Sitcom: What It Is, How It Works by Richard F.

Taflinger, PhD

This is a neoAristotelian analysis of the television situation comedy since 1947. Included are my own theory of comedy, the business of television, action, character, thought, diction, music and spectacle as applied to the sitcom, and a listing of all the sitcoms that have been on American primetime television since 1947. Table of Contents 2 - Introduction 5 - A Theory of Comedy 8 - NeoAristotelian Theory 13 - The Business of Television 17 - Landmark Forms of Comedy on Television Beginning to 1969 1969 On 29 - A History of Comedy on Television Beginning to 1970 1970 On 41 - An Examination of the Situation Comedy 44 - The Actcom: Action Based Sitcoms 52 - The Domcom: Character Based Sitcoms Domcom Characters 62 - The Dramedy: Thought Based Sitcoms 70 - The Theory of Comedy Applied to Sitcoms 72 - Conclusion

INTRODUCTION
The invariable question people ask me when I say I'm writing about television is "For or against?". Before I can even draw breath to answer "Neither", their eyes blaze and they proceed to give me their opinions of the terrible muck that TV foists upon an unsuspecting public under the guise of entertainment. Had I instead said that I was writing about theatre attendance at Gold Rush mining camps in the 1850s, or the existence (or lack thereof) of a stage in the Attic Greek theatre, their eyes would glaze, they would murmur a polite "That's nice", and go on their way, shaking their heads and muttering something about esoteric eggheads and Ivory Towers. Well, in a way they might be right. Gold Rush theatre and Greek stages are not something that impinges upon the life of virtually every person in the United States. Television does. Television is the major form of entertainment in the world today. By 1986 there were about 150,000,000 television receivers in the United States--more than the number of cars, bathtubs, washing machines, or refrigerators, and not far behind the telephone. In addition, the average family in 1992 watched television seven hours and seventeen minutes a day, or over 50 hours a week, more than the average work week. Television is obviously a major component of American life. Of course, television as an entertainment medium is very much different from any other performing art. The differences are manifold, but I'll just point up some of the major ones. First, of course, are commercials. One doesn't see that many commercials at a play or the movies (except perhaps at drive-in movies at which the management is trying to get the patrons out of the back seat and into the refreshment counter). Second, you have a whole different attitude when approaching commercial television than when approaching the theatre. In the latter case you go and sit in a darkened room with the idea of concentrating on that one thing: the play or movie. In addition, you are surrounded by other people with the same idea. Occasionally a station shows a movie (or you rent one) and you invite friends over to watch it with you in silence and absorption. This is not, however, how television is usually watched. Television is in your home, a very basic fact. Rarely do you sit in a darkened room, surrounded by others intent on watching the tube. On the contrary, there are constant interruptions: the phone rings, it's time to cook dinner, a visitor at the door, housework, any number of things diabolically fighting for your attention. Third, television is a private enterprise on public property, or, more correctly, carried on through public airwaves. It is therefore subject to Federal intervention. Comparatively speaking, the theatre and movies can do just about as they damn well please, but television must answer to just about anybody. Fourth, theatre is considered an art; television is considered, particularly by those who run it, an industry, more interested in gold than in the Golden Age. The last point notwithstanding, television is indeed an art just as much as drama or movies; it's just harder to tell because of all the other things with which it must contend. It is to an examination of television as an art that this book dedicates itself. WHY THE SITUATION COMEDY?
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This book, although it discusses television in general to a great extent, concentrates on the situation comedy. The art form that is television is an extensive subject. For this reason I decided to survey and analyze only one form, the situation comedy. The sitcom is the most numerous form of program on television. A conservative estimate of the number of scripts written and produced for this form in the last fifty years is 27,000. However, such scripts as a source of data and examination are effectively nonexistent. Inquiries to the Library of Congress, the National Association of Broadcasters, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences yielded nothing. I therefore decided to approach the subject of the sitcom from a different point of view. Even if there are few scripts available, there is no dearth of productions to watch on television every day and night, including many reruns of programs from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, either in syndication or on television festivals. Therefore, this study is from the point of view of the observer, the person who sits in a chair or lounges on the couch and watches television. DEFINITION OF TERMS The vernacular of television is filled with expressions, idioms, and abbreviations that have crept into everyday language of American Life. Few people don't know the meanings of such words as zoom, rerun, suds, soap opera, ratings, Neilson, and spinoff, and of course, sitcom. However, to make this book a little easier on the reader (and myself) I decided it would help to coin some new terms. There are two reasons for this. First, for the sake of brevity. Second, to allow instant identification of the types of situation comedy I discuss. This should help in avoiding possible confusion as I discuss aspects of different types of sitcoms. Following the example set by the industry itself, I use contractions to label the various types of situation comedies I, and you, dear reader, will encounter. The situation comedy, in television vernacular, is called the sitcom. However, this term applies to all types of situation comedy, and, as I will show, there are three distinct types of sitcom. For clarity, I will substitute terms for each type: actcom for the action comedy, domcom for the domestic comedy, and dramedy for the dramatic comedy. The actcom is the most numerous type of sitcom on television, and can be based on a variety of themes: the family (I LOVE LUCY, THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, THE GOLDEN GIRLS), gimmicks (BEWITCHED, I DREAM OF JEANNIE, ALF), places (GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, HOGAN'S HEROES, HARRY), occupations (McHALE'S NAVY, SIROTA'S COURT, THROB). In any case, the emphasis is on action, verbal and physical. The domcom is more expansive than the actcom, having a wider variety of events and a greater sense of seriousness. It involves more people, both in the regular cast and in transient actors brought into individual episodes. Examples of the domcom include FATHER KNOWS BEST, THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, MY THREE SONS, THE BRADY BUNCH, THE DONNA REED SHOW, ROSEANNE and THE COSBY SHOW. The greatest emphasis in a domcom is on the characters and their growth and development as human beings. This type of sitcom is called a domestic comedy because it is almost invariably set in and around a family unit: a mother and/or father, and most definitely, children. A major factor in motion picture and theatrical drama is that the events portray the most important thing to happen in the protagonist's life. However, in an episodic television series, the event must not be the most important event in the protagonist's life. If it is, subsequent episodes will be anticlimactic. The
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domcom neatly circumvents this problem. Children are incomplete adults, the physical and mental and emotional facets of their characters unknown, or at least not fully understood. Thus, the event can be the most important thing in their lives at that time, without it being the most important in their entire lives. They may go through a major crisis without it affecting their future beyond increasing their growth and maturity. (For a more complete discussion of this important aspect of drama, see DOMCOM.) The problems encountered are more serious and related more to human nature than those in an actcom. The problems, complications, and solutions in an actcom are physical in nature, while in a domcom they are mental and/or emotional. In addition, the resolutions in a domcom are a learning experience for all involved rather than a simple clearing up of a misunderstanding. Concepts of peace, love and laughter are emphasized, as are concepts of family unity. A dramedy is the rarest and most serious type of sitcom; its entire being is not devoted to evoking laughter from the audience. Its emphasis is on thought, often presenting themes that are not humorous: war, death, crime, aging, unemployment, racism, sexism, etc. The humor is more comic intensification than an end in itself. The themes are personified, showing the regular characters in conflict with the themes as they affect individuals, not as impersonal labels for intangible concepts. Often two factions are represented, either with two characters in direct conflict with each other, each representing a point of view on the theme, or characters in conflict with the intangible by observing the effects of it on others and attempting to aid them. ALL IN THE FAMILY and MAUDE are examples of the first, M*A*S*H, BARNEY MILLER and NIGHT COURT of the second. SUMMARY Television is an important part of American life, and, although a great amount has been said and written about its significance and impact on politics, sociology, communications, technology, and the American life style, almost no attention has been paid to the programs themselves as an art form. No one has actually described what appears on the home screen without moralizing or philosophizing about its effects on the world outside the program. It is my purpose to fill this lack for the television situation comedy, to describe what appears on the screen, to find what kinds of plots, what kinds of characters, what kinds of themes or lack thereof are used. It was not my intention to do a finely detailed examination of scripts or authors' styles. Such a study would take a lifetime, involving as it would what I estimate at some 27,000 individual scripts. My technique was to observe and examine a random sample of programs over the period from 1950 to 1993. This involved watching at least one episode of each of the 680 sitcoms that have been on the air, and between 50 and 200 episodes of many. (Before wondering what sane person would watch 6,000 hours of sitcoms, examine your assumption. What makes you think I'm sane, at least now?) From this study I derived a set of classifications and criteria for each type of sitcom that may be used in future studies as a guide, as an aid to the present or future creator or writer of comedy and TV shows, or for casual TV viewers who enjoy amazing their friends and confounding their enemies with their incredible insight into television. To accomplish my purpose I first had to determine what a situation comedy is. To do this I relied on two sources: what other authors called situation comedies, particularly Vincent Terrace, Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, and Alex McNeil, and television itself, by watching the shows and comparing them with the six criteria for comedy.
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The second step was to examine the situation comedy according to the neo-Aristotelian principles of drama: plot, character, thought, spectacle, diction, and music. During this examination I looked for various things that would help me in classifying and developing criteria for the situation comedy. From this examination I was able to formulate the findings enumerated in the following chapters.

