“I hear you’re a racist now father’ is one of the best jokes in all sitcoms in my opinion. We used to watch this on school with the projector until we got yelled at (catholic school) so we switched to always sunny

Father Ted was massive in UK too, and still much loved by many. It was devastating when Dermot Morgan died so young.

The Eurovision episode is based on reality! The Eurovision rules are that if you enter the contest and win, you agree to host it the following year. In the 90s, Ireland won Eurovision 3 times in a row and RTE told the EBU, who run Eurovision, that if they won again in 1995, they wouldn't host it. This episode was broadcast at around that time, and was based on the fictional story that Ireland deliberately put a bad song into Eurovision so they wouldn't win it. In 2020, the Will Farrell movie 'Eurovision' used the same premise on the basis that Iceland, fresh from the banking crisis, couldn't afford to host the show, so they picked a group they thought would lose. Back in the real world, the rest of Europe felt pity on Ireland in 1995 and voted for Norway instead. The following year, in Oslo, Ireland won again, so despite a 1 year break, Ireland hosted it again in 1997

I went to Ireland with my family many years ago. My brother, father and I still talk about how we discovered Father Ted during that holiday. It was the episode Kicking Bishop Brennan Up the Arse.

Being Irish, I can proudly say... this show is accurate to our daily lifes

"What could be more Irish than turning your trauma into a cathartic joke" Congratulations on summing up Irish culture in one sentence.

Down with this sort of thing!

The explanation of how Irish humour can get pretty dark probably explains a lot about why Ireland is the only country where every Tom Waits album has been a Top Twenty seller.

I'm an Indian born and brought up in India yet after seeing Father Ted whenever i offer someone tea i do it in Mrs Doyle's accent 😂

To me the real genius of Father Ted (at least in part) is that most of the time you can see the gag coming a mile away yet its STILL hilarious on delivery. I dont believe you can teach performers that type of skill, its pure talent that you either have it (EVERY person that ever appeared in Father Ted IMO) or you dont.

The way you talked about this show made me feel so proud to be Irish even though I’m Chinese

I never thought I'd see the day when Father Ted featured on a KZfaq commentary video! I LOVED that show; I had all the boxed sets. I'm American, but lived in England in the late 80's, so I kind of understand that humor. When this was showing on PBS back here in the State, my family and I lapped it up. I tried getting my husband to watch it (American, but Irish heritage), and he asked me when does it start getting funny? I couldn't believe it. This show is pure gold!

*Spiderbaby! It's half spider and half baby. They keep it in a pram!* (New Zealanders get this humor too. Father Ted and Black Books are beloved here)

RIP Dermot Morgan and Frank Kelly. The best sitcom there was, along with Black Books.

I'm from a Scottish Catholic family and we've always loved this series. Thank you for this insightful and enjoyable video about it

For some reason my brother and i watched this as kids in america with no irish background, and we still find the show hilarious to this day.

As an Irishman I am so proud to see Father Ted being covered like this. So much of my childhood was laughing all night with my family watching it and there are so many iconic episodes. There is nothing like it, for me who understands Irish humour so well as its in my everyday life, it is the funniest sitcom I have ever seen!

Identifying as Catholic without being particularly religious is more than about the schools - for many its also to do with your identity as Catholicism is more associated with nationalism / being "native" irish, as opposed to the protestant anglo-irish or planter descendants. I think it was Dara Ó Briain who summed this type of modern irish catholic well : "don't go to mass, still hate Rangers"

I'm from Johannesburg and I grew up watching Father Ted. Some of my best memories as a child with classic and unforgettable moments. I recently rewatched all the episodes and it's still absolute gold.

Everything here is extremely accurate, but I feel like there's a missing explanation of how in Irish culture being Catholic isn't so much about religion, but also about ethnicity and politics. So this intertwinement is one of the reasons the church had so much power over society for so long

Father Ted is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, and I'm so happy it's still held in such high regard all these years later. Speed 3 remains utterly iconic.

I'm from Canada and somehow stumbled onto this show a few years back. It's really a great piece of comedy that transcends its Irish appeal. It's just well written and funny with loveable actors.

I’m Irish, and I used to watch the show as a kid/teenager. I love how relatable the jokes are to our actual day to day lives, as there aren’t many Irish shows like this.

I cannot tell you how much these types of shows make me happy. This, Friday night dinner, it crowd and Derry girls all just make me feel whole inside whenever I watch them, or even think of them. The way the main cast cover all grounds give everyone their favourite but also loving their relationships together. The way they know nothing yet get through day by day is brilliant.

