I remember IT Crowd as having some really funny moments back when I watched it, but also being very hit or miss. Looking back, the episodes with the theater gays and the trans woman were… deeply unfortunate. Also it turned out Graham whatshisface is a full-time transphobe. So it’s consigned to the trash bin for me.
BBT, I never saw more than a few episodes and what I did see was very bland tbh.
TL;DR maybe they both suck actually
I’ve watched IT Crowd half a dozen times.
I haven’t managed to finish an episode of BBT before I switch it off in disgust.
In other words, you have insufficient data to make a meaningful comparison.
IT Crows was amazing, I laughed to death. Where the bigbang theory was not so funny, too much detail IMO.
IT Crowd was three British goofballs doing elaborate running gags over 24 episodes.
BBT was four creepy bigots and a nice blonde woman doing pop culture references and calling one another stupid for 279 episodes before spinning out an 80s nostalgia prequel series.
It was the difference between a few cherished cleverly crafted comedy routines and endless derivative slop.
In my mind, I still picture this as the archetype of an office’s boss inside a boss’s office. If it doesn’t have the 4th breaking wall picture, then it’s a fake boss
Ps: that’s how you know that J. Jonah Jameson wasn’t the boss at the daily Bugle, there was no self referential picture
FATHEERRRRRRR!!!
I’ve only seen the one episode of BBT, I think the first one, where a goddamn theoretical physicist spends a whole day forgetting the basic properties of light.
My family stared at me the whole time, expecting me to find it funny. Then THEY got mad at me when I said that was the dumbest shit I’ve seen in a while. Later I found out that Sheldon uses Ubuntu and brags about it.
But, okay, dumb jokes aside - the show doesn’t explore any concepts or situations in new and interesting ways And THAT’S why it’s bad.
Shelden uses linux. Hahahaha. That’s it. A good writer could make a whole episode about that, alone, and it would be hilarious. Imagine him on internet forums. Imagine him fumbling during a talk because his laptop wouldn’t work with whatever vidchat/system/software his hosts used, and getting haughty about it. Imagine Sheldon traveling across the country to “fix” an entire auditoriums tech to run on Arch after his failed remote speech. Walking away all “You’re Welcome” as the staff can’t figure out how the fuck to use it.
Funny, but now you’re talking about the layman being cut out. Ratings won’t survive and it dies after one season. But that would be better lol
I mean, the IT Crowd ran for 5 seasons while actually being funny to people working in the field it portrays, unlike Big Bang Theory which many nerds (not just physicists) find un-funny
As a science nerd I think BBT is very funny, even when the writers make such glaring errors as having Sheldon stop his self-destruct device just before its countdown reached zero - even though he modeled it after Star Trek, specifically referenced a TOS episode the self-destruct was featured in, and even used the same password. Any true Trek fan knows the Enterprise self-destruct was unstoppable after the countdown reached 5 seconds - a fact that comes up in the very episode Sheldon mentioned. A deplorable writing error, to be sure, but I think such things are amusing in their own way.
The only remotely objective measurement I know is that enough people enjoyed the show to make it last 12 seasons. Y’all are welcome to your own opinions, but all the absolutist pontificating is pretty silly. There’s no Kelvin scale of funny.
IT Crowd is hysterically funny as well, but it’s written differently (not correctly or wrongly, just different) and was written and performed for a different audience, in a different country. There’s really no point arguing which was funnier.
“I’ve only seen the one episode…”
Sheldon: “You certainly put a lot of effort into expressing an opinion you’re woefully unqualified to form.”
For sure it’s no contest. Did you see that ludicrous display last night?
Cooper always tries to walk it in.
By far. I think that Big Bang Theory has rotten the minds of lots of highschoolers (that now are at university, or have already graduated)
If BBT was made today it would be accused of being written by AI. Fully flanderised characters, and endless filler episodes.
AKA “The Chuck Lorre Special”
BBT is a show about smart people for dumb people. The IT Crowd is a show about smart people.
I warmed up to BBT after watching Young Sheldon. all the criticisms of BBT still stand but for some reason I just wasn’t miserable watching it. had a few laughs even.
The big bang theory was not for geeks or nerds. It was pure shit.
I always felt like it was a show for moms of geeks and nerds that missed their kids once they moved out.
I’m a geek and a nerd and i loved it, sorry.
Hush you! Can’t have people not joining in the dogpile on a TV show that ended 6 years ago…
It had a good few first episodes with fun geeky jokes, but it quickly turned to bad jokes and lazy stereotypes and relied loosely on stereotypes to contain the geekyness.
Misogynistic pure shit.
No… the IT crowd is a sitcom FOR geeks. That other shit just makes fun of us
I believe this is what happened to Dr Who. When it started it was for science and history nerds, science sounding gobble-de-gook, cos play outfits, very low production values (the infamous duct tape boots). All just good fun.
When it was rebooted the focus had shifted. The Doctor as the cool guy, a Jesus figure, became more and more pronounced. They started to make fun of nerds on a regular bases. Amazing writing and production values, but at some point during the Tennant era I stopped watching in disgust.The original Doctor Who was an educational show mostly aimed at school aged children that used a sci-fi gimmick to teach history lessons (much of which are a bit outdated now). They would alternate storylines between future and past settings through most of William Hartnell’s run.