A Theory of Comedy
Comedy is that which makes one laugh. This is the basis for any study of comedy. However, just what is it that makes one laugh? Six elements are required for something to be humorous: 1) it must appeal to the intellect rather than the emotions; 2) it must be mechanical; 3) it must be inherently human, with the capability of reminding us of humanity; 4) there must be a set of established societal norms with which the observer is familiar, either through everyday life or through the author providing it in expository material, or both; 5) the situation and its component parts (the actions performed and the dialogue spoken) must be inconsistent or unsuitable to the surrounding or associations (i.e., the societal norms); and 6) it must be perceived by the observer as harmless or painless to the participants. When these criteria have been met, people will laugh. If any one is absent, then the attempt at humor will fail. The first criterion, the appeal to intellect rather than emotion, is obvious when ethnic humor is used. Polish (Irish, whitey, gay, fraternity, sorority, etc.) jokes can be hilarious to everyone; everyone, that is, except to the Poles (Irish, whitey, gay, fraternity, sorority, etc.). To the group that is being made fun of, jokes at their expense are not funny -- they are insulting and rude. People respond to insults and rudeness subjectively, taking umbrage, or, in more simple terms, get angry, which is an emotion. To those who have no personal interest in the joke, i.e., everybody else, there is no insult and they take an objective, intellectual view of the joke and can respond to the other criteria for comedy if they are met. Thus, one can take the old joke, "How many Poles does it take to screw in a light bulb? Five: one to hold the bulb and four to turn the ladder.", substitute a different group for Poles in each retelling, and irritate a whole new set of people each time. Lenny Bruce counted on the intellectual basis of comedy when, in one of his routines, he identified all the races and ethnic groups in his audience with insulting labels: "I see we have three niggers in the audience. And over there I see two wogs, and five spics, and four kikes," etc.. As he started the routine there were gasps of incredulity and even anger: the audience couldn't believe that Bruce would be so insulting and insensitive. But as Bruce continued and the list grew longer, and it became clear that he was listing everything he could think of, the words lost their connotative, emotional meaning as insulting terms and turned into just noises. In other words, they lost their emotive content and became an intellectual exercise in how words l ose their meanings outside of context. At this point, the audience, all of whom had been appalled and angry at exactly the same words, started laughing at them: the audience was reacting intellectually, not emotionally.
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The second two criteria for comedy, that it be mechanical and inherently human, are delineated by Henri Bergson in his essay "Laughter". His theory revolves around a basic axiom, that the laughable element consists of a mechanical inelasticity, just where one would expect adaptability and flexibility. It's humorous when a person acts in a manner that is inappropriate to a stimulus or situation, as in any slapstick comedy routine. It is funny when a chair is pulled out from under someone who is sitting down, because he doesn't adapt to the change in situation and continues to sit in a mechanical fashion. Dogberry, in Shakespeare's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, is funny because he continues blithely along, thinking he's in charge of the situation when in actuality he has no idea what's happening. Lucy on I LOVE LUCY is funny because she mechanically reacts to events without thinking about how events have changed the situation. An extension of Bergson's theory is his idea that comedy is inherently human. Something is funny only insofar as it is or reminds the audience of humanity. The audience may laugh at the antics of an animal, such as chimpanzees or horses or bears, but only in direct proportion to the animal's capability of reminding the audience of something human. Thus, animals such as chimps and orangutans are often dressed in human clothing to heighten the reminder, and horses, such as Mr. Ed and Francis the Talking Mule, can talk and think better than the men they're around. One major point that becomes apparent when one examines comedy is that it is based on incongruity: the unexpected with the expected, the unusual with the usual, themisfit in what has been established as a societal norm. For there to be incongruity there must be something to be incongruous to. Therefore, for a comedy to work there must be an established set of cultural, human and societal norms, mores, idioms, idiosyncrasies, and terminologies against which incongruities may be found. Such norms may be internal or external. Internal norms are those which the author has provided in the script. External norms are those which exist in the society for which the script was written. The major problem is to know what norms exist, and which have become out-of-date. Many times some people, upon hearing a joke, will respond with "I don't get it". This is because they don't know or understand the societal norms being violated in the joke. This is also why you can never explain a joke: to explain you must first expound on the norms, then show how they have been violated. Such an explanation removes any incongruity by illustrating how it works within the norms. The need for norms also explains why humor can become pass. Stand-up comedians do very few jokes about President Eisenhower's administration because the norms have changed: no one understands topical references to forty years ago. Plays and jokes can also go out-of-date. Neil Simon's early plays often depended heavily on social attitudes of the time, particularly those about the relationships between men and women. However, sex roles and attitudes have changed considerably since 1961 and COME BLOW YOUR HORN, and the humor in the character Alan Baker's rather sexist approach to women and sex now evokes an emotional reaction in many people, distaste, rather than laughter. The humor that does work takes as its norms human attitudes and norms that are independent of society and culture. Nonetheless, a funny play can remain funny, even when the norms change. Shakespeare's "breeches parts", such as Viola in TWELFTH NIGHT or Rosalind in AS YOU LIKE IT, evoked great laughter from Elizabethan audiences because their societal norms said that women do not wear men's clothing, and the sight of Viola and Rosalind in male attire was incongruous. Today, women wearing men's clothing is the norm, and therefore seeing Viola in pants is not funny. Nonetheless,
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there are many things in Shakespeare's plays that are incongruous to today's norms, and thus his comedies continue to be funny four hundred years later. We still laugh, perhaps not at what Elizabethan audiences did, but the plays are still funny because he gained most of his humor from human rather than societal norms. Three aspects of incongruity are literalization, reversal, and exaggeration. In literalization the joke comes from taking a figure of speech and then performing it literally. When Max Smart (GET SMART) asks the robot agent Hymie to "give me a hand", Hymie detaches a hand and gives it over, interpreting the instruction literally. On the situation comedy CHEERS, Coach, and later Woody, the bartenders, take everything that is said to them at face value, apparently incapable of recognizing innuendo, hyperbole, or figures of speech. Reversal is simply reversing the normal, taking what is normal and expected and doing or saying the opposite. When Retief, in Keith Laumer's science fiction novel RETIEF AND THE WARLORDS, is subjected to what his captors think are the most horrendous tortures, he is assailed with modern art and smellovision renditions of overheated tires, burnt toast, chow mein, aged Gorgonzola, and the authentic odor of sanctity. An exaggeration is taking what is normal and blowing it out of proportion. Events occur to which the characters will react beyond all proportion: the mountain out of a molehill syndrome. The jealous wife's discovery of a blonde hair on her husband's jacket leads her to build an entire scenario of mad trysts, trips to the Riveria, and a murder plot against her, until he points at the collie sitting at her feet. Such exaggeration is a standard in comedy. The greatest incongruity is the violating of societal taboos. This violation can provoke the greatest laughter. In American society the greatest taboos are discussions of sex, death, and biological functions. These are all subjects which society has decreed should be discussed seriously, discreetly, and euphemistically, if discussed at all. It is from these taboos that much humor is derived. The sixth and final criterion for humor is, as Aristotle states, that ". . . which causes no pain or destruction . . . is distorted but painless" (my emphasis). The comic action is perceived by the audience as causing the participants no actual harm: their physical, mental, and/or emotional wellbeing may be stretched, distorted, or crushed, but they recover quickly and by the end of the performance they are once again in their original state. A prime example are the Warner Brothers' Road Runner cartoons, in which Wile E. Coyote is dropped, crushed, pummeled, rolled, wrung, and otherwise punished for his attempts to catch the road runner, yet seconds later is putting together his next Acme widget to carry out his next plan. Wile is never damaged permanently, no matter how high the cliff he falls off or how big the rock that lands on him. The criterion applies to real life, as well. It is funny when someone slips on the ice and falls: people laugh--until they realize that the person broke his leg. At that moment the event is no longer humorous. The six criteria must all be present for an attempt at humor to succeed: if only one is missing then the joke will fail. As long as the audience knows the norms and can thus see the incongruity, the participants act in an inflexible manner but are inherently human, no one appears to get hurt, and the audience doesn't take it personally, then an attempt at being funny will succeed.

NeoAristotelian Theory
Elements of Drama: Action Character Thought Diction Music Spectacle Don't let the chapter title throw you: it may sound frightening but in fact neo-Aristotelian criticism is very simple. 2500 years ago, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle devised a way of examining drama. He came up with a set of component parts that all dramatic presentations had in common. Using these parts it is possible to understand drama, in much the same way that opening the back of a clock allows you to see the parts interrelate and work together. The face of the clock is the result; the gears make it work. The show is the result; the elements of drama make it work. The current use of Aristotle's ideas is called neo-Aristotelian because they have been clarified by new ("neo") critics. Since I've based the following chapters discussing the situation comedy on the neo-Aristotelian elements of drama, it's a good idea to review them (I'm sure you already know what they are). Many writers and critics have discussed and described the principles, among them R.S. Crane, in Critics and Criticism, Theodore Hatlen, in Orientation to the Theatre, and Hubert Heffner, in Modern Theatre Practice. They generally agree that there are six major elements in drama: action, character, thought, diction, music, and spectacle, the first three comprising what Crane terms "plot". PLOT " . . . the plot of any novel or drama is the particular temporal synthesis effected by the writer of the elements of action, character and thought, that constitute the matter of his invention." What the above piece of academese means is that a plot is a mixture of three elements, action, character, and thought, the proportion of each element being determined by the writer according to his purpose (i.e., an examination of character with action and thought subordinate, action more important than character or thought, etc.). Action refers to any occurrence performed by a character, be it physical, mental, or emotional, that furthers the plot, delineates character, or explains or dramatizes a theme. For example, a character enters and crosses a room (physical) in an agitated manner (emotional) speaking of the stupid thing her husband has just done (mental). Character refers to mental, physical, and emotional traits presented by an actor that allows the audience to perceive him or her as a distinct individual. Thought refers to a theme the author is trying to present to the audience and the rational, motivated background to the action.

