Top Twenty Radio Comedies of All Time

[Ray de Galles]

...that are British and mostly on Radio 4 (unsurprisingly) :

1) I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
2) Hancock’s Half Hour
3) Round the Horne
4) On the Hour
5) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
6) The Goon Show
7) Mark Steel’s in Town
8) Cabin Pressure
9) Blue Jam
10) John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme
11) Ed Reardon’s Week
12) Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show!
13) The Shuttleworths
14) The Kenny Everett Show
15) The News Quiz
16) Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge
17) Dead Ringers
18) Hello Cheeky
19) Ladies of Letters
20) The Ricky Gervais Show (with Karl Pilkington)


No argument with the number one and happy to see JFSP in the top ten (Finnemore has Cabin Pressure at 8 too). The News Quiz is way too low though and surprised to see that 'Just A Minute' doesn't feature given some of the ones that are there.

These lists are all nonsense of course but I am very bored in Lockdown II.

[ad hoc]

It's a fairly good list that shows how good some radio 4 comedies have been. The one that instantly stands out as not belonging with the others is the awful Dead Ringers

[Ray de Galles]

I hadn't taken in that Dead Ringers appeared, inexplicable. Still, at least it's not The Now Show.

Is radio comedy at all a thing in America nowadays? My idea of it over there is very rooted in the fifties and I can't think of much beyond that.

I suppose NPR has people like Garrison Keillor and David Sedaris who are essentially radio essayists but maybe there is a wider range that hasn't travelled over the Atlantic? Clearly I mean actual comedy rather than "zoo format" banter merchants like Howard Stern.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I suppose it's natural lists like this don't include shows that precede contemporary lifetimes. Based on my parents and their peers ITMA! (It's That Man Again!) should certainly be the list, and without a doubt, my childhood favourite, Take it From Here, if only for the brilliance of The Glums.

[Bored Of Education]

"JAM" and "Meet David Sedaris" are the stand-out exclusions for me as well. "ISIHAC" is odd as, for years, I never quite realised how much I enjoyed it. I actually shade The Now Show over Dead Ringers which, like a lot of other Radio 4 comedy, is execrable.

[Tony C]

The last series of 'Mark Steel's in Town' that I heard was brilliant. His show in Kendal a couple of years ago was the best stand up we'd seen in a long time and part of it was taken up with gags about the town, its people and its culture much in the nature of the radio show. To write bespoke material (and good material too) for each gig on a night by night basis is work of rare skill and dedication.

[Giggler]

What, no Al Read?

[Incandenza]

I hadn't taken in that Dead Ringers appeared, inexplicable. Still, at least it's not The Now Show.

Is radio comedy at all a thing in America nowadays? My idea of it over there is very rooted in the fifties and I can't think of much beyond that.

I suppose NPR has people like Garrison Keillor and David Sedaris who are essentially radio essayists but maybe there is a wider range that hasn't travelled over the Atlantic? Clearly I mean actual comedy rather than "zoo format" banter merchants like Howard Stern.

I don't really feel like it's much of a thing recently, there are just a few names that stand out in recent times. Phil Hendrie did a show on LA talk radio where he was the host, and he'd have guests on who would be defending some ridiculous position and would argue with callers, and of course he was voicing the guests, and the callers had no idea.

Similar to that, there is the Best Show with Tom Scharpling, which started on WFMU in New Jersey. It's a 3-hour radio show where he takes calls and talks about whatever he wants, and he is funny on his own, but the centerpiece are calls with Jon Wurster, the dummer from Superchunk and the Mountain Goats, who calls in as different characters from the fictional town of Newbridge, NJ. They've created their own universe with different characters and storylines, etc. The call they got most famous for was when Wurster was Ronald Clontle, who wrote a book called Rock, Rot, and Rule, where he categorized every band/musical artist in one of those categories. People called in to argue with him, none of who were aware that it was a bit, because it was one of the first calls they ever did. It became sort of a cult favorite, with actual bands passing it around on tapes and listening to it on the road. The most famous line from it is that Madness invented ska, which still makes people online furious when someone says it as a joke.

The problem may be that there are just so many radio stations in the US. I only really know about LA radio, and people from elsewhere that have become famous. Also, so much of the radio here is corporate, and there just isn't any interest in comedy radio that takes patience and time for something to develop. There could have been funny people from some college station elsewhere, but they wouldn't really get known out of their own area.

[Janik]

One missing that really should be in the top five:-
Old Harry's Game*

Others series that have a good shot at top 20 in my opinion:-
Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation
Chris Addison's two series, which were similar enough for me to consider them one show just with a title change mid-flow - The Ape That Got Lucky and Chris Addison's Civilisation
A Series of Psychotic Episodes
Delve Special
Flight of the Conchords - well, if the Hitchhikers Guide, originally a radio series but later in all kinds of other formats, is in there, this, also first run on the radio, should be too
The Masterson Inheritance

And one one-off show that is just brilliant and despite only being one hour I would still include
Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen

* - on Radio 4 Extra tonight at 23:30 for anyone who hasn't heard it previously. Andy Hamilton plays Satan. A very world weary Satan. Whilst there are elephants in the room with saying Radio is the perfect medium for a vehicle starring Hamilton, it's good that such a thing can exist somewhere because the bloke is a comic genius. Actually the other radio series he did that he starred in, Revolting People, is also excellent.