Towards the end of classic Who it was already much more like modern Who than those first seasons.
I only started with NuWho, watching it as it came out in 2005.
I found it magnificent, exactly because it shied away from glorifying violence, made emotions be the focus of things and there was clearly some large over-arching thing with “Bad Wolf”, but it wasn’t like in the American shows, where if there’s a clue to be seen, the camera zooms in on it, making sure you can’t miss it.
I gather you are right, and NuWho is way more American and hero-centric than Classic Who — but because it was and I was a teenager enjoying shows like Prison Break at the time — I got into Who, and then into better British shows, better shows in general, chasing that sort or good pacifist writing. Star Trek is ofc prolly the best franchise when it comes to actual philosophy. Doctor Who elicits emotions more than thought when compared to the Star Trek Ethos, albeit in a more profoundly British way.
Uuh there’s actually a new episode of Dr Who tonight that reminded me.
Oooh, it’s out already. And I have a few glasses of rum left. And a steak. And a pint of red. Ooooooh. This is turning out to be a nice day.
Anyway tldr completely agree with you, but I think going a bit American with NuWho was a crucial step in luring in more watchers to start appreciating the good things. Kinda how for a kid, it’s easier to learn to eat a new dish when you introduce it bit by bit or with copious amounts of ketchup or something — slowly teaching them that the bitterness is what makes it tasty.
No no IT Crowd is a show about sysadmins, not geeks lol. There’s a very clear difference.
And Moss was a nerd not a geek. He wasn’t obsessing about comics, videogames etc. like the characters in BBT.
Flashbacks to the rett & link “nerd VS geek” music video
That came out 12 years ago
The IT crowd came out almost 20 years ago
I also think this is a cultural difference. The comic book obsession seems more like an american thing. In the Netherlands and Belgium there is also a big comic book appreciation, but it’s much less about heroism and more humorous.
Okay but he didn’t obsess about the British equivalent of comic books either. Geeks obsess about consumerist pop culture whether it’s comics, LEGO or Harry Potter. And Moss did non of that.
Yes, in the proportion of furries vs weebs.
I watched one random episode of BBT after it was recommended to me by a few people. That one episode was enough for me to decide that I never want to see that show again, and also that I should disregard all recommendations from the people who said I should watch it.
The laugh track alone is enough evidence
IT Crowd also has a laugh track.
IT crowd was filmed in front of an audience.
It tends to use it after actual jokes though.
There is a laughtrack in IT Crowd too…
I watched a scene where someone posted it without the laugh track and it was super cringey. Semi-related note… Taking the laugh track out of BBT ruins it, but taking Garfield out of Garfield comics takes it to a new level, see here -> https://garfieldminusgarfield.net/
I do prefer the Realfield edits, that replace Garfield with a normal cat.
Gives mire crazy cat guy than mental illness vibes.
Taking the laugh track out of anything ruins it. You are replacing laughter with dead air.
I’d be interested to see an edit of classic sitcoms with laughs (tracks or live), edited to remove both the laugh and the associated pause in the performance.
There would be more cuts than a fight scene from Taken. It would be super distracting.
You might like the Heathcliffe without Heathcliffe posts right here on Lemmy https://lemmy.world/c/heathcliff
big bang theory is about what dumb people think smart people are like.
apologies for the pixels, I stole it from reddit
bbt is blackface
Reddit ass comment
Not true. Blackface can be funny.
This is a charged topic that needs grace and nuance to do right. When blackface is done with the input, support and consent of the black community, it can re-open discussions about how black identities continue to be co-opted by white media.
Tropic Thunder is a great example of blackface as social commentary.
Sarah Silverman did it, too, as…I think a statement on stereotypes? There were levels there but I don’t think they were intentional.
Tropic Thunder had input, support, and consent of the black community?
I don’t believe it was, no. I said what I think should be done, not necessarily how things have been done.
I still think Tropic Thunder did it well, since it’s not making fun of black people, it’s making fun of how out of touch white people can be. I’m basing that off what Brandon T Jackson and other black perofrmers have said about it in the years following its release.
Anyone down voting you never saw tropic thunder or did and have no sense of humor, probably think big bang theory is banging.
It’s just a dude dressed up like a dude, pretending to be another due.
I wouldn’t say dumb people. It’s a caricature, much like Dennis the Menace is a caricature of small children in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Only Big Bang Theory wasn’t based on an existing comic. So more like Friends being an unrealistic caricature of a late-20’s/early-30’s group of people living n NYC.
Entertainment doesn’t always have to be authentic.
So more like Friends being an unrealistic caricature of a late-20’s/early-30’s group of people living n NYC.
Actually a pretty good comparison given how awful Friends is.
Yes, it’s a horrible caricature, Henry Cavill is basically the template for most geeks these days.
Big bang theory is about nerds.
Also, BBT stayed entertaining for the most part throughout the 8 or so seasons it was on. IT started great and then dropped to “meh”.
How can you stay entertaining when you were never entertaining in the first place?
Oh look, a dumb person.
Calling a person dumb because they like watching sitcoms is like saying Gordon Ramsey isn’t a chef because he likes fast food burgers.