All three elements are necessary and present in scripts, but one will almost invariably dominate. It is therefore possible to say that there are three types of plots: plot of action, plot of character, and plot of thought. A plot of action is one in which characterizations are subordinated to the dictates of action, the development of character given secondary importance. For example,whensomeone does a pratfall, it doesn't really matter who falls, just that he did. A plot of character is one in which the characters, their responses to the action, and the effects of the events on the characters' development are of paramount importance. Action and thought are used to bring the characters to development and growth. In a plot of character, who does the pratfall rather than the act itself becomes the important part of the event because he learns not to step on banana peels. A plot of thought is one in which a certain theme or point of view is depicted. The author uses action and characters to delineate, discuss and examine that theme or point of view. Who slips on the banana peel or that he slips at all is merely the author's way of illustrating the point that human beings are capable of making fools of themselves. The above are three types of plots. How they are carried out is by using the six major elements of drama. Action Action, most critics agree, consists of eight parts: the exposition, the problem, the point of attack, foreshadowing, complications, crises, the climax, and the denouement. Exposition establishes the time and place, the characters and their relationships, and the prevailing status quo or equilibrium. The audience is given the information necessary to understand and appreciate the changes that are to come. The problem is the event that upsets the equilibrium, disrupts the status quo, and sets the plot in motion. It is usually something simple in all types of plots, from King Lear giving his kingdom to his daughters according to how they say they love him, to Lucy Ricardo losing her birth certificate. Whatever the problem is, it will relate to the type of plot: in a plot of action it will force the character to do something; in a plot of character it will force one or more the characters to examine some facet of themselves; in a plot of thought it will force one or more the characters into conflict with or support of the theme. The point of attack is the point in the linear flow of the story at which the writer decides to begin the plot by presenting the problem. For example, Columbo, starring Peter Falk, starts with what leads up to the murder -- most mysteries start with the introduction of the detective after the murder has been committed; Oedipus Rex starts years after the death of his father on the road and is concerned only with the investigation. Foreshadowing is the writer planting clues during the course of the script, like the clues in a mystery story, that will allow the audience to believe the outcome. It is usually done subtlely, so the audience doesn't guess the ending too soon, but it prepares the audience for future developments, and is a device used in all types of plots. For example, in the movie JAWS, the boat captain gets a machete to cut the ropes holding the shark to the back of the boat. When the shark escapes he sticks
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the machete into the railing, where the camera focuses on it for a second. This is the foreshadowing that he will use it later to fight off the shark. A complication occurs after the appearance of the problem and interferes with the restoration of the status quo or the reestablishment of an equilibrium. A character tries to reach an objective, but complications intervene and require the character to readjust as the drama gathers momentum and intensity. A complication can accomplish any one or a combination of several things: it can push the action along, it can aid in the understanding of a character by the way he responds to the complication, and it can show conflict or additional facets of a theme. A crisis is the point at which actions may lead in two or more directions and a decision must be made or an event must occur. A crisis is a natural outgrowth of a complication as the character works toward an understanding of the complication and finally reaches the point at which he feels circumstances demand a decision or force an action. For example, if Lucy Ricardo can't find her birth certificate (the problem), a complication may be that she finds someone to vouch for her age, and the crisis would be the person refusing to reveal her own age to help Lucy. Lucy must thus do something else. The climax is the ultimate crisis, the peak of the plot in terms of action, emotion and thought. It is the point of maximum disequilibrium, maximum disruption of the status quo. In a plot of action, the characters must do something. In a plot of character, the characters must make a decision about themselves. In a plot of thought, the characters must decide what to believe about the theme, and, if necessary, act upon that belief. The denouement is the conclusion of the story, immediately following the climax. It shows the results, good or ill, of the character's climactic decision, and ties up any loose ends such as explanations about why previous decisions were wrong or right. It also shows the reestablishment of an equilibrium or the restoration of the status quo. In a plot of action, the denouement shows that the problem has been solved and that no further action is necessary. In a plot of character, the denouement shows that the character has reached a new understanding of rherself and accepts it as a new, or newly discovered, facet of rher personality (sometimes it is the audience that reaches a new understanding). In a plot of thought, the denouement shows the validity or nonvalidity of the theme or point of view. In any case, the denouement illustrates the end of the drama's problem. The best example of the denouement appears in mystery stories. The inspector calls all of the suspects into the library, leans against the mantle casually, then points and says, "the murderer is . . . ". That is the climax. The denouement is the inspector's explanation of how he arrived at the answer, explaining the clues and how they came together. If he had given the explanation before identifying the murderer, the identity would have been an anti-climax for the reader, since the reader would have arrived at the answer too soon. Character Characters are the agents that carry through the plot. The physical, mental, and emotional actions performed by the characters are the means by which a story is told.
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Characters represent human beings and are therefore complex in thought, emotion, and interpersonal relationships. Depending on the type of plot (action, character, or thought), characterizations may be shallow (lacking complex thought processes, emotions, and motivations) or deep. The audience must be provided with some knowledge about the characters in order to form opinions and judgments about what happens to them. There are four basic ways of determining and showing a characterization: what he or she says, what he or she does, what other characters say about him or her, and how he or she looks. The depth of characterizations, the complexity of emotion, activity, motivation and thought processes, varies according to the type of plot. In a plot of action, characterizations are generally sketchy since a writer is more concerned with the action itself and not with the meaning of the action. The characters perform the actions, rarely analyze them. The characterizations in plots of character are deeper. The plots are explorations of character, revealing facets and showing growth and change in response to the events. In order for the changes to be seen and appreciated it is necessary to show the original character in depth and examine closely the motivations and mental and emotional phenomena impinging on the individual leading to development of the character. In a plot of thought, unless the play is dogmatic or propagandistic and thus uses characters that are stereotyped and exaggerated for effect, characterizations are generally deep, at least for the main characters. They are complex in thought and action so that they may examine the theme. However, such characterizations are established quickly and change little during the course of the show so that they do not get in the way of the examination of the theme. There are three major ways in which an audience regards characters: with sympathy, with antipathy, or neutrally. There are, of course, degrees of feeling, but one will predominate. Sympathetic characters are those for whom the audience cares and hopes for a happy ending: the good guys. Antipathetic characters are those for whom the audience feels dislike and hopes will lose in any conflict with sympathetic characters: the bad guys. Neutrals are characters for whom the audience feels neither sympathy nor antipathy. Such characters are usually supernumeraries who support neither side in plot conflicts. In any case, the audience should feel something for every character (with the natural exceptions of neutrals). If the audience does feel something, there is interest in what the characters do and a desire to learn what will happen to them. If not, there is no interest in and no point to the show. Thought Thought is more than just the writer's theme or point of view in the writing of the script. It is also the rational background to the actions and emotions of the characters. Whatever a character does, there should be some reason for doing it. That is the character's motivation. Motivations should be believable to the audience. It should understand why the character does something through knowing how the character thinks, even though characters make decisions under pressure, often in the throes of emotional upheaval. Nevertheless, thought does include the writer's theme, the moral, the spine of his text, the point he is trying to get across to the audience. If the author doesn't have a point, neither does the drama, and the audience can lose interest.
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Diction Diction refers to the language of the script, the words the actors speak. However, words, the lines spoken, do not exist in a vacuum. They are inextricably bound to the characters speaking them, the events and emotions that have gone before and have been foreshadowed to come in the future. The lines suggest many things: the character's state of mind and emotion, relationships with and to others, intelligence or lack thereof, health, background, interests, likes and dislikes. Music Music, to the neo-Aristotelians, refers not only to music but to all the auditory elements in a production: the sounds and rhythms of the words, background music, and sound effects. The affects of sound on an audience can greatly enhance mood, atmosphere, and tension. Just watch Hitchcock's Psycho with the sound off to see how effective the sound track is in raising the tension and terror during the shower scene. Spectacle Spectacle refers to the visual effects in a production: sets, make-up, costumes, movement. The spectacle provides the background and support for the characters, the plot and the meaning of the script. Spectacle evokes an immediate visual understanding of the atmosphere and mood. In addition, it aids production by allowing a smooth flow of action and visual enhancement of the production. Done properly, the spectacle does not overwhelm the characters, becoming an end unto itself. When special effects, as in some recent science fiction movies, become the emphasis, the movie itself can be boring. THE STRUCTURE OF TELEVISION PROGRAMS The above elements of drama are used in examining everything from movies to plays to books to TV shows. However, unlike movies, plays or books, television programs have other factors that you must be aware of to understand them. Television has a tight external structure forced on it by the limitations and practices of commercial television. A thirty minute television series episode, the most common, has the following characteristics: 1. It generally has a playing time of 24 minutes, which, with six minutes of the show's sponsor's commercials fills the standard half-hour television time unit. The 24 minutes are generally divided into four segments which will be discussed later. 2. It appears once a week, each individual episode's plot usually unconnected with any other episode's plot. 3. It uses a cast of actors playing the main and supporting characters that continue in their roles in every show, with transient characters brought in to provide variety and/or plot complications. 4. The relationships of the regular cast of characters stays the same throughout the series, as long as the format remains the same. 5. The main settings remain the same as long as the format stays the same. 6. The major situations in which the characters are found remain the same, plots arising out of the problems introduced to the situation and the characters responding to the problems.
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Characteristics three through six remove the necessity of establishing characters, relationships, times and locales for each show, except for those transitory elements necessary to tell each story. The structure of a typical television show episode is very simple, and applies to the situation comedy. Every show has an opening used before each episode which acts as background to the credits, and which, with pictures and perhaps lyrics to a title song, establish characters, time, environment, and the basic situation: the exposition. Episodes often begin with a teaser, one to two minutes in length, which introduces that episode's problem, the disruption of the status quo, in such a way that it leaves the audience eager to see what will happen after the first set of commercials. Act I, 9 to 10 minutes in length, follows the first set of commercials. The major and any minor problems are set, as are any transient characters that are important to the plot. Complications and action appropriate to the type of plot (action, character or thought) build to a crisis just at the end of the segment that will hold the audience through the second set of commercials, wondering what the outcome of the crisis will be. Act II, also 9 to 10 minutes in length, begins with a reminder of where we left off in Act I. The Act I crisis is explained, elaborated on, and resolved. Complication and action continue to build toward the climax, the point of solution and resolution. In many shows, this occurs just before the third set of commercials. After the third commercial break comes the tag, the denouement, which runs 45 seconds to two minutes, a final build-up to a punchline more or less but not necessarily related to the plot of the episode. The purpose of the tag is to show that the status quo has been reestablished and to leave the audience with a good feeling about the show so they will watch it again next week. Thus far the situation comedy appears to be just like every other half-hour series program on television. What makes it different is one prime consideration: it is supposed to be funny. Its main reason for existing is to evoke laughter from its audience. I'll discuss how it goes about doing that in the next chapter.