I remember my parents telling me about a new Irish comedy about priests and I thought it sounded like the worst idea ever. After the first episode I fell in love and still consider it one of the best comedy shows ever. A class act that never grows old and knows exactly what it’s doing. I consider this universal comedy that anyone can enjoy. Whilst I was incredibly sad when Dermot died far too early this is the best legacy you could ever leave behind you.

My knowledge of Father Ted as a Swede was a life saver in Dublin😄

As an English man, Father Ted is my favourite sitcom of all time and one of my favourite things. The reason? There are still some little bits of it that I just don't quite get.

I'm an American with really no "actual" connection to Ireland beyond the classic "I'm half Irish on my moms side" but we were catholic. I remember we caught this show on PBS probably when I was in middle school. We fell in love with this show and the characters. We couldn't stop doing our Ted and Doogal impressions.

One of the greatest comedy shows ever made! Encompasses a lot of Irish and British humour

I don’t have a dvd player anymore, but I refuse to trade in this boxset. It is monumentally good and I’m delighted to see this commentary on it! 😁😁

I found this show by compete accident one day in youtube and I ended up bingeing the show literally one of the funniest shows I have ever seen period. And I'm not even Irish or form the UK

One unsung stroke of genius was the gradual draining of colour out of the image during the priest's bus trip while listening to Radiohead. I loved this show from first seeing the trailer on C4 all those years ago. "Down with this sort of thing", "Careful now" is still quoted in our house now.

Trust me, you don't need to be, either, Irish nor from a small community to be a rabid fan of this amazing show. My friends and I were big city 90s teens (Toronto, Canada), and though not religious, we are lifelong _Father Ted_ devotees.

Total genius. Every episode a winner. Some, like "Speed3" or "The Passion of St Tibulus" off the charts good. RIP Pat Mustard.

Father Ted and The IT Crowd are my all time Fav comedies.

My wife and I laugh our heads off and revisit it every year. Greetings from Chile.

It's a pretty much perfect sitcom, where every element works and the jokes operate on so many levels that I think you'd have to totally lack a sense of humour to not crack a smile at least once. It's had a huge cultural impact here in the UK as well. I still hear people sarcastically respond to moral guardians with a cry of "Down with this sort of thing!"

I loved the episode where he was accused of being a racist, and sent a crate of Jamison’s to his neighbour. But instead he sent father Jack in full SS attire in the now empty crate.

Love hearing your subtle chuckles at even reciting the jokes, shows the impact this show has, and how hilarious it is

Best TV comedy ever written - truly timeless. We were discussing at work and I was shocked that there were people who had never seen it!

I'm an American, and I own the complete series of Father Ted on DVD 😝 I love how Graham Norton described the show, "To the British, it's a sitcom, but to the Irish, it's a documentary."

Every Irish person can quote every line of father Ted.

I'm an American who got to accidentally enjoy Father Ted in the late 90's via BBC (and has never stopped shouting about it.) Thanks for such a concise and comprehensive video. I hope more and more people can discover this gem of a show.

I've always loved Father Ted. I think the brilliance of it is that it highlights issues that are a core part of many cultures (in my case, English) but with an unfamiliar context. As an English person I recognise the underlaying hypocrisy of society, the sham of organised religion, the endless concern gossiping, the inability to be frank and open about our feelings, etc etc. And its all done masterfully and without any malice.

3:05 "...if they want their children to go to a good school" ..for most of the country it was actually necessary to get baptised to go to their local school.

Grew up with this, such a grand show, pure gold

this show is huge in Scotland too. so much of it resonated with us, especially highlanders. We too had a very powerful clergy in the 90s. its hard for people nowadays to understand how much power the church wielded then, that's not to say it was all bad there were comforting aspects and the church can be a real focal point for the community. there was always a lot more fire and brimstone in scottish and irish preaching though, and they did take themselves more seriously than the CofE.

" Kicking bishop Brennon up arse " was hilarious as you really felt it when Ted did it , excellent series .

it was massive in the uk too, a lot of the lines making it into the public lexicon, if someone dont want the cup of tea you offered a bad mrs doyle impression maybe appears

I’m Swedish, but i remember loving Father Ted when i lived in Ireland. We have some humour that would be a bit hard to get across outside of the culture too where our silly ”Swedishness” shines. 👍

i'm polish but i still would laugh so hard when i was watching it. the catholicism, even if discussed abt how it is in ireland, rlly reminds me of the status of the religion in poland. that's why it hits home so much for me, and i can't help but love the show. a lot.

