Olde English Comedy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Olde English Comedy is a website dedicated to the work of New York based comedy troupe Olde English. They have been performing since 2002, and in that time have made over one hundred and fifty short videos. Its line-up has changed over the years, but as of 2008, the core members of the group were Ben Popik, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, David Segal, Caleb Bark, and Adam Conover. It can be found here

Tropes used in Olde English Comedy include:
  • An Aesop: Subverted in "Dishes Like to Be Dirty"

Ben: Are you going to teach me that washing the dishes can be fun?
Plate: No!

  • Berserk Button: Steven the Vegan's is people asking annoying questions about what being a vegan means.
  • Blatant Lies: "Ken Swizzle's Time Machine. It's a real time machine." Or were they?
  • Call Back: Several. "Jurassic Park" to "Adam Fever" and "Hidden Messages" to "Raizin and Adam Live Together" come to mind.
  • Comically Missing the Point: In "Fight the Smears" the fact-giver responds to someone complaining "I hear Barack Obama has a gross mustache" with "Fact: Barack Obama's mustache is quite handsome, and he combs it with a golden brush," instead of something suggesting he didn't have a mustache.
  • Compressed Vice: Positive example; in "It's Your Thing" everyone (except Ben) apparently has a trademark action that they have never been seen doing before or since. Ben lampshades it.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: "Hello? Fuck!"
  • Digital Piracy Is Evil: "Brooklyn's Great"... except for all the crime (the criminal in question is a music pirate).
  • Dissimile: From "Totally Crazy": "Somehow I ended up talking to two guys. One of the guys was a sexy lady. The other guy was... oh wait, it was just the lady."
  • Double Entendre: A double-edged one in "Dishes Like To Be Dirty". ("Do the dishes" plus "Let us sleep in our bed with you," inevitably leads to "Oh, you slept with the dishes instead of cleaning them. Great.")
  • Downer Ending: "Gorilla Warfare"
  • Easily Forgiven: Danny in "Father Son Talk"
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Hello? Fuck!" and the Door Store (both the sketch and the store in it)
  • Face Palm: At the end of "Totally Crazy"
  • Hard-Drinking Party Girl: The protagonists of "O'Douls" think they're the Spear Counterpart of this, until The Reveal.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: Parodied in "The Perfect Night"
  • Hurricane of Puns: What follows the example of Digital Piracy Is Evil in "Brooklyn's Great". Also, the tech support in "Computer Problems"
  • Hypocritical Humor: The song "Don't Dance" is performed while dancing
  • Idea Bulb: In "Rock My World," this ends up being the eventual solution to a burned out lightbulb problem.
  • Insistent Terminology: Caleb's character in "Cave Miners" insists on calling every orifice in existence a cave.
  • It's All About Me: In "Queens Is Great"

The Queen: The queeeen is great.
Raphael: Except?
The Queen: Except NOTHING!

  • Let's See You Do Better: After being told repeatedly by Microsoft Word that he had produced bad writing, the protagonist of "Computer Problems" tells it this. It does.
  • Mind Screw: "I Was Thinking" has a relatively mundane story told through a person in a fairy costume with a dunce voice, a person in a mime costume with a ridiculous falsetto, and a person in fighting gear with a random German accent. The comedy all comes from how weird the costumes and voices are.
  • Name's the Same: Gets a special mention in "Totally Crazy"
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: The father in "Father's Day" pretends to not notice that his kids are taking him for granted by always giving him homemade coupons, when in reality he is planning to pile them all on at once.
  • Sarcasm Blind: Inverted in "The Parks Department". Justified because everyone sounded like they were being sarcastic.
  • Shaped Like Itself: "Ken Swizzle's Time Machine. It's a real time machine."
  • Sickeningly Sweethearts: The couple in "Love" to such an extent that they can't even go to the bathroom without horribly missing their partner.
  • Strawman Political: In "Free NYC Rap", "People who hate independent filmmakers are calling these laws a triumph. Independent filmmakers on the other hand..."
  • Teacher-Student Romance: "My College Sex Teacher" features a teacher who wants this. Her student is not taking.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Conversed in-universe in "Breakfast at Tiffany's".
  • Wangst: "Sad Drunk Fifteen-Year-Old" invoked this thrice.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: "Decorating" and "Finders Keepers"