[Gangster Octopus]

Disappointed to see that the show which spawned ISIHAC, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again , didn't make it. The greatest comedy radio show of the lot.

[Janik]

In terms of American Radio comedy, Jay Tarses co-stars and co-wrote Revolting People. Which is also set in America (Baltimore, around the time of the revolution. Hence the title). Presumably Hamilton got to know him from somewhere.

[Ginger Yellow]

Is radio comedy at all a thing in America nowadays? My idea of it over there is very rooted in the fifties and I can't think of much beyond that.

I suppose NPR has people like Garrison Keillor and David Sedaris who are essentially radio essayists but maybe there is a wider range that hasn't travelled over the Atlantic? Clearly I mean actual comedy rather than "zoo format" banter merchants like Howard Stern.

The closest thing I've come across in quality to the UK style comedy show, on radio, was Wits, sadly no longer with us. It had a strong element of improv and sketch comedy, on top of the panel show aspect. There's still Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me, but it's not very good and too earnest in the format. There are of course tons of excellent comedy podcasts, including many panel shows.

[Ray de Galles]

Yeah, Old Harry's Game was great.

Hamilton's almost disappeared off the radio in recent years actually. Obviously he's had great success writing for the screen with Outnumbered and his film 'What We Did On Our Holidays' which may be the cause but I'm sure he was still a regular on 'The News Quiz' when Outnumbered was on the air. I wonder if he was a victim of a bit of a clear out of regular panelists recently?

[ChrisJ]

Saw this this morning and I knew RdG would be chuffed with the Finnemore hegemony.

I know it's all quite subjective really, but I was also puzzled by the inclusion of Dead Ringers ahead of Just a Minute or Old Harry's Game.

Some of the others are a little puzzling too. Count Arthur Strong can be funny but only if you like his one joke. Hello Cheeky? Really? The Goons are surely there on reputation? I can't say I find their stuff funny at all. Perhaps they share the Monty Python category of having been important, groundbreaking and whatnot, but films aside, not having aged so well?

I thought the Now Show went through a really good period a few years back, but it's been unlistenable for ages.

Edit - cross post with Janik et al.

[Ginger Yellow]

The Goons are surely there on reputation? I can't say I find their stuff funny at all.

There's an awful lot that is problematic about the Goons these days, but I find the show absolutely hilarious. But I'd agree it's probably more important for its influence than its ongoing appeal - I just like the silliness.

[Amor de Cosmos]

What, no Al Read?

Quite!

[Amor de Cosmos]

So far as the US is concerned The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour and its successors should definitely make the list. Much funnier and more clued in to their period than the more famous National Lampoon, The Firesign Theatre was the only North American radio equivalent to the absurdity of The Goons/Python.

[ursus arctos]

Ah, now you are playing the hits

[Levin]

I wonder if the Harry Hill shows are as good as I remember them being. Dead Ringers really does stand out. And shows a large degree of recency bias.

It's not even the best satirical comedy with impressions on 4, given that Weekenders existed. It was Weekenders wasn't it?

[Levin]

Oh, The Goons has some serious issues with race, gender and sexuality. And there are whole episodes that make no sense to me due to its reference points and commenting on current affairs. And some episodes are patchy even beyond that.

But it is incredibly funny for a large amount of time.

[Incandenza]

So far as the US is concerned The Firesign Theatre Radio Hour Hour and its successors should definitely make the list. Much funnier and more clued in to their period than the more famous National Lampoon, The Firesign Theatre was the only North American radio equivalent to the absurdity of The Goons/Python.

I was going to mention them, but modern US acts were mentioned. But I know that they were very influential.

[Amor de Cosmos]

When I arrived here in 1972, everyone's apartment had a least one Firesign album. Even now I'm shocked to discover they released fifteen! Counterculture-wise they were massive, but their reputation didn't travel, I never met anyone from the UK who'd even heard of them. For sure there are lots of inside references that might be obscure outside North America, but the same could be said of the Pythons going the other way. Maybe because the latter did TV they traveled better.* I think the surreal narrative of the Firesigns required audio-only the images happened in your head. Kinda like the Goons who were an enormous influence apparently.

*Firesign did make seventeen movies too. I saw a couple but they weren't very good.

[Southport Zeb]

I wonder if the Harry Hill shows are as good as I remember them being. Dead Ringers really does stand out. And shows a large degree of recency bias.

It's not even the best satirical comedy with impressions on 4, given that Weekenders existed. It was Weekenders wasn't it?

Week Ending

[Ginger Yellow]

Chicken Man is another US radio show which deserves an hon. ment.

[Mumpo]

ISIHAC but no Just A Minute? And no Radio Active?! Where's the off button?