What is the Difference between UK and US Comedy?

 by Nicholas Lemieux

As much as we often overlook it, comedy is an essential part in any culture and much of the time can inform us so much about what makes particular people tick and act the way they do in society. And from my experience, there’s no place where it’s more evident than the numerous debates between UK and US comedy.

There seems to be a general assumption among many that UK comedy tends to be much smarter and wittier in its execution, a viewpoint I strongly disagree with. American sitcoms such as Arrested Development and Community contain some of the most intricately set-up and smartest jokes in all of television and are among some of my dear favourties. And to anyone espousing about the subtlety all UK sitcoms feature in their comedy, I just want to remind you that it’s been 10 years and new episodes of Mrs. Brown’s Boys are still being made.

Regardless, both sides of the Atlantic feature strong writing in many of their shows but a point must be raised regarding what exactly is the key underlying difference between how the UK and the US do comedy?

From my findings, the simple answer would be that US comedy is more hopeful and optimistic in its foundations whereas the UK tends to be more unafraid in confronting the bleaker aspects of life. This is especially a conundrum when considering that research from the 2020 World Happiness Report placed the UK several sports ahead of the US, even though our style of comedy tends to be more morose and cynical.

Stephen Fry gave an acute summary of the stark contrasts between our senses of humour through his outlining of a scene from the classic American comedy Animal House where John Belushi smashes up a singer’s guitar. To the US, this is classic American humour packed with loud slapstick in which the comedian involved comes out on top. If this were the UK however, Fry argues that it would be the comedian playing the guitar who gets his day ruined. As he puts it, “we want to play the failure” owing to how we Brits tend to self-deprecate everything. When tightly-written characters such as Basil Fawlty and Blackadder find themselves engaged in embarrassing and humiliating situations with no way of coming out good, we can still find the humour even though such shows sparsely feature happy endings or even heartfelt moments. We find comedy in the tragic situations of these shows because we identity ourselves with the plights taking place and aren’t afraid to laugh at the cynical worlds these characters ive in. The US on the other hand generally maintains a more optimistic viewpoint within its entertainment culture with a more hopeful message suggesting that everything will turn out all right in the end. This is particularly evident from how hit shows such as Seinfeld centre around the everyman who happens to be the only sane person in a crazy world with a hand quip in mind for whatever bizarre situation they find themselves in, a straight-faced character hundreds of people can easily identity with in light with that traditional mindset of the American dream. 

Perhaps the defining example of this can be found in the differences between the UK and US versions of The Office. Generally speaking, American remakes of British shows tend to fall flat due to their insistence on copying the exact scripts from the original. Aside from a few awkwardly placed Americanised terms, it comes across as a soulless product which fails to both pay homage to the spirit of the original and establish its own identity. The world has sadly had to put up with awful US remakes of The IT Crowd and The Inbetweeners (changing bus w*nkers to bus turds will haunt me till my death), yet when it came to adapting The Office, we got to have an insight into what makes the comedy from both cultures tick. Oftentimes, the US Office arguably equals its UK counterpart in terms of the sheer amount of cringe comedy it produces. In fact, I could argue that I felt more uncomfortable watching “Scott’s Tots” than any other scene in the UK version, as horrifying as David Brent’s dancing remains. Yet despite all this, the US version prefers to tiptoe between the sliding scales of idealism and cynicism, often countering some of the more uncomfortable scenarios with genuine heartfelt moments. The fact that the US version places more emphasis on its ensemble cast also allows it to strengthen the bonds between its cast of quirky characters and even indicate the character growth some of them have gone through.

As for how the UK perceives comedy, one of my favourite episodes of the British Office is when David Brent pulls out his guitar and starts playing at the staff training session. Instead of going for the expected punch line of David being terrible at singing and making a fool of himself as expected, the writers instead opted to make him turn out to be a surprisingly good musician. This turns out to be unexpectedly funnier when it makes the viewer realise that this adds fuel to David’s self-belief and confidence in his own abilities. By giving him this genuine skill, it makes him out to be an even greater failure given how this sense of arrogance inspires him to act like more of a buffoon among his co-workers. It’s such a tragic yet ironic scenario that we can’t help but laugh at David’s misfortune, especially in light of how unsympathetic his character otherwise is.

The early episodes of Office US particularly stumbled because it tried to be too much like the UK version tone-wise, especially when taking Michael Scott’s initial characterisation into mind; Michael in Season 1 has a much more selfish and bitter personality, in line with the original vision of David Brent who shows little true affinity to his co-workers and on the whole is a thoroughly unlikeable character. In the ensuing seasons, as the show starts to form its own unique identity with its more hopeful approach to life, we start to see more of Michael’s qualities as he becomes a character we genuinely start to empathise with. Yes, he’s still a vastly incompetent boss prone to immature actions and insensitive gaffes but the show wisely makes sure to place more emphasis on the genuine care he feels for his colleagues as well as his own relatable dreams of settling down and starting a family. Unlike David, who would usually pretend to be friendly to his employees just to look good in front of the cameras, Michael actually wants nothing more than their friendship and most of his blunders arise from his attempts to be liked by his employees.

On the whole, although David Brent has a few sympathetic moments, he mostly remains a mean boss with a genuinely nasty and self-centred attitude. Michael Scott in contrast stands as a much more well-meaning character. Although he can have his nasty streaks owing to his desire for attention he never means any genuine malice in his antics and generally just wants to get along with everyone (well, everyone expect poor Toby...). Both David Brent and Michael Scott are brilliant characters in the comedy world who, although sharing the same basic foundation, are great in their own distinct ways and arguably exemplify the best of their respective countries’ sense of humour.

It also helps that British sitcoms tend to have a substantially lower episode count. After all, we Brits live in a culture where we are entirely satisfied with seasons of just 6 episodes; a number that isn’t too much but also isn’t too little. It’s the perfect formula for our brand of comedy where we can freely laugh at the humiliating situations bumbling characters end up in without it becoming too overstretched where you reach a point of diminishing returns. American sitcoms meanwhile are more accustomed to contain seasons with up to 20 episodes which is perhaps part of the reason why their shows don’t place too much of an emphasis on misery. Given the consistency with which they put out new episodes week-by-week with seasons airing across a whole year, it makes sense why Americans are not so inclined to engage with comedies that are so bleak due to sheer burn-out from the never-ending cynicism. There is a sense of comfort tied to those 20-minute sitcoms packed with wisecracks and memorable characters where every week there’s a comical yet hopeful resolution to whatever wacky situation has taken place.

In short, I hope people can realise that there is no real stigma between US and UK comedy regarding one side having to be better than the other. We each have our own distinct styles that can yield both good and bad results but ultimately do a good job in exemplifying our respective identities.  Comedy is subjective, as the old adage goes, and there is nothing wrong in preferring a different style of comedy just as long as it makes you laugh.

Inbetweeners USA still sucks though.