Every Sunday, Hasan Minhaj brings an incisive and nuanced perspective to global news, politics and culture in his unique comedy series.
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Keeping Up Appearances is a British sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke for the BBC. Centred on the life of eccentric, social-climbing snob Hyacinth Bucket, the sitcom follows her obsessive and determined attempts to impress in middle class society and portray herself as more affluent than she truly is.
The show stars Patricia Routledge, who received two BAFTA nominations for her performance as Hyacinth. Broadcast between 1990 and 1995 on BBC One, the sitcom spawned five series and 44 episodes—4 of which are Christmas specials. Keeping Up Appearances was a great success in the UK and also captivated a large audience in the US, Canada, and Australia, but production ceased in 1995 when Routledge wanted to move on to other projects. Since its original release, all five series—including Christmas specials—are available on DVD. In 2004, the sitcom was ranked 12th in the countdown of Britain’s Best Sitcom. It is regularly repeated worldwide.
Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry, the show stars Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, and Edward Platt. Henry said they created the show by request of Daniel Melnick, who was a partner, along with Leonard Stern and David Susskind, of the show’s production company, Talent Associates, to capitalize on “the two biggest things in the entertainment world today”—James Bond and Inspector Clouseau. Brooks said: “It’s an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy.” This is the only Mel Brooks production to feature a laugh track.
The success of the show eventually spawned the follow-up films The Nude Bomb and Get Smart, Again!, as well as a 1995 revival series and a 2008 film remake. In 2010, TV Guide ranked Get Smart’s opening title sequence at No. 2 on its list of TV’s Top 10 Credits Sequences, as selected by readers.
Emet is the perfect mom, boss, wife, friend and daughter. Okay, she’s not perfect. In fact, she’s just figuring it out like the rest of us. Sure, she feels bad when she has a sexy dream about someone other than her husband, or when she pretends not to know her kids when they misbehave in public, or when she uses her staff to help solve personal problems. But that’s okay, right? Nobody can have it all and do it perfectly.
Two unlicensed Swedish private investigators try to make a living in Los Angeles.
Set in the early 1990s, this sitcom features the personal exploits of a 16 year old girl, her family and friends during the Troubles.
Minder is a British comedy-drama series about the London criminal underworld. Initially produced by Verity Lambert, it was made by Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television and shown on ITV. The show ran for ten series between 29 October 1979 and 10 March 1994, and starred Dennis Waterman as Terry McCann, an honest and likable bodyguard and George Cole as Arthur Daley, a socially ambitious, but highly unscrupulous importer-exporter, wholesaler, used-car salesman, and anything else from which there was money to be made whether inside the law or not. The show was largely responsible for putting the word minder, meaning personal bodyguard, into the UK and Australian popular lexicon. The characters often drank at the local members-only Winchester Club, where owner and barman Dave acted, often unwillingly, as a message machine for Arthur, and turned a blind eye to his shady deals. The series was notable for using a range of leading British actors, as well as many up-and-coming performers before they hit the big time; at its peak was one of ITV’s biggest ratings winners.
In 2008, it was announced that Minder would go into production for broadcast in 2009 for a new version, although none of the original cast would appear in the new episodes. The new show focused on Arthur’s nephew, Archie, played by Shane Richie. The series began broadcast on 4 February 2009. In 2010, it was announced that no further episodes would be made following lukewarm reception to the first series.
The series uses “mockumentary” techniques to depict the fictional, reality television-style adventures of enthusiastic professional critic Forrest MacNeil, who hosts a TV show called “Review” in which he engages in any life experience his viewers ask him to, to find out if that life experience “is any good”. Afterward, Forrest formally rates each life experience in-studio, on a one-to-five-star scale. However, Forrest’s compulsive curiosity and uncompromising commitment to the show unexpectedly backfire in ways that increasingly destroy his life as he is requested to review ‘stealing’, ‘drug addiction’, ‘being a racist’, ‘getting divorced’, ‘getting revenge’, and ‘running from the law.
A mild-mannered young bird and his best friends, a pair of rambunctious siblings called Fee and Foo, seek adventure and mischief in the magical forest that they call home.
