Where Have All the Fun Sitcoms Gone?

[TMC]

http://splitsider.com/2016/10/where-...-sitcoms-gone/

Very often when I get home on the late side, I want to watch something light and fun and funny. It’s only recently that I realized that hardly any of the shows I pick in that mood are currently-airing TV comedies; they’re either comedies that have been off the air for years or some kind of overripe garbage Bravo reality show.

I still watch comedies — still love them! — but they don’t usually serve that particular purpose anymore. You can’t really turn on Transparent when you’re a little drunk and eating six slices of buffalo chicken pizza; it’s just not that kind of show. But where are the drunk buffalo chicken pizza shows? What happened to them?

Here is a short list of some of the best-reviewed or most buzzed-about television comedies of the past few years: BoJack Horseman, Louie, You’re The Worst, Transparent, High Maintenance, Baskets, Girls, Orange Is The New Black, Love, Master Of None, Getting On, Catastrophe, and Atlanta. These shows are at the forefront of prestige comedy, earning magazine profiles and Emmy nominations and spots in discussions of culture at the highest level.

They also aren’t, necessarily, especially fun.

For decades, the words “sitcom” and “comedy” were nearly interchangeable in television comedy; most of TV’s biggest comedies were in fact situation comedies, taking place primarily with a single cast in either a workplace (Cheers, The Office, 30 Rock) or in a home or apartment (I Love Lucy, Seinfeld, Friends). Themes and rhythms vary in sitcoms, but in the majority of TV’s most enduring hits, the principle tone is joke-heavy and light. Darkness, if it exists, lies in the background; the depressing lives of the cast of Cheers or the apathetic psychosis of the cast of Seinfeld are secondary to the primary purpose, which is to make the viewer laugh. Even the most experimental of recent comedies — Community, Arrested Development — are all in service of the noble joke.

Modern prestige comedies, thanks to fracturing audiences and changing tastes, often don’t feel the need to focus on joke-making at all. There are long stretches of any of the shows I named above with no real jokes in them, instead developing characters and telling stories in the same way as any drama. Is Baskets really even a comedy? Is Orange Is The New Black? Do we have to assemble some kind of metric of jokes-per-minute to be able to figure out where to slot these shows into Emmy nominations?

The broad shift of prestige comedies from sitcoms to something that maybe used to be referred to as a “dramedy” is neither bad nor good. The quality of a show doesn’t rely on whether it slots nicely into decades-old categories for awards shows. But the rise in prestige comedies has a secondary effect that I’d argue is unwanted, at least for me: the decline of joke-focused comedies.

Not so long ago, my favorite comedies were light and fun and escapist. Today my favorite comedies tend to be dark and not always funny. With a few exceptions (Broad City, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), the best comedies on TV are not really suited to a casual, I-just-want-something-funny viewing. The remaining comedies that still aim for sheer jokes are either garbage (The Big Bang Theory) or highly experimental and thus also not really suited for casual watching (The Eric Andre Show, Lady Dynamite).

It’s easy to trace this backwards; the most obvious touchstone is Louie, which garnered near-universal praise when it began airing in 2010 thanks to many of these same characteristics. Louie’s mostly unrelated vignettes, some of which are not really comedic at all, proved hugely influential for this new group of comedies. And while it’s tempting to assume that these kinds of high-art comedies are exempt from trend-chasing, television is notorious for just that — think of how many Lost-lite shows came out within a year of Lost becoming a giant hit. Soon, it became weirdly marketable to produce not-necessarily-funny comedies about creative types on anti-depressants living in New York City and Los Angeles.

The joke-focused comedy now seems somehow uncool, a little dusty. TV has drifted into a space where boundaries matter less: a show can be 11 minutes long or 90, can air on an app or on broadcast TV, can feature huge movie stars or complete unknowns, can come from any country and become a hit domestically, can take on any subject in any way. With that kind of freedom, a half-hour sitcom seems unnecessarily restrictive and old-timey, and not very exciting.

