasted longer than the original series it was ripping off (5 seasons I think, and also 2 full length films) and was huge in Russia. That perspective of being exposed to Our Russia before ever hearing of the original, made me interested in checking out the Little Britain actually. Idk if anyone is interested in reading this random peace of trivia but here it is.
I might also provide more info about the show if you're interested, tho despite the format and some ripped off jokes in seasons one, it's nothing like Little Britain in the style of humor, for better or for worse.
Way too late to this comment, but I just want to say that Russia isn't the only country that ripped off Little Britain. In Portugal we had a show called "Portugal, as it is" (Portugal tal e qual) that had the same type of humour, narration (they even got an old TV presenter to do the voice over) and general feel of Little Britain. The main difference was that there weren't reccuring characters, with every episode devoted to a slice of portuguese life and a different portuguese stereotype
This is pretty unrelated, but I‘m german and used to watch Little Britain with my dad. He always used to think that American Dad was a british cartoon making fun of the USA and that Little britain was an american show making fun of the british.
For me, Little Britain's lasting legacy is as the last time you could do blackface on TV and not be rightly strung up for it. It's weird to think that such a thing didn't even raise an eyebrow (at least as far as the mainstream media were concerned) and that sensibilities have changed so quickly. But I don't think it would have been OK in the 90s either so I'm curious about what it was about Little Britain, or maybe just the world at the time, that let Lucas and Walliams get away with it unscathed.
MeBeMat bear in mind the minstrels were only in Series 1, which always felt edgier and less family-friendly than later series. If comparing to other sketches from the time, it was something you might also find in 'Big Train' but not 'Harry Enfield and Chums'
It was more that at that time they thought it was such a long time ago and it was *so* absurd they saw it as post modern. They were wrong, of course - plenty of the people watching thought we should bring it back, apparently! This progressive thing has been going a lot longer than that! It was an early 80s thing to frown on black face and that's when it disappeared. things like The Young Ones etc. swept all that crap 'men's club' comedy away.
Excellent and fair handed summing up of what happened with Little Britain. You sum up well the pressures Williams and Lucas were under. For me it is interesting to compare with what happened with 'The League of Gentlemen' . For all the discussion about it being 'Horror comedy' and full of grotesques the show always made you care about the characters and was even capable of being poignant. Like Little Britain their first series was also was built on sketches and characters they had been performing for years. They managed to give these characters new storylines in series two which built up the audience's relationships with them and made them more rounded (a prime example is Pauline Campbell Jones dealling with being unemployed herself- compare this with the non development of Marjorie Dawes). In series three (which is personally my favourite series) they focused on a character in each episode giving them space to tell a story (I love the episode that focuses on Geoff Tipps and the episode that focuses on Pauline gives her a story line that shows her as a character who is capable of love and who has an emotional life) And at least the film was an attempt to do something different with the characters and not take an easy road. This meant that when the writers /actors finally returned to the characters after almost 15 years last year they were able to produce such strong material for the anniversary specials. It also used catchphraes and recurrent jokes (such as poor Mathew Chinnery always accidentally killing the animals he was looking after and Charlie and Stella Hull arguing) but did not exclusively rely on them
OMG I CANT BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT yeh but no but yet but no you do know that it was pumped out so quickly because there wasn’t a surplus of national moments
Kay addendum: in hindsight I think I overstepped my bounds with that little snide jab about LoG, as cross-pollination between comedic outlets isn't unheard of. That and yes this video relies mostly on guesswork and my own knowledge of the hectic nature TV production. I will admit I kinda let my overriding issue with the speed at which creatives are typically expected to refine their material supercede the respect that I do very much have for Lucas and Walliams' admirable achievements in comedy
Absolutely get that you were not putting down Lucas and Walliams and your intention is express sympathy for the situation they got put in after the unexpected success of the first series. You may be interested to know that in his autobiography David Walliams discusses the fact that Matt Lucas and himself were good friends with LoG team when they were both establishing themselves and he and Matt remain good friends with them so there is obvious mutual respect and inspiration. Also worth noting Mark Gatiss was actually a script editor on Little Britain
I was slightly too young to get Little Britain but I guess this is the only way we will be able to watch it now even know I never really found it funny
Since I enjoy Tom Baker and Matt Lucas I figured I might give this show a shot. So I entered dailymotion and randomly started with episode 4. I couldn’t make it to the end of the first skit. I haven’t seen anything quite so terrible in years and it really reminds me of just how recently these sorts of homophobic jokes were being made. I then decided to give the show another shot and went into episode 2 which happened to have the exact same characters and godawful jokes. Needless to say I won’t be returning to the series.
ah yes I do remember how little Britain was just everywhere at the time. everyone was constantly quoting the catchphrases. both in real life and in constant talk shows and interviews. many celebrity guest appearances. comic relief sketches with so much excitement built up. tom baker took over narrating all BBC 1 programmes on the evening a new series would premiere because of the hype. endless panel shows with walliams and lucas. it makes me think of older times and now I feel a little wistful and nostalgic for my teenage years lol
I too loved the pirate memory game sketch but wish they let it be a classic stand alone skit instead of have Mr. Man come back again and again to a different shop but with sane owners!
So the 2000s stuff is considered nostalgia now. Whelp that viscous cycle of people bitching about stuff not being like what it was in the decade thew grew up in is bound to continue.
