Absolutamente fabulosas

With the great news that Jennifer Saunders has a new batch of AB FAB episodes ready for us, my enthusiasm for this show is still high. Although I'm probably not the average AB FAB fan, I'm high on British comedy, and I watched this series religiously when it was on T.V. in the mid-90s. This show is awesome. The British know how to make you laugh.

Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley play Edina and Patsy, two flower children who still live the high life. Forever drinking, smoking, sexing, and taking drugs; these two spend their free time taking pot shots at celebrities while abusing Edina's straight-laced daughter Saffron (Julie Sawalha). These two are the funniest characters ever conceived in a long time. Filled with incredible character development, excellent scripts, and excellent acting, you won't find a comedy better than this. Ever since this show, I really like it when someone calls me "sweetie"!

And Ms. Saunders hasn't lost her touch, as the first new episode shows that they haven't lost their touch, the show still is a laugh riot. If you're sick of America's attempts at humour, the Brits will cure you of that.

AbFab is probably the best Britcom ever made. I Absolutely love it!!! Each episode was brilliantly written and hilariously funny. Jennifer Saunders demonstrated how brilliant she is at writing / performing without Dawn French and Joanna Lumley showed that she has great comic timing as well as a superb talent for dramatic roles.

As a true AbFab fan, I have bought all of the videos and, even though i know them off by heart, I still find them Absolutely hilarious.

As were many other people, I was completely heart broken when Jennifer Saunders revealed that she was ending the show in 1995. But since then, there has been a very funny American remake that I've had chance to see called "High Society", and I highly recommend it to any other AbFab fans.

Life simply hasn't been the same, for me without AbFab, but Jennifer Saunders has apparently confirmed rumors that there is a fourth series in the works...

Another six new episodes were shown in the UK in September and October 2001 after a gap of five years, probably after the pilot for a new Saunders series ('Mirrorball') with virtually the same cast got nowhere.

The new series was much darker than the earlier ones, and if you thought they were cruel wait till you see these.

That said it is still the funniest thing on. It is shaping up to be a classic like 'Steptoe and Son' - (for our American readers it was remade for you from our scripts as Sandford and Son) and with the same generational battle going on, with the main premise being the reversal of the usual roles, so that the young daughter is the responsible one.

Joanna Lumley, one of the nicest actresses around and an occasional columnist in the 'Times' again invests Patsy with great power dressing, disdainful looks that can curdle milk and horrendous self interest.

Jane Horrocks (who has grown to be a huge star from her original bit part in this show nearly ten years ago) still appears as Bubble in the new series but now has a dual role as an inane but ambitious day time chat queen Katy Grin.

Ruby Wax is again script editor and her influence is obvious in some of the sharper lines, and as in the third series she does a cameo (as a moustachioed post menopausal woman)in the episode about Eddie reaching the 'change'.

Has a huge gay following (well Patsy virtually is a drag queen, a point made several times in the third series)- in the UK gay pubs and clubs scheduled their events not to clash with its 9pm Friday slot on BBC1.

"Absolutely Fabulous" is, without a doubt, one of the funniest shows to ever come across the pond from the U.K.! Apparently, the sitcom's subject matter and flat-out political incorrectness made it too edgy for local PBS stations to run. Instead, the cable channel COMEDY CENTRAL acquired the initial US rights from the BBC in the mid-1990s. The rest is history.

AB FAB (as we fans refer to it with affection) is the saga of Edina Monsoon (Eddy) and her fabulous pal Patsy Stone. Eddy & Patsy do everything in life to excess - drink, smoke, party. While Eddy has a PR firm (she represents LuLu) and a shop, her main income comes from the alimony her two ex-husbands give her. Eddy lives in a nice home in London's Holland Park area with her stuffed-shirt daughter Saffron (Saffy) who is the opposite of Eddy in every way. Patsy, on the other hand, has a flat above Oddbins, a liquor store. Also on hand was Eddy's bubble-headed assistant Bubble and her widowed mother (referred to as 'Gran' by Saffy) AB FAB was an instant hit here in the US - the initial 3 series of 18 episodes (6 eps in 1992, 6 in 1994 & 6 in 1995) were played to the hilt by Comedy Central. Roseanne the comedienne even bought the rights to update the series for US television, but nothing ever materialized. In 2002 Comedy Central, in joint production with the BBC, produced 6 more AB FABS eps. In these new episodes, viewers learned that in this post-9/11 world, Eddy and Patsy hadn't changed a bit. In 2004, the cable channel Oxygen teamed with the BBC and had another series of 7 episodes produced. There were also 2 AB FAB specials produced as well.

Sin is in, Sweetie!!

Absolutely Fabulous, starring Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, has got to be one of the funniest sitcoms I've ever seen. If you start at the beginning of the series and watch as the show progresses it's amazing. A lot of people have been critical of the later seasons. I must admit, Series 4 strayed and overall wasn't very funny. But Series 5 completely made up for it.

If you're sick of all the mostly un-funny American sitcoms give Ab Fab a try. I guarantee you will laugh your ass off. All series are on DVD now, and are also shown on Oxygen & BBC America. TV Guide also recently named the show as one of the top 25 cult TV series. Check it out!