There is, I think, a diminishing pool of superb joke-focused TV comedies, a void left by 30 Rock and Arrested Development and New Girl (I know, it’s still airing, but be honest, have you watched it in the past few years?). This isn’t a grumpy-old-man screed for some form of the past like multi-camera shows, but a plea for something simpler: I want more shows that are, you know, fun. There seems to be some feeling that to be great, truly great, a comedy can’t just be a comedy, but must also tap into something dark and real and painful.

But that feeling assumes that there’s something lesser, something simplistic or lazy or puerile or somehow dumb, about making a show with the primary goal of making the viewer laugh. And that couldn’t be further from the truth; it must be at least as difficult to make a truly great laugh-focused comedy as an intermittently funny half-hour drama, and should be respected just as much. What I hope is that the trend at some point swings back the other way, that dramedy shows about depressed writers in Los Angeles will become so expected and unexciting that a joke-focused, fast-moving comedy — maybe even a sitcom — can feel new and invigorating. And fun. Fun is good.

[Patty Duke]

I try EVERY new sitcom because I love to laugh but nothing offered today is funny to me or my husband and we are in the so called demographic they are after. I'd rather watch paint peel than the crap they offer today.
I had high hopes for the new Kevin James sitcom but here we are at week 3 and I haven't even snickered.

[Tubehead]

ones i watch are
last man standing
the big bang theory
the goldbergs

[Edward216]

I think Kevin Can Wait is very funny. To each his own sometimes.

Ed.

[Yong Fang]

Well, it is what you like and what you want to watch. If something is entertaining, then that is fun, right?

There is 60 years of television programming mostly available to the public now, much of it is free or for a low monthly fee online. Or try YouTube. Or look for DVD's.

A good TV show for pizza and laughter is Cheers and Night Court. Especially Night Court. We stoners loved it back in the day.

[liane60]

Originally Posted by Alan Brady's Hair

The audiences have gotten stupid: if they're told something is groundbreaking or edgy, they'll watch it literally because they want to be one of the cool kids. Humor without mocking or condescension just doesn't feed that type of ego.

To and a half men was funny. I still laugh at it, so is Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly, Mom, The Odd Couple, Last Man standing. But a lot of them are crap. I watched the one last night about the store on NBC and it was stupid, the one after that with Ted Danson was really stupid, The Goldbergs, Speechless, The O'Neals, Two Broke Girls, Life in Pieces, Dr Ken, American Housewife are not really funny and some are stupid. Even though Modern Family and Black ish are big hits, I'm not such a fan of them.

[Heenan Fan]

I rarely watch new sitcoms, but Angie Tribeca is hilarious. I recommend it to all here. Especially for fans of Get Smart and Police Squad.

[liane60]

Originally Posted by Edward216

I think Kevin Can Wait is very funny. To each his own sometimes.

Ed.

Ones I like are Friends
2 and a half men
Big Bang Theory
Last Man Standing
Odd Couple
Moms
Fresh off the Boat

[bgva]

Writing styles have changed and become more complex. I love shows from the 70s and 80s, but they probably wouldn't air today because, again, the writing styles have changed. Some of the older shows are still brilliant, but a lot of them take a lot of time setting up or explaining the joke. It's like a Tarantino movie, very dialogue heavy.

Older sitcoms are very structured and formulaic, and it's like a 3-act setup. Nowadays, a plot is about something more realistic (albeit exaggerated), and not the cliched *hit on the head, suddenly get amnesia* or *two dates in one night* scenarios. That's a breath of fresh air for me. My only issue is, will these shows hold up in 30 years?

Even Jerry Seinfeld said his show probably wouldn't make it nowadays.

Slightly related: I find it hard to watch current comedy movies because they're mostly snappy one-liners and improv for 90 minutes, with a weak plot.

[Rookielove]

I watch:

Blackish

Family Time

Dr. Ken

Fresh Off The Boat

Two Broke Girls

The Goldbergs

[Torgo]

I like The Goldbergs.

And waiting for season 3 of Holliston, a sitcom that is the definition of fun.