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tv_talk2025-01-13 09:35 am
misbegotten) wrote in tv_talk2025-01-13 09:35 am
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Rec Fest: Comedies
Welcome to day 2 of Rec Fest! Today please recommend shows which could be considered comedies. These may come in all sorts of formats, but are centered on humor.
Please include in your recs the following information:
Show Title:
Audience Rating: Young Children/All Ages/Teen and Up/Mature Content
Warnings: (Could include gory content, raunchy situations, explicit sex, offensive content, etc.)
Length of Episodes: (30 minutes/1 hour/Other)
Length of Series: (Number of seasons or number of episodes)
Why you recommend it: (What draws you to it? What niche does it fill/mood is it good for?)
You can copy and paste the following code into your comment.
Feel free to include any other information you’d like, such as what year(s) the show was originally broadcast, standout cast members, or what other shows it may connect to or be like. You can also include outside links to Wikipedia, Fanlore, IMDB, your favorite review etc. which contain more show information.
If someone else has already recced a show you were planning to rec, please include your own rec as well! People have different takes on shows and it can also help people if they see a number of people find a show to be a must-watch.
If you have questions about what to post or how the Rec Fest will run, please ask them at this link, not in comments below
Galavant
Audience Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: Singing, comic violence, innuendo
Length of Episodes: 22 minutes
Length of Series: 18 episodes in 2 seasons
Why you recommend it:
Galavant is a litmus test of a series for me -- either you find it funny, or I don't want to know you. Just kidding (not kidding). The series centers on the titular hero, a knight in a medieval-style world that also has magic, at least one dragon, a gay bar, and singing. So much singing. The supporting cast is phenomenal -- stars from the stage, Vinnie Jones (no, he can't really sing but it's still fun), and surprising guest stars including Robert Lindsey, Hugh Bonneville, Kylie Minogue, and Weird Al. The musical numbers feature songs by Disney luminary Alan Menken and Glenn Slater that poke fun at the genre: the opening number for the season 2 premiere includes the lines:
It's a new season, though it's still not that long
A new season with some slightly new shadings
There's still no reason why we burst into song
You'll know hell's freezing if we get decent ratings
What really makes the show work for me, though, is its sweetness. The characters -- even the bad guys -- have heart. Timothy Omundson is standout as an awful king who laments that he has never known how to do anything else, and really just wants friendship and true love. And everyone is looking for their happy endings.
Re: Galavant
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Audience Rating: Teen
Warnings: innuendo, some suggestive dialogue
Length of Episodes: ~22 minutes
Length of Series: 12 Episodes
Why you recommend it: Nozaki-kun is a slice of life comedy about a high school comic artist, his mostly-unwitting assistants including one who has a massive crush on him but he's to dense to realize, and their constellation of friends. Ridiculous things happen in incredibly relatable ways. It's a series about people who create things and enjoy doing it, even when everything is kind of ridiculous along the way.
(There is also a much-longer manga, officially available online for free on the Manga Up! app, which I also recommend. It has a few slow sections but always returns to making me laugh out loud.)
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Show Title: The Parkers
Audience Rating: PG
Warnings: innuendo, obsessive man-chasing
Length of Episodes: 22 minutes-ish
Length of Series: 5 seasons/110 episodes
Why you recommend it:
I'll be completely upfront. I rarely get hooked on new or 'modern' shows. As a creature of habit, I tend to stick to the rivers and lakes that I'm used to. That is to say, I prefer comfort shows and one of my most comfort-y comfort shows is The Parkers. It is really enjoyable and does hold up fairly well today.
A spin-off of the popular 90s show Moesha, this is a sitcom that stands on its own, and in fact, I prefer it to the mothership. The Parkers is always hilariously funny, but not slapsticky. It was a fun escape in the early 00s and still is a fun world to hang out in.
The Parkers is centered around a Black mother and daughter duo who attend community college together in California. If that sounds like a simplistic scenario for a show, it is, but sometimes what is simple is true, right? The setting of Santa Monica College spins off a lot of interesting and varied storylines.
The series is body-positive, pro-female, pro-Black, and out-and-out pro-fun and it is every bit as relevant today as it was 'back then'. Whenever I need a serious pick-me-up, this is one of my primary go-to shows to put a smile on my face. The best part is the cast genuinely seemed to enjoy working together and making the show. We all know that a happy cast = happy fans.
Speaking of the cast, they're a talented bunch. Mo'Nique plays the ambitious Nikki. Nikki is a mother who set aside her dreams to raise her daughter Kim and now it's time to make things happen for herself. She has a good heart and tries to do the right thing but she sometimes finds herself in trouble. Okay, *a lot* of trouble, but she's a loving, proud woman who is very relatable. Her daughter Kim is played by Countess Vaughn. Kim is my absolute *favorite*! The Countess imbues Kim with so much spirit and wide-eyed innocence. I ROTFLMAO whenever she breaks out her baby voice ("Because I'm cuteeee!").