The Business of Television

Television is the most popular art form for many people. They have the set on seven or more hours a day, seven days a week, watching everything from soaps to sitcoms. Such a voracious appetite for entertainment and information requires a huge quantity of material in the form of programs. Television needs shortcuts to provide those programs. The most prevalent form of show on television is the episodic series. An episodic series is in which has a continuing set of characters and settings with a different plot in each episode. This formula for a show allowed many writers to contribute to the show. This approach to doing programs came from radio, and usually used mystery-crime or comedy formulas. Though occasional forays had been made over the years into single shows, anthologies, and miniseries, by and large these other forms of shows fade into absolute insignificance compared to the overwhelming use of the episodic series on television.
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The quality of the shows stems from a wide variety of influences, but mediocrity (i.e., ordinary, neither extremely high nor extremely low quality) appears to be the order of the day. However, contrary to popular opinion, the TV industry is not nece ssarily to blame for mediocrity. The ratings show that mediocrity, and not the difficult-to-define "quality", draws enough audience to make commercial TV pay. The rating systems, Neilson, American Research Bureau, etc., all show the same results: audie nces are offered quality programming--thoughtful, provocative drama, discussion programs, cultural offerings such as opera, ballet, concerts--they just don't watch it. This does not mean to say that there is no quality programming on television. It simp ly indicates that the kind of quality demanded by critics--both professional and self-styled alike--is not economically nor commercially feasible. It is easy to compare the television industry with the farm industry. There are the farmers who create the product, food. They sell the food to the wholesaler who in turn sells it to the supermarkets. Often the wholesaler is also a producer, buying from independent farmers but running its own farms to supply its packing plants. Only when the food has been sold to the supermarkets will it finally reach the consumer. The same cycle of events holds for the television industry. The producer creates the product, a television program (usually a series of episodes) which he sells to the wholesaler, the national television broadcast and cable networks. The networks themselves are often producers, cutting the cost of having to buy from an outside source. The networks in turn sell the program to sponsors by selling them the time during the playing of the program to advertise whatever the sponsor wants to sell, be it a product or an image. Only then will the final product, the television show, reach the consumer, the viewer. The analogy can be carried further. The most popular items receive the most shelf space or air time. Gourmet items are tucked away into a small corner where they won't compete with the better selling products, and are carried in much smaller supply. For example, if everyone is eating beans the supermarket will carry a large supply of beans, while the escargot, a relatively less popular item, is kept in low quantities. The supermarket managers decide how much to carry in stock by the simple method of counting how many cans of beans or escargot they sell. The networks do the same by counting how many people watch a particular show. However, instead of counting each individual, they count only a random sampling. This sampling is called a rating. In both cases, whatever receives the highest count is accorded the most shelf or air space, be it beans or westerns. If a product doesn't sell, it is dropped in favor of one that might. Brands are also taken into account. Brand X may be carried for a short time, but if it doesn't sell it is taken off the shelf or the air. Those that sell consistently, like Van Camp's or ROSEANNE, are constantly renewed. The networks' greatest problem is that, unlike supermarkets, their "shelf space" is extremely limited: 6 to 8 hours a day, 42 to 56 hours a week, or a maximum of 112 half-hour time units a week (the half-hour being the standard time unit used in television.) Of these 112 units only 42 are usually devoted to types of shows other than game shows, soap operas, cartoons and sports. There are 20 other categories: comedy, westerns, news, movies, documentaries, religious broadcasts, children's shows, fa rm shows, detective, police, doctor, science fiction, talk shows, educational, music, public affairs, animal, lawyer, straight drama, and miscellaneous programs. It is easy to see that a decision must be made.
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Of course, network prime-time is not the only television there is on the air. There is also programming by local stations, cable, and superstations such as WTBS available to the viewing audience. These other sources of programming actually have at their disposal more time than the networks to fill with programming and advertising. Local and superstations often use programs bought in syndication to fill their schedules. Such syndicated programs include game shows, music shows, dramas, comedies, and reruns of past and current shows. Naturally, these stations also take ratings into consideration when they buy syndicated programs. The better rating the station thinks a particular show will garner, the higher the advertising rate they can charge potential advertisers for commercial time. However, they must balance how much the syndicator charges for his program with the potential profit margin: a low cost program with a high rating potential (and thus high profit margin) is preferable to a high cost program with a moderate ratin g potential. Thus, game shows, which are comparatively inexpensive to produce yet gather a large audience are very popular with the stations, as are movies and cartoons. Nonetheless, a steady diet of game shows (syndicated) and soap operas (from the networks) would begin to pall for the most dedicated couch potato. The stations, realizing that variety will help retain the audience, purchase other types of programs from syndicators. Among the other types of programs are dramas such as MAGNUM, P.I. and DALLAS. However, the most often purchased syndicated program other than game shows are situation comedies. Some of these shows include THE COSBY SHOW, GILLIGAN'S ISL AND, FAMILY TIES, THE MUNSTERS, LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY, HAPPY DAYS, MORK AND MINDY, GOOD TIMES, BEWITCHED, ONE DAY AT A TIME, DIFF'RENT STROKES,THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, GIMME A BREAK, M*A*S*H, WKRP IN CINCINNATI, TAXI, CHEERS, NIGHT COURT, and even situation comedies from decades ago, such as FATHER KNOWS BEST, THE HONEYMOONERS, BURNS AND ALLEN, DOBIE GILLIS, THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW and the ubiquitous I LOVE LUCY. Each of these shows is chosen because the station thinks it will draw a sufficiently large audie nce to justify its expense and provide a profit. To clarify how stations program I did some checking. The following figures are derived from examining the programming in a relatively small market during the course of a week picked at random. Using TV GUIDE magazine I listed every program according to type during the course of the week and determined each type's relative percentage. In case that week had something special about it, such as a mini-series, sports tournament, awards show, etc., I also did spot checks of ten other weeks during the course of a year (1986). The spot checks helped ensure that the figures below represent an average use of airtime. I used one affiliate for each of the major networks (NBC, ABC, CBS), two independent stations, one cable station (Nickelodeon) and one super station (WTBS, Atlanta). It included not only prime-time (8:00 to 11:00 PM) but all other hours the stations broadcast, first-run and syndicated programs. (See Fig. 1 for a graphic representation of the following figures.) These six channels carried 1,095 hours of programming out of a possible 1,176 hours available during the week (seven 24-hour days x 7 stations=1,176 hours). Of those hours, 161, or 14.7%, were dedicated to the situation comedy. This may not seem like much until the percentage is compared to the other 26 types of programs. The most airtime is devoted to movies: 175.5 hoursor 16.03%. The next category is the situation comedy. This is followed by: cartoons (112 hours, 10.23%); news (110 hours, 14 .7%); and dramas [including such programs as ROUTE 66, I SPY,
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DALLAS, THE FALL GUY, etc.](92 hours, 8.4%). From this point the number of hours devoted to other types of programs drops considerably: soap operas (50 hours, 4.57%); sports [including major league, pro wrestling, bowling, etc.](45 hours, 4.11%); children's shows (40.5 hours, 3.7%); game shows and religious programs (both at 39 hours, 3.56%); crime shows (30 hours, 2.74%); music shows (29 hours, 2.56%); talk and information shows (both at 27 hours or 2.46%); miscellaneous comedy shows [including THE THREE STOOGES, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, THE BENNY HILL SHOW and THE LOVE BOAT](24 hours, 2.19%); commercials [the phenomenon of hourlong commercials for books and tapes on how to get rich in real est ate, gambling, positive thinking, etc.](16 hours, 1.46%); entertainment shows [such as ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT and movie reviews](15 hours, 1.37%); action shows [such as THE DUKES OF HAZZARD](12 hours, 1.1%); science-fiction (10 hours, 0.91%); science shows [such as MR. WIZARD](9 hours, 0.82%); lawyer shows (8 hours, 0.73%); shopping services [wherein a customer can call a number and order a product shown on the air](7 hours, 0.64%); health shows (7 hours, 0.64%); mystery shows (6 hours, 0.55%); westerns (2 hours, 0.18%)[in case you're wondering, I found GUNSMOKE, the hour-long version, shown twice]; educational (1 hour, 0.09%); and a comedy-variety show [HEE HAW, in syndication](1 hour, 0.09%). [Fig. 1.1, Graph of above figures] Perhaps now would be a good time to discuss ratings for a moment. What makes THE COSBY SHOW better than Brand X? The answer is simple: ratings. And why are ratings so important? Again the answer is simple. Television is an industry. Low rating s mean low profits, and vice versa. Sponsors want their highly expensive advertising seen by as many people as possible. The quality of the program is rarely taken into consideration. The prime consideration is the rating. There are various ways to find television ratings: Trendex uses telephone and door-to-door polls. The most famous, however, is the Neilson. The Neilson is based on the idea that if one takes a pint of liquid out of a tank car and it proves to be m ilk, one can assume the tank contains milk. This is in turns based on the idea that people are as homogeneous as the milk, a premise followed by networks and raters alike with the blind devotion found in some nursery supervisors, most spaniel dogs, and a ll missionaries. Originally the Neilson rating was determined by attaching a box to the back of television sets in 1500 homes carefully selected to represent a cross section, demographically, of the entire United States. This box recorded when the set was on and to what channel it was tuned minute by minute. Today, the Neilson company uses the PeopleMeter, an electronic device that does the same as the box did, but also records who is in the room with the set at the same time. By checking the records of what show was on what channel it is possible to determine how many sets were tuned to a particular show. The greatest drawback to the box was that it didn't tell how many, if indeed any, people were watching the set, only that the set was on. The PeopleMeter was devised to overcome this drawback (if people remember to punch their button on the meter when they enter or leave a room). On the basis of the results from the meters, the rating, a show can be canceled in a few weeks or continue for years. Ratings not only determine the fates of individual shows but also types of shows. The more popular a certain type is (e.g., western, doctor, lawyer), the more the networks want that type on the air, based on the idea that if one is popular, four will be more popular (remember the great American axiom: if some is good, more is better. Too much is just right). An examination of the prime-time schedules for past years reveals that the most popular type of show is the situation comedy.
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Why is the situation comedy the most popular form of comedy show on television? I will examine this question first from the point of view of the television industry. The television industry is in business to make money. There is nothing unusual about this. Any industry that wishes to remain in business has making money as its main concern. The only way television has to make money is from the advertising budgets of other industries. What the television industry sells are promises and time: promises that a certain number of people will see the advertising, and the time at which those people will see it. Television tries to get as many people as possible to w atch their sets at a certain time of day or night, and then sells to a business the right to use that time for advertising. But what could possibly induce millions of people to watch their sets at a certain time? Certainly not the advertising itself. The answer is entertainment, in the form of adventure, sports, witty conversation, information, music, news, or just plain fun, and the most popular form of entertainment on television is the fun. In 1965, 16.11% of the prime-time schedule was devoted to the situation comedy. By the following year this percentage had increased to 25.17%. In 1979, it was an incredible 33.34% of the primetime network schedule. This may have been oversaturation as over the next six years it fell to 15.15%, and is now making a comeback. The percentages fluctuate, but the comedy show has generally maintained the lead over all other forms of television program (with the exception of movies) even today (1992), w ith 25% of the prime-time network schedule devoted to the situation comedy. Obviously the networks think somebody is out there watching, and what that somebody wants to watch is the situation comedy.

The Development and Landmark Forms of Television Comedy

Wally Cleaver (LEAVE IT TO BEAVER) tries to think of the best way to ask a girl out; David Hogan (VALERIE, later THE HOGAN FAMILY) is given a lecture on safe sex and using condoms before he goes on a date. The situation comedy has changed considerably over the years since it first came on the home screen. This chapter is in two parts: 1) an examination of the variety show, the only regularly scheduled comedy show besides the situation comedy, and the forms it takes; and 2) a discussion of the types of situation comedies and seminal influences on the development of the situation comedy on television, covering originators and landmark forms, their copies, and their spinoffs. Variety Show Star-Based Shows One popular type of comedy show was the variety program, which appeared in many forms. One form revolved around a well- known star, often a stand-up comedian and/or comedy actor. Such stars were Jack Benny, Jack Carson, and Abbott and Costello. The format of a star-based show involved short comedy sketches, and the stars would usually appear in their own personae in the various situations used in the sketches.
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The star-based shows in 1950 were transfers from radio, and if one looks at the longevity of an individual show, the star-based is the most popular form of comedy. In 1950, the second longest running comedy in the history of television first appeared on the air. That show was THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM, and it ran continuously for 15 years. However, in terms of quantity of shows on the air in any given year, the star-based must rank as the lowest. There was never more than four on the air at any one time, and then only in 1952-54. Personality-Based Shows A second type of variety show was the personality-based show. Rather than having an already established star as its leading figure appearing as himself, there would be a comedic actor such as Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, or Ernie Kovacs playing whatever role was called for in the sketch. Although they did become stars, these personalities maintained their type of variety show as personality-based rather than star-based. Comedy-Variety Shows A second type of variety show was the comedy-variety show. It, like the personality-based show, used short comedy sketches, but, unlike the personality-based, comedy was not the basic staple. Instead, a majority of the show was devoted to various types of acts, such as song, dance and recitations, as well as stand-up comedy routines and sketches. The comedy-variety show came in two formats: 1) celebrity-centered;and 2) review. The celebrity centered format was created for a star, either an existing one or a potential one. The star was usually a successful performer or group of performers from a field other than comedy. These performers were most often recording and concert musicians. They were proven successes in their field, and it was the networks' hope that this success would carry over to television. Examples include Sonny and Cher, the Captain and Tenille, and Donny and Marie Osmond. There were exceptions to the musical performer rule. Comedians occasionally had comedy-variety shows, but they were usually also capable of musical performance--singing, dancing, playing an instrument, etc. For example, Carol Burnett is also a singer, and Dick van Dyke is a song-and-dance man. The review form of the comedy-variety show did not have a regularly appearing celebrity around whom the show was based. Instead, there was often a guest host who did introductions and a few of the acts. This guest host might appear on a rotating basis with other hosts, or on a one-time basis, or appear on an irregular basis. Often, but not always there was a regular corps of performers who did various acts during the show and assisted the guest hosts in his acts. There was a heavy reliance on guest stars, particularly singers, dancers, and comedians, especially on those show that did not have a regular corps. Examples of this type of show are THE SATURDAY NIGHT REVIEW, WASHINGTON SQUARE, and THE HOLLYWOOD PALACE. The variety show, once a numerous form of comedy show, has dwindled to almost nothing. What has replaced and surpassed it in popularity is the situation comedy. This type of show is characterized by a continuing cast of characters, continuing settings, relationships, and situations.

