TV Series: On The Buses

Over the last two weeks I've hardly watched any films at home. I've been catching up on television series. I won't list them all here. I just want to mention that today I watched six episodes from the fifth season of "On the buses", episodes first broadcast in 1971. I was laughing so hard that I had tears in my eyes. This is first class comedy, better than anything that's been made in the last 40 years. The only other series that comes close to being as funny is "It ain't half hot, Mum", made a few years later, from 1974 to 1981.

Why can't they make programmes this funny nowadays? Is it because the humour is so deeply rooted in the 1970's that it would be impossible to transplant it into the 21st Century? Are we too politically correct today? Do we allow too little? Or too much? The series' humour might seem crude at first glance, but it's actually very innocent. Stan and Jack are presumably in their mid 30's, but as far as sexual relationships go they act like teenagers. The highlight of a date with a clippy (a female ticket collector) is making out with her on the sofa. All that the "bad boys" want to do is kiss and grope, they wouldn't dream of going any further. The clippies are a class in themselves. With very few exceptions they are busty but overweight by today's standards of perfection. I think the polite word to describe them is "thick". Stan and Jack didn't want skinny girls, they had to have meat on their bones, something to squeeze on the sofa after coming home from the pub.

Jack and Stan playing darts with a clippy

The picture at the top is of the UK DVD collection, but it uses a horrible Americanism, the misuse of the word "series". In correct English a television programme is a series, and the yearly chunks are called seasons. This means that we can say, for instance, "The series 'Smallville' is made up of ten seasons". Americans confuse matters by using the word "series" when they mean "seasons". Unfortunately it's becoming more and more common for people in England to imitate this blunder. As in this DVD box set. The company Network which released this DVD collection should be ashamed of their poor command of the English language.