Spike Milligan's not so final punchline – and Have I Got News For You goes Stateside

The famous epitaph on Spike Milligan's gravestone, "I told you I was ill", has been added to , at the end of a bitter feud between the ex-Goon's family members. The comedian died in 2002, aged 83, and was buried at St Thomas's Church in Winchelsea, East Sussex. His third wife, Shelagh Sinclair, died in 2011, and her family asked that she be buried with Milligan and her name added to the inscription. This didn't go down a storm with Milligan's son James, who insisted, "it has always been abundantly clear what my father wanted written on his headstone. To find out Shelagh's family are trying to add an inscription is infuriating and totally unacceptable." Sinclair's family won the dispute, however: her name has now been added to Milligan's on the headstone, alongside the altogether less comical epigram, "may they rest together in perpetual light."

The Brits have tried to nick America's current affairs comedy formats - and now they're half-inching them back. The British Comedy Guide reports that a not-for-broadcast pilot of a US version of Have I Got News For You? was filmed last Friday for the TBS channel. Filming was overseen by Jimmy Mulville, founder of HIGNFY stable Hat Trick, which has previously exported Whose Line Is It Anyway? to the States. The US version of the show – not the first time an Americanised HIGNFY has been attempted – features comedian Sam Seder as host; team captains are reported to have been Michael Ian Black and Sherrod Small.

In the UK, standup Kojo has launched a new website to promote black British comedy , claiming that "a lot of our talent [is] being ignored or overlooked by the mainstream despite their talent and popularity online." Kojo, who presents a daily breakfast show on Choice FM, promises that ComedyLately.co.uk will be "a hub for events, for interviews and we hope will go on to offer young people roles in TV presenting and in writing … There is no hub for our talent in the mainstream. How many comedians have been overlooked? I've always tried to develop comedians throughout my career and this is just the start of something new."

Elsewhere in comedy, we learn that a film is to be made about the Falklands war-time heroics of Miranda Hart's dad ; and that the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh is to stage an exhibition of portraits of Scottish comedians. In TV, Channel 4 has announced its new Comedy Showcase – now re-named 4Funnies – which include small-screen pilots from The Rubberbandits, Edinburgh Comedy award champ Dr Brown, David Earl's character act Brian Gittins, and a sitcom starring shouty standup Nick Helm. With playwright Jonathan Harvey, comic John Bishop has co-written and will star in a comedy drama for ITV entitled Panto! . Charlie Brooker is to make a series of topical shows for BBC2, entitled Weekly Wipe ; a female spin-off from The Inbetweeners, entitled Drifters, has been commissioned by Channel 4 ; and US vice-president Joe Biden is to star in an episode of American sitcom Parks & Rec.

And Flight of the Conchords star Bret McKenzie has signed up to score the new Muppets movie , having bagged an unlikely Oscar for his work on 2011's The Muppets.

The best of the week's Guardian comedy coverage

"That's a kind of Daily Mail question, isn't it?" Who would want to be Decca Aitkenhead, interviewing Robbie Coltrane for the Weekend magazine?

"Walsh looks less like an entertainer, more like a man with a sound-technology-based S&M fetish" – I review upcoming standup Seann Walsh

"I've had a crack at explaining why she's funny. Anybody want to try explaining why she isn't?" – Leo Benedictus sparks a debate about Sarah Millican in his Comedy gold column:

"If O Briain can overcome the compulsion to entertain, a watchable series could be in the offing" – The Observer reviews Dara O Briain's Science Club on BBC2

"Let me tell you about my kind of trolling, a fun and empowering way to annoy the fuck out of people" – a Marmite-y article for the Guide by Scottish comic Brian "Limmy" Limond

Controversy of the week

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Comedians are piggy-backing other people's controversies. I'm thinking mainly of Tim Minchin, who has been tweeting in defence of the Canterbury teenager arrested for burning a poppy and posting the image on his Facebook page. "You've a right to burn a (fake!) poppy," Minchin wrote ; "Whether I agree with the action is utterly irrelevant. Kent police are out of line." Followup tweets included the following: "We've a right to express loathing. There are folk on the web saying they want to kill me. Wish they wouldn't, but don't want them arrested."

Minchin was not alone among comedians angered by the arrest – which obviously has implications for the right to offend within comedy. Scottish standup Janey Godley tweeted, "Man arrested for posting a photo of a burning poppy on FB – whilst women get threatened and vile rape taunts from men!??? World is fucked"; and later, "People fought for the freedom of right to burn a poppy if they so desire should he be arrested? I don't think so!" The row follows on from a 2010 hoohah surrounding the burning of poppies by a group called Muslims against Crusades, who were later banned by home secretary Theresa May . Comedian Mark Thomas weighed into that row, with the following video , which takes on a new topicality in light of this week's arrest.

My pick of the best reader comments

Comedy lost one of its all-time greats this week with the death of Dad's Army star Clive Dunn, memorialised in a blog by the Guardian's Stuart Jeffries. Below the line, readers were infuriated by Jeffries' imperfect knowledge of Corporal Jones and his colleagues' service records, as this response by pookieuk demonstrates:

Corporal Jones's reminiscences about the "fuzzy wuzzies" were hardly about the Boer War, but Kitchener's campaign in the late 1890s in the Sudan – the same conflict where Churchill also saw service. A modicum of research would have also discovered that other members of the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard also saw active service. Frazer was a petty officer in the Navy, Wilson was a captain in the army, and Godfrey a conscientious objector who was subsequently a decorated stretcher bearer. Admittedly, Jones was the only member of the platoon to mention his military service.

Debate was duly engaged about these fictional characters' war-time heroics, and about the gradations of class that distinguished Jones and Mainwaring, Mainwaring and Wilson. But the top-note here was affection for the late Dunn, as with this comment from Spire73:

RIP Jonesy. A fearless old school Englishman, it's true we will never see your likes again. Goodbye and thanks for the memories. (And the laughs.)

My review of comedian Josie Long at Soho Theatre elicited only one comment, but it was a sensible one – taking issue with my feeling that Long is too fretful about being seen to be political. Latelicense disagreed:

I came away thinking that her persona and her obvious doubts about her role were what prevented the show from being agitprop hectoring. It also meant that when she did state her case at the end it was moving in a way that, say, Mark Steel isn't. It felt like she'd earned the right to lecture us by being honest about her misgivings, rather than just trotting out the expected line … Also it was bloody funny in parts.