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Not long ago, sitcoms ruled the TV universe. Reality was something viewers sought to escape when they watched television, not a term used to describe the type of show they were watching. Target demographics had attention spans beyond that of a gnat and the idea of Tivo or YouTube was as foreign as Balki from Perfect Strangers. Sure, cop shows and courthouse dramas made a dent in the ratings, but the sitcom reigned supreme. It was a golden age.
But alas, nothing lasts forever. Sitcoms had their heyday and now it has passed. These days the top show on TV is a glorified karaoke contest. Primetime game shows and C-list celebrity "reality" shows get solid ratings and CSI: Wichita can't be too far away. This season's number one sitcom is Two and a Half Men and it's 15th overall and the only one in the top twenty. Oh, and it's not that funny either.
So is that it? Do sitcoms have anything left in the tank or have we seen it all one too many times? Is our country too dumb to support the good shows like Arrested Development or will a show like It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia break through and change all the rules? Is there another Seinfeld out there or are we doomed to having Jim Belushi and Charlie Sheen vehicles top the sitcom ratings? For the sake of humanity, let us hope that there is.
This time in Dissections we'll be taking a look at the sitcom and it's parts and then you, the reader, can chime in below with your suggestions on how to fix the broken model. Who knows, maybe some big TV producer will read your comment, contact you through your profile information, hire you to create a show that goes on to be syndicated for the next fifty years and you will become one of the richest people in America! Hey, it could happen.
THE PLAYERS Creating a sitcom really isn't that hard. All you need are a few conflicting personalities, a contained world for them to operate in and an occasional wrench or two in their plans and voila, you've got yourself a show. The characters all have obvious traits with minor quirks that make them unique to the show, but when you get right down to it they are really quite similar. Consider the following:
The Everyman
This guy is just like you and I, or should I say the network executive's idea of what you and I are like. Usually he's just trying to get through his day without a major catastrophe, but the people around him just won't seem to let that happen. All he wants to do is get home, have a beer and get some rest but instead his crazy neighbor has him on a plane to Bermuda while his wife waits at home with dinner ready and his boss is trying to get ahold of him to tell him he got the promotion… but he has to accept it now or it's going to his rival. Oops!
BAD SITCOM PUNCHLINE: "What do you mean I'm fired? You can't fire me, I'm your husband!"
CLASSIC EXAMPLES: Kevin James in King of Queens, Joe Belushi in Yes Dear, John Ritter in Three's Company.
The Moron
Necessary so that the writers can throw all the easy jokes at him, the moron is an essential part to the sitcom formula. Need a plot-driving misunderstanding wrapped into a joke? Write a vacation episode and have one of the other characters tell The Moron to meet them in the Florida Keys, then squeeze every joke you can out of watching The Moron try to find the Florida "keys" and then wonder how to get into them once he finds them.
BAD SITCOM PUNCHLINE: "They must be some really big keys!"
CLASSIC EXAMPLES: Woody Harrelson in Cheers, Matt LeBlanc in Friends, Bill Fagerbakke (Dauber) in Coach.
The Wacky Guy/Girl
This is the character that comes out of nowhere with the most bizarre, ridiculous ideas that somehow effects everyone else on the show. Maybe it's a scheme, perhaps it's a premonition, but whatever it is it always seems to get everyone else in trouble while The Wacky Guy/Girl comes out clean. This is the guy that tries to convince everyone else to invest heavily in a hot Indian biotech stock that he heard about. After overcoming the other character's skepticism, they finally give him money to invest, but he messes up the order and the stock quadruples. When the other characters excitedly ask him to sell their stock, he finds out that he accidentally bought shares of a Chinese window manufacturer that went bankrupt.
BAD SITCOM PUNCHLINE: "I should have known not to trust a stockbroker named Snake Eyes."
CLASSIC EXAMPLES: Michael Richards in Seinfeld, Lisa Kudrow in Friends, Richard Kline (Larry) in Three's Company.
The Hot-But-Ditzy Chick
Easy on the eyes but hard on the intellect, The Hot-But-Ditzy Chick is a staple of American sitcoms. Different from The Moron in that she's hot, this character is everything the Women's Rights movement is against. Typically she will be confused by a simple task like answering the telephone and relaying a message. She mistakenly relays the message "Mandy had her baby" to be "Mandy has rabies." The other characters, concerned about their friend/relative Mandy, will go through painstaking efforts to comfort Mandy and make her feel better with rabies-related sympathy cards when they visit her in the hospital only to find out that she simply gave birth.
BAD SITCOM PUNCHLINE: "Dog gone it, when am I gonna get it right?"
CLASSIC EXAMPLES: Christina Applegate in Married… With Children, Suzanne Somers in Three's Company, Karyn Parsons (Hillary) in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
The Rival
The Rival is typically not a main character, but still an essential part to any sitcom. They exist to be a foil to the main character's objective. For example, let's say that your main character is looking to start a new business selling health food products online. The Rival hears about this and brutally sabotages every attempt the main character makes to get the business off the ground until he finally succeeds in thwarting his efforts by cornering the local market. What he doesn't know is that he actually saves the main character from sinking tons of money into a business that is later revealed to be a scam and he's in the hole five grand.
BAD SITCOM PUNCHLINE: "What am I gonna do with ten thousand organic chewy honey almond flax granola bars?"
CLASSIC EXAMPLES: Amanda Bearse (Marcy) in Married… With Children, Wayne Knight (Newman) in Seinfeld, Everyone at Gary's Old Time Tavern in Cheers.