The weirdest thing about Little Britain, to me, is that the same people now who decry it is not acceptable were the very audience who loved it only a relatively few short years ago. Your average fan of the show was a progressive undergraduate at University. It was a very studenty, sixth form comedy. My biggest complaint with it was definitely the repetition. They were funny guys and definitely could have brought more sketches and characters to the table than they did. It was just too based around catchphrase cues and the repeating of jokes for me. Especially when you've got stuff like Big train or Mitchell and Webb Look to watch, it's just redundant when compared with such sketch shows.
Oh, how I love "Little Britain" and "Come fly with me"! Both still run on German TV - always and always again. And I watch it - as well always and always again! :)
I was just thinking about Little Britain last night when I caught a League of Gentlemen repeat. Obviously LoG is better than LB, but it also managed to stay fresh for much longer, which I think was down to each sketch having more than one joke. It remained unpredictable, therefore, it remained fresh. I still think the first season of Little Britain had some quite funny sketches and it is worlds better than Come Fly with Me but even the good stuff doesn’t really hold up. EDIT: Compared to stuff like Mitchell and Webb or JAM, Little Britain is completely unremarkable
You're so right about slowing the fuck down and chilling out for a bit. There was a 4 year gap between Series 1 and 2 of Fawlty Towers and they're both excellent pieces of situational comedy.
It is interesting to compare the careers and output of Walliams and Lucas as a duo with their good friends and peers Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. Pemberton and Shearsmith may not be household names and the two shows they created 'Psychoville' and 'Inside no.9' may not be as well known as Little Britain. They have had to work hard for both shows especially with issues of scheduling and reduced budgets. But they have quietly build up one of the best and inventive TV shows of recent years with 'Inside No.9' which seems to be finally getting the recognition it deserves and which is currently filming it's fifth series.
It's kinda funny that I didn't know about this show until it aired the USA season on HBO about ten years ago. Man, it's been a long time. I always thought that Walliams looked like a British Mike Myers. XP
Speaking of Mounty Python, the reason why the group stopped making sketches together, is that John Cleese left the group and abandoned the Flying Circus show, because he felt like there wasn’t any originality ever since the 80s and that the gang were running out of ideas. I don’t blame Cleese. Even The Meaning of Life was just a movie of sketches all out together, but it was still a good film.
I think have to just take it as it comes. The same formula and structure has been used in British comedy for years, Harry Enfield and chums, the fast show, the Paul Merton show and Catherine Tate to name a few. All these use reoccurring characters that get old fast and it goes back further than these shows. The shows are designed to make people laugh, become popular and then fizzle out. They aren’t meant for longevity although tv bosses do try.
It was also just every kind of bigoted imaginable. "haha working class girl dresses and talks funny and has loads of kids", "haha black face / yellow face", "haha men pretending to be women". It was fucking trash from the start and just got worse over time.
That too. I have been considering a video on its negative social impact since I published this, especially in its depiction of homosexuality. It was broadcast just after section 28 had been repealed but the school system hadn't caught up yet, so a whole generation of kids' first interaction with homosexuality as a concept was....a hokey stereotype. This was 2003, not 1963. Matt Lucas has apologised in the years since, but I don't think many people understand just how sinister the relationship between the show and kids going through sex ed for the first time was
Hi Stu you may know that there is going to be a Little Britian Brexit special on BBC Radio 4 on 31 October 2019 . Not the biggest fan of the show but glad Wailliams and Lucas have worked together again
I discovered Little Britain in 2016. Therefore I binged the 3 seasons and then the Little Britain USA. I noticed the same jokes of course. I think the show would have been loads better if they had more time between series. I enjoyed Come Fly With Me I tad more, but the characters in Little Britain were more well rounded. Stu, other than the shows you mentioned, do you have ant recommendations for modern British comedy sketch shows? I didn’t hear you mention The Catherine Tate Show (my word Nan is hilarious). Thank you for making great content.
The guy giving terrible business ideas and the Scottish hotel owner were two of my favourite sketch premises from s1 and it's a shame they never made a return. S1 really was the best by far, but 2 and 3 still have their moments. Little Britain abroad and Little Britain USA on the other hand need to be erased from history.
i’m american and was shown little britain by british extended family and me and my brothers loved it. thought it was funny as shit and quoted it all the time growing up.
Little Britain was the lowest hanging of low hanging fruits. Imagine two upper middle class blokes making a show centred around punching down at easy targets. Of course, now that people are scrutinising the content more robustly and it has been pulled from streaming services, instead of owning their own creation they've cowardly dropped it like a ton of bricks (after making their millions, of course).
Great vid, Stubagul. The best Little Britain is the original radio shows. They seemed to genuinely put more thought into it then. Series one of the TV show was okay, series two had it's moments but pretty much as it went on it seemed to get rather lazy. Like same sketch, different setting (but not in a 'fun' way such as the man-in-shop-asking-for-specific-item in series one). Which disappointed because a) the audience would typically expect a "funny, unforeseen twist to the standard outcome as a punchline" (happened but not often, instead it was "oh, there's the standard catchphrase/outcome, onto next sketch), and b) both Lucas and Walliams were capable of so much more. But they sank into lazy 'catchphase sketch' (and there were some GREAT catchphrases, but they were best used when adding to, not being a punchline. LB became too much of a media darling, and that was it's own demise. Complete with 'celebrity guests' et al. And some of the later toilet/awkward/"offensive" humour. All three of those categories I love... when they're done well. But LB used them in a rather lazy, almost gimmicky way, and weren't of much quality. I wonder how you compare it to The Fast Show, Stubagful. Similarly, it burst onto the scene, great characters and catchphrases, excellent series one, then as time passed same outcome - quality weakened, too much output, celebrity guest routes, et al. I actually thought Lucas and Walliams' attempted follow-up, Come Fly With Me, actually had more potential than some of the limp later LB efforts, but I think they and the Beeb had rather lost heart in the whole thing by then. All that said, I can't completely dump on LB, for I can't forget all the genuine laughs and great characters it bought me, early on. Just such a shame they didn't know how to structure ahead better - or to get out while the going was good.
