Situation comedy

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A sitcom or situation comedy is a genre of comedy performance originally devised for radio but today typically found on television. Sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a format in which there are one or more humorous story lines centred on a common environment, such as a family home or workplace.

The situation comedy format seems to have originated in the old time radio era of the United States, but today they are produced around the globe. Many countries, such as Britain, have embraced the form and so sitcoms have become among the most popular programmes on the schedule.

Contents

History

The situation comedy format originated on radio in the 1920s. The first situation comedy is often said to be Sam and Henry which debuted on the Chicago, Illinois clear-channel station WGN in 1926, and was partially inspired by the notion of bringing the mix of humor and continuity found in comic strips to the young medium of radio. The first network situation comedy was Amos & Andy which debuted on CBS in 1928, and was one of the most popular sitcoms through the 1930s.

According to the 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, the term sitcom was coined in 1951, making I Love Lucy the first sitcom to be called a sitcom.

Situation comedies have been a part of the landscape of broadcast television since its early days. The BBC in the United Kingdom broadcast Pinwright's Progress from late 1946 until early the following year. The first in the United States was probably Mary Kay and Johnny, a fifteen minute sitcom which debuted on the DuMont Television Network in November of 1947.

This type of entertainment seemed to originate in the United States, which continues to be a leading producer of the genre, but soon spread to other nations.

Characteristics

Traditionally, situation comedies were largely self-contained, in that the characters themselves remained largely static and events in the sitcom resolved themselves by the conclusion of the show. One example of this is the animated situation comedy The Simpsons, where the characteristics of animation has rendered the characters unchanging in appearance forever—although the characters in the show have sometimes made knowing meta references to this (the writers have made reference to that by calling The Simpsons a "frozen-in-time" show).

Other sitcoms, though, use greater or lesser elements of ongoing storylines: Friends, a hugely popular US sitcom of the 1990s, contains soap opera elements such as regularly resorting to an end-of-season cliffhanger, and has gradually developed the relationships of the characters. Other sitcoms have veered into social commentary. Examples of these are sitcoms created by Norman Lear (including All in the Family and Maude) in the U.S., and Johnny Speight's Till Death Us Do Part in Britain.

A common aspect of family sitcoms is that at some point in their run they introduce an addition to the family in the form of a new baby. One exception to this are the several sitcoms starring Bob Newhart, who insisted that his sitcoms not have babies or children. However while babies are thought to be cute and give adult characters opportunities to act silly, toddlers are believed to have little use in comedy, partially due to the difficulty of working with very young children, and partially because their abilities are limited to looking cute and small vocabularies. Thus most sitcom kids are aged to four or five within two years of their birth—for example Andrew Keaton on Family Ties and Chrissy Seaver on Growing Pains. Instances in which sitcoms retained the same child without such age-jumps, such as Erin Murphy as Tabitha Stephens on Bewitched and the Olsen twins as Michelle Tanner on Full House are the exception to the rule.

Most contemporary situation comedies are filmed with a multicamera setup in front of a live studio audience, then edited and broadcast days or weeks later. This practice has not always been universal, however, especially prior to the 1970s when it became more common. Some comedies, such as M*A*S*H, were not filmed before an audience. (In the case of M*A*S*H, the use of multiple sets and location filming would have made this impractical.)

Ensemble cast structure

Many sitcoms reuse a common mixture of character archetypes to achieve reliable comedic situations from week to week. The most common archetype appearing in sitcoms is the naive fool. Typically, this character accepts events and statements at face value, and often misunderstands situations in ways that create conflict in the plot. Examples of the naive fool character in sitcoms include:

The Sage is another frequently-occurring archetype in sitcoms. In the standard sitcom ensemble, this character usually has either an elevated intellect, advanced age, or "outsider" experience. The Sage frequently comments wryly on the situation into which the other characters have placed themselves, and often suggests solutions to resolve the major plot conflict. Examples include:

Other recurring archetypal characters that appear in sitcoms include:

  • The meddling or nosy neighbor
  • The wisecracking curmudgeon
  • The well-meaning blue collar worker
  • The lovable loser (the always-second-best)
  • The acerbic servant/worker
  • The cutesy moppet

Plot formulas

The plot and situations for many sitcom episodes arise out of a character's lying to or otherwise deceiving the other characters. Some sitcom television series, such as Mr. Ed, Bewitched, Three's Company, and Bosom Buddies based their fundamental premise on the main character's attempt to hide the truth through a series of deceptions and "white lies".

The most common comedic situations based on deception include:

  • Attempts to hide egregious mistakes or acts of weakness.
  • Attempts to protect friends and family members from bad news.
  • Attempts to "correct" a mistake before others find out about it.
  • Attempts to hide the breaking of pacts.
  • Attempts to maintain an advantage based on deception.
  • Attempts to dupe someone so as to achieve an advantage.
  • Attempts to return stolen property before discovery of the theft.

The majority of sitcom episodes revolve around some form of the lying/deception premises listed above. Lesser-used sitcom plot formulas include:

  • One or more characters going into a foreign environment only to return to "where they belong." Frequently, sitcom writers will use this plot formula to transplant the entire cast to Hawaii, Hollywood, or Europe in later seasons. Typically, a "Hawaii" episode indicates that a particular sitcom has jumped the shark.
  • A character choosing to make some fundamental change in their body, habits, job, or other component of their environment, only to return to "what feels normal."
  • Characters entering contests or races.
  • Characters being elevated to positions of responsibility they can't handle.
  • Newcomers or strangers making one-time appearances that change the personal dynamics between the recurring characters.
  • A special holiday episode, such as for Christmas or Halloween.

