"blackface" in usually sophisticated and funny british sitcoms [revisited]

i recently decided to revisit little britain (previously, i only saw bits and pieces) and to my dismay this is some of what i found:

meet "black bubbles"

over 1 million views on bbc's youtube channel

take a closer look

these are the two white men behind the "women" and "blackface"

yes, these are old skits/images, but not from the "jim crow" era in the southern united states, but these are only a few years old from the uk.  this shit is perplexing and absolutely fucked up!!  why is this seemingly acceptable in the uk?  i wonder what the conversation between hbo, matt lucas, and david walliams was like regarding their black and brown face skits before they created "little britain usa."

addendum:

i've since thought of other "characters/caricatures" that i meant to blog about sometime ago:

"augustine kwmbe"

kayvan novak, the brown man behind "augustine kwmbe"

"figo the fruit fly"

noell fielding, the white man behind "figo the fruit fly"

again, a bunch of british folks, mostly white men and at least one brown man, but not of african descent, portraying, mimicking, mocking people of african descent, in particular women...why/how is that funny?

check out my previous post on the subject:

http://upsettingthesetupsince1977.blogspot.com/2011/01/blackface-in-ordinarily-sophisticated.html