Line #32 Radio/GoodnessGraciousMe


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ggm.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:The main cast. Left to right - Nina Wadia, Kulvinder Ghir, Creator/SanjeevBhaskar, Creator/MeeraSyal]]
3	1998-2001 SketchComedy show performed by British Indians Creator/MeeraSyal, Creator/SanjeevBhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir and Nina Wadia. Most sketches were self-parody of British Asians and Asian culture, the reaction of white British people to Asians, or Indian-styled spoofs of western TV shows. [[SoundToScreenAdaptation Began as a radio series]], then became a TV adaption on Creator/{{BBC}}1. A one off reunion special aired in 2014 with a second in 2015 as part of "Indian Season".
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5	Regular characters included:
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7	* [[CheckPlease Cheque Please]] - A tactless playboy who drives his dates away with insensitive behaviour or comments.
8	* Bhangra Muffins - Two "street" teenage boys with attitude.
9	* Everything Comes From India - A man who believes that everything from shampoo [[note]]:Actually semi-true; see Website/TheOtherWiki's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shampoo page on the subject]] for details.[[/note]] to Franchise/{{Superman}} is Indian [[note]]Except God, who clearly cannot be Indian as he works a six-day week, no Sundays, and Michaelangelo's David because no man with an organ that small could ever be Indian[[/note]] or was invented by Indians.
10	* Minx Twins - Gossipy teenage girls.
11	* Chunky Lafanga - UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} superstar.
12	* Smeeta Smitten Showbiz Kitten - A Bollywood reporter whose presenting style leaves a lot to be desired.
13	* The Coopers - Snobbish ''nouveau riche'' couple in denial that they are Indian.
14	* Bhangra Man - A superhero who saves people through the power of bhangra dance.
15	* Guru Maharishi Yogi - A spiritual "guru" who likes to con money out of his followers.
16	* The Competitive Mothers: ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin
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18	The best remembered sketch from the show, which has won several awards, was "Going for an English" - a parody of the behaviour of drunken Brits in Indian restaurants.
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21	!! Tropes used in the show include:
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23	* BerserkButton: Try suggesting that the Kapoors and Rabindranaths - er, Coopers and Robinsons - are anything but 100% English ...
24	* BitingTheHandHumor: One Smeera Smitten sketch has her saying that after her career hit the skids she'd wound up a drug-addled, manic depressive alcoholic... so naturally she managed to easily get a job at the BBC.
25	* BlackComedy: Often invoked when dealing with serious topics such as racism, HonorRelatedAbuse and sectarian violence.
26	* TheBGrade:
27	** "My son got a B!"
28	** One of the options given in "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Mother" is fail an exam.
29	* BrokenWindowWarning: The Coopers get a brick through their window from racist neighbours. They ignore the racist message written on it, and toss it in the bin with all the others.
30	* CatchPhrase: "Kiss my chuddies!", "Cheque please!", "In your dreams, buddy!", "I can make it at home for nothing!", "''Chaakde phaate!''", "Yes, but how big is his ''danda''?", etc.
31	* CaptainEthnic: The Punjabi super-hero [=BhangraMan=], who defeats his foes through his amazing superpower of Indian folk dancing. [=BhangraMan=] is meant as a double parody, firstly of comic super-heroes in general, and secondly of the home-grown Indian variant such as Shaktimaan and Nagraj.
32	* CaptainGeographic: The Punjabi superhero [=BhangraMan=].
33	* CatchphraseInterruptus
34	* CloudCuckoolander: The Bhangra Muffins
35	* CulturalPosturing: Mr. Everything Comes From India, including the Renaissance masters and Creator/JohnTravolta.
36	* CultureJustifiesAnything: Savagely lampooned in one sketch where an Indian woman runs into a women's shelter, screaming that her husband is chasing after her with a knife. The white woman running the shelter decides that this must be a "cultural" matter, and refuses to intervene - even when the husband breaks in.
37	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The first Bhangra Muffin sketch has them using a lot of phrases taken from the then-recent election of Tony Blair... applied to gangsta rap.
38	* DiscriminateAndSwitch: A young Indian man nervously tries to come out as gay to his old-fashioned parents. As he expected, they're angry ... because he has a white boyfriend instead of "a nice Indian boy."
39	* EducationMama: Gender flipped in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0j1APJzqKQ this sketch]]. The mother is very proud of her son's accomplishments while the father is enraged at his perceived shortcomings.
40	* {{Fauxreigner}}: One sketch was a parody of ''Film/TheGreatEscape'', where a group of Indian prisoners of war in WWII attempt to escape by posing as East Germans - "''very'' East"
41	* {{Flanderization}}: A mild but distinct example with Mr Everything Comes From India. In his early sketches he'd set up the joke by mentioning things that actually are from India (e.g. the words "veranda" and "bungalow") before claiming things that definitely aren't (e.g. the phrase "mock Tudor mansion"). In later sketches he'd skip the first bit and go straight to claiming non-Indian things as Indian with absurd justifications.
42	* GagDub: The "[[Series/SkippyTheBushKangaroo Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo]]" sketch.
43	* GayBarReveal: In a Bhangra Muffins sketch.
44	* TheGhost: The Competitive Mathers' sons never appear, leaving it up in the air if anything the two claim about them is true even before they get into clearly absurd exaggerations.
45	* HypocriticalHumor:
46	** A father reassures his distraught wife that they'll confront their son about a matter calmly. Then when their son enters he starts yelling at him.
47	** A woman applying for a job at the BBC chides the Asian Babe for being degrading and setting feminism back with her airheadedness. Then in her interview acts just as airheaded.