THE SITUATION COMEDY

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One thing that is immediately clear when watching television is that its programming is dominated by entertainment formats, many of which were developed on radio. These include soap operas, talk, doctor, detective, police, mystery, western and science fiction shows, and anthology programming. To many people, particularly those born since 1950, the situation comedy is a form of broadcast programming invented by and for television. However, those people over forty years of age know that the situation comedy has its roots not in television but in radio, going back to 1929 and the popular AMOS 'N' ANDY, the first comedy show to capture in a vise-like grip the funny bone of the American people. The situation comedy helped to establish the idea of a continuing cast in a different situation each week. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the situation comedy was a staple on radio, with such programs as L'IL ABNER, BABY SNOOKS, BLONDIE, THE GOLDBERGS, and HENRY ALDRICH. The situation comedies were particularly popular during World War II, perhaps because they helped the audience to forget what the serious world outside was like. After World War II television became a commercial practicality and developed a need for programming. Radio, already well established, was a natural source for material. Many shows were transplanted from radio to television almost intact, including THE GREAT GILDERSLEEVE, LIFE WITH LUIGI, AMOS 'N' ANDY, BEULAH, DUFFY'S TAVERN, THE HALLS OF IVY, JOE AND MABEL, MY FAVORITE HUSBAND, THE LIFE OF RILEY, FATHER KNOWS BEST, THE ALDRICH FAMILY, and THE GOLDBERGS. The situation comedy soon became a mainstay of television programming. The television situation comedy has gone through many permutations in the years since 1950, altering its form and formats through public whim and corporate policy, depending on what the networks think the audience will watch, tempered by what the audience actually does. # When television comedy shows first began they were done by professional comedians (not necessarily actors) who were already well established, either before live audiences or on radio, or both. The shows were usually written and supervised by the performers themselves, using material that had proved itself through the years as being funny. For many of them this could not last. Once their original material was used it couldn't be done again (this idea has been forgotten, e.g., the rerun). In addition, they could not go out and work up something new and polish it before an audience over a long period of time. They had to have something new every week, television being a voracious eater of material. Some could not do it and left television. Some stayed, but relied heavily on writers, directors, and others. Some retained their originality and individuality--Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Red Skelton, Jack Benny. They were the ones who could follow their format of monologue and sketch and keep it fresh and alive and funny. The format of the big comedy shows created a big problem: for each sketch and bit the writers and the star had to start from scratch, creating characters, situations, locations, times, everything; and they had to do this every week. All the stars ended up employing platoons of writers. The stars sometimes helped by creating characters they could repeat, such as Skelton's Freddy the Freeloader and Clem Kaddiddlehopper, and thus avoid the difficulty of creating the leading role, but even with this thingsgot stale.

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It was found that the situation comedy negated many of these problems. The major characters and their personalities were set, the times and places determined, and the basic premise already established. The only major difficulty left was to find the problem in which the characters could get entangled. Many of the situation comedies that appeared on the air were mere flash in the pan, but some had far-reaching effects. These effects were not always limited to just the situation comedy. # The early years was the period of the bumbling father or husband: Ralph Cramden, Stu Erwin, LIFE OF RILEY, LIFE WITH FATHER, MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY, MY FAVORITE HUSBAND, OZZIE AND HARRIET. There was also the female counterpart: I MARRIED JOAN, MY FRIEND IRMA. I LOVE LUCY, however, was a landmark in television comedy. I LOVE LUCY I LOVE LUCY premiered in 1951 and, from the first, was something different from the other situation comedies. It seemed on the surface to be just another comedy, but Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, William Frawley and Vivian Vance created a show that set the standard for television comedy for years and even decades to come. I LOVE LUCY changed not only the situation comedy, but television itself. Prior to I LOVE LUCY television programming originated in New York and was broadcast live over telephone cables or kinescoped (filming the show off the television screen) and sent around the country. Kinescopes were of low quality but were the best method for recording and distributing television programs at the time. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (the owners, producers, and stars of I LOVE LUCY) wanted to live in California, not New York. They also had very definite ideas about how their show should be done, and proceeded to do it their way. Rather than going on the air live (a commercially unfeasible idea for a show originating in California due to time zone problems) or kinescoping, they decided to film the show and ship the results around the country to stations, thus creating two major facets of the television industry: high quality pictures and the ability to show the same episodes of a program again and again as reruns. They also preferred the combined effects on performance of a live audience watching a full run of the show in sequence. The usual technique of filming called for shooting scenes out of sequence with one camera and splicing the film to create the illusion of continuity. Arnaz considered the problems involved in filming a show in sequence before a live audience and invented the 3-camera technique, in which three cameras shoot the entire show from different angles and distances all at the same time. All camera movements and shots were well worked out and rehearsed in advance. The resulting films were then edited and spliced together according to the dictates and desires of the director and/or producer. This novel method of filming required less time and money than the old way, two criteria vital to television. It also provided high quality film, thus allowing it to be shown in its original quality over and over. This laid the groundwork for the rerun. It thus became standard technique for many programs, having the advantages of high quality pictures, ease of distribution, ability to be rerun, and requiring less time and money.

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Perhaps I LOVE LUCY's greatest impact was its popularity. It was first or second in the ratings during its entire history (1951-1976) and is still being rebroadcast today, some half-century after its premiere. In 1960 a national poll by Gary Steiner asked what programs the respondents would like to see back on the air (not reruns, but new episodes). I LOVE LUCY was the most frequently mentioned. This popularity led to many imitators and an increase in the number of situation comedies on the air. Within three years of I LOVE LUCY's premiere, the number of situation comedies almost tripled, from 13 to 35. Although it may strain logic to attribute a cause and effect relationship between I LOVE LUCY and the growth of the situation comedy, when one considers the networks' devotion to ratings and the effect I LOVE LUCY had upon the ratings, such a conclusion is, if not verifiable, then certainly possible. I LOVE LUCY revolutionized television. It was the first program to be based in California rather than New York, to be done on film rather than kinescoped from a television screen, to be performed before a live studio audience and to be filmed in sequence using the 3-camera technique. It set the pattern for situation comedies for years to come. Henceforth, women would be scatter-brained but extremely clever, men would be loud and indignant and confused, and friends would be dupes and accomplices. # The thing that made early programs funny, at least in their time, was their inherent believability. The characters could exist, the situations could conceivably exist, the problems could actually happen. The average audience member recognized either himself or, more often, someone else (certain not to the degree of the oafish lump Riley or the scatterbrained Lucy, but elements that appeared in either one). They were pure entertainment, the sort of thing one could sit and watch and never have to think of a thing. FATHER KNOWS BEST The 1954-55 season brought the premiere of a new type of situation comedy, the domestic comedy, or domcom. The title of the show was FATHER KNOWS BEST, which remained on the air for nine years. This new type of situation comedy broke the pattern that had been firmly established three years before by I LOVE LUCY and open the way to plots and characterizations hitherto untried by television comedy. The greatest difference between the old and the new types was that children, rather than being ancillary to the plots as in the old form, became vital elements central to the plots. The stories usually revolved around a child learning to grow up and live in the world, with the parents guiding and assisting. The domcom soon became a favorite with audiences, scoring consistently well in the ratings, and the type has been repeated in many manifestations ever since. # Rural Comedies In 1957 the forerunner to a type of situation comedy that was later to prove extremely popular premiered. THE REAL MCCOYS was the first of what came to be known as rural comedies, the most famous ofwhich was THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES (1962). Others of this type were
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PETTICOAT JUNCTION, MAYBERRY, R.F.D. and GREEN ACRES. This type of show extolled the virtues of nonsophistication in the face of "civilized" behavior, the "down home" over the "up town". The rural comedy came to a sudden halt with the advent of a new network policy, canceling the type as part of an extensive cutback in "rural"-oriented programming because they appealed to too old an audience to attract advertisers. # By the end of 1957 there were more than 100 series on the air or in production. However, the comedies were being submerged by waves of action shows, in particular westerns. Nonetheless, by 1960 the situation comedy was once again on the rise. # THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW In 1960 a new type of domestic comedy appeared with the premiere of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. This new type was the single-parent domcom, which had many of the same features as the standard domcom (such as FATHER KNOWS BEST) with the difference that there was only one parent attempting to raise a child rather than two. This allowed for a wider variety of plot possibilities and led to many other shows of this type, including MY THREE SONS, THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, and THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR. The single-parent domcom has continued to be a popular type of situation comedy. Spinoffs THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW was important for another reason as well. It was the first example of the spinoff, a new show created because of a popular feature seen in another show. A spinoff often seems to mean taking a hit show, filing off the serial numbers, putting a bright new wrapper on it, and loudly proclaiming it as new and improved. These spinoffs are frequently canceled before their parent show, leaving the impression that they are not (as they often are not) as good as their parents, yet the networks continue spinning off in hopes of getting two, or three, or four, for the price of one. The idea for THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW originally came from an episode of MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY, in which Danny Thomas had a run-in with the sheriff of a small North Carolina town. This episode was so popular with the viewing public that the network decided to expand it into a series, based on the sheriff in a small town. Thus was born Andy Taylor, Sheriff of Mayberry. Other examples are THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES spinning off PETTICOAT JUNCTION and GREEN ACRES, ALL IN THE FAMILY spinning off THE JEFFERSONS and MAUDE; THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW spinning off RHODA, PHYLLIS, and LOU GRANT; and BARNEY MILLER spinning off FISH. Spinoffs are not limited to other television shows. They also come from movies and stage plays. ALIAS SMITH AND JONES from BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID is a case in point. More often than not, even the title is lifted: BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, THE ODD COUPLE, THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER, NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS, and THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR. Sometimes a popular show in another country, especially England, is spun off as an American series. ALL IN THE FAMILY, SANFORD
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AND SON, and AMANDA were American versions of the British sitcoms 'TIL DEATH DO US PART, STEPTOE AND SON and FAWLTY TOWERS, respectively. # Gimmicks and Satire 1962 was the year in which the situation comedy truly broke from the pattern set by I LOVE LUCY and marked the beginning of the use of gimmicks and satire. In 1962 the sitcom moved out of the middle-class American home and into the World War II South Pacific with MCHALE'S NAVY and BROADSIDE (1965). World War II became a favorite time and place for humor. In the 1963-64 season, MY FAVORITE MARTIAN started a chain of new sitcoms that had as their basic premise a special gimmick from which the plots and their development could be derived. Usually the gimmick involved magic or superhuman powers which would precipitate and/or solve the plot problem. In the case of MY FAVORITE MARTIAN one of the main characters was a Martian who could disappear, levitate, and read minds. Shows that followed included BEWITCHED, in which a typical American male married a beautiful young witch whose twitching nose got him into and out of trouble, and I DREAM OF JEANNIE, which united an Air Force major with a beautiful young genie out of a bottle. The popularity of this type of show lasted several years and then waned. Though attempts have been made to revive it (TABITHA (1977), SMALL WONDER (1986), THE CHARMINGS (1987)), such attempts have usually failed. One major exception is ALF (1986-91), the alien living with an American family. Horror was also considered a fertile ground for humor. In 1964, two separate networks each put on a comic-horror show, THE ADDAM'S FAMILY and THE MUNSTERS. The former was based on Charles Addams' macabre cartoons, and the latter was a family composed of a Frankensteinian monster, a most unusual woman dressed in a white flowing shroud, and a vampire. To provide balance and someone with which the audience could identify, a normal looking person, usually a daughter orniece, also appeared. Other shows which debuted from 1964 to 1966 included the mindless comedy GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, in which seven people are marooned on a desert island and appear to survive in considerable luxury. HOGAN'S HEROES, following in McHale's footsteps, was set in a World War II German prisoner of war camp in which the prisoners made absolute fools of their German captors. The camp was completely honeycombed with tunnels which contained everything from a fully equipped radio room to barber shops and saunas. The situation comedy also began moving into the area of satire in the period 1964-66. The first show of this type was CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU?, with Toody and Muldoon as a take-off on Joe Friday and Frank Smith of DRAGNET. A favorite subject for satire was spy movies, in particular James Bond. Three shows along this line were THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E., and GET SMART. #
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THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES 1962 brought to the home screen one of the most incredible phenomena ever to appear on television. This show ran for nine years and ranks in the fifteen all-time toptelevision Neilson ratings for entertainment programs. This show was THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES. [Side Note: THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES ranks 26th overall. Eleven Superbowl games rank ahead of it on the ratings list. The all-time ratings champion is the final two-hour episode of M*A*S*H.] THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES was a break in two directions from the tradition of a middle-class family as the core of the show. It took a lower class family group and put them into an upper class setting. The critics didn't know quite how to take this show. They either panned it as infantile and senseless or tried to find some profound or symbolic meaning in it. There was nothing profound or symbolic in the show. No matter what the critics had to say, the viewing public loved the show. The immense popularity of THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES prompted the creation of several obvious spinoffs in hopes of duplicating its success. The first of these, in 1963, was PETTICOAT JUNCTION, and the second, in 1965, was GREEN ACRES, which was the number one show in 1966.

