The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / The single greatest episode of a sitcom

Comments

  4. Easy

    No Hiding Place – Whatever happened To The Likely Lads? Bob and Terry try to avoid hearing the score of the England match before the highlights show.

    or

    Divided We Stand – Steptoe And Son. Harold builds a ‘Berlin Wall’ through the house to separate himself from his father.

    Both utter genius, in writing and performances. TV was never better.

    • No Hiding Place – not even the excreble Ant & Dec re-make can sully its greatness

      England F …

      One of the best bits is Terry’s opinions of foreigners. Turns out he doesn’t much like anyone who doesn’t live in the same road as him. And he’s not even keen on the next door neighbours

  5. God that is a hard one. I think my favorite sitcom of all time is probably Reggie Perrin, but that is about an accumulation of despair and detail, not one episode stands out as such. And a for things like Friends, or Cheers or Frasier, they are such highly tuned machines that picking out one episode is really difficult.

    So I guess what I’m saying is for me the short lived quirky comedies are the ones where individual episodes stand out.

    So either Blackadder with Rik Mayall in, either two or four is a serious candidate for me. Also a serious candidate is Fawlty Towers “The Kipper and the Corpse.” Been a while since I seen it but I almost laughed myself into a coma the first time I saw that.

    Father Ted in Eurovision or Cigarettes, Alcohol & Rollerblading is another couple of candidates.

    I know these are all terribly obvious.

    • Entirely agree with everything and even the specific episodes. That said, for sheer consistency of laughs per episode, I still reckon Cheers in its heyday can’t be bettered, but impossible to pick a single one.

  7. My favourite episode of Blackadder 4 is probably the courtmartial episode – Stephen Fry’s Melchett was never more barking mad, Steve Frost and Jeremy Hardy’s cameos as part of the firing squad and Baldrick’s court appearance

  9. It has to be The Germans episode of Fawlty Towers. Who here can honestly claim they haven’t thought to themselves, “Don’t mention the war!” when meeting someone from the Fatherland?

    Only because it deserves a shout-out from obscurity there is an outstanding episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show called “Coast to Coast Big Mouth” where Mary lets slip on national TV that Dick’s boss wears a wig. It is the only episode of that show I have ever seen and it was hilarious so has always stayed in my mind even though I saw it for the only time back in the 1980’s.

  10. Off the top of my head…

    The Phil Silvers Show – Bilko Goes South – Sgt. Bilko enlists the platoon for a trip to Florida away from their freezing base unaware that it’s a potentially fatal medical experiment.

    The IT Crowd – The Work Outing – Jen ends up taking Moss and Roy on her date to a gay musical called Gay. Hilarity ensues in a very well structured frequently hilarious farce of an episode.

    Duckman – Noir Gang – A homage to film noir involving the cartoon detective and his wonderful sidekick Cornfed Pig. A work of genius.

  13. A few more classics:

    Bilko:

    – the one where a chimpanzee enlists in the army by accident
    – the one where they set up a pirate radio station at Fort Baxter (a little-known gem, this)

    Fawlty Towers

    – the one where Basil wins some money by betting on a horse and Mrs Richards complains about the lack of a sea view from her room.

    • Yep, I’d choose that episode of Fawlty Towers (Communication Problems). Top quality three act farce as good as any performed in the West End or Broadway. Not a word wasted and so many lines I love. Like:
      “Oh she’s lost it, or dropped it or eaten it or something.”
      “Please try and understand before one of us dies.”
      “I know nothing.”
      “What was the question again?”

      • I saw the list of favourite Fawlty towers episodes up the thread and this one is definitely the greatest in my view.

        Some lines just set up great communication clashes:

        Polly: Manuel, could you lend Mrs. Richards your assistance in connection with her reservation?

        Some are the peak of a particular scene:

        Basil: Well, may I suggest that you consider moving to a hotel closer to the sea? Or preferably in it?

        But most just hammer home the underlying claustrophobia and despair of the Fawlty marriage. Comedy at its blackest and bleakest:

        Basil: Ever see my wife making toast, Polly?

        Departing guest: You’re not by any chance a betting man, Mr. Fawlty?
        Basil: Er well, I used to be.