The Foreigner
Much like The Moron, The Foreigner is typically written into sitcoms by lazy writers for easy laughs. The formula is really quite simple. All you do is take a foreigner, put him into a setting full of bigotry, confusion and culture clash and turn the laugh track up to full blast. Imagine you've got a guy from, oh, let's say Czechoslovakia. He's in America by accident because, being a stupid foreigner, he accidentally mailed himself to the US when he was supposed to be mailing his mother's rent check. All he wants to do is get back home to pay his mom's rent but customs won't let him go. The show's title? What else: Czech's In The Mail.
BAD SITCOM PUNCHLINE: "My momma's a-gonna kill me when she a-finds out what I a-did!"
CLASSIC EXAMPLES: Bronson Pinchot (Balki) in Perfect Strangers, Wilmer Valderrama (Fez) in That 70's Show, Andy Kaufman (Latka) in Taxi.
The Nosey Neighbor
If your main characters have something to hide, there's nothing like a nosey neighbor to mix things up a bit. You know, something like a heterosexual male living with two women, a teenage robot or, say, an alien life form. All your main character wants is some privacy, but this next-door neighbor won't allow it. They're tougher than a detective when it comes to gathering incriminating facts and using them against your protagonist. Fortunately, unlike a detective, The Nosey Neighbor doesn't need factual evidence to build a case and often relies on flimsy evidence while rushing to trial, only to be shot down by the main character who managed to hide the two women/teenage robot/alien life form just in the knick of time.
BAD SITCOM PUNCHLINE: "I know you're up to something over here, and when I find out what it is I'm gonna- (DOOR SLAMS IN FACE)."
CLASSIC EXAMPLES: Emily Schulman (Harriet) in Small Wonder, Norman Fell (Mr. Roper) in Three's Company, The Ochmoneks in ALF.
The Non-Threatening Black Guy
In sitcom world, race isn't an issue. It's easy to have your white main character have an inexplicable friendship with a black character with the snap of your fingers. All you have to do is type the character's name, type a comma, then write 'black' after it and you've got yourself a black friend. If only it were that easy in real life (just ask George Costanza). Of course, the black friend is never an intimidating, streetwise brotha from the hood but rather a polished, non-threatening suburbanite that has way more in common with the main character than he should. Maybe it's time this changes. I think I'd like to see a show about a white, upper-class character that is best friends with a drug dealing, hardcore gangster from the inner-city. It would be called Kip & The Crip and Kip would learn about market efficiency from The Crip's drug dealing while The Crip could learn the code to Kip's dad's safe. I'd watch.
BAD SITCOM PUNCHLINE: "For the last time Charles, not all black people like fried chicken. Now pass me those pickled pig's feet."
CLASSIC EXAMPLES: Donald Faison in Scrubs, Victor Williams in King of Queens, Alex Desert in Becker.
*****
Next time we'll be taking a look at sitcom storylines and plots, including season runners. In the meantime, let's hear your thoughts on sitcom characters and the genre in general. Is there hope for the future of situation comedy?
Posts: 82 Rank: 48 Joined:
10/21/2005
Location:
Okinawa, Japan
Posted: 4/24/2007 8:42:26 AM
We need more tit-coms! I loved shows like "Bizarre" and "Dream On" because they had naked breasts. I couldn't tell you a single joke from either one, but damnit they had boobs. The possibilty og boobs even helps me get through the 24 minutes of Adrian Grenier's, unibrow, Piven's hammy fratire, some dude who looks like a poor man's hobbit and the Dillon brother from The Blob remake on HBO's "Entourage". I don't even know if that show is supposed to be a sitcom. I just know it's only a half an ahour, they say fuck a lot, and sometimes there's boobies! We need more shows like that.
If "The Shield" can get away with a police captain being forced to felate an ex-con at gun point and The Thing banging Larry Fishburne's wife, I think that there could be more cable sitcoms that push the limits too. Cable is our collective Obi Wan, because they are the only hope for the sitcom in my opinion. Now I'm off to Tashi Station to pick up some power converters!
Posts: 92 Rank: 3083 Joined:
1/3/2007
Location:
Chicago, IL
Posted: 4/24/2007 10:04:41 AM
It's already been flopped with "Method and Red" it was on Fox and i think it lasted about 3 episodes. And they lived next door to some stuffy white folks that were trying to kick them out.
I think they were always scheming to bang the neighbors daughter and blaze with their teenage son too.
Posts: 1714 Rank: 9 Joined:
3/13/2007
Location:
Denver, CO
Posted: 4/24/2007 10:05:35 AM
I have to agree Napalm, Dream On was the shit. Especially when you were a 10 year old boy and shouldn't have been watching it anyways. To this day I can remember the episode where he couldn't get it up and had that hot topless cheerleader on top of him. The fact that he let me watch it reminds me how much my dad ruled.
When Sex in the City started, it had boobalicious wonders galore. Go figure, a show about sex actually showing naked people having sex. But then as it got bigger, the stars had written into their contract that they didn't have to show (Parker never did), and all of the sudden everyone was banging with bras on. Who does this? Ridiculous. Only thing that made the show worth watching.
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The Everyman
The Moron
The Wacky Guy/Girl
The Hot-But-Ditzy Chick
The Rival
The Foreigner
The Nosey Neighbor
The Non-Threatening Black Guy
