"I don't think people in the U.S like feeling dumb" Well that's awkward.

So good of Jonah Hill to take time out of his schedule to watch some Shooting Stars...

The whole Vic & Bob thing was two grown men mucking about in public. The genius of Shooting Stars was having celebrities on for a quiz show, and then having a nonsensical quiz it was impossible to win, and completely upstaging the guests. So it was a joke against celebrity culture, in which if you came on, you were accepting being ridiculed and sidelined instead of celebrated. So, the clue was in the name.

How do Americans get through life being so literal about everything?

"I get it...." No, mate .... You don't get it .... Not even close.

My favourite moment, is the dove from above. "is that cgi?" No mate this is a BBC show, with a BBC budget.

Get them to watch a Brass Eye episode

So to recap, none of them even remotely got it.

"I get it, but I'm not laughing." Na, bud, you didn't get it at all which we saw when you thought he was doing a joke about penises when he was actually performing his Courting Dance to Sara Cox.

Amazing that they didn't realise Vic and Bob are not being serious about any of the entire show, that they misread them is bizarre to me. I was about 11 when I saw this first and I got it.

"In her defence... why doesn't her buzzer work?" Well that would be the joke wouldn't it? Kill me.

As a British American with an American wife, I can say that trying to explain Vic and Bob's anything goes comedy to her would be like a quantum physics professor explaining string theory to the average joe

"When the time is up, you'll hear this noise!" "SLAG!" XD

They didn't even get Ulrika shouting about the buzzer, they thought she was actually angry.

I knew this would infuriate me! The whole problem is when people try to 'get it'. It's supposed to be silly and it's funny. But too many people need things to make sense in order to laugh. How boring!

imagine if they watched smell of reeves and mortimer... blow their tiny fucking minds

I'm a California native and I LOVE this show! I have every episode.

Reminds me of when I watched Big Night Out with some American visitors. They just rocked back and forth muttering, "but it's slapstick" over and over while we howled with laughter about painting the underside of a high wolf with a long stick.

It was best when there would be an American celeb guest on Shooting Stars and they would just sit there bemused by it all with no idea what was happening around them

Show them The League of Gentlemen! Preferably the episode with Papa Lazarou. They'll have no idea what's going on.

"0% of this makes sense". At least she gets it...

I miss Shooting stars. It was a funny silly show where you could forget about the world for just a little while.

"Is that CG?" "No, its a bird on a string..." At that point you realize their reactions would've been exactly the same if the show they were watching was Groucho Marx' "You Bet Your Life" from US TV in the '50s-'60s...

Vic Reeves face and legs on the roundabout slayed me!

Thank god I was born in England so I get vic and bob’s genius. 😆

Vic and Bob went to Montreal to do a big theatre, recording for the televised stand up show called Just For Laughs. Most of the act was Vic singing a song about a roll of carpet. It went so badly, that on the way home they renamed it "Just Four Laughs" and decided not to return to North America to perform comedy ever again 😂

This is how I feel when I watch an American sitcom and I hear endless references to Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes, The Jeffersons, The Honeymooners, Barney Fife and other ancient shows I know nothing about!

Good post. I was in the live audience of Shooting Stars when Larry Hagman appeared on the panel. I have never seen a celebrity so bewildered. Funny.

I don't think they get that the show is a satirical parody of panel shows.

Shooting Stars is absolutely brilliant. The reaction of these 4 Americans had a little difficulty with it clearly illustrates the fact of 'two countries are separated, by a common language'. Not sure if they understand the concept of surreal humour either?

"They call a part of her body a Yorkshire Pudding?" You gotta love Americans - placed on this planet to make everyone else appear smarter.

"So the giant glowing dove tells them categories?" "yes that is its prime function." absolutely priceless!

Anyone would freak out watching them for the first time! Takes a while to realise they are the reigning geniuses of British comedy.

I've always wanted to live in America. Now I'm pretty sure they wouldn't get me

2:14 - That seat on the panel would always be filled by an attractive female celebrity. Vic Reeves would at some point in the show hit on them in the manner shown. Some of them would "get" the show and play along, some of them would sit there with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. Also Ulrika Johnson (weathergirl and then later a presenter - the lady complaining about her buzzer not working) who was one of the *team captains* apparently did not know the show was a parody of a game show until about season 3 - in the early seasons she would be ultra-competitive and try and argue with the surreal questions/answers. The other team captain and show regular was Mark Lamarr (TV and radio presenter) and his schtick was for the most part to look completely fed up and dis-interested. The hosts would regularly lay into him for his 1950s-style hair.

I think we Brits find absurdity and subtlety funnier than our friends across the pond. There are loads of American comedy shows that we love, but I don't think they 'get' shows like Shooting Stars, Father Ted, Peep Show, etc. Maybe I'm wrong?

