It clearly is the greatest. It's not the funniest or the most consistent or even necessarily my own personal favourite; but that's not the question. There simply isn't another sitcom that has been the same international and intergenerational phenomenon or even close.

reported

apart from Seinfeld which was more ground breaking and funnier

mainly because you have never seen any of them one would imagine?

Meh Friends held my interest Seinfeld never did, I find the characters in it really annoying

Ab Fab dislike detected :omgno:

The ones in bold are brilliant, the rest are entirely limited to the (now ageing) generation that they were aimed at and have not really stood the test of time, other than nostalgically for the people who remember them in their prime, so I don't think are contenders for "true" objective greatness (although everyone is of course entitled to their personal greats).

I think they were supposed to be annoying or possibly neurotic. Seinfeld kills Friends IMO in just about every department I can think of. I recall when Friends started many pundits dubbed Friends a poor mans Seinfeld.

Point proven

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mes4elmHyz1qkjvfg.gif

Which is why I preferred Friends, I stayed watching because I loved the characters in it, if I don't like any of the characters in a show, I'll just lose interest (and my humour is clearly more low brow and less intelligent :fan: )

Huge audience but nowhere near as broad in terms of demographic, plus Seinfeld himself is an annoying egotistical arsehole. And "Bee Movie" is just unforgiveable. My youngest loves it. I just can't.

tackling stuff head on years before even alternative comedians did

Fair point. So did you not watch all of Seinfeld cuz there are some episodes that are truly inspired.

:clap1:

He may well be an egostistical arsehole but his sitcom was one of the best ever.

No I didn't, that's what I was saying, I just could never warm to any of the characters enough to keep me coming back or really get into it

I agree with this. Even Larry David says he cannot watch some of the very early episodes. They are quite difficult to watch but it was the style that kept me interested. Particularly when they were still bookending each episode with snippets of Seinfeld stand up.

:joker:

For me it was missing the charm that Friends had

The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin and then the Fall and Rise was an inspired sitcom of its time, some members like say Cherie will recall it.


In this clip Reggie meets a young Kirk and finds out what type of thread topics he will be making in the second quarter of 2018

Now you're losing me cuz I dont agree with that at all. :joker: 'No hugs no learning' was for a reason.

There are a few later episodes of Friends that are definite Seinfeld rip offs. In particular, as I recall, around the time we find out Ross is the father of Rachels baby there are few episode that made me think they'd employed a Seinfeld scriptwriter. The episode with the Videotape is clearly in the Seinfeld style.

And me. A bit depressing though dont you think. The whole concept?

It was but it was a dig at the end of the sexist racist 1970s and the middle class working ideal

Well I wasn't watching Seinfeld so would never have noticed that :laugh:

It's all subjective though, I loved Friends, I loved the characters and I suppose it's a bit nostalgic for me too, I was 15 when it started and it was a thing to watch it with one of my best friends every week so the ritual of watching it like that probably made me enjoy it all the more too

Agree. Taking aim at the middle class rat race.

That episode in particular, where all the random plot line come together at the end, is definitely in the Seinfeld style.

Yes well, Seinfeld had no Chandler :idc:

And lets not forget Taxi and Cheers

So do you like Chandler yet find the Seinfeld characters annoying? :think:

:laugh2:

I love Chandler

:nono: Its not all about SEX

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e5/ba...a59b6fb899.jpg
https://s3.scoopwhoop.com/anj/image/...28bcaa5464.jpg

.................................................. :flutter:

Ew I don't like him that way, clearly Joey was the most attractive of them (except for the episode Brad Pitt was in obvs)

Both awesome. I used to have the Paramount comedy channel in the late 90's early 2000's and at weekends it was a sitcom blitz. Used to be too many annoying stand up and sketch shows during the week but the weekends was for sitcom both British and American. All these show were on wall to wall. Bliss. Those were the days :flutter:

I never fancied friends when it was first shown, i subsequently watched it and it does have a certain something, but I don't think its anywhere close to the best.

There were shows like Frasier and the Odd Couple that were far funnier, and during the 60's, 70's and 80's the BBC put out countless classics. I could add another 10+ to Alf's list that were pure magic.

Oh and my 18 year old daughter has just started watching Friends from scratch and she loves it too

One Foot in the Grave is more my cup of tea, but Friends was great too

The weekends ep of Harry Hills Alien Fun Capsule with Canon and Ball was pretty good too