Great video mate, absolutely loved it. I’m an all time Little Britain fan but yes I do get you what you mean. They shouldn’t have really rushed things to make way for new characters that made it offensive in the first place. They could’ve focused more on at least 3 new characters each in Seasons 2 and 3 and still could’ve kept using older characters like Ray McCooney, Matthew Waterhouse (the inventor, not the actor) and probably even Des Kaye (even though that did not age very well) if they just weren’t messing with all their budget with all the slapstick. My favourite long running characters are Mr Mann and Roy because the comedy and jokes in those sketches were never getting old and because people were still finding the sketch to be still funny! And it didn’t really cause any snowflakes to complain and say ‘oh it’s too offensive! Ban them! Ban them!’ It was there to show how true it was with very picky customers being every retaliator’s worst nightmare. And to be honest, I could watch more newer sketches with Mr Mann and Roy and would never get bored. Since they only had one sketch in Series 1, it made you think that they weren’t going to appear again because they felt like one-off sort of characters, but surprisingly they did appear again because a lot of people loved it. And in Season 3, with reference to it’s deleted scenes can make you show that they were just really running out of ideas. And if they were, they could’ve still kept bringing more older ongoing characters back from Series 1. It’s still a damn shame that Little Britain would never be made again since the whole had gone woke, snowflakes being a thing and the fact that people just can’t take a joke. Matt Lucas and David Walliams, if you are reading this, all I can say is….. Wicky Woo!!!
the character that's in love with his friends Grandma, and the character that's a grown man but still what his mums milk are my favorite characters on Little Britian. also the "Only Gay in the Village" character was Legendary.
I loved little Britain back in the day, but I agree it has aged badly and that society has moved on in terms of what is acceptable. I don't know why you failed to mention that little Britain started out as a radio show, were you not aware of this? I also think you were a bit harsh in your assessment of Come Fly With Me which I thought was pretty funny, it had some excellent characters such as Tommy, Peter & Judith and Ian Foot (again, hasn't aged well though). It also was a timely jab at those dreadful fly on the wall TV documentaries about airports that were on telly all the time.
@@Denis-tg6jw Then change the channel morons..... you sad lot are something else. Just writing in to complain about what YOU chose to watch. Idiots . . . . . .
@BadwolfGamer. I feel ya man! There should be no line in comedy! Have you ever seen that George Carlin bit where he talks about how how you can say anything including slurs as long as it's in the right context.
Every time I see something about this show, the first thing that comes to my mind is "I liked The league of the gentlemen better", but I've never really realised why my brain linked both shows until now
I really liked Little Britain back in the day... But I rewatched a couple of episodes and it hasn't aged well in my opinion. Probably how my sense of humour has been tarnished since that simpler time.
I used to love it back when I was a kid, but now I don't like it as much. I don't really care for most of the characters like my once favorite Vicky Pollard, but they did have some genuinely funny sketches in the mix and I'd say Marjorie Dawes is still hilarious to me because she at least has more variety to her sketches.
A Yank weighing in here. I'm 53 now and grew up on a steady diet of quality U.K. comedy, so I was curious to check out the much-lauded Little Britain when visiting a friend in Eastbourne back in 2005. The show would not reach the States for another few years, but I had heard of it and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I watched perhaps four episodes and found absolutely nothing even remotely funny about it, with the exception of some of Tom Baker's narration. And I approached the show with a good grounding in and understanding of British culture thanks to having grown up with friends and co-workers who were expatriate Britons, so my dislike of the show was not due to any cultural disconnect. I simply didn't find it funny and I found Matt Lucas to be utterly dreadful.
The repeting jome is what mitchell and webbs bruser did and was one if the reasons it only lasted 1 season but would keep the repeating sketch's to one episode to stop it bleeding into other episodes
Big Finish are doing Star Cops?! That has such awesome potential to be brilliant (The Prisoner)... or a massive pile of wasted chances (Sapphire and Steel).
Sketch comedy is really hard to maintain for series after series, but I'm not necessarily accepting the timeframe excuses for Lucas and Walliams. They could have tried to add some more dimensions to their one note catchphrase whores, but they settled for the same old, same old. Halfway through series two it was possible to almost line for line predict every sketch once you saw the characters. The fatsuit seductress, the 'computer says no' woman and the racist projectile vomiter was a sign that the show was starting to try and appeal to the broadest audience possible and any subtlety was tossed aside. The only gay in the village was initially such a good character, a gay man who was outraged at the absence of outrage about his homosexuality (it basically predicted that Milo bloke). But even he turned into a one note catchphrase spouter..
Little Britain Series 1- Generally good, a few jokes don’t land and but still had its funny moments and enjoyable overall. Series 2- Massive downgrade. Jokes were far more vulgar and offensive, and even the good skits from S1 felt like a shadow of their former selves. Series 3- Worse than S2, literally took what didn’t work about S2 and blew it up to giant proportions. After this point, I gave up on LB and moved on to other comedy shows like Monty Python and Red Dwarf. A shame, as i genuinely love series 1. Should have called it a day there.
