Do gays under 30 years old watch AB FAB

No.

You're missing out, R1.

No.

I watched an episode or two... couldn't get into it.

They should.

Ab Fab is old and really outdated. It's so 1990's. And not in a good way

It's really tired

Lines inside means lines outside.

I wish Debbie Harry had recorded the full version of Wheel's on Fire. Her version of the intro was much better then the Julie Driscoll version they used in the earlier seasons.

[quote]Do gays under 30 years old watch AB FAB

Gays over 30 never watched that show either...

No.

R9 yep

It’s not that funny. It was mildly fun watching them stumble around, wasted, but that’s about it.

[quote]I wish Debbie Harry had recorded the full version of Wheel's on Fire. Her version of the intro was much better then the Julie Driscoll version they used in the earlier seasons.

The Julie Driscoll version was re-recorded for this show along with Jennifer Saunders' husband.

The 60s original is much better...and better than anything Harry could ever have done with it.

[quote]Gays over 30 never watched that show either...—over 30

They did. Just because you don't like it. DL adores it...and quote the lame lines all the time.

"You cannot make rock 'n' roll on a diet of Quorn, V8 Juice and Linda Bloody McCartney's Tofu Treats!"

No, it bewilders and confuses them. They were VERY offended at the episode in which the Kardashians were compared to head lice.

I watched it when it was new and I was in my 30s. It was entertaining to hear British people say what they said, but now it’s just annoying. It couldn’t compete now with YouTube and reality TV.

[quote] It couldn’t compete now with YouTube and reality TV.

God, the weird bullshit people on here write.

I loved it when they used to show it on PBS 15 years ago, I haven't watched it since or wanted to. It is very dated and unrelateable. You have to know children of the 50s and 60s to get the jokes.

I seriously doubt they'd have the patience.

No. The humor is outdated.

It's incredibly retro and relatable with Eddie so desperate to fit in and matter. And the whole abusive #metoo relationship between Patsy and Saffy.

Yes, there are dated references, but Saunders and Lumley created two interesting, funny and engaging characters. It's too bad people today don't have the attention span they once did. In the '80s and '90s when I was in my 20s and 30s I almost exclusively watched things that were "dated" and I loved them.

Ab Fab is a gay classic, and it's the younger generation's loss that they aren't smart enough or patient enough to get it.

I first saw it back in 1999 or 2000, comedy central used to run it. I thought it was great and still do, it is VERY 90s but I like that about it.

I don't think any 30 year old (gay or not) knows what AB FAB is

The AbFab movie was fairly recent.

It was a good show, just wasn't my sense of humour.

No. It seems like a very BBC and sanitised version of what these characters should be.

They ought to watch it good cultural satire and pure bitchery getting high shopping and basically not working what's there not to love?

[quote] The Julie Driscoll version was re-recorded for this show along with Jennifer Saunders' husband.

Marianne Faithfull also recorded a version of Wheels on Fire for the show, and performed The Ballad of Lucy Jordan but changed the meaning to fit Edina.

I was a bit late to game on this show and it honestly took me watching 3 or 4 episodes (not really getting into them at all) for it to "click". When it did, I enjoyed the offbeat humor but also respected the fact that many would not. Bo Chrysalis Turtle was by far the best point of the show for me and I basically loved every second of her screen time. When she appeared, the entire show clicked for me (although I just wanted to see more of her in every episode). Patsy had some great one-liners as well, but they were too few and far between. Both Edina and Saffy were really tiring and never funny IMO. Gran was fun to a certain degree. I am 40 yoa, so not every viewer over 30 loves the show - but I will say that I do enjoy it.

This Christian comments from Patsy were awesome however - "You may dress like a Christian, but the similarity ends there…". (one of many, and most were better..)

I'm 25 and I loved it, especially as a teenager where I watched it with my sister.

I don't think it's quite as funny these, but that may be less because of the quality of the show, and more to do with the style of television changing. In fact I find it hard to enjoy a lot of those 'laugh track' sitcoms (i'm aware Ab Fab is filmed in front of a live audience). Also I may have just re-watched it too many times. Looking back, the whole early 90s PR/fashion world is the more interesting side of it (as well as these two relics of the 60s left trying to thrive in the 90s), rather than the boozing and drugging which we've seen time and time again.

