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My Hero

Slim

18:07 / 20.03.07

I stayed home from work today because I have been infected by some nasty bug that's drained all my energy and given me quite the cough. While watching boring daytime tv, I came across a show called "My Hero" on the BBC station. A question to the British members of the board- what is the matter with you people??? This was undoubtedly one of the worst shows I have ever seen on television. I think it attempted to be comedic but apparently this goal was far too lofty of an achievement. It has shot my opinion of British television straight to Hades.

Seriously, folks. How many of you are aware of this show and who is responsible for this trash?

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:12 / 20.03.07

Irredeemably shit British situation comedy is a tradition that goes back further than, I imagine, anyone posting on this board has been alive...

■

18:25 / 20.03.07

Please don't mention it again. Believe it or not it gets even worse when Ardal O'Hanlon leaves...

ONLY NICE THINGS

18:32 / 20.03.07

Oddly enough, Slim is the first person I have ever encountered, I think, who has actually watched an episode. I realise that it must be the case that British people _do_, but clearly it takes an American to admit it. Funny old thing.

sleazenation

19:50 / 20.03.07

It is one of the truly strange things about BBC America is that is shows not only what is arguably the worst of BBC output but the worst of British TV full stop.

I can only assume that anything that BBC/C4 can possibly sell the sell onto PBS or some other network.

Slim

20:14 / 20.03.07

Oh, I couldn't watch a full episode, not even with the aid of multiple anti-cold chemicals running through my system. Sheer horror and, I suspect, a healthy amount of self-loathing kept me glued to the television for as long as I could stand it. The writing? Horrid. The acting? Utterly terrible. The special effects? Christ almighty.

Imagine the shock and dismay I felt when I discovered that this crap ran for SIX SEASONS. SIX. SIIIIIIIXXXXXXXX.

God help you all, I think I've been scarred for life.

Triplets

20:33 / 20.03.07

I think, frankly, you should just start cutting yourself than self-harming this way. It'd be a lot, lot healthier in the long run.

sleazenation

21:10 / 20.03.07

I was trying to think of worse UK sitcoms/tv shows and it was very difficult. I did come up with this brief list though.

Goodnight Sweetheart - a sitcom about a man who can travel back in time to the 1940s and ends up conducting an affair with someone literally old enough to be his own grandmother

Love thy Neighbour. Words cannot describe how ill-conceived this sitcom about racism and multiculturalism was. Hammer Film Productions actually made a film version of this.

I have a soft spot for 'Allo 'Allo, a sitcom about randy resistence fighters and incompetent nazis...

Sniv

21:41 / 20.03.07

Duuuuude! Goodnight Sweetheart is nowhere near as bad as Love Thy Neighbour! Are you on crack or summat?! Sure, it does feature Nicholas Lyndhurst as a time-traveling bigamist, but it features his character, Garry, stealing songs from the future to sell off as his own in war-torn London. One hi-larious episode featured Reg, the lovable dimwitted bobby singing 'No Limit' by 2Unlimited. It was good, honest. Or at least, not as bad as you're making out (bear in mind I was about 11 when I was watching it, that may have coloured it slightly in my view).

My Hero on the other hand is utter shite, and I think it's got to be the result of some bizarre conspiracy that it's still on the air after all these years(!). Say what you like about modern superhero fiction too, it never gets quite as bad as this. I have watched an entire episode. I've seen things.

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:36 / 21.03.07

Gosh. A secret hive of watchers of dreadful television. If it helps, Slim, I think Ardal o'Hanlon went on to be in something even worse, one scene from which gave me seepage.

I find the surprise a bit odd, possibly, because, first, all societies have terrible, unchallenging sitcoms which fill space in the viewing slots for very little money once you've paid the banner star. America has Everyone Loves Raymond, 8 Simple Rules..., Hope and Faith, King of Queens. Britain has had So Haunt Me, My Family, My Hero, that _astonishing_ one about Jasper Carrott's interracial relationship, and so on. And second, because American television has surely been significantly better than British television for ages, hasn't it? Deadwood, Rome, BSG, The Wire, The Shield, Six Feet Under, Curb Your Enthusiam, The Office US, The Larry Sanders Show... I mean, compare that with Geoff Brydon's Annually Retentive (the point being that you shouldn't).

