World Cup Of... US Sitcoms

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1:13Richard Osman:Hello, everybody. Welcome along to the Restless Entertainment World Cup of Everything. Our first bonus episode is all about US sitcoms. You're in the World Cup of US sitcoms. I am joined to discuss them by Maisie Adam. Hello, Maisie. Hello. And John Robbins. Hello, John. Hello, I'm good. Thank you. Lovely to be here. See, that's how you're supposed to do that. Yeah. The way this works is more in common, our lovely polling partners have given a massive list of kind of 60, 70 US sitcoms to the British public. The British public have told them which is their favourite. I don't have the results yet, but I know what the top eight are and I'm going to draw them in four quarterfinals.

1:49Richard Osman:We're going to talk about those quarterfinals, predict who's going to win and then find out who actually did win. Okay, we'll go quarterfinals, semifinals, final, and we will discover which US sitcom is the favourite of the British public. Now, I've done World Cups of before, World Cups of Christmas, things like this. What I will say is the result is always disappointing. What a great trailer for the podcast. We might as well call this, and this is why democracy doesn't work. Yeah. Okay, our first quarterfinal is Friends versus MASH. Oh, wow. I mean, well, that's it. When there's only eight teams.

2:22Richard Osman:Yeah. Every game's a big game. I mean, also, Battle of the Great Themes. Yeah, Battle of the Great Themes. So I'll Be There for You by the Rembrandts. Suicide is Painless. Do you know who wrote Suicide is Painless, the lyrics? Who did what? So Robert Altman, who directed the movie, his son wrote the lyrics for that when he was like eight. Really? Made like a million dollars out of it. Can you imagine pitching a sitcom now where the lyrics to the theme tune are Suicide is Painless? it wouldn't really lift off I don't think would it it's got an odd vibe to navigate but also yeah he said I'll tell you what it's going to be it's going to be a sitcom it's going to be about a mobile hospital unit in the Korean War the funniest war of course and it's going to have a theme tune that says suicide is painless and also it's going to have the highest rated episode of any sitcom in the entire history of sitcoms the highest rated episode I think the finale, 105 million.

3:24Good grief.

3:25Richard Osman:That is like, even when Mock the Week had like two episodes together, they're not getting to 105 million, right? Even when I started in TV in the early 90s, we weren't getting 105 million for stuff. Me and Ellis are lucky if we get that in a month. Friends final, what was that? It was super big. That's got to be 60 million. Yeah. But it was, yeah, it wasn't 105. I don't think anything would ever get 105. I always thought Friends finale was the biggest one. No. 52 million friends so pretty much exactly although it was like super super super massive right also both sitcoms where people have transitioned into films or was alan alder already a big film star huh that's a good question what year did mash started 72 so i guess not i guess i i guess he moved into the world of films i wasn't surprising that the cast of friends didn't do more films are they just tarred with that brush of forever being seen as those characters though i guess so yeah so jennifer aniston did good but but still still largely you know great career but went into a career of being rachel in various forms really you know it's technically a spin-off friends because uh the first ever friends character was actually phoebe's sister ursula who was the waitress on mad about you what yeah so really it's a it's a mad about you spin-off A very tenuous spin-off.

4:50Richard Osman:An enormously tenuous spin-off. I remember watching it when it was on TV and it was part of the big UK Jacob's Creek launch. So the two are like inextricably linked in my head. Okay. And then when I started buying DVDs, like Friends box sets were quite big. You go around to your mate's house and what Friends box set have they got? And then there was a lot of coverage of it when it came on streaming services because I guess Gen Z and younger generations were discovering it and finding it quite confusing in some ways because I would have, without having rewatched it, thought of it as quite, you know, harmless, liberal.

5:31But actually some references to homosexuality are quite dated. The complete lack of diversity on almost any level is quite strange. but then Gen Z kind of embraced it didn't they?