Spider baby... It has the body of a spider and the mind of a baby.

'Father Ted' was actually made by the UK's Channel 4. There is a longstanding myth that Ireland's national broadcaster RTE turned 'Father Ted' down fearing a backlash from the Catholic Church. But in reality it wasn't pitched to them. I can remember seeing it when it was first broadcast, and trying to tell colleagues about it "It's a sitcom about three Priests banished to this island in Western Ireland. Ted, who misappropriated cash from a charity, Jack and alcoholic letch and Dougal a village idiot in the guise of a priest..." everyone looked at me blankly. A couple of years later I actually moved to Ireland, and while not the place it once was, there've been plenty of 'Ted Moment's'.

I'll never forget the first time I watched Fr. Ted when I was about ten. I could literally feel it tattooing itself onto my sense of humour. Irish people still love it, despite Graham Linehan becoming largely scorned by the Irish population.

This is all very interesting, but you don't need to understand anything before watching Father Ted. I'm from the Netherlands, and I literally had tears streaming down my face from laughing when I watched Father Ted.

Mrs. Doyle is the most underrated in the show. I remember finding this show about 2007 and being a little confused as an American, but now it’s in my top five favorite shows. Also part of being a lapsed catholic translates across cultures maybe.

One of the best comedies of all time; it is a work of genius ❤

I'm not Irish, but I love Father Ted!

American, here. I had never heard of this show. I grew up without organized religion, even though I had a painting of an angel in my room for a while, under the guise of "watching over me", despite me not knowing the first thing about Christianity and having gone to church once, maybe twice in my life. With this background in mind, and the limited exposure I've had to Father Ted, that being the videos where scenes from Father Ted were edited to be Elder Scrolls themed, I've found the parts of the show I've seen to be hilarious.

So I grew up (and currently reside) up on the North West Coast of Northern Ireland, coleraine to be exact. I watched father Ted religiously as a kid with my family, the Christmas episode was a tradition in our house for years but I missed so much of this context, thanks for this video dude

The Spinmaster playing the “Irish Nation Anthem”, genius series.

I live in the US, but in the 2001 a friend in college introduced me to this show because she had taped a bunch of episodes while living abroad. Such a hilarious show

“It’s no use Ted, you’ll never get it absolutely right.” He’s not wrong 😂

Just found your channel and loving it, especially this video. All the best from Cork 👍

I'm from the USA, but this is one of my favorite sitcoms ever. I grew up Catholic and still consider myself one even though I'm not a regular churchgoer. Anyone raised in the Church can appreciate the religious humor in the show. The Lent episode was especially relateable to my own experiences.

Entirely engrained in Irish and British culture. The following phrases are used frequently in the uk: - Go ahhhn, go ahhhn, etc - trying to persuade someone to eat or drink (or just do) something - The word feck is an acceptable (non-offensive) alternative to the f word - Down with this sort of thing / careful now! - I've had my fun and that's all the matters (used ironically, of course) And probably plenty more examples if I gave it more thought!

Scottish but with Irish family. This show had me literally dying even when I was wee

THANK YOU for brining this to light, i am so glad that someone on the internet knows of this

Your a fecking hero for covering this best sitcom of all time PERIOD 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Seen this show so many times. Never stops being funny, not many shows that cheer me up instantly.

Being an American of Irish extraction, I am well aware of the comedic mileage people have got from stereotypes we have about the Irish. One thing I love about this program is that we get a chance to see how much humor the Irish can wring from stereotypes about themselves……

I noticed one of the Steam profile backgrounds was a control panel with a big red button and I couldn't resist using it and changing my profile pic to Dougal's conflicted trance as the big red "don't press" button stares him in the face...

A brilliant analysis, thank you! I'm off to All4 to rewatch it 😁

I loved Father Ted I still quote it. I watched on BBC America in the time the channel played UK shows.

Speaking of humor, I remember the KZfaq video a Scottish father posted when he was telling his four year old daughter that when she grows up she'll become a nun and dedicate her life to God. And the wee lass said no she wasn't, she was going to have a boyfriend! Judging from the father's big grin he clearly enjoyed teasing his little daughter. I loved how the daughter had her arms crossed and looked so defiant. ☺️

Sorry, in a nursinghome and weak, stylus is spasming 🤷🏽‍♀️🙃 VERY grateful for your video, insightful insights and clever clips👍🏽👏🏾✌🏾🤟🏽😆❣️😘

It was a good team effort from Ireland and Britain! Ireland wrote it and Britain produced it

I'm not Irish, but as a Maltese this video really hits home. Catholicism has really kept the country from developing (for comparison, divorce was legalised in 2012) and it's only in the past 7 years that the country is finally finding its place in the EU as something other than the nation equivalent of Fr Dougal 🤣

Thanks for the recco my man, this looks so hilarious, I'll be on the look out for Father Ted (I'm from Canada)

This is great! I just visited Ireland last year and a lot of this makes sense. On a separate note/series, I would love to see an analysis of Yellowjackets!