The 'Ham' is part of the joke. They are unsure if the jokes are jokes!! Its all a joke...that's the joke!

How can they make films like Airplane but at the same time fundamentally not understand were the comedy is in shooting stars.

Americans make me so sad. So much "I dont get it..."

So, in 1992 I sold Vic's mam double glazing

Alan Partridge, Bottom, The Young Ones, Brass Eye, Peep Show, Nighty Night, The League of Gentlemen!

It's weird how their comments at the end contradict their reactions. They laugh at it then try and act all superior at the end. I do enjoy their response to Vic in the roundabout. But their overly PC response to some of Vic and Bob's antics was so ridiculous.

No surprise that the better American comedians / writers / creators were fans of British comedy , Trey Parker & Matt Stone are very British influenced , we do satire very well !!

How can people not laugh at the funniest thing to have ever been on TV!!

More of these I love seeing them try to comprehend english humour

So Americans still don't get sarcasm. I like the bit when she says "So how many of these people are famous?... All of them!?" Yeah, there are people outside of California hun.

Vic and Bob my comedy heroes I salute you.

Oh fuck I remember this episode, in particular the leaving on a jet plane sketch and laughing so much my body went into spasms. This whole show was fucking immense.

'80's America, so 90s Britain'....Errr, is that why loads of shows on Adult Swim now looks like this? 10 years after the UK did this?

I'm so glad I recorded quite a few earlier season episodes of Shooting Stars to VHS back in the day and now saved digitally. Some episodes will never ever screened again on TV because of controversial stars of today they naively had on the show back then.

It's not that American's are "dumb", it's that subtle humour like this is so culturally specific, it does not translate. This is why they made an American version of The Office. Surreal humour especially uses extreme cultural nuances in juxtaposition for comic effect. For example, a grown man dressed as a baby, playing the drums, saying "Slag" is funny because of the cultural signifiers that each of those elements suggest. Their inability to exist within the same semiology creates a jarring juxtaposition and in turn, removes coherent context from them revealing their ridiculousness. This is where the humour comes from.

Vic and Bob are my comedy heroes :) I have watched everything they have done since big night out. Legends.

Loved this!! Gotta do Brass Eye at some point...

The Americans on the panel weren't trying. They were just boring and smug about themselves instead of trying to go along and understand what was happening on the show.

Shooting Start, a dove from above ..... even English people have struggled to get this, as it's so weird!! I see it live once at the Brighton centre. Ouvavu!!! Brilliant... genius comedy duo these two.

This was amazing. Well done to all those involved,

Oh come on, as if anyone would "get it" being shown it once... most viewers in the UK would have seen other things from these two, so would be able to set it in some context.

"Is that CG?" - jes man it's wasted on them

You just earned a subscriber! Please keep these coming. I'd suggest more shows like this that would shock and/or baffle Americans. Brass Eye, The Day Today, The Mighty Boosh, The League of Gentlemen etc. Anything dark or surreal. They don't have that kind of thing, right?

They laugh and smile all the way through and then give a collective 'meh' at the end. What's going on here? Afraid to admit that they enjoyed themselves?

RIP Eric Bristow

Dear Buzzfeed, if you want to entertain the internet get Americans to watch Brass Eye: Paedogeddon episode.

'Is that CGI?' Lovely stuff.

To be fair nobody "gets" Vic & Bob on first exposure. You have to be initiated to their personalities over time.

I remember teaching on a summer school in Oxford many years ago, and we had a lecture that included clips from The Young Ones. Now this was a multicultural audience and they all spoke very good English. Through my tears of laughter, I looked round at the others in the lecture. All of the British staff were doubled up. The foreign guests were just puzzled. Like these Americans, they wanted to get it, but it just didn't hit the funny bone. Go figure.

Great idea. You should do more of this. I'd suggest Alan Partridge.

If you don't GET the show - you GOT it. It follows standard theme but in a mad way that usually doesn't make sense. 'The drummer' wore all types of outfits and just told the scores (that made no sense) in a totally silly way.

Made the mistake of listening to this on headphones. The difference in volume between the show and the Americans just about sliced the top of my head off.

Oh, they just don't get it, do they? A lot of American people don't get the very British eccentricities of a show like Shooting Stars - some do (and if you do, then thumbs up to you, my friend) but a lot don't.

They were laughing but when they commented it was just sad, they focused in on the pleased with themselves fist pump like it was a main part of the series, they possibly never do that again, one of them recognised Stephen Fry and Doc Martin (Martin Clunes) then asked if the guests were famous, but if there were American celebs like Belinda Carlisle (who did the show) bet they wouldn't know her either, it was kind of ignorant,show them the episode with the sketch of the incredible hulk going into a bakery in Sheffield.