The show also has some amazing stand-out supporting players: Dorien Wilson, as the perpetually exasperated Professor Oglevee who is the object of Nikki's desire; Jenna von Oy as Kim's bestie Stevie Van Lowe, a straight-shooter with deep-seated parental issues; Ken L., who is charming and hilarious as the "too-cool-for-school" T. Radcliffe. And last, but certainly not least, another personal favorite of mine: Yvette Wilson who portrays Andell Wilkerson. Andell is Nikki's bestie, who tries to keep Nikki in line but is invariably roped into her hijinks, the Ethel to Nikki's Lucy.
The cast has chemistry and charm, and the dialogue is snappy. I recommend this show if you need something quick and fun to watch, but it is not so involved that you need to spend hours analyzing every twist and turn, character motivation, and nuance. You probably won't write meta about it, or even fan fiction, but hey, if you do, I will be the first in line to read it!
*All seasons are available to stream on Netflix.*
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Audience Rating: 6/12 years
Warnings: LGBT
Length of Episodes: 22 minutes
Length of Series: 6 seasons = 80 episodes
Wikipedia: Link
Why you recommend it: Schitt's Creek tells the story of the rich family Rose = Johnny (Eugene Levy), his wife Moira (Catherine O'Hara), and two adult children, David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy). When losing their fortune, they are forced to move to a remote town named Schitt's Creek, where they are living in a shabby motel from now on. While still hoping for better times, they slowly start to adjust to their new life.
It's a show that will make you laugh more than once with its exaggerated portrayal of the characters. You can love and sometimes hate them; often enough, they will make you shake your head. But there is also the development that they will make over the time, and in the end you will have to let them go with mixed feelings. It is sad that it is over, but it is an end at the right point.
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Brooklyn 99
Audience Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: None
Length of Episodes: 30 minutes
Length of Series: 8 seasons (153 episodes)
Why you recommend it: I have a hard time sticking with comedies, even workplace ones which are my preference. But each season of Brooklyn 99 developed the characters, callbacks and guest stars one step farther to where the actual workplace was less important than the interplay of the characters. Although the diversity of characters is likely to mean different favorites for everyone, a special shoutout to my favorite character (and his family), Andre Braugher as Captain Holt.
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Audience Rating: About 15 and up?
Warnings: has some sex, maybe some raunchy situations, somewhat gory in places...albeit in a comical way not a realistic one. Since a network television series? All of it was fairly PG-13 if that.
Length of Episodes: 22 minutes
Length of Series: Four seasons with 53 episodes
Why you recommend it: Metaphysical, Philosophical and Ethical Satire. With engaging characters, twists, and innovative format.
Where: Netflix - all the episodes are currently streaming on Netflix.
Among the few sitcoms that I've actually managed to watch all of. I usually give up after the first or second year. The short length may help, may situation comedies run on too long.
Here's the Wiki description: "the Good Place is an American fantasy-comedy television series created by Michael Schur for NBC. The series premiered on September 19, 2016, and concluded on January 30, 2020, after four seasons consisting of 53 episodes.
Although the plot evolves significantly over the course of the series, the initial premise of the series follows Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a dead woman who is placed in a Heaven-esque utopian afterlife designed and supervised by afterlife "architect" Michael (Ted Danson). However, Eleanor knows she did not deserve to get into the Good Place, as she had lived a dishonorable life. To avoid being found out and sent to the Bad Place, Eleanor attempts to hide her morally imperfect past behavior while trying to become a more ethical person. William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, and Manny Jacinto co-star as other residents of the Good Place, with D'Arcy Carden as Janet, an advanced and complex artificial being who assists the residents. "
It has a strong fandom. People discussed it for a bit on Dreamwidth. It even had a group specific to it when it aired.
Icon is from the series. It made up its own swear words.
Ouran High School Host Club (2006)
Audience Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: none
Length of Episodes: half-hour
Length of Series: 26 episodes (one season)
Why you recommend it:
Do you like a protagonist who is the only sane person in a sea of chaos? Do you like overdramatic men? Do you like watching high schoolers in silly costumes get into shenanigans? Do you like poking fun at how out-of-touch rich people are?
If so, you might like Ouran High School Host Club!
I first watched this anime series back when I was a high school student myself. My friends and I absolutely loved the humor and the heart of the series, and would regularly talk about what made us laugh in every episode. I did a rewatch of the series a little over a year ago (more than a decade since I first watched) and was pleased to find that it still holds up as really funny and entertaining.
The plot follows the school's "host club" which are a group of guys who have taken it upon themselves to entertain their female classmates. The protagonist, however, is Fujioka Haruhi, a girl who is initially mistaken for a boy, and ends up joining the club after she breaks an expensive vase she can't afford to replace. It's a slice of life kind of story as Haruhi becomes friends with the group, and they often stumble into silly situations along the way. In addition to the main cast of characters, there are a few silly side characters that pop up every now and then too. (My favorite is Nekozawa from the "Dark Magic Club" next door who sort of ominously lurks around on occasion.)