5:43Richard Osman:Well I think they you know Gen Z who are much maligned I think they're able to watch something and understand it in context and go oh so that was acceptable. I think the pacing of Friends though is quite Gen Z it's quite quick the gag rate is quite quick when they're so used to consuming comedy that is a lot more kind of a quick succession of gags we're re-watching Friends at the moment And sure, Chandler's got some opinions about his father that is a man not dealing with things in a healthy way. And there's loads of weird... I mean, yeah, we're rewatching at the moment and we're only into like season two or three.

6:27And just Ross's approach to his ex-wife now being queer is deeply problematic. There are episodes of Friends, the one with the videotape. Yeah. Is really masterful stuff. And I think it also maintained that gag rate and gag quality right towards the end. There's a bit in, I think it might be even the last episode or the last two where Ross is chasing Rachel in the airport. And there's one of those. Oh, and he has to go the whole way. He's going to the check-in desk. and Phoebe just runs down to the side straight to the front but he goes through all of the empty little zig zag corridor sections which I just think is a really nice sight gag

7:10Richard Osman:yeah they never run out of gag The Atlantic did a gag rate of every single top US sitcom and Friends has 6.06 jokes a minute that's why Gen Z love it, that's why we loved it it's one every 9 seconds that's not bad going is it 6 jokes a minute that's what I'd get out of half a tour show like big setup six payoffs dream of edinburgh shows like that shall we if it was just us say which one of those we would put through to the semi-finals john it's that's a tricky one can i just guess a fact that elliot gould is in both mash came out i remember the theme tune from when i was like four years old when it was would have been being repeated for the fifth time so i don't i didn't take on board a huge amount so i would i'm gonna have to say friends yeah understood Maisie?

8:01Yeah I mean exactly the same reason but MASH I can admire from from afar but in terms of what I have a strong connection to it's Friends all day.

8:11Richard Osman:Yeah I was it was even a tiny little bit too early for me MASH but I remember loving it but I have to go with Friends. I'm going to assume that the British public had gone for Friends as well it'd be a big shock certainly it's going to this whole series is going to be weird if the first thing we do is MASH beating Friends but one never knows. Joey, who won that? Hey! Friends! Friends goes through to the semi-finals. Very well done to Friends. Our second quarterfinal, Big Bang Theory versus the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Good Lord. Now, Big Bang Theory, 5.8 jokes a minute. Okay. I think you can define the kind of people that you were in school with of whether they were more of a Fresh Prince fan or a Big Bang Theory fan.

8:54Well, I definitely watched more Fresh Prince of Bel-Air than Big Bang Theory. Yeah. Can I just double check, is Big Bang Theory the one with the guy who played Doogie Howser, MD? No, that's how I met your mother. Okay, well, we'll come back to that. I can see how you get that. They're both shown on E4 at a weird time of day, involving a bunch of people who wear long-sleeved tops with a T-shirt over them.

9:17Richard Osman:Big Bang Theory is the geeks who all study... As Sheldon, isn't it? Sheldon and big fans on the sofa, I think. But sometimes it feels like they're always all living in that room that all of them come and sit back on the sofa in, in all of these American sitcoms. Yeah, but I mean, that's how sitcoms work, essentially, isn't it? They've only got one main set. Yeah. And the more they can sit on that, the cheaper the episode is. It's when they come to London, that's when you get a problem. Yeah, you get your buddy's worth. That's when you go, I wonder if you just go back and sit on that sofa. Yeah, yeah.

9:50Richard Osman:They've both got very wordy theme tunes as well. Big Bang Theory has that Barenaked Lady song. Oh, yeah. Prince of Bel-Air, of course. Oh, wow, yeah. It's the famous rap. Both can sort of give you the ick, can't they? I mean, I know Sheldon is deliberately antagonising, but he's so irritating. But then at the same time, anybody who starts a conversation about Fresh Prince and starts to do the rap, I find it nauseating. Yeah, I definitely, though I would be capable of doing it, I would never do it. No. But it is in there somewhere. Like, I know all the lyrics to Rapper's Delight. Exactly. It's Vanilla Ice.