48	* InstantHumiliationJustAddYoutube: Since Youtube didn't exist at the time, the Minx twins being humiliated in partaking in a Christmas show as sheep, while the lazy airheaded white girl who doesn't even know her lines plays Mary, is compounded by their family is in the audience filming them on camcorders.
49	* JustTheIntroductionToTheOpposites: "Going Out for an English", about a group of drunk and rowdy Indian friends who visit an English restaurant, repeatedly mispronounce the waiter's strange foreign name (James) and show how macho they are by ordering "the blandest thing on the menu".
50	** This sketch is exceptional for the series in that it makes fun of a stereotype of white British, rather than British Asian, behaviour.
51	* KickTheDog: Guru Yogi visits a housewife, and asks if she'd like to be a Hindu. She says she would, and he tells her "well, you can't."
52	* LargeHam: Chunky Lafanga
53	* MagicalAsian: Where the Indian guru teaching the secrets of Hinduism to a roomful of credulous white disciples is quite blatantly only in it for the money, and is feeding them profound-sounding nonsense to justify the "living expenses" they are paying him. He is explicitly an Expy of Music/TheBeatles' guru Maharishi Yogi, right down to the name.
54	* MomentKiller: A couple trying to say goodbye at a station are bothered by people trying to hawk their wares, even after being told to shove off.
55	* MommasBoy: Often used as a source of humour. One sketch is the song "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Mother". Another has a couple trying to go to therapy over the man being one of these going wrong because the therapist ''is'' his mother. One of the things the Competitive Mothers compete over is how dependant their son's are on them.
56	* TheMovie: Partition: The Motion Picture
57	* MyBelovedSmother: A recurring joke is Asian mothers being extremely controlling, with the bickering mothers getting into an argument about it.
58	* MyNewGiftIsLame: During one Christmas show, two gals sing about the things they'd like for Christmas, instead of what they'll actually get, which is shirts and MENSA memberships.
59	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: One sketch had a son of a Hindu family who turned Jewish, and who returns home sounding like Creator/WoodyAllen.
60	* OhCrap: The Coopers and Robinsons are about to have a very ''British'' gin and tonic, until they notice the tonic water is Indian. They decided to change their drink order.
61	* OldPeopleAreNonsexual: Parodied in a sketch where a grandmother tries to give her soon-to-be-married granddaughter advice about the wedding night, involving "vibrating eggs" and far more detail than the granddaughter wants to hear.
62	* PlainPalate: The 'Going for an English' sketch involves Asian people going to an English restaurant and ordering "the blandest thing on the menu" as a parody of the {{National Stereotype\|s}} about Brits in Indian restaurants.
63	* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: One song on the show was a parody of "Common People" by Music/{{Pulp}}. The singer accuses his white girlfriend of trying too hard to emulate Hindi culture because she thinks it's trendy.
64	* QuestionableCasting: Invoked with the cast of "Partition: The Movie", where all the actors are clearly the wrong choice (Jim Carrey as Lord Mountbatten).
65	* RuleOfThree: One episode has a marriage counsellor trying to reassure couples.
66	* RunningGag
67	* TheScrooge: Another frequently used joke is Asians being insanely stingy.
68	* SoundToScreenAdaptation: Originally a series on Creator/{{BBC}} radio.
69	* StartMyOwn: When Smeeta Smitten is fired from the TV show she presents, she decides to create her own show and sell it to the network; and produces several attempted pilot episodes. None of them goes well.
70	* StereotypicalSouthAsianEnglish: The series sends up White British perceptions of Asians, and sometimes the exaggerated accent is used to make a point concerning the ignorant British.
71	* StereotypeFlip:
72	** One sketch flips the stereotype of obnoxious Brits making fools of themselves at Indian restaurants with a bunch of Indians who decide to "go for an English".
73	** The first sketch on the TV show has one white guy having to deal with his all-Indian employers not getting his name, constantly mispronouncing it despite his efforts to help them along.
74	** A sketch in the Christmas special has a young man telling his mum and dad he doesn't want to be a pop star, like all his cousins. He wants to be a doctor! And he's never been gay.
75	** Later on, there's a woman interviewing three 'teenagers' who're harassed by their friends because they're... [[FauxHorrific middle class]]. They don't even know how to say "innit", bruv.
76	* TakeThat: "The Blacked Up Men" aimed entirely at blackface.
77	* TitledAfterTheSong: "Goodness Gracious Me" was originally a comic song by Creator/PeterSellers and Creator/SophiaLoren, in which Sellers (who was white) played a heavily-accented Indian doctor and Loren his patient, who was in love with him. According to WordOfGod, the ''Goodness Gracious Me'' team originally intended to do a much more aggressive sketch attacking the song, until they listened to the lyrics and realised that, despite the stereotypical fake accent, Sellers' character was actually quite positively portrayed and the song wasn't racist in its humour.
78	* TokenWhite: The show had Dave Lamb in the cast to play the Token White Man, who was cast in role-reversal situations where he represented the equivalent of an Indian or Pakistani, who is [[ButtMonkey alone among white people in an unfamiliar culture]]. This was used to {{LampShade}} white British attitudes towards Asians, ranging from well-meaning ineptitude to outright racism. [[note]]Dave is better known as the mega-sarky narrator of foodie show ''Series/ComeDineWithMe''[[/note]].
79	* TruthInTelevision: The cast based some of the characters on the show on people they knew and didn't exaggerate when portraying them, [[MuseAbuse offending those people greatly]] while doing it.
80	* TheUnintelligible: Bhangra Man speaks only in Punjabi but is always perfectly understood by English-speaking characters.
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82	* WholePlotReference: The "Marriage Emporium" sketch is one to Monty Python's "Cheese Shop Sketch" (with a bit of the Dead Parrot thrown in at the end).
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Context Radio / GoodnessGraciousMe