Things That Are Killing The American Sitcom Pt. 2

The British

As an alarmingly Irish-American, I’m no fan of the British. Their food is legendarily bad, and considering their neighbors are Ireland, known for taking a vegetable that smells like feet and boiling it into a national staple, and Scotland, who took a sheep stomach and filled it with everything else no one wants to eat, that’s saying something.

Haggis: Looking and tasting like Satan’s balls since 1430.

Based on what I know of English history (namely, the first season of The Tudors), Britain has a multi-century rivalry with the French, which as far as rivalries go, is about as sad and pointless as Sisqo starting a beef with the rappin’ granny from The Wedding Singer.

Given the inevitable lead paint poisoning, I’m giving odds to the granny.

But by far the most egregious crime in Briton history is its long, humorless history with the Irish. This is particularly troubling because of all nations and peoples, the British usually do the most with their humor, and do their part to kill the American sitcom in the process.

Normally one-upmanship of American entertainment is solely the realm of bizarre Indian adaptations of copyrighted properties, depressing French existential cinema, and everything Japan does.

According to Google Image Search, this is a TV show in Japan. I can think of no reason to doubt this.

It’s hard to say what it is that makes the British so much better when it comes to situation comedies. British humor is widely acclaimed for its rapier wit and dry wordplay, but American sitcoms have done just fine without those for years!

HAHA, he’s vehemently intolerant of homosexuality! Hilarious!

In spite of their complete lack of appreciation for the humorous consequences of severe lifestyle intolerance and avoiding sex with your wife, British sitcoms routinely trump their American counterparts. In fact when American television producers want to create a hip new show, a good bet is always just to buy the rights to a show the BBC cancelled two years ago.

Coming soon to NBC!

In fact, with The Office an American adaptation of Ricky Gervais’ British show of the same name, and both Community and Parks and Recreation being American adaptations of the American adaptation of The Office, NBC’s only original content on Thursday nights is a show about what happens behind the scenes on Saturday Night Live and a show where Jerry Seinfeld belittles your marriage.

"Hi, I’m Jerry Seinfeld and I used to be culturally relevant.”

Unfortunately for anyone opposed to sitcom outsourcing, it’s likely the best American ideas will continue to be "pre-owned" British ideas for some time. As the best American comedy writers get lured away from TV by poor pay, reality programming, and Jay Leno wanting their time slot, it’s more than likely that we’ll continue to get our patriotic chuckles from the best and brightest the Queen can spare.

God Bless America.

Be sure to come back next week for, I don't know, more pictures and words and stuff, probably.