Matt Lucas was on Loose Women (I think it was October 2017) and he said that everyone has become more PC, so a revival of Little Britain would be unlikely. Looking at both Little Britain and Come Fly With Me, I can see what he means. As you said regarding Precious and the fat people humour, I'm not sure this would be right in 2018, or would not be received well.
It’s a real shame how hard LB fell off, personally I think the first series is excellent, same with CFWM. It’s a shame that there are so many examples of shows whose formats crack and slowly fall apart upon renewal, because it has a tendency to reflect badly on the show as a whole
The Master. But they invole things like flying to the Bahamas and later flying off to Italy ect not to mention all the stunts and mass marketing securing 100s of extras ect. Little Britian could all be shot in 1 studio and would of had a fraction the budget and a small cast.
You left something very important out Stu ...
Series 1 - BBC3
Series 2 - BBC2
Series 3 - BBC1
See the trend?
Also pre-Series 1: Radio 4 (like a lot of British comedy sketch shows)
Very true - at the time it was obvious that the mainstream acceptance of the show forced it to adapt to an uber-conformist demographic - Daily Mail readers.
Probably didn't get the bitty jokes.
rip BBC 3 had alot of good comedy shows to watch late at night.
@@Chamiliatic eg Ideal!
tbh this illustrates quite nicely why so many British comedy programs used to have three series of six episodes. I never really thought of it in the purely mechanical terms of writers having time and energy and motivation to write, but it makes sense, it has the useful side effect of not stretching quality too thin and ensuring that you go out on a high - preferably with everyone who was involved in the beginning is still willing and able to be involved by the end.
If I didn't know better I'd think Little Britain was a collective fever dream we all had around 2005. But seriously, even though I was super young at the time, I still remember fucking EVERYONE being obsessed with it and quoting it constantly for a couple of years and then it just seemed to... disappear. I actually brought it up in conversation a while ago with someone who would've been a teenager during the Little Britain boom and all I got was a blank stare.
+RetroTellyFan I remember at work a while back when I was told a new woman called Anne would be starting soon, I made the 'UH UH UH' noise of Little Britain's Anne and got blank stares. It really has fizzled out. The same thing happened with the Catherine Tate show, I got so sick of hearing 'Am I bovvered?' But now it's like that show never happened.
Sounds exactly like what happened with the Harry Enfield show a decade before...
I probably shoulda mentioned Harry Enfield as that's the obvious precursor to Little Britain
Also hello Larry, fancy seeing you here :)
@@Stubagful Oh, yeah. I think the big difference there was he left the BBC to make a sketch show for Sky and that killed his career. Last I saw him he was the villain ina kid's movie called "Tooth".
But hello there, most excellent video BTW, I must sub to you!!!
@@Larry Think he was in Williams and Friends... That was recently? Hopefully.... 😆
That show's become a time capsule of 90's Britain.
@@BritishBriggsy That actually had a sketch in it where they basically said that Little Britain was a bunch of rejected Harry & Paul sketches that Walliams found in skip.
That’s definitely why doctor who series 10 was as good as it was. It took 2016 off, Moffat rested his massive brain, and it ended up being pretty good in the end.
Yeah it is weird how it's faded into distant memory, i recently made an "only gay in the village" joke about Nardole, and instead of people getting the joke i got essays about how wrong i am 😂
Zak Rosenfeld that’s because he’s not
Bill is gay
Didn’t you know
She likes women
7991 0313 Gee she never said
matt Lucas is gay though.
On The Spectrum r/whoooosh
@@melancholymelon5316 cry about it
Hey Stu, did you ever knew there was a russian adaptation of Little Britain called Our Russia (Наша Russia)? Although everyone involved with it kept saying how it was their original idea and it's just a coincidence, it's all bullcrap, as it has the same font , the same type of narration between the sketches, the same format basically. But every character is original to the show as it adaptates to Russian stereotypes. Interestingly enough that garbage lasted longer than the original series it was ripping off (5 seasons I think, and also 2 full length films) and was huge in Russia.
That perspective of being exposed to Our Russia before ever hearing of the original, made me interested in checking out the Little Britain actually.
Idk if anyone is interested in reading this random peace of trivia but here it is.
that is actually really interesting. Is it online? I'd like to check that out
Stubagful, I bet it can be easily found online, tho I'm 100% sure no one ever did subtitles for it.
I might also provide more info about the show if you're interested, tho despite the format and some ripped off jokes in seasons one, it's nothing like Little Britain in the style of humor, for better or for worse.
Russia have been doing it for years, making direct carbon copies of popular shows. See - It's Always Sunny in Moscow, The Theorists, etc etc
Way too late to this comment, but I just want to say that Russia isn't the only country that ripped off Little Britain. In Portugal we had a show called "Portugal, as it is" (Portugal tal e qual) that had the same type of humour, narration (they even got an old TV presenter to do the voice over) and general feel of Little Britain. The main difference was that there weren't reccuring characters, with every episode devoted to a slice of portuguese life and a different portuguese stereotype
Glad somebody else acknowledges the League of Gentlemen rip-offs
Little Britain: When The Few Good Jokes Gets Abused To Death.
Come fly with me is class
I'm sorry but nothing beats Sorry I've Got No Head, that was the shit
Loved the one set on the remote Scottish island and I can’t believe Bake off Mel was in the show
I loved maybe my bees can help
Walrus is in the Matrix A THOUSAND POUNDS!
Also the Time Traveling one, and the witch one was great too
WITCH, SHE'S A WITCH!
