Brass (TV series) Brass (TV series) Brass was a British television comedy-drama, made by Granada Television for ITV and eventually Channel 4. "Brass" is northern English slang for "money" as well as for "effrontery". The series was set primarily in Utterley, a fictional Lancashire mining town in the 1930s, "Brass" satirized working-class period dramas of the 1970s, most significantly "When the Boat Comes In". Unusually for ITV comedies of the time, "Brass" eschewed a laugh track and utilized a dry sense of humour based in part on convoluted wordplay and subtle commentary on popular culture. The series also parodied the 1977 Granada TV
Comedy-drama track, it also contains many elements of character drama that occurred amongst the re-occurring characters and the guest stars. The laugh track wasn't excessively used in each episode; by the third season, it was eliminated completely from the series. While sitcoms would occasionally balance their humor with more dramatic and humanistic moments, these remained the exception to the rule as the 1960s progressed. Beginning around 1969 in the US, there was a brief spate of half-hour shows that purposely alternated between comedy and drama and aired without a laugh track, as well as some hour-long shows such as "CHiPs" in