A vast list of the best put-downs on television has been compiled by the Radio Times in the UK, and it includes countless BBC comedy series.

• Basil Fawlty - Fawlty Towers. To Sybil: “Oh dear, what happened? Did you get entangled in the eiderdown again? Not enough cream in your eclair? Hmm? Or did you have to talk to all your friends for so long that you didn’t have time to perm your ears?”
• Mrs Merton - The Mrs Merton Show. To Debbie McGee: “So what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”
• Edmund Blackadder - Blackadder II. To Lord Percy: “The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed, hasn’t he, Percy?”
• Father Jack Hackett - Father Ted. “Drink! Feck! Arse! Girls!”
• Carla - Cheers. Cliff: “I’m ashamed God made me a man.” Carla: “I don’t think God’s doing a lot of bragging about it either.”
• Patsy Stone - Absolutely Fabulous. “One more facelift on this one and she’ll have a beard.”
• Jim Royle - The Royle Family. Nana: “Is this hat too far forward?” Jim: “No. We can still see your face.”
• Malcolm Tucker - The Thick Of It. To a junior minister: “All these hands all over the place! You were like a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra! It was like watching John Leslie at work!”
• Statler and Waldorf - The Muppet Show. Statler: “Wake up, you old fool, you slept through the show.” Waldorf: “Who’s a fool? You watched it.”
• Inspector Monkfish - The Fast Show. To a bereaved woman: “I realise this must be a very difficult time for you, so put your knickers on and go and make me a cup of tea.”
• Rupert Rigsby - Rising Damp. To lodger Alan, who complains his room is too cold to study in: “The only thing you study is your navel. You even shave lying down.”
• Nan - The Catherine Tate Show. Describing an encounter with an overweight hospital volunteer: “She said to me last time, ‘You look bored, Mrs Taylor. I’ve got three words for you: Barbara Taylor Bradford.’ So I said, ‘Yeah? I’ve got three words for you too: calorie controlled diet.”‘
• The Professor - The Mary Whitehouse Experience. “I have here a copy of your book, Origins of the Crimean War. It smells of poo.” “That’s because it’s been inside your mum’s bra.”
• Alf Garnett - Till Death Us Do Part. “You Scouse git!”
• Gary Strang - Men Behaving Badly. “Let’s face it, Tony, the only way you’re gonna be in there is if you’re both marooned on a desert island and she eats a poisonous berry or a nut which makes her temporarily deaf, dumb, stupid, forgetful and desperate for sex.”
• Arnold Rimmer - Red Dwarf. “Look, we all have something to bring to this discussion. But I think from now on the thing you should bring is silence.”
• Larry David - Curb Your Enthusiasm. “Switzerland is a place where they don’t like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate.”
• Captain Mainwaring - Dad’s Army. “You stupid boy!”

I’ve even been so kind as to let a couple of US entries remain from those comedy-oriented ones (no way is any line from Dynasty getting listed here…) but I have to say that I can think of better examples from almost all of the UK comedy examples.  The Mary Whitehouse Experience’s entry in particular is very poor and doesn’t touch upon the genius of History Today

Still, nothing from Gervais!

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Tags: blackadder, catherine tate, dads army, father ted, fawlty towers, list, men behaving badly, red dwarf

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Sitcom, Sketch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.