This is pretty unrelated, but I‘m german and used to watch Little Britain with my dad. He always used to think that American Dad was a british cartoon making fun of the USA and that Little britain was an american show making fun of the british.
For me, Little Britain's lasting legacy is as the last time you could do blackface on TV and not be rightly strung up for it. It's weird to think that such a thing didn't even raise an eyebrow (at least as far as the mainstream media were concerned) and that sensibilities have changed so quickly. But I don't think it would have been OK in the 90s either so I'm curious about what it was about Little Britain, or maybe just the world at the time, that let Lucas and Walliams get away with it unscathed.
MeBeMat bear in mind the minstrels were only in Series 1, which always felt edgier and less family-friendly than later series. If comparing to other sketches from the time, it was something you might also find in 'Big Train' but not 'Harry Enfield and Chums'
@@rossthesauceboss that was specific Danny Glover face.
@@rossthesauceboss Come Fly With Me which was aired in 2010 had blackface.
It was more that at that time they thought it was such a long time ago and it was *so* absurd they saw it as post modern. They were wrong, of course - plenty of the people watching thought we should bring it back, apparently!
This progressive thing has been going a lot longer than that! It was an early 80s thing to frown on black face and that's when it disappeared. things like The Young Ones etc. swept all that crap 'men's club' comedy away.
Taaj Manzoor in 2010 had Lucas in brown face.
Excellent and fair handed summing up of what happened with Little Britain. You sum up well the pressures Williams and Lucas were under. For me it is interesting to compare with what happened with 'The League of Gentlemen' . For all the discussion about it being 'Horror comedy' and full of grotesques the show always made you care about the characters and was even capable of being poignant. Like Little Britain their first series was also was built on sketches and characters they had been performing for years. They managed to give these characters new storylines in series two which built up the audience's relationships with them and made them more rounded (a prime example is Pauline Campbell Jones dealling with being unemployed herself- compare this with the non development of Marjorie Dawes). In series three (which is personally my favourite series) they focused on a character in each episode giving them space to tell a story (I love the episode that focuses on Geoff Tipps and the episode that focuses on Pauline gives her a story line that shows her as a character who is capable of love and who has an emotional life) And at least the film was an attempt to do something different with the characters and not take an easy road. This meant that when the writers /actors finally returned to the characters after almost 15 years last year they were able to produce such strong material for the anniversary specials. It also used catchphraes and recurrent jokes (such as poor Mathew Chinnery always accidentally killing the animals he was looking after and Charlie and Stella Hull arguing) but did not exclusively rely on them
Will you ever look at the IT crowd? I think that would be pretty interesting.
And Catherine Tate Show!
He should look at the IT Crowd
I only watch Little Britain because of Vicky Pollard (A lot of girls in my school are like her)
OMG I CANT BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT
yeh but no but yet but no you do know that it was pumped out so quickly because there wasn’t a surplus of national moments
Come Fly with Me had people in yellow face I'm surprised they got away with that.
And black face (Precious Little)
2000s British TV. You could do it at the time, you would just have everyone hate you.
God knows WHY it was still legal then.
Kay addendum: in hindsight I think I overstepped my bounds with that little snide jab about LoG, as cross-pollination between comedic outlets isn't unheard of. That and yes this video relies mostly on guesswork and my own knowledge of the hectic nature TV production. I will admit I kinda let my overriding issue with the speed at which creatives are typically expected to refine their material supercede the respect that I do very much have for Lucas and Walliams' admirable achievements in comedy
Absolutely get that you were not putting down Lucas and Walliams and your intention is express sympathy for the situation they got put in after the unexpected success of the first series. You may be interested to know that in his autobiography David Walliams discusses the fact that Matt Lucas and himself were good friends with LoG team when they were both establishing themselves and he and Matt remain good friends with them so there is obvious mutual respect and inspiration. Also worth noting Mark Gatiss was actually a script editor on Little Britain
I was slightly too young to get Little Britain but I guess this is the only way we will be able to watch it now even know I never really found it funny
You could always buy it? It's not gone from retailers
Can't you torrent it or don't the kids torrent things these days?
Since I enjoy Tom Baker and Matt Lucas I figured I might give this show a shot. So I entered dailymotion and randomly started with episode 4. I couldn’t make it to the end of the first skit. I haven’t seen anything quite so terrible in years and it really reminds me of just how recently these sorts of homophobic jokes were being made. I then decided to give the show another shot and went into episode 2 which happened to have the exact same characters and godawful jokes. Needless to say I won’t be returning to the series.
ah yes I do remember how little Britain was just everywhere at the time. everyone was constantly quoting the catchphrases. both in real life and in constant talk shows and interviews. many celebrity guest appearances. comic relief sketches with so much excitement built up. tom baker took over narrating all BBC 1 programmes on the evening a new series would premiere because of the hype. endless panel shows with walliams and lucas. it makes me think of older times and now I feel a little wistful and nostalgic for my teenage years lol
The blackface...oof
I just missed the Little Britain wave but i knew the ripple effect and Come Fly with Me is way more insensitive
How is come fly with me terrible? It's brilliant! It was also one of the last stands against the PC brainwashing that came after
Tom Cutter lol so funny
Total joke comment isn’t it
Michele Frisoli ah yes little Britain caused brexit in the early 2000s
Come fly was class. I don't understand how anyone can be offended by it, it literally targets every race and group, no discrimination
Little Britain started out as a Radio Series in 2000-2002 for BBC Radio 4. It was absolutely hilarious and I kind of wish you mentioned it.
what's wrong with quavers??!