I've also seen the two actresses giving much greater, more relevant and complex performances. Often in better material (Saunders in 'The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle', Lumley in 'Sensitive Skin' and 'Up In Town'). So their Ab Fab roles seem more like a jumping off point to greater work.

Of course they watch it. To find out the origin of catchphrases like "Money, tickets, passport!".

I don't think AbFab originated 'money...tickets passport' R34 It appears in Shirley Valentine which pre dates AbFab and I'm not sure it wasn't in the culture anyway.

It was very physical, maybe younger folk don’t get physical comedy.

They'll be too offended by the un PCness to find it funny.

We watched it on our Swissair flight from Zurich to Hong Kong a couple of years ago. It was FABULOUS!!!!!

I am 44 and loved it as a closeted teen. The first season is the best with the Eddie turning 40 episode still hilarious to this day.

It was always 3 minutes of funny swimming around in a half hour show. A good drinking game could be fashioned around the stammering ‘darling’ which seemed to attach itself to every other line.

I thought the later shows of whenever it was, 2012? - were MUCH funnier than the originals - that weird friend Saffy made in prison, Edina getting driven one block to the spa at the end of her street...all that.

Even the stupid one note Bubble was funny in these.

On another note, I didn't quite understand why J. Saunders kept being given awards by the LGB "community" in the USA.

^^ Spell checker wants me to add a T to LGB - LOL.

No, they're watching Broad City, Fleabag and that Issa Rae thingy.

R33 did you like Vivienne Vyle? I just didn't get it. Seemed painfully forced to me.

I am 55 so I was prime gayling when it was first out. Even then, I thought it sucked. Boring and unimaginative. Of the few I tired to watch, I kept watching for the humor that never came except for the tired laugh track.

There was a wonderful story arc in the first three seasons about Edina and Saffy's relationship. It plays out very slowly. At the start, they hate each other. But Edina slowly begins to show a motherly side- she actually takes Saffy's side in a fight with Patsy. Eventually, she punches a guy in the face who'd been mistreating Saffy. And in the final episode of the run stops her from marrying a wealthy douchebag. I never cared for any post 1996 incarnation.

[quote] am 55 so I was prime gayling when it was first out.

Gurl, you were old even then. Hardly a gayling.

[quote] Even then, I thought it sucked. Boring and unimaginative. Of the few I tired to watch, I kept watching for the humor that never came except for the tired laugh track.

I thought that exactly that too - but many round here love it and that stupid "Just the one dear?" line is a DL fave.

No, I’m not into effeminate or campy stuff, nor archaic stuff

Proves what we always thought - young gays have no sense of humor. They only care about grooming products, staring at small electronic devices, and whining.

Actually the only thing it proves is that young gays as well as old gays thought it was boring. Only a micro segment of the gay community loves it. Probably the same ones that live in mom's basement.

Old people are just rigidly OCD: they keep telling you to listen to Bab, Judy, Maria, Nina, blah blah, and watch Ab Fab, Golden Girls, Baby Jane, blah blah blah, otherwise your life ain't complete.

Well it's something called "choice," in case you old geezers never had a chance to pick and choose. And bitches please, just watching Ab Fab doesn't make you superior to others, sweeties aunties.

No. I had “a date” over years ago...I was maybe 33 or 34 and he was probably 26ish...and I put on AbFab. We watched one episode and he was completely stoic. He didn’t understand it or like it. He said something like, “this is funny to you?” I told him it’s the funniest television series of all time and as I said it I felt ancient because I could imagine some older person telling me that about something I couldn’t relate to when I was younger, and I just thought, “OK, here we go. No one less than two years your junior from now on because this is tedious as hell.”

No offense to Millennials—I know you get a lot of criticism from older people—but many Millennials seem like absolute robots to me. I believe it’s nothing more than utter incompatability in perspectives and social norms and not a “flaw” on the part of anyone, but of the four Millennials in my small office, only one and a half are relatably human to me. Two speak and move like robots in my eyes and in the eyes of all my coworkers 40 and over. One is...she’s just a little different. She speaks like a “regular human” (someone my age) without the stilted monotone of the other two, and she overall is social enough and understands office life versus personal life, but there are also very cookie-cutter Millenial-standard tendencies that feel programmed—again, just a major cultural difference—and can be a little disorienting. The fourth is really the weird one for her generation; she acts more like a baby boomer than even a Gen Xer. But she’s the one I relate best to.

