70's SITCOMS EPILOGUE: THE 80'S AND BEYOND

[TMC]

http://boomerbust-scooter63.blogspot...nd-beyond.html

Many of my younger peers have a fondness for the eighties sitcoms in much the same way that I am endeared to the seventies comedies. I tended to start dropping out of the television habit at a progressive rate due to college and subsequently life in general.

The first half of the eighties saw a decline in output. Many of the seventies hits were still generating ratings and were being stretched thin in terms of quality, held on only by strong ratings. My previous chapter detailed the remaining years of the seventies holdouts. In this chapter, I will examine the main players of the seventies and where they headed. I will also look at the eighties in general and how the sitcoms changed and were influenced by the previous decade, itself marked by rapid change.

The four seminal events in that time frame were:

The record-breaking ratings and sociological impact of the final episode of M*A*S*H.

The demise of “Taxi” coinciding with the premiere of the low-rated Cheers, given a chance due to critical acclaim leading to an incredible eleven years run.

The landmark contribution made by The Cosby Show to the fabric of the family sitcom, ushering in a fresh new dynamic in the portrayal of African-American families and creating a new demand for the family sitcom, hearkening back to the fifties but with a more modern sensibility.

The Golden Girls brought back class acts from the seventies to acknowledge an aging audience as the baby boomers started hitting middle age.

By the end of the eighties, sitcoms starting looking more like the fifties and sixties with some high concept fare (the alien “Alf” for instance and “Perfect Strangers”) and multitude of family-oriented formats, some becoming inhabited by a new honest reality--not so much political, but economic--mixed with modern crudeness (“Roseanne” and “Married…with Children”).

Let’s look at the major players of the seventies and show where the eighties (and beyond) took them.