I too loved the pirate memory game sketch but wish they let it be a classic stand alone skit instead of have Mr. Man come back again and again to a different shop but with sane owners!
So the 2000s stuff is considered nostalgia now.
Whelp that viscous cycle of people bitching about stuff not being like what it was in the decade thew grew up in is bound to continue.
A good sketch was the writer who pads her book by having some ask if they read the bible and then reading through the whole thing
Margery doors was created as gorge doors's mum in shooting stars. Watch it its on RUclips and took place in 1997
The weirdest thing about Little Britain, to me, is that the same people now who decry it is not acceptable were the very audience who loved it only a relatively few short years ago.
Your average fan of the show was a progressive undergraduate at University. It was a very studenty, sixth form comedy.
My biggest complaint with it was definitely the repetition. They were funny guys and definitely could have brought more sketches and characters to the table than they did. It was just too based around catchphrase cues and the repeating of jokes for me. Especially when you've got stuff like Big train or Mitchell and Webb Look to watch, it's just redundant when compared with such sketch shows.
Oh, how I love "Little Britain" and "Come fly with me"! Both still run on German TV - always and always again. And I watch it - as well always and always again! :)
I was just thinking about Little Britain last night when I caught a League of Gentlemen repeat. Obviously LoG is better than LB, but it also managed to stay fresh for much longer, which I think was down to each sketch having more than one joke. It remained unpredictable, therefore, it remained fresh.
I still think the first season of Little Britain had some quite funny sketches and it is worlds better than Come Fly with Me but even the good stuff doesn’t really hold up.
EDIT: Compared to stuff like Mitchell and Webb or JAM, Little Britain is completely unremarkable
Matt Lucas will always just be a large drum playing baby to me.
You're so right about slowing the fuck down and chilling out for a bit. There was a 4 year gap between Series 1 and 2 of Fawlty Towers and they're both excellent pieces of situational comedy.
It is interesting to compare the careers and output of Walliams and Lucas as a duo with their good friends and peers Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. Pemberton and Shearsmith may not be household names and the two shows they created 'Psychoville' and 'Inside no.9' may not be as well known as Little Britain. They have had to work hard for both shows especially with issues of scheduling and reduced budgets. But they have quietly build up one of the best and inventive TV shows of recent years with 'Inside No.9' which seems to be finally getting the recognition it deserves and which is currently filming it's fifth series.
MARGARET! MARGARET!
...
Yeeees?!
You now I just realised that little Britain’s Dennis Waterman is just like the league of gentlemen’s mr ingleby from the radio series
It's kinda funny that I didn't know about this show until it aired the USA season on HBO about ten years ago. Man, it's been a long time. I always thought that Walliams looked like a British Mike Myers. XP
Speaking of Mounty Python, the reason why the group stopped making sketches together, is that John Cleese left the group and abandoned the Flying Circus show, because he felt like there wasn’t any originality ever since the 80s and that the gang were running out of ideas. I don’t blame Cleese. Even The Meaning of Life was just a movie of sketches all out together, but it was still a good film.
I think have to just take it as it comes. The same formula and structure has been used in British comedy for years, Harry Enfield and chums, the fast show, the Paul Merton show and Catherine Tate to name a few. All these use reoccurring characters that get old fast and it goes back further than these shows. The shows are designed to make people laugh, become popular and then fizzle out. They aren’t meant for longevity although tv bosses do try.
I feel like I’m the only one who likes Little Britain and now I’m sad 😊😊
I like it as well. You’re not alone.
Yay it's not just me who thinks that the fat fighters from LB is a trade rip of the job seekers from leaf of gentlemen
Yep, right I'm off to watch the 3 part specials
Underrated channel
It was also just every kind of bigoted imaginable. "haha working class girl dresses and talks funny and has loads of kids", "haha black face / yellow face", "haha men pretending to be women". It was fucking trash from the start and just got worse over time.
That too. I have been considering a video on its negative social impact since I published this, especially in its depiction of homosexuality. It was broadcast just after section 28 had been repealed but the school system hadn't caught up yet, so a whole generation of kids' first interaction with homosexuality as a concept was....a hokey stereotype. This was 2003, not 1963.
Matt Lucas has apologised in the years since, but I don't think many people understand just how sinister the relationship between the show and kids going through sex ed for the first time was
Other rubbish American remakes include: Red Dwarf, Spaced, Peep Show, The Inbetweeners and Broadchurch.
Harry Robins they did a spaced remake? Fuck
and worst of all, Skins and The Jeremy Kyle Show.
Hi Stu you may know that there is going to be a Little Britian Brexit special on BBC Radio 4 on 31 October 2019 . Not the biggest fan of the show but glad Wailliams and Lucas have worked together again
I discovered Little Britain in 2016. Therefore I binged the 3 seasons and then the Little Britain USA. I noticed the same jokes of course. I think the show would have been loads better if they had more time between series. I enjoyed Come Fly With Me I tad more, but the characters in Little Britain were more well rounded. Stu, other than the shows you mentioned, do you have ant recommendations for modern British comedy sketch shows? I didn’t hear you mention The Catherine Tate Show (my word Nan is hilarious). Thank you for making great content.
Heartily second The League of Gentlemen. Also the Fast Show /Big Train and That Mitchell and Webb Look
Come fly with me is hilarious
Good video. Could you do a contrast video for this one on perhaps the League of Gentlemen?
The guy giving terrible business ideas and the Scottish hotel owner were two of my favourite sketch premises from s1 and it's a shame they never made a return. S1 really was the best by far, but 2 and 3 still have their moments. Little Britain abroad and Little Britain USA on the other hand need to be erased from history.
