Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Keeping Up Appearances is one of only like 3 or 4 British shows I was aware of as an American kid. It was on public television here constantly. I don't know why.

Along with Are You Being Served and the one with Judi Dench in it

Oh lol, I totally swapped KUA and AYBS in my mind, it's all a blur

I thought the show was if anything a bit racist. It's about the snobbish pretensions of a lower middle class woman who aspires to be posh.
Had few coloured people in and then treated those who did appear not very well.
But found out that European friends of mine liked the show. So maybe i was missing something . I just couldn't get past teh pathos which I couldn't really deal with at the time.
Do wonder what people from outside the UK class system did think of it or caught in it.

Lead character is patricia Routledge as somebody Bucket which she pronounces as though its origins are french.

Patricia Routledge is a great actress and I love Clive Swift.

In the 90's public television showed "Britcoms" on Fri nights, the shows were variously Open All Hours and The Young Ones (early in the decade) and the Vicar of Dibley, Chef, Red Dwarf , The Brittas Empire, One Foot in the Grave, As Time Goes By and KUA, with AYBS as the one constant.

KUA replaced AYBS as the perennial public tv Britcom sometime in the 00's, and we're now down to KUA and Yes, Prime Minister with Judi Dench relegated to Sunday nights.

Americans only know Lenny Henry as the irascible chef, not at all as the jolly gameshow host.

Apart from KUA, I've only ever seen Routledge in To Sir With Love.

We also had Father Ted in the mix at one time, and probably also Fawlty Towers. Those seem to be the most popular British sitcoms on DVD here.

Oh, and Black Adder.

Routledge also in Talking Heads, but I don't know much about the rest of her career.

However, the long-suffering Richard (Clive Swift) pops up in loads of amazing Play For Today/Ghost Stories For Christmas type things, and the film Death Line. It always makes me happy to see him turn up for some reason, even though I hated KUA.

...and 'The Last of the Summer Wine'.

So we've had lots, but not necessarily the better ones (no 'Only Fools and Horses' for example) and most of them short lived apart from KUA and AYBS.

Yeah, I've seen Clive Swift in a bunch of things xp

KUA is an endurance test for sure, but I think that's kind of the point.

> Americans only know Lenny Henry as the irascible chef, not at all as the jolly gameshow host.

jolly gameshow host?

Had no idea Lenny Henry was known as a jolly gameshow host anywhere.

oh xp

I don't think Lenny Henry has been jolly - as a gameshow host or anything else - for about 30 years.

Keeping Up Appearances is one of only like 3 or 4 British shows I was aware of as an American kid. It was on public television here constantly. I don't know why.

― Jerome Percival Jesus (Old Lunch), Thursday, June 10, 2021 7:18 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was hungover in a hotel room in seattle in 2016 with pbs on and watched an episode of keeping up appearances, which i was baffled at (seems too british for anyone else to care, what did i know)

The only two celebrities who I ever remember I share a birthday with are Lenny Henry and Michael Jackson - they were actually born the same day as each other.

I forget Charlie Parker and remember Lenny Henry! Doh!

Re: "gameshow host", the word i was looking for is "presenter".

From what I'd seen him in at the time, I'd thought he was cast against type in Chef. He was sunnier than a Sunny D.

The word(s) you're looking for are "Trevor McDoughnut"

Lol

I don't think Lenny Henry has been jolly - as a gameshow host or anything else - for about 30 years.

New York public TV also had Good Neighbors and To the Manor Born, hence my enduring love for Penelope Keith.

Mention of The Brittas Empire reminds me that I haaaate that Britcom thing where they make up a character name and then force it into a "pun" for the series title. And yes, that includes Fawlty Towers.

Nelson's column with John Gordon Sinclair is the nadir of that

at least that worked and Nelson is a name. Brittas Empire way worse imo.

Lee & Herring had loads of these as ideas
-
A. Bird in the Hand (Anthony Bird is manager of the Hand pub), Anne R. in The Month (Anne R. is manager of The Month Pub) and by the end of the list coming up with There Are More Things In Heaven and Earth Than Are Dreamt of in Your Philosophy (About how Ian Thing is joined by his relatives at the Heaven and Earth Than Are Dreamt of in Your Philosophy pub).