10:27That's a bit cool. And the rap from World in Motion. People can't talk about it without then insisting that they know it.

10:33Richard Osman:I could do Only Fools and Horses, both theme tune and post-theme tune as well. I'm not going to. None of us are. I met Will Smith. So I met Will Smith, who, by the way, was auditioned for that show at Quincy Jones' birthday party. No way. So he auditioned for that show in front of Stevie Wonder and Steven Spielberg. Why? I don't know. At a birthday party. Hollywood, isn't it? So Big Bang Theory, 12 seasons, 279 episodes. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, 148 episodes. Which do you think the British public have put through to the semifinals? I think for sort of like nostalgia, I would go Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

11:11Yeah. But it's just reminded me, you reading out those stats, an American friend of mine just getting into British comedy says, what is it with you Brits? you make six episodes of a sitcom, say you've changed the face of comedy, and then it stops. Like, all of these have got, like, thousands of episodes. And what, Fawlty Towers, what, 14?

11:31Richard Osman:12, I think. 12, I think. Yeah, I think so. So you're going to go Fresh Prince, Maisie? Yeah, yeah. I think Fresh Prince had a bigger impact, I think, as well, in terms of, like, and again, you mentioned there, like, the nostalgia. But, like, it had such a second boom, didn't it, of all that like 90s fashion and which I don't really see Big Bang Theory enjoying. Nobody's having a sort of second wave. I don't know. I'm going to stick up for Big Bang Theory. It is huge. Do you think it's funny? Yes. Do you? I really do. I genuinely do. It's massive in America. It's beyond massive. I think Chuck Lorre, who does it and did Two and a Half Men and all sorts of things, very talented.

12:09Richard Osman:He started out in show business writing the lyrics for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Really? Yeah. Who won? Was it Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or was it Big Bang Theory? Please be Fresh Prince. It was Big Bang Theory. I'm genuinely surprised. Oh, justice for Will Smith. Justice for Will Smith. Do you think that's reputational damage of Will Smith in more recent years? Oh, potentially. I don't know. So I met him on Graham Norton. Before or after Slapgate? So soon before. Oh. It really, it really, because I just thought he was really great. and I thought what if I become friends with Will Smith what if next time I'm in LA I just go Will it's Rich from the show from the GN show and I get invited over to Will Smith South then literally like a week later he punches Chris Rock I was like oh great who am I going to stay with now quarter final three oh this is an absolute doozy we have The Simpsons versus Frasier I mean that's tricky right simpsons longest running animated show of all time now here's a question do you think when they wrote the first episode of the simpsons they said we're writing a sitcom so has it just become a bit like family guy uh has it become a sitcom because of what it evolved into or is it still like an animation or is that okay for i think you have to treat it as a sitcom right i mean it is it follows the conventions of a sitcom.

13:37Richard Osman:Is it linear? So The Simpsons was always on at six o 'clock on Channel 4 and we weren't allowed to watch it because my dad wanted to watch the news. Oh no. So I've never seen an episode of The Simpsons. Are you serious? You've never seen an episode? To this day? To this day. Wow, because your dad's still... That's not possible. That's impossible. I promise. You've seen clips. I've seen clips. You know what the thing is. I know he enjoys a duff beer and donuts. Oh, that's good. We have to stop this now. That's unbelievable. Should I abstain from the vote, as I haven't seen? I think you might have to take a sabbatical from comedy and watch seasons like three to 13 of The Simpsons.

14:17How many seasons have we got of Simpsons? Oh, way too many. Really? Which is, I think, a problem we might come to.

14:22Richard Osman:37. 37 seasons. And is it linear? Does it follow? It doesn't. They don't age. No, that's the clever thing about them. That's why there's 37 seasons, because there can be, because the actors don't get any older. But they're not on a journey of any, like there's no narrative arc really. Not really. I mean, you know, if you watch early Simpsons, the voices are all different. The animation is different. But they settled. Once they settled, they really settled. Yes, it's gone on forever. But joke for joke has had some of the best jokes in the history of sitcoms. Every single one you're currently thinking of happened before the year 2000.