Little Britain USA had the sketches with the crazy woman and her dog, and I think that was one of their funniest.
i’m american and was shown little britain by british extended family and me and my brothers loved it. thought it was funny as shit and quoted it all the time growing up.
Little Britain was the lowest hanging of low hanging fruits.
Imagine two upper middle class blokes making a show centred around punching down at easy targets.
Of course, now that people are scrutinising the content more robustly and it has been pulled from streaming services, instead of owning their own creation they've cowardly dropped it like a ton of bricks (after making their millions, of course).
COMPUTER
SAYS
NO.
Red squirrel Of The Motherland *cough*
This show has aged so so so badly
Stu I don't know why, but I'm morbidly curious of how a US version of come dine with Me would play out.
Great vid, Stubagul. The best Little Britain is the original radio shows. They seemed to genuinely put more thought into it then. Series one of the TV show was okay, series two had it's moments but pretty much as it went on it seemed to get rather lazy. Like same sketch, different setting (but not in a 'fun' way such as the man-in-shop-asking-for-specific-item in series one). Which disappointed because a) the audience would typically expect a "funny, unforeseen twist to the standard outcome as a punchline" (happened but not often, instead it was "oh, there's the standard catchphrase/outcome, onto next sketch), and b) both Lucas and Walliams were capable of so much more. But they sank into lazy 'catchphase sketch' (and there were some GREAT catchphrases, but they were best used when adding to, not being a punchline.
LB became too much of a media darling, and that was it's own demise. Complete with 'celebrity guests' et al. And some of the later toilet/awkward/"offensive" humour. All three of those categories I love... when they're done well. But LB used them in a rather lazy, almost gimmicky way, and weren't of much quality.
I wonder how you compare it to The Fast Show, Stubagful. Similarly, it burst onto the scene, great characters and catchphrases, excellent series one, then as time passed same outcome - quality weakened, too much output, celebrity guest routes, et al.
I actually thought Lucas and Walliams' attempted follow-up, Come Fly With Me, actually had more potential than some of the limp later LB efforts, but I think they and the Beeb had rather lost heart in the whole thing by then.
All that said, I can't completely dump on LB, for I can't forget all the genuine laughs and great characters it bought me, early on. Just such a shame they didn't know how to structure ahead better - or to get out while the going was good.
It’s interesting to listen to this after reading Matt Lucas’s autobiography, but having never actually seen Little Britain.
Well, they did eventually reunite for a radio show called Little Brexit. It was..fine. Not great but OK for a one off
Vic and Bob must have felt the same. What do you mean they've been a lot more succesful and there's only two of them. It's called talent.
A part of my brain keeps insisting Little Britain would be good if it was combined with Ace Attorney, I doubt it.
I honestly can't belive I used to like this
And now they are doing a reunion project
(When video glitches and RUclips crashes)
Computer says no
COUGH!
The rise was more surprising than the fall tbh
My favourite Little Britain character was Dennis Waterman.
Hi mate - I'd love to hear your review of BBC's Night Night. Hope you seen it. Just wish it had more than 2 series.
Great video mate, absolutely loved it. I’m an all time Little Britain fan but yes I do get you what you mean. They shouldn’t have really rushed things to make way for new characters that made it offensive in the first place. They could’ve focused more on at least 3 new characters each in Seasons 2 and 3 and still could’ve kept using older characters like Ray McCooney, Matthew Waterhouse (the inventor, not the actor) and probably even Des Kaye (even though that did not age very well) if they just weren’t messing with all their budget with all the slapstick. My favourite long running characters are Mr Mann and Roy because the comedy and jokes in those sketches were never getting old and because people were still finding the sketch to be still funny! And it didn’t really cause any snowflakes to complain and say ‘oh it’s too offensive! Ban them! Ban them!’ It was there to show how true it was with very picky customers being every retaliator’s worst nightmare. And to be honest, I could watch more newer sketches with Mr Mann and Roy and would never get bored.
Since they only had one sketch in Series 1, it made you think that they weren’t going to appear again because they felt like one-off sort of characters, but surprisingly they did appear again because a lot of people loved it. And in Season 3, with reference to it’s deleted scenes can make you show that they were just really running out of ideas. And if they were, they could’ve still kept bringing more older ongoing characters back from Series 1.
It’s still a damn shame that Little Britain would never be made again since the whole had gone woke, snowflakes being a thing and the fact that people just can’t take a joke.
Matt Lucas and David Walliams, if you are reading this, all I can say is…..
Wicky Woo!!!
the character that's in love with his friends Grandma, and the character that's a grown man but still what his mums milk are my favorite characters on Little Britian. also the "Only Gay in the Village" character was Legendary.
Man that was a fun video
To watch and im glad someone is talking about my fave show that i use to watch
I loved little Britain back in the day, but I agree it has aged badly and that society has moved on in terms of what is acceptable.
I don't know why you failed to mention that little Britain started out as a radio show, were you not aware of this?
I also think you were a bit harsh in your assessment of Come Fly With Me which I thought was pretty funny, it had some excellent characters such as Tommy, Peter & Judith and Ian Foot (again, hasn't aged well though). It also was a timely jab at those dreadful fly on the wall TV documentaries about airports that were on telly all the time.
I feel like I’m the only one who just can’t stand Matt Lucas as an actor.
CastielDestler no you are not. Walliams, though a very good individual isn't funny either.
@@Denis-tg6jw Then change the channel morons..... you sad lot are something else. Just writing in to complain about what YOU chose to watch. Idiots .