I’m certain that none of the four would understand Absolutely Fabulous. They grew up on The Office and Modern Family and Parks and Rec, and their whole shared sense of humor is awkward situational comedy and deadpan pauses and expressions, as if a “fourth wall” camera is present, and they mug to it as a punchline. I honestly find it very alienating because the sense of humor seems so formulaic and predictable. But I do accept that it’s the cultural sense of humor that was honestly imparted to them and it is what is funny to them. When someone does that guy-from-the-office deadpan+mugging, all of the others belly laugh, and then I come across like the one with no sense of humor because there’s no way I am ever going to find that sort of thing genuinely hilarious.

Young sisters today are concerned mainly with drugs, rubbers, and being friends with fish.

The thing about AbFab is that it's very inconsistent, like SNL.

Everyone has very rose colored glasses about it, but to be honest, it was a relatively small number of episodes (30ish?) and a movie and out of that, maybe a third were really solid and memorable.

It is inconsistent, but when it hits its targets, it IS fabulous.

The earlier ones are the best, mostly because Edina and Pats really were of that period and you could totally see them in early 90's ecstasy-soaked London clubland, as well as the C-list fame culture of the day.

I'm well over 30, tried to watch it but hated it.

One wonders what Mirrorball would have become had it been given a chance.

I founded it annoying when I was over 30. Really, the mother and the daughter had the best lines. The "stars" were tiresome.

I'm over 60 and I don't watch it.

It's part of gay education Like watching Mildred Pierce, Baby Jane or Boys In The Band. AbFab still holds up and has some of the funniest lines ever written/performed. You think 20 year olds can't relate to the vapid/shallow 90's? Instagram. Enough said.

Eddie is the personification of FOMA (fear of missing out). And Patsy is every gay man's nightmare (the fear of getting old and no longer attractive for hot guys). The same goes for safe, boring, mousy Saffy.

The first three seasons were excellent. Possibly the best comedy ever.

But then they did a few more seasons and some bad movies. Sanders once said that every time she fell behind in her mortgage payments, she do another show. That's what these last ones felt like -- ways to make money. Not ways to be funny.

But those first three seasons -- the best!!! And yes, I never met a millennial who understood the humor -- it's too fast, too quick, too clever. Millennial need humor handed to them on a platter; they don't have the ability to judge for themselves what's funny or not.

BBC bailed on new proposed projects and wanted Saunders to do more AbFab. That's why we got more AbFab. Saunders was over it. That's why she jumped on things like The Spice Girls musical. Finally something else.

R55: Fantastic, that's what it would have become! Series 1-4, The Last Shout and Gay are the best. They should have done Mirrorball instead of that awful Series 5 in the mid 2000s. BEHOLD what could have been....

Gay guys in their 20s and even many in their 30s don't watch AbFab because they're too far removed from the 60s generation that AbFab is parodying through Patsy and Edina. They don't have the cultural frame of reference. AbFab was HUGE with Gen X gays, who were also too young to have gone through the 60s, but we were close enough to that generation to get the humor and understand the whole premise of the show, and the many references.

The Mirrorball pilot is featured in one of the Ab Fab DVD box-sets.

I'm allergic to drunks so have no interest in it.

Naw, it’s only for fems. I’m masc4masc only

The complete series DVD box set suffers from crappy subtitles and the theme song removed from the opening and ending credits. Really? You can't afford to have the theme song to your own series licensed for DVD? Series 1-3 were digitally remastered which completely changes the look of the show and the 2 specials are lumped together on 1 DVD instead of being in chronological order like the rest of the series.

Curious how millennials view the drugs and alcohol decadence. Seems like millennials are much more sober and healthy living . I think for Gen X it was license to be messy and decadent like the 70s. Millennials are too uptight and health conscious.

R63, it was only huge with a certain subset of gays. Some don’t even know what it is

R58, not everyone lives out archaic tired stereotypes

"... because they're too far removed from the 60s generation that AbFab is parodying"

Oh, dear- shall we destroy all silent films? Burn "Uncle Tom's Cabin"? Ban Shakespeare? Like, they're so OLD.

No, I get what he was saying, R71. They're a reflection of the types of things and people we older ones know about.

It might not make sense to the younger folk - also maybe the 90s being so trite and obsessed with fake shit and labels was an especially 90s thing and London being the center of all that, it's just too dated for the younger ones to get and be bothered with.