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

00:43 / 21.03.07

"Annually Retentive". You're making that up, right? That's some of your celebrated wit, right? PLEASE TELL ME THAT'S NOT REAL

ONLY NICE THINGS

00:56 / 21.03.07

As real as gin, old chap. As real as gin.

sleazenation

06:29 / 21.03.07

Surely it's Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive and for my money I think to castigate that you have to bear in mind Marion and Geoff, Brydons series of comitragic vignettes about a cuckolded husband...

sleazenation

06:35 / 21.03.07

And yes I think Haus's list of great US TV is more evidence of how great HBO is rather than anything else. There isn't an equivilent of HBO in the UK and I can't really see such a thing ever being viable in the UK, certainly not without sacrificing the BBC, which does a whole lot more than just drama.

Benny the Ball

07:52 / 21.03.07

I think Ardal o'Hanlon went on to be in something even worse

He did - it was a really bad Ben Elton show called Blessed - I know a few people who worked on it, and they should never be forgiven - it was worse than My Hero, which is the watermark of terrible television that should be long dead but is still on (see also My Family, and, not sure if still running, Everybody Loves Raymond).

sleazenation

08:11 / 21.03.07

In the list of terrible but inexplicably popular UK sitcoms definitely has to include my family (whichh was also getting heavy play on BBC America last time I checked) and the Vicar of Dibley...

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:09 / 21.03.07

Surely it's Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive and for my money I think to castigate that you have to bear in mind Marion and Geoff, Brydons series of comitragic vignettes about a cuckolded husband...

Indeed it is, and indeed I do. I like Rob Brydon's work very much, and I actually found some merit in Annually Retentive, because he is a fundamentally watchable man, just as the ill-fated chatshow vehicle had a degree of watchability. However, neither were particularly good vehicles.

lord nuneaton savage

09:21 / 21.03.07

Are they still making 'Last of the Summer Wine'?

sleazenation

09:32 / 21.03.07

All this reminds me of the old Lee and Herring speculation about how sitcoms were comissioned

"Bent Cops
Ian and Iain Bent are both cops. One is corrupt, the other is homosexual. They both suffer from curvature of the spine and are made from copper. They are robots in the future."

or

"My Creed
Mike Reid The popular comedian and Mike Reid radio DJ talk about their religious convictions."

I'm waiting for Bent Cops to be made soon.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:41 / 21.03.07

Bent Coppers. Do you see?

sleazenation

09:47 / 21.03.07

They are also paid exclusively in malformed 1 and 2 penny pieces...

Chew On Fat

10:46 / 21.03.07

Ardal O'Hanlon himself felt very bad about making My Hero. He just did it to pay a few bills while he wrote his novels.

In one interview he expressed surprise and dismay that My Hero had waay more viewers than the stupendous Father Ted ever did, even when Father Ted was the tabloids' darling. I guess middle England loves its bland mono-cultural tripe.

Still, I've always been fairly indulgent of Thermoman, as anything with a Superhero in it will do me (unless its written by Joe Kelly). After all, how many Superhero sit-coms have there been? Any?

The show seems to follow the Mork and Mindy template, but the Orkonian wasn't strictly a superhero, despite that cool shiny space-suit.

Tryphena Absent

12:09 / 21.03.07

I tackle these assumptions about UK comedy with Green Wing and The Thick of It.

GogMickGog

13:16 / 21.03.07

Or indeed the combined canon of the Ianucci/Morris/Coogan stable, all vehemently against - and frequently parodying -such mediocre fare (ss seen in the 'changing attitudes' segment of Day Today, with 'Them Next Door', a splendid parody of Love thy neighbour).

A footnote must go to Ricky Gervais for 'When the Whistle Blows'. While this spoof, inserted brilliantly into Extras (including a great cameo from Mark Kermode, tearing it to shreds on Newsnight Review), pinions such smut and classist dreck with precision, his stand-up persona is so smugly vicious and swaddled in pseudo-irony that I can barely stand to offer commendation.

Still, it's a rather sharp piece of observation from a man most famous for a silly dance.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:26 / 21.03.07

But the assumption was never that there was no good comedy on British television, only that Slim was not expecting there to be such bad comedy. As such, Ianucci, Morris, Coogan, Brydon, Ayoade (Ayoarguably), Buxton and other such titans can rub shoulders with So Haunt Me...

But yes, British TV (remember, only four channels until pretty recently) has always had a couple of highly unambitious sitcoms which gain vast audiences because of their placing in the early evening on a Saturday - often, in fact, with the same writers, the same actors (Paul McShane, anyone?) and only slightly different sets.

GogMickGog

18:02 / 21.03.07

Ayaode and The I.T. Crowd are inextricably linked in my mind, so, uh, he's not on my list. Chum.

GogMickGog

18:02 / 21.03.07

Gosh, I sounded a bit like a comedy club bouncer there. That'll be a first.

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