In the period from 1969 to 1972 the situation comedy moved away from the gimmicks that had played so large a part in situation comedies since 1962. There was a return to the family, even if it was no longer complete. The shows that had complete families (a mother, a father, and children) were, for example, THE BRADY BUNCH, ARNIE, THE SMITH FAMILY, and THE JIMMY STEWART SHOW. Shows that had only partial families (with either the mother or father missing) were becoming more and more in vogue. They included TO ROME WITH LOVE, NANNY AND THE PROFESSOR, THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, and THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER. Those with surrogate families, wherein there was no actual mother, father, or children, but characters that maintained somewhat the same relationships, included ROOM 222 and HEADMASTER, both set in schools, and THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, set in a television newsroom. Another trend that began to appear in 1969 was the creation of situation comedies for non-television stars: stars from the stage or motion pictures. Examples of these shows were THE DEBBIE REYNOLDS SHOW, THE GOVERNOR AND J.J., starring Dan Dailey, THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY with Shirley Jones, and THE JIMMY STEWART SHOW. Apparently the networks managed to convince themselves that the name was all that was necessary. However, none of the shows received much critical approbation and only one, THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, remained on the air for any length of time. It was not Ms. Jones, it is reasonable to assume, but another member of the cast, David Cassidy, the heartthrob of millions of young girls, who kept the show's ratings high enough to ensure renewal. Since 1971 very few shows have been created for movie stars simple because of their celebrity status.
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# THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW In 1970 a groundbreaking new situation comedy premiered. THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW gave every appearance of being just another situation comedy, no better and no worse than any that had gone before. However, it introduced two new concepts to television comedy that had previously not existed. One was the idea that a woman could reach the age of 30 and not be married and still be happy, and even more importantly, not be celibate. Mary Richards was the first truly liberated woman on television, living her own life as she wished. There were network misgivings, of course. For example, the producers wanted her to be a divorcee, but the network didn't like the idea of having a divorced woman as the heroine of a show. In the premiere episode, therefore, Mary is dumped by her boyfriend. The second was the idea that disassociated adults could form a relationship with each other strongly resembling a nuclear family: Mary, Lou, Murray, Rhoda, and Ted were not just coworkers, they were a family. ALL IN THE FAMILY Then, in 1971, there appeared on the scene two phenomena the like of which had not been seen before. One was ALL IN THE FAMILY. The other was its creator, Norman Lear. Lear felt that television comedy should be not only funny, but provocative and stimulating. After his first show, ALL IN THE FAMILY, Lear went on to be a very successful creator/producer of new comedy shows. The violation of cultural taboos often provokes the greatest laughter. In American society the greatest taboos are discussions of sex, biological functions such as the elimination of body wastes, and death. These are all subjects that society has decreed should be discussed seriously, discreetly and euphemistically if discussed at all. When these subjects are not treated seriously they produced embarrassed, titillated, or delighted laughter, or any combination of the three. ALL IN THE FAMILY, for the first time in any situation comedy, regularly used these subjects, and others such as racism, sexism, and religious bigotry, as the basis for plots. A sampling of plot synopses of sitcoms of 20 years ago compared with shows of recent years illustrates the freedom that television now enjoys. For example: MR. PEEPERS (1953) Mr. Peepers decides to buy a new suit, and his mother and aunt decide to help him make the selection -- HOT L BALTIMORE (1975) Ainsley, the timid mamma's boy is romancing one woman while another threatens to name him in a paternity suit -- FAMILY TIES (1984) Elyse worries when her divorced mother goes out on a date and doesn't return until morning; THE LIFE OF RILEY (1954) Chester and Gillis decide to swap houses -- MAUDE (1975) The Findlays spend a disconcerting evening with a swinging couple who think Maude and Walter would be the perfect couple for a mate-swapping game; MR. PEEPERS (1953) Mr. Peepers discovers one of his students can't afford a dissection set -WELCOME BACK, KOTTER (1975) Gabe tries to find out which boy in his class is responsible for one of his female students' pregnancy;

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PRIVATE SECRETARY (1954) Susie tries to get rid of a cold by testing remedies recommended by members of the office staff -- GOOD TIMES (1976) J.J. panics when his girl friend tells him that she has VD and that he is the culprit; MY LITTLE MARGIE (1956) Margie's boy friend uses a trick dog to retrieve his golf balls -- ONE DAY AT A TIME (1976) an entreaty by Julie's boyfriend throws her into a turmoil: he wants to spent the night with her; LEAVE IT TO BEAVER (1959) the family admires Wally's suit as he goes on a date -- VALERIE (1987) Valerie advises her son going on a date about responsible sex and birth control. It is obvious from the above examples that television is moving more and more toward the use of societal taboos as subject matter for plots, and using ideas rather than pat situations with pat solutions. Lear's ALL IN THE FAMILY was one of the first situation comedies to regularly violate cultural taboos. THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW had as its leading character a woman over thirty who was not married and yet had relationships with men that were more than platonic, an impossibility prior to 1970. Nevertheless, it was ALL IN THE FAMILY that discussed as a regular part of the show racial bigotry, political ideologies (both extreme right and extreme left), sex, death, and societal dysfunctions that had previously been banned from the public airwaves. A sampling of ALL IN THE FAMILY episodes includes one in which Edith allows a woman whom she is to care for do what she wants to do--die; Edith rejects God after one of her friends, a female impersonator, is killed by a street gang; Archie is upset about the death of a friend's roommate until he finds out that the two women were homosexual lovers; Edith must contend with the problems of sexual assault and its aftermath when she is almost raped; and Archie becomes upset when his niece, who is white, goes out on a date with the boy next door, who is black. Such violations of societal taboos are fertile grounds for comedy, as is patently obvious from the popularity of ALL IN THE FAMILY, which remained on the air for 12 years. # M*A*S*H In 1972 one of the most popular and important situation comedies ever premiered: M*A*S*H. Its popularity is obvious from its ratings, never below 15th, and often in the top five during the entire ten years it was on the air. Its importance stems from the fact that it was the first situation comedy that did not feel that laugh-a-minute scripts was an inflexible rule. It dealt with subjects such as war, death, and misery, not only in a humorous fashion but with a sense of serious examination and compassion. Its primary consideration was not necessarily to get laughs but to be human, which often means being funny. The characters are characters, not charicatures, as is often the case in sitcoms, and they react to situations with honest intellect and emotion. # T&A Comedy In 1977 the first of the T&A ("tits and ass") comedies came on the air. Its title was THREE'S COMPANY. A T&A sitcom is devoted to showing a number of young women with beautiful bodies wearing a minimum of clothing romping about the stage uttering sexual innuendos. THREE'S
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COMPANY was a prime example of this type of show. Apparently it was what the public wanted because it rated #3 in 1977 and in the fall of 1978 it became the top-rated show on the air. Other permutations include WE'VE GOT IT MADE, BLANKIE'S BEAUTIES, ROLLERGIRLS, and CO-ED FEVER. This does not mean to say that only sex and T&A are the subjects of situation comedy. There were several shows on the air that had social consciousness as their themes. BARNEY MILLER was a police comedy show that illustrated the interaction of man and law, particularly as it applied to lower- and middle-class Americans. ONE DAY AT A TIME was about a young divorced woman coping with the problems and follies of her two teenage daughters. ALL'S FAIR dealt with the generation gap and political views. # In the fall of 1978 the networks made an attempt to return to the mindlessness of the early 1950s with such shows as APPLE PIE, WHO'S WATCHING THE KIDS, and THE WAVERLY WONDERS. However, the viewing public rejected the idea. All three shows were canceled within weeks. Viewers obviously preferred something with some content to it, either intellectually, to give them something to think about, or physically, to give them something to watch. # In the late 1970s programming began to be a much more difficult proposition, both to get on the air and to stay on the air. The major problem was the sheer cost. For example, in 1964 the average cost of a half-hour program was $125,000 per episode. A conservative estimate is that in 1976 a network spent $1.5 million per night for its prime-time programming, or twice the 1964 cost. In 1992 costs have risen even higher. Add to that the erosion of the networks' audience by cable and VCR use and rental of movies and it is clear that with this amount of money involved the networks must be very careful with their programming. They therefore watch the Neilson ratings very closely, and if a show does not immediately show favorable results it will often be dropped within days. For example, during the 1979-80 season, of the 30 new sitcoms introduced, 18 were canceled within weeks, A NEW KIND OF FAMILY lasting only six. Seven other sitcoms left the air that season as well. Sixteen of the 19 new sitcoms in 1980-81 were canceled. Twelve of the 15 new sitcoms were canceled in 1981-82, along with nine from previous seasons. Fourteen out of 19 new sitcoms were canceled in 1982-83, and 17 out of 19 in 1983-84. Many people in 1984 were saying it was the end of the situation comedy on television, that the audience no longer wanted that form of program, but were looking for action and adventure. The networks seemed to listen, because for the 1985-86 season there were only 19 sitcoms on the air, the lowest number since the late 1950s. There was, however, something in, or rather on, the air, a time bomb from the 1984-85 season: NBC's Thursday night lineup, led off by a quiet domestic comedy, THE COSBY SHOW. THE COSBY SHOW NBC had, in January of 1981, put a police drama at 10:00 Thursday night, a show that started out quietly, then built an audience, a following, and a reputation for sweeping awards. To NBC, HILL STREET BLUES seemed the perfect ending to an otherwise blah day. They began putting sitcoms on as lead-ins to HILL STREET, looking for a combination that would hold an audience all evening.

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In 1984, as the situation comedy was "dying", NBC lined up the new COSBY SHOW with holdovers from previous years: FAMILY TIES, CHEERS, and NIGHT COURT. Thursday night was theirs, as was the standing as the number one network in the ratings. If 1985 was the worst year in decades for the situation comedy, 1986 was the best: 29 sitcoms on the air, with 18 of them new. That has since been surpassed, with 42 sitcoms on the air in the fall of 1992. What was it about THE COSBY SHOW that caused such a turnaround in the fortunes of the situation comedy? THE COSBY SHOW was noted for its lack of pretension and gimmickry. It simply told a story, or sometimes not, about how Dr. Huxtable, an obstetrician, his wife, the lawyer, and their five children interacted, often with a learning experience, always with gentle humor. The audiences loved it, putting THE COSBY SHOW at the top of the ratings almost every week, and putting the sitcom back on as a staple of the television schedule. In 1987 a new variable entered the equation: a new network, Fox. In order to compete against the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC), Fox needed to be different. Seeing that the Big Three were basically conservative in their programming, not showing programs that were too far out of the mainstream, Fox decided that being outrageous would be in. They started showing programs that went against the norm: if COSBY, with its extremely functional family life, was the norm for NBC, then it made sense for Fox to do the opposite -- put on a family that was as dysfunctional as possible. Thus was born MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN, the antithesis of COSBY, filled with sexual innuendo, familial hatred, problems with no solutions, incompetent parents and disrespectful children. This was followed by THE SIMPSONS (1989), HERMAN'S HEAD (1990), and WOOPS! (1992), all of them exploring the dark side of human nature, but always doing it with a laugh. SUMMARY Comedy on television came almost intact from radio, doing a visual version of popular shows. The situation comedies were of the bumbling husband type. But in 1951 I LOVE LUCY altered the face of the sitcom and of television itself. Shows were now filmed rather than kinescoped, shot with three cameras in front of a studio audience. The characters became more real to the audience and set the tone for sitcoms for years. With FATHER KNOWS BEST the sitcom moved into the home and family with a new sense of warmth and reality, concentrating on character rather than nonstop action. THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW continued the trend with the family, using the single-parent rather than full family. In addition, it started the idea of the spinoff for the creation of new shows. McHALE'S NAVY moved the sitcom out of the home and began the exploration for new locales and gimmicks around which to build a show. The idea of gimmicks hit its height with BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE. THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, in 1962, broke the middle-class pattern in plot and characterization, and produced an even greater surge in the use of the spinoff, and a trend toward the ruralization of situation comedy. Yet another idea for programming was the attempt to spoof that which was popular in a serious form. For example, GET SMART was a parody of James Bond.