14:53Richard Osman:No, there must be some good ones after that because the generation who grew up watching it. Have you seen the graph of the IMDB rating per episode for The Simpsons and it's a colour like a heat chart? And what happens? It just goes green for 25 years. So like, you know, the sort of 8.5, the 9.5s are all red. It's quite chilling. And you just think it must be so odd to work on something so well respected that most people probably think has stopped. Interesting. Yeah, I know what you mean. But it probably makes more money than ever now. Do you reckon? Yeah. They're still going. Oh, yeah. They're still new episodes.

15:28Richard Osman:They do the movies and, yeah, all sorts of things. I've not watched it since probably 2005. Yeah. So I think longevity is, you know, obviously is a feather in the cap, but is it as big a boast to have longevity without the quality? Because really they did have like a seven to eight year golden period and then it just never stopped. What's that like, late 90s? Sort of like, I would say, 96 to 2002 maybe or 95. I knew John would have a strong opinion on that. I knew you'd have the right dates. Like, what are the Simpsons? Are they humans? They're these yellow, long-limbed, big... Yeah, you do need to watch the Simpsons if you're asking.

16:12It is so great to have you on, mate. They're humans. Yeah, but they don't look human. They've got long, yellow... They look like chips with a big... Yes. And then they've got mouths like...

16:22Richard Osman:I mean, they're cartoons. They look like Mr. Chips. They look like Mr. Chips. They do. They look like Mr. Chips. We'll be talking about him on our British Quiz Show's episode, I'm sure. I think that's a pretty big achievement that they managed to kind of like invent a new I mean the drawings Matt Grayling had a very good rule about for the cartoonist drawing the characters he said their faces should never do things that human beings faces can't do so their eyes don't pop out yes this is it like you know they they don't get smoke coming out of their ears they're not that loony tunes kind of mad yeah but they're also not family guy where you're like oh that's ears nose mouth you know is no mouth well they've got you know i know they've got is right you know what i mean boys it's a long yeah they that is not how you draw a human being in a cartoon i've seen a simpson yeah they don't look like human beings but the flint stones don't really look like human beings uh maisie have you ever seen a show called fraser yes i'm aware of his work shall we talk about the joy of fraser now i think it's a tough draw for fraser being up against uh the simpsons I'll say that so Frasier really was a spin-off a spin-off from Cheers which I'm going to guess has not made this top 8 although it was brilliant it was actually shot on exactly the same set as Cheers so Frasier's living room is where the bar was in Cheers yeah but the most successful spin-off of all time I'd say yeah Frasier fan?

17:48yeah again I kind of have it as one of those ones that was Channel 4 early mornings on a Saturday or Sunday still is still is isn't it If you wake up a bit too early, it's Everybody Loves Raymond.

17:59Richard Osman:I love Everybody Loves Raymond. Wake up a bit too early. One forgets your stand-up. I like Frasier. I don't love Frasier. Interesting. John? No, not for me. Really? That's interesting. I just can feel that I'm having script read to me. And that's not to say it's a bad script. It's very well written. But they're delivering a script. and I found Niles quite annoying, the character. Yeah, that sort of American dinner party kind of raised eyebrow vibe that didn't really speak, said nothing to me about my life. I was, to quote the Bard himself. Whereas the Simpsons. Yes, definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

18:41I mean, I'm probably the age Bard is meant to be, I would have thought. Now? I'm dance age. Yeah, also. And never bloody worked out. if that woman's accent weren't real or whether she wouldn't learn how to do accents were from.

