Hee Haw is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with the fictional rural "Kornfield Kounty" as the backdrop. It aired from 1969 to 1993, and on TNN from 1996 to 1997. Reruns of the series were broadcast on RFD-TV from September 2008 to April 2020, and aired on Circle.
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is used widely in variety shows, comedy talk shows, and some sitcoms and children's television series. The sketches may be improvised live by the performers, developed through improvisation before public performance, or scripted and rehearsed in advance like a play. Sketch comedians routinely differentiate their work from a “skit", maintaining that a skit is a (single) dramatized joke while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character, or situation. Sketch comedy is a genre within American television that includes a multitude of schemes and identities.
Absolutely Fabulous is a British television sitcom based on the French and Saunders sketch "Modern Mother and Daughter", created by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The show was created and written by Saunders, who also stars as one of the main characters. Its cast includes Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha.
Bottom is a British sitcom created by Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson that ran for three series on BBC2 from 1991 to 1995. It focuses on Richard "Richie" Richard (Mayall) and Edward Elizabeth "Eddie" Hitler (Edmondson), two unemployed, crude, and perverted flatmates living in Hammersmith, London, who aspire to better themselves. Bottom became known for its chaotic, nihilistic humour and violent slapstick comedy. In 2004, Bottom was ranked 45th in a BBC poll for Britain's Best Sitcom.
Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English actress, comedian, singer, and screenwriter. Saunders originally found attention in the 1980s, when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with her best friend and comedy partner, Dawn French. With French, she co-wrote and starred in their eponymous sketch show, French and Saunders, for which they jointly received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2009. Saunders later received acclaim in the 1990s for writing and playing her character Edina Monsoon in her sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
The Young Ones is a British sitcom written by Rik Mayall, Ben Elton, and Lise Mayer, starring Adrian Edmondson, Mayall, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan, and Alexei Sayle, and broadcast on BBC Two for two series, first shown in 1982 and 1984. The show focused on the lives of four dissimilar students and their landlord's family on different plots that often included anarchic, offbeat, surreal humour. The show often included slapstick gags, visual humour and surreal jokes sometimes acted out by puppets, with each episode also featuring a notable selection of guest stars and musical numbers from various performers.
Basil Brush is a fictional fox best known for his appearances on daytime British children's television. He is primarily portrayed by a glove puppet, but has also been depicted in animated cartoon shorts, books, annuals and comic strips. The character has featured on children's television from the 1960s to the present day. He has also appeared in pantomimes across the UK.
Richard Michael Mayall, known professionally as Rik Mayall, was an English comedian, actor and writer. He formed a close partnership with Ade Edmondson while they were students at Manchester University, and was a pioneer of alternative comedy in the 1980s.
Peter Richardson is an English director, screenwriter, actor and comedian. He founded the Comic Strip troupe of performers, which showcased his double act with Nigel Planer and boosted the careers of French and Saunders, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, and Alexei Sayle. Richardson approached Channel 4 to make a series of short, self-contained one-off comedy films with this group, which led to The Comic Strip Presents..., the majority of which featured Richardson in acting, writing and directing roles.
Fry and Laurie are an English comedy double act, mostly active in the 1980s and 1990s, composed of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. The two met in 1980 through mutual friend Emma Thompson while all three attended the University of Cambridge. Following appearances on TV sketch show Alfresco, The Young Ones, and revue series Saturday Live, they gained prominence on television sketch comedy A Bit of Fry & Laurie, actress Deborah Norton appearing in many of the sketches in the first series.
A recurring character is a fictional character, usually in a prime time TV series, who frequently appears from time to time during the series' run. Recurring characters often play major roles in more than one episode, sometimes being the main focus. They may be contrasted with "regular" characters, who typically appear in every or almost every episode of a series. Recurring characters appear less frequently than regulars, but more frequently than guest star characters, who may appear in only one, two or more episodes without being expected to return.
Rowland John Rivron is a British writer, comedic actor and television personality.
Helen Margaret Lederer is a British comedian, writer and actress who emerged as part of the alternative comedy boom at the beginning of the 1980s. Among her television credits are the BBC2 sketch series Naked Video and BBC One's Absolutely Fabulous, in which she played the role of Catriona.
Saturday Live is a British television comedy and music show, made by LWT and initially broadcast on Channel 4 from 1985 to 1988, with a brief revival on ITV in 1996. A few one-off editions have also been screened sporadically, including a contribution to the BBC's 1993 Comic Relief telethon. It was based on the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live but otherwise had no direct connection to the show.
20th Century Coyote was an English comedy group famous for first uniting Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall. Formed by Lloyd Peters (lloydpeters.uk) in March 1976 whilst studying B.A. Drama at Manchester University, this improvisatory character-led comedy troupe was to become the resident company at The Band on the Wall in Manchester. Peters recruited fellow thespian student Rik Mayall principally because they shared the same off-beat humour – anarchic slapstick mixed with a large dose of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Two further drama students were press-ganged from the year below and rather late in the day Adrian Edmondson to appear in Coyote's first improv-based comedy entitled Dead Funny (1976). Six other shows followed before an Edinburgh Fringe Festival spin-off. The 40-minute live shows were self-contained narratives based on recognized comedy templates but worked, or more correctly warped, by improvisation and then re-improvised in performance. The shows were often loud, crude and grotesque. The group were important in that, its techniques and the lasting influence of character-led sketch and 'improv' comedy helped shape a distinctive brand of 'alternative comedy' in the 1970s and 1980s and that would soon dominate the comedy mainstream.
Bottom Live – The Stage Show is a live stage show based on the UK TV series Bottom. It ran in 1993 and was recorded for VHS release at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton. It was written by its stars, Rik Mayall as Richie Richard and Adrian Edmondson as Eddie Hitler.
A Bit of Fry & Laurie is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring former Cambridge Footlights members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, broadcast on both BBC1 and BBC2 between 1989 and 1995. It ran for four series with 26 episodes, including a 36-minute pilot episode in 1987.
Adrian Charles Edmondson is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter. He was part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s and had roles in the television series The Young Ones (1982–1984) and Bottom (1991–1995), which he wrote together with his collaborator Rik Mayall. Edmondson also appeared in The Comic Strip Presents... series of films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. For two episodes of this he created the spoof heavy metal band Bad News, and for another he played his nihilistic alter-ego Eddie Monsoon, an offensive South African television star.
Simon Tracey Brint was a British musician, best known for his role as part of the comedy duo Raw Sex with Rowland Rivron. He also composed for many British TV comedy and drama programmes.