        Sybil: You seem very jolly, Basil.
        Basil: Hmm?
        Sybil: You seem very jolly.
        Basil: Jolly?
        Sybil: Yes, jolly. Sort of happy.
        Basil: Oh, happy. Yes, I remember that. Not that I noticed, dear, no. I’ll report it if it happens, though.
        Sybil: Well, you look happy to me, Basil.
        Basil: No, I’m not, dear.
        Sybil: All that dancing about, singing and rubbing your hands.
        Basil: Just my way of getting through the day, dear. The Samaritans were engaged.
        Sybil: I thought maybe you were in love.
        Basil: Hah! Only with you, light of my life.
        Sybil: Or had a bit of luck or something.

        Basil: Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? The odd moment like that, almost worth staying alive for, isn’t it? It’s nice to share a moment like that, isn’t it? It’s what marriage is all about. I know. I read it on the back of a matchbox.
        Sybil: Basil, sometimes
        Basil: Seriously, Sybil, do you remember when we were first manacled together? We used to laugh quite a lot.
        Sybil: Yes, but not at the same time, Basil.
        Basil: That’s true. That was a warning, I guess. Should have spotted that, shouldn’t I? Zoom! “What was that?” “That was your life, mate.” “Oh. That was quick. Do I get another?” “Sorry, mate, that’s your lot.”
        Sybil: Basil.
        Basil: Back to the world of dreams. Yes, dear?
        Sybil: What are we going to do?
        Basil: Give it another 15 years

        Sybil: If I find out the money on that horse was yours, you know what I’ll do, Basil.
        Basil: You’ll have to sew ’em back on first.

  14. For me it’s the wordless sequence in the Frasier episode Three Valentines in which Niles tries to iron his trousers prior to a date, particularly the bit where he catches himself running with scissors. I also love the look he gives Eddie who’s barking to alert him to a fire he’s perfectly well aware of.

  15. Couple not mentioned yet

    Only Fools and Horses. Episode when Grandad joins Del and Rodney in Spain, get arrested. He believes he’s been nicked for his part in gun running for the Catalan rebels in the Civil War. Just brilliant. Never the same after Lennard Pearce passed. He had the pathos of Old Man Steptoe that Uncle Albert never had.

    And

    ‘The Night of the Living Dead’ episode of Father Ted

    Eoin McLove, cake-jumpers, Mrs Doyle’s poem and hundreds of menopausal house keepers. “Mrs O’Leary. Remember that time when your husband tried to make a cup of tea and broke his leg?”

    Father Ted – easily the best farce since Fawlty Towers

  16. Really difficult, and many personal favourites have been mentioned. Anyway, I recently got Saxondale on dvd. It’s the first time I’ve seen it since it was originally broadcast. I think it’s Steve Coogan’s finest creation – every episode is a gem. Wonderfuly observed characters, and very, very funny:

    • I enjoyed that.
      Saxondale is a series I almost completely missed when it was broadcast, due to a dislike of his Alan Partridge character. I saw just one episode from the end of the series and realised I’d missed something special.

    • A couple more curios, more memorable than funny:
      The (U.S.) Office episode Dinner Party: Four series in. we’re so used to seeing Michael be a complete jerk and thinking of him as a tosser. This is the episode where we start to feel some sympathy for him, as we realise just how batsh*t crazy Jan really is.
      The Futurama episode Jurassic Bark: If you’ve ever had a pet, this will crush you.

  18. Fr Ted kicking Bishop Brennan up the Arse is just perfect. A very childish bet between Ted and his nemesis Fr Dick Byrne means that Ted has to kick his boss, the fearsome Bishop Brennan, up the arse as a forfeit. This was revenge for DIck Byrne being forced to say “bollocks” very loudly to President Mary Robinson after losing a game of darts.

  20. Porridge
    Series 1 Episode 1 “New Faces, Old Hands”:

    Fletch complains of bad feet, how he could never be a homosexual with these feet, and doubts he can fill the sample jar from where he is standing

    Series 3 Episode 6 “Final Stretch”

    Fletch to Mackay:
    “One: Bide your time. (raises index finger), Two: Keep your nose clean. (raises middle finger), and three: don’t let the bastards grind you down.
    (Mackay turns around in shock to see Fletcher still has two fingers up) Oh, sorry (raises third finger).