I'm another one who never found it very funny, but many did, so it clearly was funny. Humor is so subjective.

R66

MARY!

R70

MARY!

MARY!

MARY!

Thank you, r58. AbFab might be 27 years old, but it is no more or less vapid than an average 27-year-old Instagram addict.

It was funny the first time around but it's aged badly. Things change. Every generation has a somewhat distant relationship to the popular culture that came before it. There is nothing unique or tragic about kids today moving on.

Love it, just saw it for the first time 3 years ago

You can binge watch English TV shows like Ab FAb and Dawn French's Vicar of Dibley within a day or so.

I don't think it holds up well.

[quote] archaic tired stereotypes

What do you think this show features? Effeminate gay men?

Jennifer S. said she saw these two as monsters, and was so surprised people tried to claim them. Like I am a Patsy, she's an Edina. Makes it even funnier. If you have ever been on vacation in Provincetown, these people exist. Lots of them! They wear too tight clothes and drunkenly tumble out of pedicabs after tea dance. It's funny.

Gosh this show isn't new anymore. It's old, decades old, and is therefore no longer funny. You know, because how could it possibly be, if it isn't new?

I've always known dimwits don't get this show. They're free to watch their Three's Company and Mama's Family dvds, or play in traffic for all I care.

I hate Benny Hill - but loved this show originally in the 90s. Now it strikes me as updated Benny Hill - a little slapstick-y. But my first boyfriend and I thought it was fabulous when it came out. Lacroix darling, Lacroix - now people are wondering why sparkling water is funny.

This has to be the approximately thousandth Ab Fab merry-go-round regurgitation thread. I like the ones that swing more "praisewordy." This one has no oomph.

I can only guess but there must be at least a sliver of UTGs who liked to watch iAF growing up. It's like any other rerun that gets tucked away and resurfaces briefly. I believe there are 20s people who get into or dabble in retro forms of entertainment who are kind of invisible but around.

I watch it and I just turned 29.

I was surprised to learn it was so popular in the States. It was absolutely huge here in the UK at the time, but it's not really ever repeated on television. I rewatched it all again recently after receiving the boxset as a present and it does seem rather dated. The movie was completely shit so would understand why younger people would have no interest in watching the series if the movie was their introduction to it.

I would imagine the early 90s would look very dated to Gen Zers, just like the early 70s looked almost archaic to me when I was their age.

I'm 28 and watched them on cable years ago, I thought it was really funny.

[quote] This one has no oomph.

Well, SMELL Miss R84! She has Stated her Boundaries!

They won't get it. Too young to have known barely infantile reconstructed hippie druggy parents.

Modern sisters seem so humourless, could it be the drugs?

What r90 said. People in their 20s are too far removed from the 60s/70s culture and generation to really get it at all. It would just go over their heads.

Dummies don't get humor.

Jennifer Saunders was a child in the '60s - but Joanna Lumley really was part of the Swinging London scene of the 60s - that's what inspired all the 60s references.

I have all the episodes on DVD and I still watch one episode a week.

Loving the comments from all the bitter old queens unable to grasp that they're past their peak and out of touch with current pop culture, the reason the show doesn't connect with younger guys now is because it's obsessed with an excess that's insulting considering what my generation have to deal with and fix. So yeah you old bitches grab your red wine, pack of poppers, fist shaped dildo and sit your loose asses down and watch this shit show written an out of date comic and relive your sad glory days.

What's the abfab equivalent of the millennials ?

They are not smart enough to get the humor... I think it funny as hell

Whatever dude

Loved Eddie and Patsy, but I thought some of the supporting characters were very badly cast and consistently fell flat (as did many of the guest stars playing themselves in later seasons). And Saffy's baby felt like jumping the shark to me. Always laughed out loud at something during an episode, but less and less as the seasons wore on.

Jennifer Saunders herself said when she wrote the most recent episodes that what she was parodying in the 90s had become mainstream popular culture, so there'll always be a disconnect between people who grew up in that culture and see it as normal, and those who remember the world before.

R98, Broad City might be the millennial equivalent. Two hapless best friends with gross habits getting themselves into embarrassing messes.

[quote]What's the abfab equivalent of the millennials ?

The Kardashians. They are the joyless and non-ironic version of Ab Fab, the ugly aftermath of the lack of boundaries that started in the late-90s. The perfect figureheads for Millennials.

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