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THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW took account of a changing America and allowed women a more realistic place in the world of situation comedy, showing that wife and mother were not the only possibilities for women. A new dimension to the situation comedy was illustrated in the premiere of ALL IN THE FAMILY, first in a long line of Norman Lear sitcoms. It was a break with the innocuousness long associated with television comedy and opened the door for controversy, social and political satire, and dark comedy. The social consciousness of television comedy was further heightened with the premiere of a new type of situation comedy, the dramedy. M*A*S*H was the first of this type, and, though it has never excelled in quantity, the dramedy is of such quality that it consistently ranks high in the ratings. The situation comedy went on a downslide in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but it was brought back with a vengeance when Bill Cosby premiered in his third sitcom, THE COSBY SHOW, a show that focuses on family and gentle humor. A few years after COSBY, Fox, a new network, found a new audience by violating all the norms established by the Big Three networks. Introducing dysfunction as a source of comedy, they attracted audiences that had shifted away from the other networks. The situation comedy has changed considerably from its days of raucous bumbling and slapstick. The emphasis seems now to be on wit, warmth, and character, rather than halfwit, heat, and action. Nonetheless, the sitcom continues to evolve.

A History of Comedy on Television:

Beginning to 1970 In 1939, at the New York World's Fair, there was a special exhibit: RCA set up a bulky box looking much like the radios of the day. However there was one significant difference: there was a window set in the box showing pictures that went along with the sound. This was the first real television. The credit (or blame, depending on how you look at it) for the invention of television could go to a dozen or more inventors going back to 1897 and Sir J.J. Thomson's work on the nature of the electron. Nonetheless, credit is given to the two men who hold the basic patents: Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth. Both were working independently in the 1930s and between them they invented the two most important parts for television broadcasting: the orthicon tube (Farnsworth) for picking up the scene to be transmitted, and the Kinescope (Zworykin) for the receiver. Now in 1939 the two inventions had been put together and television was a reality. The problem now became what to do with it. Consumers knew: they wanted to buy it. Manufacturers knew: they wanted to sell it. And broadcasters knew: they wanted to exploit it. All got their wish. And the FCC stepped in.

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The United States government created the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in 1934 to meet the problems of controlling radio broadcasting in the United States. As soon as speculators realized that radio had commercial possibilities they began operating stations, sending out signals on any frequency they desired. This, naturally enough, led to conflicts when two or more stations wished to use the same frequency. Then it became a battle of power. Stations with the highest wattage output could drown out other stations. The amount of radio noise such a situation created was, of course, disturbing to the listening audience and they wanted something done about it. The government determined that the airwaves through which broadcasting signals had to pass were public property and could not be owned by an individual. The FCC was therefore formed to control broadcasting in the public interest, licensing stations to broadcast on a certain frequency at a certain power, licenses issued based on a prospectus written up by the one desiring a license. The FCC would also punish those who abused their broadcasting privileges, revoking or suspending the license or censuring the offender. The FCC worked fairly well with radio, and when television arrived the government included it in the FCC's sphere of authority. It was therefore authorized on July 1, 1945. Television broadcasting began in 1939 and lasted for five months. Then there was an interruption: World War II. In 1945 production of sets began again. One hundred sets were manufactured in that year and they were snapped up by those on the top of a prewar waiting list. But the demand for sets was great. No one wanted to be the last one on the block to have their own personal window on the world. COMEDY ON TELEVISION What follows is a year-by-year look at what happened with comedy-variety shows and situation comedies, their flourishing and declines, with a few comments about special shows, advances and regressions. THE EARLY YEARS 1950-51 In 1950 the most popular form of television comedy was the comedy-variety show. This is the only year when any form of comedy show was more popular than the situation comedy. There were 25 comedy-variety shows as opposed to 11 situation comedies, and of those 25, 11 were reviews and only five were celebrity- centered. 1950 proved to be the last year when there were more revue shows than celebrity-centered. The star-based shows in 1950 were transfers from radio, and if one looks at the longevity of an individual show, the star- based is the most popular form of comedy. In 1950 the second longest running comedy in the history of television first appeared on the air. That show was THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM, and it ran continuously for 15 years. However, in terms of quantity of shows on the air in any given year, the star-based must rank as the lowest. There was never more than four on the air at one time, and then only in 1952-54. The number steadily declined over the years, down to three in 1955, down to two in 1960, down to one in 1966, and in 1971 the last star-based comedy show left the air and has not been replaced.

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In 1950 there were four personality-based shows in the air, andtwo shows that have become synonymous with the Golden Age of Television: THE TEXACO STAR THEATRE with Mr. Television, Milton Berle (popularly known as Uncle Milty), and YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS with Sid Caesar. Though neither show had the extremely long runs that are usually associated with hit shows (TEXACO STAR THEATRE ran seven seasons, the last two as THE MILTON BERLE SHOW, and YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS lasted only four seasons), they were extremely popular with audiences. Milton Berle's show was characterized by rapid-fire, racous, brash and rowdy humor, where anything could and often did happen. Berle might be playing a piano and hands would start coming out of it playing along with him, pieces would fall off, fireworks would shoot out, and finally the piano would explode. So would the audience--with laughter. On Tuesday nights, Milton Berle was king, and at his peak 75% of the television sets in the United States were turned to NBC to see what insanity would break out next. Sid Caesar, on the other hand, did not dominate his show as did Milton Berle. He and his regular cast, Carl Reiner, Imogene Coca, and Howard Morris, created situations and characters every week, in which Caesar was often, but not necessarily the leading character. They did a wide variety of comedy sketches, doing everything from take-offs on popular television shows and movies such as THIS IS YOUR LIFE and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, audience participation games, blackouts, monologues, and silent sketches. When YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS went off the air in June of 1954, it was not the end of Caesar or his brand of humor. He continued on the air until 1958 in CAESAR'S HOUR and THE SID CAESAR SHOW. 1950 was the year in which the situation comedy would be at its lowest point ever. There were only11 situation comedy shows on the air in that year, 14 less than the comedy-variety. Several of the shows that year were transfers from radio. These included THE ALDRICH FAMILY, BEULAH, and THE GOLDBERGS. THE STU ERWIN SHOW premiered this year, his bumbling, perpetually confused father and husband setting the tone for male characters in situation comedies for years to come. This is also the year one of the most famous situation comedies premiered, THE BURNS AND ALLEN SHOW, starring George Burns and Gracie Allen, who continued on the air for eight seasons. It might be asked why THE BURNS AND ALLEN SHOW was a situation comedy rather than a star-based comedy show. It was, in fact, similar to the star-based: the performers in general appeared in their own personae, and the stars were confronted with a situation to which they reacted in a personal, character- istic fashion. However, unlike the star-based show the situation always remained the same--the Burns' at home, with the situations arising from this basis. Each episode was devoted to one situation and not a series of short disconnected sketches. Also, the show had characters that were not performing in their own personae. For these reasons the show was a situation comedy. 1951-52 1951 was a bad year for new comedy shows. Of the nineteen new comedy shows of that year, only seven lasted more than one year, and only one of those seven, I LOVE LUCY, ran more than two. The one star-based entry was THE VICTOR BORGE SHOW, and that show did not last out the year. Ernie Kovacs tried two different shows, ERNIE IN KOVACSLAND, and KOVACS ON THE KORNER, and neither lasted more than a few months.
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Five comedy-variety shows (three celebrity-centered shows and two revues) premiered in 1951. Four, THE DONALD O'CONNOR SHOW, THE DOODLES WEAVER SHOW, THE SPIKE JONES SHOW, and THE FORD FESTIVAL were all canceled in 1951, and SOUND OFF TIME went off the air in 1952. Of the nine new situation comedies that premiered in 1951, five, THE EGG AND I, MEET CORLISS ARCHER, THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS, TWO GIRLS NAMED SMITH, and YOUNG MR. BOBBIN were canceled in 1952 after their first season. Two more lasted until the spring of 1953: A DATE WITH JUDY, and another transfer from radio, AMOS 'N' ANDY. The last situation comedy that premiered that year ran for five years, the most important five years in the history of the situation comedy. In that year producers didn't consider a thick-accented cuban bandleader and red-headed actress prime candidates for a successful television show. So they put together a show of their own and on October 15, 1951, I LOVE LUCY became the best-loved television program of all time. Though Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball produced new weekly episodes for only five years (179 in all), it has appeared somewhere in the United States continually since 1951, and set the tone for situation comedy. I LOVE LUCY revolutionized the television industry, and its innovations were many. It was the first television program based in California instead of New York. It was the first program to be done on film rather than live and kinescoped from a television screen. It was the first dramatic program ever to be done before a live studio audience and to be filmed in sequence, using the three camera technique. And it set the pattern for situation comedies for years to come. Henceforth, women would be scatterbrained butextremely clever, men would be loud and indignant, and friends would be dupes and accomplices. 1952-53 In 1952 the number of situation comedies, for the first time, equaled the number of comedy-variety shows on television. In that year there were 22 situation comedies as and 22 comedy- varieties. There were 13 new situation comedies on the air that year. Although six of those lasted only a year or less, those that did survive are among the most famous. They included MR. PEEPERS and OUR MISS BROOKS. It was 1952 that and ex-bandleader and his singer-wife put their family on the air and produced the longest-running situation comedy in history--THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET. For 14 years the American viewing public enjoyed watching Dave and Ricky grow up under the watchful eyes of their father (who had plenty of time for his sons since he apparently had no occupation) and their mother. 1953-54 In 1953, the comedy-variety show continued its decline, with only 20 shows on the air. This was the first year in which the situation comedy outstripped the comedy-variety show, and the comedyvariety show never came close again. The situation comedy, on the other hand, continued its steady rise. In 1953 it was up to 29 shows on the air, including such new shows as THE LIFE OF RILEY, LIFE WITH FATHER, and one of the longest-running situation comedies, MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY. The latter, starring Danny Thomas, remained on the air for 11 years.
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Also in 1953 there arrived the longest-running comedy show of any type ever to appear on the home screen, it being renewed every yearuntil its cancellation on August 29, 1971. That program was THE RED SKELTON SHOW, starring that red-headed comedian and mime artist, Red Skelton. Every fall for 18 years, Red visited his own brand of insanity on a suspecting, and laughing, public. 1954-55 The comedy-variety show continued to decline in 1954, to only nineteen on the air. However, the personality-based show was at the highest point it would ever attain, with seven shows on the air. In that year four new personalities had shows, including Johnny Carson and Morey Amsterdam, whose show did not last out the year, and Imogene Coca, who lasted until 1956. The most familiar face was Sid Caesar and his new show, CAESAR'S HOUR. The situation comedy was at the highest point it would reach until 1964, with 33 shows on the air, including 13 brand-new shows. One of these introduced a new form of situation comedy to television. That show was FATHER KNOWS BEST, the first example of the domestic comedy. Obviously it was a successful attempt at a new form, because FATHER KNOWS BEST remained on the air for 13 years. With the creation of this new form of situation comedy television moved into a new era. 1955-1959: THE FIRST DEPRESSION Television comedy made a general decline during this period, probably due to the fact that the western and adventure programs were coming on strong. Comedy would be in a five-year drought, staying at the lowest level it would ever achieve. 1955-56 In 1955 all forms of comedy shows declined including the comedy-variety show which dropped to only 15 shows. The situation comedy lost 24 shows in 1955, with only 13 new shows added, leaving 25 on the air. One of the new shows was YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH, starring Phil Silvers as the conman in uniform, Sgt. Bilko. 1956-57 The comedy-variety show hit its lowest level ever, with only 10 shows on the air. Spike Jones tried yet another show, but it did not last out the season, as usual. The situation comedy had only 18 shows on the air. Five new shows were tried, but only one, OH! SUSANNA, starring Gale Storm, lasted more than one season. 1957-58 The situation comedy made a slight increase, to 20 shows. However, only three of the ten new shows lasted more than one season. Those three were: BACHELOR FATHER, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, and THE REAL MCCOYS.
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The comedy-variety show gained one more show, to 11 on the air, with most of the holdovers from the early 1950s, including Jack Benny, Gary Moore, and Red Skelton. 1958-59 There was only 18 situation comedies on the air this year. Only two of the seven new shows, THE ANN SOTHERN SHOW and THE DONNA REED SHOW, continued more than one season. The comedy-variety was up to thirteen shows, but none of the four new shows lasted out the season. Andy Williams, Garry Moore, George Gobel, Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason, Perry Como, and Red Skelton all continued. 1959-60 The situation comedy dropped to its lowest level since 1951, with only 17 shows on the air. However, the odds of survival improved slightly, with three of the seven new shows lasting more than one season. They were: DENNIS THE MENACE, HENNESEY, and THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS. Sgt. Bilko (YOU'LL NEVER GET RICH) ended his run this season. The comedy-variety show declined to its lowest level since 1950 with only nine shows on the air, and neither of the two new shows, THE CHARLEY WEAVER SHOW and THE CHEVY SHOW, survived the season. 1960-61 The situation comedy made a dramatic rise this season from 17 to 23 shows on the air. Among the new shows were two which were to be long running: THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and MY THREE SONS. The other ten new shows lasted only one season, but this was apparently no discouragement to producers and networks. The variety show lost yet another, down to only eight on the air. Both of the new shows, THE REVLON REVUE and THE SPIKE JONES SHOW, were canceled within weeks. 1961-62 The situation comedy went up by four more shows to 27, the number of failures from the 1960-61 season not discouraging new attempts. Included among the 14 new programs this season the comedy classic THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW. It almost did not make it. However, the network decided to take a chance and leave it on the air to see if it would develop an audience. It did, became one of the top-rated shows in the 1960s, and ran for a total of five years, leaving the air only because Van Dyke himself decided to quit while he was ahead. The variety show continued its decline, down to the lowest point ever, only seven. Spike Jones had the only new show, but, as usual, it was canceled within weeks. 1962-63 The situation comedy surpassed its 1953 all-time high with 30 shows. One of the new shows, THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, was greeted with critical distaste and public acclaim. It became so popular that the Neilson ratings list it as the 15th most popular program of all time.
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The variety show stayed at seven. The six that apparently could not die, Andy Williams, Garry Moore, Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason, Perry Como and Red Skelton, continued, with only one new show, THE LIVELY ONES, premiering. THE LIVELY ONES was canceled at year's end. 1963-64 The situation comedy made a sharp decline this year as eight more shows left the air than were replaced. This would be its lowest point, 22, until 1974. However, six of the nine new shows would run more than one season, including THE BILL DANA SHOW, THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER, GRINDL, MY FAVORITE MARTIAN, THE PATTY DUKE SHOW, and PETTICOAT JUNCTION. The variety show, on the other hand, enjoyed an upswing, reaching its highest point since 1958 with 11 shows on the air. 1964-65 The situation comedy made a tremendous surge this year, jumping to 37, with 21 new shows. This would tie with 1976 as the highest number until 1979's 45. This was the biggest year for gimmick comedies, with four new ones including BEWITCHED. However, an old favoriteended a 10 year run: MAKE ROOM FOR DADDY. The variety show continued to decline, with only 10 shows on the air. Among the new shows was an attempt at satire that was apparently not popular with American audiences, the English transplant THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS. It didn't last out the season. 1965-66 In this season the situation comedy dropped to 36. Seven of the new shows became hits, including GET SMART, I DREAM OF JEANNIE and HOGAN'S HEROES. This season also saw what has been considered the worst sitcom ever to go on the air, the one used as an example of how bad the sitcom can be: MY MOTHER THE CAR. In variety shows, there were only nine on the air, and THE JACK BENNY PROGRAM ended after 15 years. 1966-67 The situation comedy began to fall this year. It dropped to 29 on the air, and of the 15 new shows only three, FAMILY AFFAIR, THE MONKEES and THAT GIRL, wererenewed at the end of the season. The variety show rose to 13, but five of the six new shows didn't even finish the season. 1967-68 The situation comedy dropped to only 22 on the air as 15 more were canceled and only eight new shows premiered. Only one new show, THE FLYING NUN, lasted beyond the season.