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Darboiux isn't it unfair to criticise somethings you have never watched? Having watched it I don't watch it anymore.
i watched this every now and then in Austria. i can't remember if it was broadcasted in german or english
Back when people could actually joke about stuff and not be oversensitive assholes about certain jokes.
BadwolfGamer erm, it was only 15 years ago. Back then, people were saying the same thing about older comedy 😂
@BadwolfGamer. I feel ya man! There should be no line in comedy! Have you ever seen that George Carlin bit where he talks about how how you can say anything including slurs as long as it's in the right context.
10:39 difficult to tell under the make-up, but is that Peter Crouch? I'm guessing this is from a Sport Relief thing?
I remember finding little britain USA hilarious when I was like 11, I havn't been able to rewatch it in almost 10 years or something though.
Every time I see something about this show, the first thing that comes to my mind is "I liked The league of the gentlemen better", but I've never really realised why my brain linked both shows until now
Also I've been watching league of gentlemen since I was 10
Pleas do a revue of it
I really liked Little Britain back in the day... But I rewatched a couple of episodes and it hasn't aged well in my opinion. Probably how my sense of humour has been tarnished since that simpler time.
Look at Pete Kays Car Share, they had to make another finale because fans were so upset
I disagree with u. I thought series 1 - 3 of little Britain was great! The USA version tho Jesus Christ 🤦♂️
In fact, on your quality chart, I’d put the radio series at the very top
I used to love it back when I was a kid, but now I don't like it as much. I don't really care for most of the characters like my once favorite Vicky Pollard, but they did have some genuinely funny sketches in the mix and I'd say Marjorie Dawes is still hilarious to me because she at least has more variety to her sketches.
A Yank weighing in here. I'm 53 now and grew up on a steady diet of quality U.K. comedy, so I was curious to check out the much-lauded Little Britain when visiting a friend in Eastbourne back in 2005. The show would not reach the States for another few years, but I had heard of it and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I watched perhaps four episodes and found absolutely nothing even remotely funny about it, with the exception of some of Tom Baker's narration. And I approached the show with a good grounding in and understanding of British culture thanks to having grown up with friends and co-workers who were expatriate Britons, so my dislike of the show was not due to any cultural disconnect. I simply didn't find it funny and I found Matt Lucas to be utterly dreadful.
The choice of targets was lamentable.
The repeting jome is what mitchell and webbs bruser did and was one if the reasons it only lasted 1 season but would keep the repeating sketch's to one episode to stop it bleeding into other episodes
Well maybe not too long I mean Star cops had like 6 episodes like 2 people knew about it and now it’s the hot new big finish show
Big Finish are doing Star Cops?! That has such awesome potential to be brilliant (The Prisoner)... or a massive pile of wasted chances (Sapphire and Steel).
Stefan Travis they have been going on about it none stop on Twitter it will be out soon
Stefan Travis it will be out tomorrow
Thank you. Not sure when I started looking forward to BF releases over 'canonical' TV shows.
Stefan Travis I think that started when they started to continue every cancelled show ever made
No mention of the blackface or racist behaviour in this show
Sketch comedy is really hard to maintain for series after series, but I'm not necessarily accepting the timeframe excuses for Lucas and Walliams. They could have tried to add some more dimensions to their one note catchphrase whores, but they settled for the same old, same old. Halfway through series two it was possible to almost line for line predict every sketch once you saw the characters.
The fatsuit seductress, the 'computer says no' woman and the racist projectile vomiter was a sign that the show was starting to try and appeal to the broadest audience possible and any subtlety was tossed aside. The only gay in the village was initially such a good character, a gay man who was outraged at the absence of outrage about his homosexuality (it basically predicted that Milo bloke). But even he turned into a one note catchphrase spouter..
Little Britain
Series 1- Generally good, a few jokes don’t land and but still had its funny moments and enjoyable overall.
Series 2- Massive downgrade. Jokes were far more vulgar and offensive, and even the good skits from S1 felt like a shadow of their former selves.
Series 3- Worse than S2, literally took what didn’t work about S2 and blew it up to giant proportions.
After this point, I gave up on LB and moved on to other comedy shows like Monty Python and Red Dwarf. A shame, as i genuinely love series 1. Should have called it a day there.
Matt Lucas was on Loose Women (I think it was October 2017) and he said that everyone has become more PC, so a revival of Little Britain would be unlikely.
Looking at both Little Britain and Come Fly With Me, I can see what he means. As you said regarding Precious and the fat people humour, I'm not sure this would be right in 2018, or would not be received well.
Little Britain was a FAR BETTER radio series than TV series, IMO.
It’s a real shame how hard LB fell off, personally I think the first series is excellent, same with CFWM. It’s a shame that there are so many examples of shows whose formats crack and slowly fall apart upon renewal, because it has a tendency to reflect badly on the show as a whole
hey Stu do you remember Mash & Peas
Sean Conerys Bonds where all made 12-18 months after each other. And they are mostly all good. So why not this?
The Master. But they invole things like flying to the Bahamas and later flying off to Italy ect not to mention all the stunts and mass marketing securing 100s of extras ect. Little Britian could all be shot in 1 studio and would of had a fraction the budget and a small cast.
The Master. Oh ok
Come fly with me video please
Damn this got recommended.
Great video, but you'd better release another one in under a week or we'll forget about you. Finish the script now!
Ummm... the show that was truly "little Britain usa" was known as... portlandia.
So it's actually a bad Version of boesterreich?