18:58Richard Osman:The worst episode of any show in history is when Daphne's brothers turn up and it's like Robbie Coltrane and Richard E. Grant. They've all got different... It's all over the shop, isn't it? It's really, really, really bad. Is she English? Yes, she is. Jane Leaves, yeah. And is that her accent I've just made up? It can't be. It can't. She's from Manchester, isn't she? But that's not... She can't speak like that. No. How do you feel about that accent? Not great. Not great. And it felt confusing to see. Do you think she panicked? Well, they must have been like... Someone they must have been able to say.

19:33But maybe it was just, you know, you go over to America and they're also like, have fun with it, you know. Really? She just maybe went for all of the accents.

19:41Richard Osman:And then Anthony Lepaglia comes and plays and says, brother, talk like that, talk like Dick Van Dyke. And you think at some point, it's so beautifully observed, that show. So at some point someone should have said, this is not how anyone in this country speaks. Simpsons versus Frasier, what would you go for? Simpsons. Simpsons. Do you know what? I'm going to ask you to sit this one out. Yeah, I think that's absolutely fair. Because you hate one of them and you've never seen the other one. Yeah, yeah. So I will abstain. I love Frasier. It has to be the Simpsons just for the joy it's given different generations and the different groups of people who can watch that show.

20:12Richard Osman:And surely it's going to win. So let's find out. Frasier versus Simpsons. Yay! Through to our semifinals. we have one final semi-finalist to discover and it will come from two family shows family guy and modern family oh hang on where's the u.s office we will get to that after this because we got we will have a little debrief on what's not in here because i'm gonna kick off yes exactly me too this is an interesting one though family guy and modern family as a comedian i think family guy is the only thing sometimes when you get in from a gig into a hotel room and you're trying to find something on the telly a family guy is the only thing sometimes in that sort of half 10 to midnight bracket i think i've watched so i think i've watched every episode at least two or three times purely due to the schedule of being a stand-up comedian and talk about density of jokes and the gag rate again is and because it's an animation that you can do jokes about anything the cutaway gags which i love those where they go this is almost as bad as the time i and then it just oh so would um south park not have been considered in this uh it would have been further it's further down the list oh right i'm afraid it's not here isn't it south park it's a lot yeah i think much mooder family guy maintained its standard which is a very high standard for a lot longer i think stewie is one of the just the best characters ever created yeah in comedy and i i love when there are episodes just about him.

21:44Yeah. And that's another good thing is they can just focus on, like you would never have a Friends episode just with Just Chandler in a room, unless they went down some odd Alan Bennett style avenue. And if you pitched Stewie at the time, like when you were saying about MASH, like if you were to describe it now going oh no, he is a baby but he's evil and he talks sort of incredibly like, he He doesn't have an accent like anybody else in his family. He's got a sort of old RP.

22:12Richard Osman:You should also know he's incredibly camp. Yeah, yeah. Next question. Has a complex relationship with the dog, who's the only person that can hear what he's saying. The tone of voice. There's one where Brian's writing a novel. And I love that there's that element to Brian, is that he thinks he's the great American intellectual. And Stewie just walks in and he says, Oh, hello, Brian. Great impression, John. How's the little novel coming along? You got a couple of protagonists? And it just keeps going higher, doesn't it? A little bit of peril. Maybe some of them learn some life lessons. Friends becoming enemies.

22:52Richard Osman:Enemies becoming friends. It just really gets higher and higher and higher. It's so good. It's really weird. Like, yeah, all of that. And that one where he just goes in, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, mommy, mommy, mommy. Modern family, we must. but it's modern family to me has the same hit rate for a mainstream audience that family guy it's amazing i was introduced to modern family in 2015 when i was at university because i applied through the national youth theater to win a writing master class with lawrence marks oh wow yeah statesman yeah good night sweet are birds of a feather and there was like maybe 10 of us sat around this table and he was talking about how to write the perfect pilot and he used modern families first episode as the perfect pilot and i hadn't seen it it i think i think it's absolutely that and they all have their own individual little funny relationships and again Then going back to that whole thing of like, depending on what point of life you're at, you can find yourself relating more to being Claire Dunphy, which was what I was doing when we rewatched it recently.