Father Ted is legendary. I still bust out the box set every so often. 😂👌🏻

Actually one of the most influential TV shows of all time. So much so that the reformers of the Shamrock Awakening are known as the Father Ted generation, it literally changed the country,

I feel the Eurovision joke should have the context explained. Like the man says, Ireland has won 7 times and had a load of top 5 runners up. In the early 90s, the country won several times in a row, and one year, the Irish entry was two men (one no piano, one on guitar) singing "Rock and Roll kids". This was suspected as being a deliberate attempt to lose, due to the cost of hosting the contest (it lacked the theatrics of other entries, and guitar ballads tend not to do well in the Eurovision). However the song won by a large margin.

One of my favourite ever shows! Nice analysis 🖤

I grew up with Father Ted. I come from Irish Catholic ancestry, both my grandparents were Irish, and my parents lived in Ireland for a while too, so I understood a lot of the culture and humour. The show still has me in stitches

favorite show of all time!!! Pure gold!

Great video again man. Your one analysing Tony Soprano is still one of my favourite analysis videos on KZfaq, but being Irish this just went right up there with it. I think you've done a wonderful job in articulating why Fr. Ted means so much to Irish people of a certain age and also highlighting the brilliance of the surrealism and absurdist nature, which is right up there with Python for me and is often overlooked in it's weird brilliance. If you were to do any other Irish tv analysis, would love to hear your take on Paths to Freedom (think you can watch it all here on youtube) for me it's so underrated by Irish people, not sure if it was actually sold internationally so doubt many would have seen it outside Ireland. If you haven't seen it, its a mockumentary (well before the office put them in vogue) about the first few months of life for two people from different social classes being released from prison and them trying to reintegrate back into society. The two lead actors went on after it to huge success in Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey respectively and are brilliant in it (as is Deirdre O'Kane.) For me it's just pitch perfect as a piece of satire on the peak of Celtic Tiger Dublin snobbishness (on one side of it) and in the other side of it traditional working class Dublin culture. Theres only 6 episodes, they released a follow up movie on one of the characters which I don't think was great and may have tainted some peoples memories, but the original show was really good and doesn't deserve it's status as largely forgotten.

Superb work! Really enjoyed this.

The Brilliant Graham Linehan. This and Black Books are the best sitcoms ever made.

Would love a video about Hardy Bucks, most underrated Irish comedy in my opinion

'What was that picture in your advent calender, ruud gullit sitting on a shed'

"Derry Girls" and "Bridget and Eamon" are two of the funniest sitcoms ever- both Irish and recent. The former is set in the mid 1990s while the latter is set in the 1980s.

I was born in Bray county Wicklow where I still live. We’d say morning Father and when he couldn’t hear us we’d be accusing him of sleeping with all the women in the town and stealing jewellery from dead people😂🇮🇪

I was 15-17 when these came out was at school we would all be having a laugh at school the day after it was on😀😀 all the way from New zealand😀 can't beat old school Britt comedy 😀😀😀 are ya right there dougle 😀

Well, now you've done it, I've not yet watched it 30 times THIS year. Can't put it off now! A whole video on Father Ted though, I don't belieeeeve it!

I first saw Father Ted about 20 years here in the US and LOVED IT! Everything about it was perfection.

I've always found it a bit ironic That Dermot Morgan died of a heart attack. Like god was saying "That's enough of that business, now!". I seriously think it was a shame that he died so darn young and I'm an atheist who LOVES the show ("Small... far away"), but, it seems like it was a Father Ted sort of way to go...

Father Ted was subjectively Irish, but with all the funding, production values and reach of a major UK Studio. If it had been totally Irish, I think it would have been too parochial to sell outside of Ireland or the UK. There would have been cultural restrictions on production and writing if FT had been made as an entirely Irish production, especially at that time. I mean, you might not go to Mass every week, but you don't openly mock the Church like that, amirite Ted?

found clips online years ago and watched through all 3 seasons with my dad. never been to ireland or the uk but its still funny. one of my favorite comedy shows

Great summary of the country, culture and father ted