Note: "The Inbetweeners" has a name which looks like it is spelled wrong, and the more I stare at it, the more incorrectly spelled it looks. Is this just me? Please help.
Audience Pleasures In "The Inbetweeners"
"The Inbetweeners" is a TV comedy which centers around four teenage boys, and their lives. It is narrated by a boy named Will, a smarty dressed, clean cut, sensible boy, from a well off family who have unfortunately had some financial issues, and have been forced to send Will to a state school, as opposed to the private school that he was previously in. Will has previously lived a relatively sheltered life (we assume) as he sticks out like a saw thumb in his new school environment.
As Will is so socially awkward, the only people that he manages to make friends with are the other new kids, also referred to as "The Freaks", which he soon leaves to befriend another group of people, consisting of Simon, Jay, and Neil, who are arguably worse to be friends with than The Freaks.
A series of running jokes are instantly created in the group, such as people constantly referring to Will's mother as "fit", and making various crudely sexual remarks about her. (Most of the humour in "The Inbetweeners" consists of the four main characters making sexual remarks and sexual jokes about anything that has a pulse.) This is funny as most teenagers can relate to joking around with their friends in the same manor.
Another running joke is Jay making up endless stories about the extravagant ways in which he has "been with" another girl. He obviously doesn't tell his stories in such a modest fashion, but that only makes it funnier. Simon, is a hopeless romantic who has a major crush on a girl called Carli, but does such a good job at attracting her, that she wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. It is hilarious to watch the epic ways in which Simon fails to win Caili's heart, and this is a running joke throughout the series.
Neil, the fourth member of the group, is what some people may refer to as "an idiot". He lives in a complete world of his own and could possibly have a lump of mashed potato as a brain. Neil's stupidity runs throughout the series and is incredibly funny to laugh at.
Another large proportion of the comedy in "The Inbetweeners", consists of the characters doing silly things, such as: Hitting a disabled girl in the face with a Frisbee, calling a group of people a very derogatory term only to find that they have Downs-syndrome, throwing up all over somebody elses kitchen, throwing up all over a 7 year old boy, and the list goes on and on.
The humour in "The Inbetweeners" is vulgar, and cheap, and simple, yet it is still incredibly funny. Perhaps this is because the situations are (fairly) relatable to most people over the age of 12. It is also always funny to laugh at people getting themselves into terrible situations. This is probably because we're all terrible people.