See also
Roll Reversal - Ian Roll is a driving instructor, Ian Reversal is a baker. They swap jobs, with hilarious consequences.

Chalk and Cheese - Ian Chalk and Ian Cheese are two men. They are very different. However, they eventually become friends and realise they are not so different after all.

Bent Coppers - Ian and Iain Bent are brothers who are policemen. One is corrupt and the other is homosexual. They both suffer from curvature of the spine, and they're made of copper. They're robots in the future.

working title for Married... with Children was Al in the Family

There was also rotten to the coors, where johnny rotten is manager of the coors & also runs a fresh fruit stall, but every week johnny rotten is so rotten to the coors that he neglects his stall and the fruit goes rotten to the core

haha, more pls!

a series about the close bond between a kid and their mother’s brother Robert, as seen through the kid’s eyes, called Bob’s My Uncle

A series about a man named Thomas, who is secretly a werewolf.

It's called Wolverhamptom

Fans of the Two Ronnies and old school UK comedy will immediately
twig that 'hampton' is rhyming slang for penis.

Anne R. in The Month

oof.

this is horrible and kind of amazing.

please let there be a running gag about when you can order oysters, just to hammer it home.

Feel like you're all forgetting about the genius that was The Wright Way.

Mann & Machine was an American science-fiction cop show that ran for nine episodes on NBC in the spring of 1992. It follows Robert "Bobby" Mann (David Andrews), an LAPD detective working in the "near future," and his new partner Eve Edison (Yancy Butler), the first android capable of feeling emotions and learning from experience.

This is related to something that irritates me - giving a character a name that is also a word, but changing/adding a letter for plausible deniability:

"I've just written a story about this character called Judge Dread."
"Come on, that's a little on-the-nose."
"OK, how about Judge DREDD?"
"Sure, that's entirely credible!"

Alexander Minto Hughes (2 May 1945 – 13 March 1998),[1] better known as Judge Dread, was an English reggae and ska musician. He was the first white recording artist to have a reggae hit in Jamaica,[2][3] and the BBC has banned more of his songs than those of any other recording artist, because of his frequent use of sexual innuendo and double entendres.[3]

Forever Knight (1992-1996)
800-year-old vampire Nick Knight quests for redemption as a cop in Toronto, trying to hide his vampiric nature from the rest of the world.

I haaaate that Britcom thing where they make up a character name and then force it into a "pun" for the series title.

Song lyrics that invent characters with imporobable names for the sake of a rhyme are far worse.

Like, I wonder what Herman Farbage is about to do...

Nelson's column with John Gordon Sinclair is the nadir of that

― 《Myst1kOblivi0n》 (jim in vancouver), Friday, June 11, 2021 1:59 AM (fourteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

at least that worked and Nelson is a name. Brittas Empire way worse imo.

― kinder, Friday, June 11, 2021 2:58 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It does work but he's a columnist called Nelson who lives in London. Tooooo on the nose

Baddiel’s Syndrome failed because David Baddiel was an architect rather than a medical condition.

Baddiel’s Syndrome failed because David Baddiel was an architect rather than a medical condition.

Wondering if this is something I had forgotten from knowing it before.
You need to rename an SRT file to match the name of the videofile it accompanies.
Tried running Lupin after finding the 2nd series was circulating. popped the file that was in with the videofiles in with it and got no reaction from the subtitle button so wondered what the story was. Same thing with a version of Midsommar.
Now wondering if I had a similar problem with some other stuff a few months ago and just assumed that the file didn't work so moved onto something else.

Now got it working ok so will have to retry the films

someone explain the "Anne R. in The Month" pun to me?

just the common rule of thumb that you should only eat fresh oysters when there's an R in the month (i.e. avoid May-August)

Jerry Garcia was named for Jerome Kern

xp huuuuh. never heard that one, ty

Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire
June in A Matter of Life and Death
Zira in Planet of the Apes

= all played by Kim Hunter