    Whilst not full of laughs, “A Night In” ranks as one of the best written, best acted episodes

    Each episode is a stand-alone half-hour play, and difficult to pick an absolute best. But the three suggested above would (probably) secure the top placings

  21. Young Ones Series 2 Episode 1 “Bambi”

    Educational too – the records for the most marshmallows up one nostril and the worlds stickiest bogey are held by the same man (Toxteth O’Grady, USA).
    And Crop Rotation in the 14th Century was much more widespread after John

    And it’s got Motorhead in it too

    Not all of it stands up brilliantly well with the passage of time, but large lumps of it (if not all) are still bloody funny.

    Oft forgotten is the series that followed – Filthy, Rich & Catflap is the Missing Link between The Young Ones and Bottom. Best episode being Series 1, Episode 2 – including the Game Show Oo-Er Sounds A Bit Rude and an appearance byThe Nolans

  25. When I saw the thread’s title I’ too, immediately thought of “The Contest”.
    “Seinfeld” was a wonderful sitcom. Hardly any duff episodes – and quite a lot of magnificent ones!

    And I really liked the “IT Crowd” musical outing (no pun intended) episode, too.

  29. The Simpsons not mentioned?

    Pick almost any episode between series 3 & 8 and its comedy gold.

    I’ll go for ‘Burns’ Heir’. Genius. Start to finish.

    • Simpsons wise my two favourites are “Homer Badman” where Homer is accused of sexual harassment (particularly the Oprah style show hosted by Gentle Ben) and the one where he falls for Mindy, a new employee at the Power Plant.

      “Oh Margie, you came and you brought me a turkey…”

      Quite agree – those seasons in the mid-late 90s are the best by miles.

  30. Bottom “Hole”

    Richie & Eddie trapped for half an hour at the top of largest ferris wheel in Western Europe. Single scene, real time, 2 actors. Pure Beckettian purile genius.

    • Or, from the same series of Bottom, “Terror” – Richie and Eddie celebrate Halloween:
      Sprouts Mexicane, “why does he keep soiling himself?”, exploding carrots, “lots of booze and drugged-up babes, shaggy-shaggy-shag!”, raising the devil and fiery farts…

  31. Recent years have seen for me good sitcoms become thin on the ground. But I think quietly Friday Night Dinner has legs. It does that thing where it stays within a certain setting, repeats itself a lot, but within those narrow parameters creates a really funny little world. The episodes where they venture out past the confines of the house don’t work quite as well. Apart from the Mercedes episode with Frances Barber which is solid gold.

    • The one new sitcom that I have enjoyed recently is Hebburn. I do have to admit that, if you substitute Teesside accents for Tyneside, it’s almost a documentary of the estate I grew up on. Often laugh out loud funny, probably the thing I most enjoy is some of the supporting performances, particularly Jim Moir (the most understated and effective he’s ever been as an actor) and the wonderful, peerless Gina McKee.

      • Gina McKee, one of my least favourite actors of all time weirdly. Couldn’t tell you why. Does mean that I have a hard time watching anything she’s in. Which is why Our Friends In The North never features in my top tv listings.

  32. let us go back, way back. I give you ‘The Blood Donor’ with the lad himself, Anthony Aloysius Hancock.
    ‘Oh, the nurse gave me to understand you were a Scotsman’ ‘ Yes, well, we’re not all Rob Roys’
    ‘A Pint! That’s very nearly an armful’
    ‘it may be just a smear to you, but it’s life and death to some poor bloke’
    And so on.

    • No.

      There are many funnier Hancocks than that one. It’s the Stairway of comedy.

      My particular favourite is The Bedsitter. It’s literally him on his own in a bedsit… for half an hour. Being brilliant.

      My favourite with Sid is the Missing Page. “Lady Don’t fall Backwards” etc…

      Stone me, what a life…

      • I’ve always preferred the radio Hancock over the TV version. The larger cast works better, with more for The Lad ‘Imself to bounce off, particularly once Hattie Jacques joined the cast. AAH, Hattie, Sid James, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams, one hell of an ensemble.