Specific countries of origin

Most US sitcoms are half-hour shows in which the story is written to run a total of 22 minutes in length, leaving about 8 minutes of commercial time, although ones made outside the US may run somewhat longer. US sitcoms are often characterised by long series runs of 20 or more episodes, whereas the British sitcom is traditionally comprised of distinct series of six episodes each. US sitcoms often have large teams of script writers firing gags into the script and round-table sessions, whereas the British sitcom is usually written by two co-writers or is the work of one person.

Canada

See also: Canadian humour

Despite Canada's wealth of comedic talent, Canadian TV's conventional sitcoms have generally fared poorly with both critics and audiences. One particularly notorious example is The Trouble with Tracy, regarded by many Canadians as one of the worst TV shows ever made. Other Canadian sitcoms have included Snow Job, Check it Out!, Mosquito Lake and Not My Department, all of which were mocked in their time as being particularly unfunny.

The few successful Canadian sitcoms have included: La famille Plouffe and its English version, The Plouffe Family, King of Kensington, Hangin' In and Corner Gas.

Canadian TV networks have had much more success with sketch comedy shows such as The Kids in the Hall, CODCO, SCTV, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, You Can't Do That On Television, and Royal Canadian Air Farce, and quirky dramedies such as Twitch City, The Newsroom, Made in Canada, Trailer Park Boys, The Beachcombers, Naked Josh and Seeing Things.

One of Canada's most enduring comedic television series airing today, The Red Green Show, is essentially a cross between a sitcom and a sketch series. Each episode unfolds through short comedic sketches rather than a conventional sitcom plot, but unlike a true sketch series, the sketches always draw from a single set of characters and no actor plays more than one role.

A notable Quebec sitcom in recent years was La Petite Vie; one episode of that show holds the world record for the highest market share ever achieved by a television program. A popular current Quebec sitcom is Les Bougon.

Russia

See also: Russian humour

Sitcoms have appeared in Russia in second half 1990s, for example, My beautiful nurse on channel STS.

New Zealand

New Zealand began producing television programmes later than many other developed countries. Due to New Zealand's small population the two main New Zealand networks will rarely fund more than one or two sitcoms per year each. This low output means there is less chance of a successful sitcom being produced to offset the failures.

Early sitcoms included Joe & Koro and Buck House. Later there was The Billy T James Show (subsequently rerun in early 2004 as part of the first year's offering on Maori Television). The team of David McPhail and Jon Gadsby produced and/or starred in quite a number (such as Letter to Blanchy), with help from writer A K Grant.

The most popular and successful New Zealand produced sitcom to date has been Roger Hall's Gliding On, based on his hit stage play Glide Time. Another Hall play, Conjugal Rites was also made into a sitcom, but by Granada in Britain.

In 1994, Melody Rules was produced and screened. Critically and commercially unsuccessful, it has become part of the lexicon within the television industry to describe an unsuccessful sitcom. (e.g. that show will be the next "Melody Rules" ) Another sitcom to have its roots in a stage play was Serial Killers (2003), about the scriptwriters of a medical soap opera.

Many British and US sitcoms are and have been popular in New Zealand, including many of those aforementioned in this article.

United Kingdom

Main article: British sitcom

The United Kingdom has produced a wealth of sitcoms, many of which have been exported to other nations or redone in adaptation. Classic British sitcoms include Only Fools and Horses, Porridge, Fawlty Towers, Dad's Army, Blackadder, Open All Hours, and The Young Ones. More recent successes have included Father Ted (set in Ireland), The Vicar of Dibley, The Royle Family, Spaced and The Office.

The British sitcom tends to rely less on quick-fire jokes and quirky characters than plots, the analysis of the British individual and exaggerated caricatures of everyday stereotypes. There are, of course, some exceptions. Bottom gained popularity through its exaggerated comical violence and childish humour mixed with adult situations, Red Dwarf was a parody of the sci-fi genre, and The League of Gentlemen revolves around the macabre. There is also a tendency towards black humour—Porridge, for example, is set in a prison, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin involves a man who is suicidal, Steptoe and Son can be heart-breaking as the ambitions of Harry are quashed by his needy, manipulative father, and the end of each series of Blackadder involved the ritual slaughter of the cast. Additionally, British sitcoms tend to be set in unusual situations—World War II, prison, the far future—than the more everyday situations preferred elsewhere.

Many British sitcoms are re-made for American audiences. For example, Till Death Us Do Part became All in the Family, Man About the House became Three's Company, and the hugely popular Steptoe and Son became Sanford and Son. However, most British sitcoms usually fare better in their original forms. Re-makes of Red Dwarf, Men Behaving Badly, Coupling, and One Foot in the Grave fell victim to adaptations that largely removed the essence of the comedy and did not stand the test of time. Possibly the best example of this was Fawlty Towers, where the character of Basil became a woman. This eliminated the roles of the hen-pecked lead and the dragon-like wife.

United States

Mary Kay and Johnny was followed by The Goldbergs which first aired on January 17, 1949. Probably the most well-known and successful early television sitcom was I Love Lucy, starring Lucille Ball, which is well known because the producer took the step, unusual for its time, of shooting the episodes on film, thereby inventing reruns. The Simpson's is another very successful sitcom.

In 2005, Bravo aired a reality show, called Situation: Comedy, produced by Sean Hayes. Out of 10,000 scripts, NBC President, Kevin Reilly, chose two pilots: Mark Treitel and Shoe Schuster's The Sperm Donor and Stephen's Life, with the later ultimately winning the reality series.

List of sitcoms

Listed alphabetically by decade

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

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