There are a lot of silly gags and running jokes in the series. One example: I made a tweet thread a while back of all the times Tamaki sulked throughout the series. (He's so overdramatic 😂)
The series is available currently on Netflix and Crunchyroll. (Probably other places too, but I'm not sure which). It's based on a manga series (which continues the story further than the anime) and there's also a short live action Japanese drama adaptation too. But I haven't read or watched either of those to recommend them
Community
Audience Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: None
Length of Episodes: 30 minutes
Length of Series: 6 seasons (110 episodes)
Why you recommend it: Community is a show that starts as a standard workplace sitcom and goes on to break all sorts of conventions, being the show that was more about the fannish outlook than shows that were supposedly about fans. Stick with it through episode 9 and it begins to veer off to unexpected places. Its unusual episodes include the claymation episode, the anime episode, the cartoon episode, and it may be best known for its third season episode Remedial Chaos Theory which explored parallel realities (back in 2011 when every show and movie hadn't done it yet).
While the show had ups and downs, and behind the scene changes and some cast changes in the later seasons, it remained wonderfully unpredictable. There is supposedly a movie coming but there's no telling when given all the delays.
Re: Community
The Good Place
Audience Rating: Teen and up
Warnings: The ending may not please everyone.
Length of Episodes: 30 minutes
Length of Series: 4 seasons (53 episodes)
Why you recommend it: This is another show that starts off seeming like one thing and becomes another along the way. It's got a wonderful cast, and an imaginative premise which seeks to explore the nature of life and humanity and may do it much better than more serious takes. Starting off in the afterlife our four main characters learn to become better people, but it's better to stay unspoiled for some of the series reveals.
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Audience Rating: probably for teen and up
Warnings: genre-typical violence, and period-typical jokes about sexual assault
Length of Episodes: 60 minutes
Length of Series: 7 episodes
Why you recommend it: This one didn't last long in the grand scheme of things, but the characters are so much fun. The main character, Beau Jack Bowman (Miguel Frrrer), is a loose cannon cop who is sent to a city far away from his native Louisiana. When he's disallowed working with regular cops to prove the innocence of one of his informants, he gathers a bunch of cops who've been put out to pasture on psychiatric leave: Bullet (Eileen Davidson), a female cop with an appetite for danger, Stanley, a little guy with a chip on his shoulder and a ventriloquist dummy he's not afraid to use, and Toby (Ernie Hudson), a depressed kleptomaniac. Rather than force them all back into retirement, their commanding officer (Don S. Lewis) assigns them a psychiatrist and prays.
I love how sweet the characters can be to one another (with the exception of Stanley, who is unfortunately your typical 90s sitcom pervert). There's an episode where Beau Jack's femme fatale girlfriend shows up again only to break his heart, and to cheer him up the others (who've spent the whole episode aggressively trying to to keep him safe and whole-hearted) follow him to the bar he's hiding out in and lipsync to "Love Hurts." Then there's the episode where Bullet almost adopts a young girl orphaned in one of their cases, and when she voluntarily gives the girl up to a family that can better provide for her, the others rally around her in a really heartwarming way.
Despite the fact that the show is meant for an hour-long time slot, it's got plenty of humor (much more than the title seems to imply). There are only
seveneight episodes (forgot the first ep is a two-parter!), which are findable on YouTube and Archive.org. It's sweet, funny, and stars some of my favorite character actors. Give it a try!Taskmaster (2015-present)
Audience Rating: TV-14
Warnings: Occasional gross moments (usually involving food).
Length of Episodes: 45 minutes
Length of Series: 171 episodes of the original UK series + several spin-offs
Why you recommend it: Taskmaster is a comedy panel show where a group of comedians compete at ludicrous tasks like "Write a song about this stranger you just met," "Physically recreate a classic video game," and "Make an exotic sandwich" (with the secret follow-up task to that one being "Now eat the sandwich you just made"). What makes it special is the series-long panel format, where you get to know the contestants over a full series of episodes. You come to know their strategies, with some tasks being all the funnier from the get-go because you go in with your own guesses about who's going to do well at it or employ some clever lateral thinking and who's going to completely lose their mind. The UK version is my favourite, but there are some great spin-offs (the weird US attempt excluded), with the New Zealand one being up there for me.
Depending on what region you live in, Taskmaster may be available for free on Youtube!
The Great (2020)
Audience Rating: Mature Content
Warnings: Dubiously consensual sex depicted on-screen, Drinking/Intoxication/Drugs, Bears eating people, Skeletons and Dead bodies depicted, Blood and injuries, Historical inaccuracies, Assassinations
Length of Episodes: ~50 minutes
Length of Series: 3 Seasons (10 episodes per season)
Why you recommend it: I love historical satire and dark comedies, but this one is my favorite of that ilk. This show is set in the 18th century and follows Catherine as she arrives in Russia to marry Peter. It covers the insane ups and downs of Russian court life, and Catherine's rise to power as Queen in her own right, and Peter's transformation as well. The costumes are gorgeous, the editing and music are modern and fun, and Elle Fanning is incredible as Catherine. There are so many minor characters to love/hate, too. I love how the show lets Catherine be clever and unashamedly ambitious. I'm not 100% in love with the way it ended, but I think it was still true to the characters and well worth a watch.