As much as it's funny. I find HIMYM to be where it's at in the "30 minute sitcom" slot right now. And it has been for a few years now. Great mix of comdey and heart, in fact it's a little like a bunch of mini Apaptow films (but usually a little less gross) and writing to one side for a moment - Neil Patrick Harris is a legend as Barney Stinson.

I think you're more correct than you know.

IME there's a fairly strong divide between the tastes of Southerners and Northerners. For instance, it's very rare that I find understatement funny whilst well-executed sarcasm I find hilarious.

For me, personally:

LOL Funny - Monty Python, Dinnerladies, League of Gentlemen, IT Crowd, Blackadder
Merely Amusing - Little Britain, Yes Minister, Royle Family, Fawlty Towers, Red Dwarf
Not funny - TBBT, Scrubs, Spaced, Arrested Development, 30 Rock, The Office, Catherine Tate


That's it right there.

Thanks Jon

For me, TBBT is funny but I also find it generally interesting. I class it in the same group as Friends - ie an american sitcom, which tends to differ from British ones. I'm more interested in what happens to the characters than the humour aspects of it. Similar story with scrubs - there can and have been very heartbreaking stories eg My Lunch.

Spaced, 30 Rock, TBBT and the early series of The Office are all great. And I grew up in Scotland, so I'm considerably more Northern that you.
Dinnerladies, Red Dwarf - meh.



Well, yes, of course it is. However, more specifically, it's how a group of writers (who's backgrounds and experience we can't discern, so let's not fall foul of the same judgemental fallacy we think they're making with the characters) think this group of geeks behave.
You're imagining that there's some universal Geek Behavioural Field Guide that they've deviated from, when we know there isn't.
Amongst the people I know who enjoy the show, we all tend to see identifiable character traits that are familiar. You see something of yourself, or someone you know, in the character and that's amusing and perhaps endearing.
Out of curiosity, if we're supposing that TBBT isn't how geeks behave, and specifically comic book, sci-fi physicists with above normal intelligence and clear Aspergic tendencies - then what is?
Is The IT Crowd suddenly a gritty mirror of Geek Behaviour?

I'd probably agree with most of your list, but I'm struggling to reconcile finding the IT Crowd funny but Spaced not funny. I think their humour is very similar. Oh well, one man's poison and all that...


I think you've rather hit on a key point actually - empathy is a very strong part of comedy. Confucius said 'The essence of comedy is watching a good friend fall off a roof into a pond'. Good comedy requires you to both empathise with the main character but also be able to take some pleasure in his inevitable misfortune. That's a very fine balance and it's going to be very subjective. I personally have much greater empathy for the characters in Spaced than I do for the characters in TBBT - possibly because they are British and therefore their language and mannerisms are more familiar?


Well, it's possibly more that we simply can't buy into the belief that such people actually exist. The problem is when the characters are so overblown that you can't see anything of yourself in them, you can't establish the empathy that more subtle humour - as oppose to the 'step on a rake and be hit in the face' slapstick stuff - requires.


No, but it is a searing expose' of life in a typical IT support department, believe me.

Jon

Might well be that simple - I love Spaced. I can point to it and say 'see that? That's my 20s that is.', and I imagine it's much the same for you.
Of course, I can't do that with TBBT. But, this leads into my next point:



I've never been a theoretical physicist, or worked in Scientific academia. I do know people who cosplay as The Avengers though. I know people that still play Dungeons & Dragons. I know people who go all quiet and nervous and quiet in the presence of pretty girls. I've been the bloke with the stupid haircut and glasses that's somehow managed to pull the blonde. And then lost her. I know people with Sheldon's obsession with germs. I know someone who's really choosy about where they sit in the cinema for the maximum audio-visual experience (I'm sure nobody here acts like that).
I don't believe that your life is either:
A. So dull nothing has happened to you akin to the characters.
B. So amazingly awesome you find their attempts at whimsy pathetic, because Richard Branson and Mike Tyson are about to play Elephant polo for your amusement while you discuss literature with Will Self.
They may be caricatures, but no more so than an abusive xenophobic hotel owner from Torquay and his amusing pidgin-English speaking Spanish waiter.

TBBT is a programme I have only just discovered. I actually think it's funny, but the future Mrs PZ says she feels awkward watching it because it appears that a lot of the characters are exhibiting symptoms of autism, and they form the basis of some of the jokes.

Ho hum.

Pretty much yes.


Well, I was a physicist for a very short while and I do work in academia, although I left the science bit behind a very long time ago... And I still play board games occasionally, although I draw the line at RPGs. Can't say I know anyone who cosplays as the Avengers. Could you introduce me to whoever goes as The Black Widow ? (thinks : Dear God, please let it not be a bloke).

I also know someone who switches the taps on & off in public lavatories using his elbows, he's so germ-averse.


Mmmm.. I understand the point, but I think it's got to be a caricature of someone you could see yourself ending up as to some tiny degree. You need that spark of recognition. In that sense, I think the best character in TBBT is ... nope, can't remember the character's name, but it's the actor who used to be in Rosanne. He is still geeky but to a degree he's also the everyman character, representing us as 'normal people' (and we all think we're normal, pretty much. Maybe except Bratty) observing Sheldon's almost alien weirdness. Sheldon is, to me, a step too far. Sheldon is every single attribute you associate with geeks. All of them. All together. All of the time. He's just too much.

Jon

I thought Spaced was great, but I had no idea it was supposed to be funny. At least, no more so than any other soap.

Line of Duty - no spoilers but, wow, wasn't expecting that at the end! Complicates matters somewhat.

Did you mean Leonard? He's like a "normal" geek.

In all honesty, I once lodged in the house of a uni graduate who was into computers, D&D, had shelves of books on RPGs and sci-fi/fantasy fiction, had a private license plate that read his online persona/avatar and had giant models of Star Wars stuff. He actively engaged in RPGs. He had weetabix for brekkie, and pizza for tea every day, apart from weekends where he would have a dessert (for six) as one meal and go to the pub for the other. He was also morbidly obese, grew long hair, bathed once a week and used diet coke as his choice of toilet cleaning agent.

You'll be pleased to hear that I'm bathing every day now.

I bloody fell asleep so I'm hoping it's on iPlayer before the end of the night, otherwise work's gonna be a nightmare tomorrow!

And also irrelevant.

Due to being foreign

This adds absolutely nothing to the discussion, but that seriously made me LOL Prof!