        • I agree the radio shows are better. Galton & Simpson occasionally take the opportunity to go into Goons-style surrealism, for example The Television Set (AAH buys a DIY TV kit and it takes over his house to the extent that he has to watch it from the garden)

          Sunday Afternoon at Home and the East Cheam Drama Festival are particular belters. “Have a cup of tea, Jim…”

  33. A couple of less well-known ones, not out of obscurantism, but just to give unloved gems a moment in the sun. First of all, anyone remember Joking Apart, with Robert Bathurst as a stand-up comedian whose girlfriend has just left him? It was variable in quality, but there was one episode which was touched with genius, almost entirely built around calamities and misunderstandings involving telephone answering machines. I’d look for it and post it here if I weren’t on my phone, which doesn’t seem to handle posting clips as well.

    The other one I’d nominate is the widely derided (and not in a good way) sitcom Chef, created by and starring the inexplicably reviled Lenny Henry. Again, it wasn’t always good, but there was an episode when his Gareth Blackstock enters a cooking competition in France, which I remember as being beautifully constructed and written, with some actual laughs as the French competitors mock Bisto gravy and the very idea of English wine.

    As to The Classics?
    Seinfeld: the “backwards” episode
    Fawlty Towers: Basil the Siberian Hamster
    Blackadder: Bob (from Goes Forth)
    Frasier: Frasier tries to set Daphne up with a guy who turns out to be gay, and who ends up thinking Frasier, Niles and Martin are all gay.
    Porridge: the fixed boxing match

    • I was going to nominate Joking Apart, and that answering machine episode in particular. It’s got a lot of Moffatt’s signature moves, like scenes out of order, or seen from two perspectives, and long story arcs that spiral back around, that were later developed in Coupling and Dr Who. I managed to get Joking Apart on DVD recently and although it’s dated it still has some of the funniest set-up gags ever.

  34. Dammit! I’ve just discovered this thread and thought, “It’s got to be Joking Apart but no one else will remember it”.

    Personally I have to go for one of the second series episodes (may even have been the last one) where Tracy (Tracie Bennett) is simultaneously on separate phones to the same radio call-in programme as both herself and as relationship expert Maxine… hastily looks around the room for inspiration as to a name… Desk! I remember laughing so hard that it hurt.

    Mind you, there was also the episode where Mark is hiding under the bed whilst his ex-wife and her new boyfriend are having sex on top of it. As he emerges to sneak out he realises he’s caught in the background of their home made porn! Need to dig out the DVDs again.

  35. I remember Joking Apart too. I felt that Robery Bathurst’s character wasn’t convincing as a stand up comedian but I kept watching. And then I noticed things that Bathurst was in and still thought he wasn’t much cop. The years go by and now I think he’s a genius. His portrayal of John Le Mesurier in the Hattie Jacques story was remarkable. “Top up, anyone?”.

  36. Hebburn – brilliant, I thought I was the only person who liked it.

    My vote for funniest episode would have to be the Comic relief episode of The office. Not happy cheerful comedy by any stretch of the imagination, but IMHO, comedy genius.

    Can I also have the full length OFAH episode when they go diamond smuggling in Amsterdam. They are just out of the river humber & Del Boy comes over all patriotic, waxing about “this septic isle, going to stitch up the dagoes” – He then stands in the bows (pointy end), takes off his flat cap, holds his hand over his heart & starts to sing “Robin Hood, Robin Hood… I have watched this more times than I care to remember but it never fails to make me laugh.

    • I beg to differ re Fools. The chandelier falling is the one. Based on something that happened to a friend of John Sullivan’s dad who didn’t think it a suitable subject for comedy as his mate lost his job.

  38. Another one for Hebburn from me. Absolutely fantastic & the Grandma in it is hilarious.

    For me, the most underrated sitcom is Early Doors. When watched stand alone they are fantastic, when watched in order they are even better, with loads of recurring jokes as a reward.

    2 scenes in particular for me. The ‘do you like the circus scene’ & also the opening scene with Ken cleaning the toilets.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6t7A_-9m44

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFMGckleghw

  39. One Foot In The Grave Season 3, Episode 1: Monday Morning Will Be Fine.

    Victor decides to go to the pub and bumps into an old school colleague he used to know, Billy, who mistakes him for somebody else and mocks ‘that old misery Meldrew’. To keep up the pretence Victor lets Billy give him a lift to the house belonging to the man Billy thinks he is. Victor skulks in a stranger’s garden for a bit and then walks home in the rain.
    Having lost his voice he is mistaken for an obscene caller when he rings the phone company, as well as being mistaken for a prowler when he was hiding in the garden of the house Billy took him to.

    Brilliant!

Leave a Reply