Shooting Stars was a send up of every British game show going back to the 1960s. "I really want to see those fingers", was a catch phrase of Hughie Green, and Vic's poses refer to another Hughie Green show, "Opportunity Knocks" which once featured a gold painted muscle man who did bodily contortions to the same tune. Bizarrely I recall Green pointed out the dangerous nature of the act because he was "painted gold" (!?). Vic and Bob's comedy had lots of references and in jokes, from Laurel and Hardy to Tom and Jerry to French surrealism, with Vic playing the lounge lizard host to which female guests feigned attraction. Shooting Stars showed, if anyone was in doubt, that 1960s and 70s TV was full of pathological maniacs presented as normal by the novelty of television. Most of the British viewers and guests wouldn't have got the in-jokes, so the American public would have no chance. A man rubbing his thighs in front of an attractive woman would only seem hilarious to anyone steeped in British culture. For anyone else it would result in a call to the police and protests outside the studio.

It's not supposed to be slick, its supposed to look clunky. Plus Vic and Bobs self satisfaction is part of the joke!

To be fair there are British people who don't 'get' Vic & Bob.

omg I miss this show so much!

The 90's was a fantastic time for British TV. I loved it, still do!

Bob Mortimer on "Would I lie to you" must surely get the yanks to laugh.

I love this Americans Watch Stuff idea. And also i like that the comedy kind of translates.. BUT! In order for you to really really get the show. You need to be brought up on a diet of Eric Bristow playing darts, Wolf on Gladiators, and just Ulrika-ka-ka Johnson by herself, her being on the show makes no sense. And yet makes loads of sense. And also the Mark Lamarr and Johnny Vegas being team captains is just fantastic.

It's not that alien is it? You wouldn't have a gaggle of Brits sat around a telly On 'British watching American TV: The Sopranos'. "Why am I watching an overweight middle aged man driving through jersey's industrial heartland? I don't get it!!!"-"Liam relax it's the title sequence"-"Why don't let you know it's the title sequence?"-"Wait are these guys gangsters? I'm so lost!"-"What does 'breaking balls' mean?".

They don't realise that it is a parody of regular game shows! :)

I used to love this whacky show. Never missed an episode. Good post.

When I need a laugh, I rewatch Harry saying “I get it”

It's ok. We don't get audiences screaming like kids when someone says "Jordan, you klutz. John caught his weiner in the faucett".

The group you got together for this video seems like the best. I would like to watch them again. Shooting stars is fantastic as well.

Last time I was in Vegas a taxi driver told me his favourite British comedy show was 'last of the summer wine'.

I dont think we should show them"THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN" then......

Funny what one guy said cuz when I see 90s America it reminds me of 80s UK.

One said " I get it..it's just not funny", not one of them actually "got it".

Let's all call the dove from above coooo coooo! Absolutely epic programme.

The Americans would get it if they saw a few more episodes. They got Monty Python which is just as surreal.

Aw, bless you Americans. So cute, innocent and culturally bankrupt. :* mwah :) x

It's freakin awesome, this is one of my favorite shows of all time! I love the randomness of it. Americans have to have everything spelled out for them.. They don't get sarcasm or quirkiness much. Plus they talk way slower than Brits, I think they need easy to follow scripted humour. The shooting stars river dance is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Vic, Bob, Ulrika & Mark are legends!! :-)

I think these guys got our Brit sense of humour. So, cool. PLEASE show them some Bob Mortimer stories from Would I Lie To You and blow their minds!

'0% of this makes sense' To be fair - she cottoned on pretty quickly.

Their reactions wanna make me jump off a cliff while tied to a tree.

"I get it but I'm not laughing". Describing Seinfeld perfectly

To be fair we all had the same reaction when this first came on but then we'd had at least 10 years to get used to R&M before this show. It's a weird one to watch without context 😄

I'd say 90s British comedy might be more like 2050 US comedy.

To the Jonah Hill lookalike, you don't get it, that's why you're not laughing. One of the prime things that Americans don't get is the joy of the mundane, which is why they'll never get Alan Partridge.

Bob Mortimer is actually a trained lawyer. Years back Pulp's Jarvis Cocker & another guy had enough of an over the top, sugar slush performance by Michael Jackson during an awards ceremony & decided to storm the stage basically taking the piss out of Jackson & the whole ridiculous production. This didn't go down very well with Jackson's team & in particular his lawyers who threatened to instantly sue the pair. As Cocker was being held backstage with the possible realisation of the consequences of upsetting a multimillionaire Pop machine sinking in who should spring in screaming - *"I will help you out!"* but... Bob Mortimer who was also at the show. Apparently Cocker, who only knew Bob from this, just put his head in his hands & cried!

its like 4 robots programmed with windows 95 watching an advanced 20th dimensional Alien shitting on them