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The variety show dropped to 10. Of the five new shows, one, THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW, would be a long-running hit, and another would become extremely controversial: THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR. 1968-69 This season, with 22 situation comedies on the air, was big on single-parent domcoms with the premieres of THE DORIS DAY SHOW, THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, HERE'S LUCY, MAYBERRY, R.F.D., and the first sitcom starring a black woman, JULIA, with Diahn Carroll. The comedy-variety show increased to 16, including the premiere of a new form of program based on blackouts and fast pacing, ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN. 1969-70 The situation comedy gained six this season, going up to 28. The variety show would be at its highest point since 1954, with 19 shows. This would also be the highest it would ever be again, as it started on a generally downward trend. The one surprise among the new shows was a break with the traditional form of variety show. Ordinarily, the star of a variety show was a popular singer (Perry Como, Andy Williams, etc.) singing popular songs. This season HEE HAW premiered, the first network country-western variety show. HEE HAW would continue, apparently forever, going into syndication when CBS dropped it in 1971. 1970-71 The situation comedy dropped to 24 this year. This season saw the premiere of a landmark sitcom, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, breaking with the tradition of the single woman not being in the regular work force, nor being happy single (see Landmarks chapter). The variety show dropped to 17 shows. This season marked the end of an era as it was the final season of the longest running comedy show ever on television: THE RED SKELTON SHOW. Red Skelton was on the air for 18 seasons. 1971-72 There were 24 situation comedies on this season. The rural comedy came to an end as THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, GREEN ACRES, THE NEW ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, AND MAYBERRY, R.F.D. all left the air. Among the new shows was the controversial and groundbreaking ALL IN THE FAMILY. It was the first of a new type of sitcom, the dramedy, in this case an advocate dramedy. The variety show had 12 programs on the air. The only new show of the four that premiered that lasted was THE SONNY AND CHER COMEDY HOUR. 1972-73 The situation comedy dropped to 23 shows. Canceled were the last of the gimmick comedies, BEWITCHED; all three of the shows created last season for movie stars: THE JIMMY STEWART SHOW, SHIRLEY'S WORLD with Shirley McLaine, and THE SMITH FAMILY with Henry Fonda; and MY THREE SONS, the longest running of the domestic comedies. Among the new shows was the first of a new type of sitcom, the human dramedy M*A*S*H.
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The variety show went up to 13 as five new shows premiered. However, none of the five lasted more than the one season. 1973-74 The situation comedy went back up to 28. However, none of the 13 new shows survived the season. The variety show dropped to only 10 as all five shows from the previous season were canceled, as was LAUGH-IN. In addition, all three of the new shows were canceled before season's end. 1974-75 The situation comedy plunged to its lowest level since 1951 with only 15 shows on the air as all 13 new shows from the 1973- 74 seasonwere canceled. However, four of the eight new shows became hits: CHICO AND THE MAN, GOOD TIMES, RHODA, and HAPPY DAYS. The variety show continued its decline to only seven, the lowest since 1962. Only THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW remained from previous seasons; all others, including THE DEAN MARTIN SHOW and THE FLIP WILSON SHOW were canceled. 1975-76 The situation comedy made a violent upswing as 19 new shows premiered, bring the total up to 29. However, 13 of the 19 new shows were canceled by season's end. Nonetheless, of the remaining six new shows, four were big hits: BARNEY MILLER (7 seasons), THE JEFFERSONS( 9 seasons), ONE DAY AT A TIME (9 seasons), and WELCOME BACK, KOTTER (four seasons). The variety show dropped to six, but three of the four news shows were canceled within weeks. 1976-77 The situation comedy rose to 37 as 22 new shows premiered. Only six of the new shows lasted more than one season, and only ALICE and LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY more than two. The variety show rose to 12, but only one of the 10 new shows, DONNY AND MARIE, lasted out the season. 1977-78 The situation comedy lost one show, down to 36. 19 new shows premiered, including the first T&A comedy, THREE'S COMPANY, which became the #1 television show in the ratings. The variety show continued its downward slide, with 10. 1978-79 The situation comedy dropped to 34. Of the 19 new shows, many werecanceled within weeks. One, however, became a runaway hit: MORK & MINDY, starring Robin Williams, a wildly inventive and imaginative comedian, who played an extraterrestrial trying to learn about Earth. The writers would often leave gaps in the script simply labeled "Mork does his thing for three minutes", letting Williams improvise what wouldn't even occur to them to write for him.
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The variety show was down to only six, and to make matters worse, MARY, starring Mary Tyler Moore, was canceled after the first show, leaving only five. 1979-80 The situation comedy jumped to its highest point in history, before or since. There were 45 sitcoms on the air, 50% of prime- time, with 30 new shows, the largest number of new programs ever. However, 16 of those 30 new shows were canceled within weeks, and seven more lasted only the season. Two, BENSON and FACTS OF LIFE, were hits. The variety show had seven programs, but three of the four new shows were canceled after only a few nights, including Mary Tyler Moore, her second flop in two seasons. 1980-81 The situation comedy began a decline this season, to 39 from last season's incredible high of 45. Sixteen of the nineteen new shows were canceled by season's end, and the remaining three ended within two years. The variety show held steady at seven shows, but two of the five new shows lasted only weeks. 1981-82 The situation comedy continued down to 34. Only three of the 15 new shows were canceled quickly, butonly one, GIMME A BREAK!, became a hit. The variety show dropped to only three on the air. This was the first season that there was no new variety show. 1982-83 The situation comedy had 38 shows on the air this season, but of the 19 new shows, only five lasted longer than the season. However, of those five four were hits: CHEERS, FAMILY TIES, NEWHART, and SILVER SPOONS. The variety show started with four, but was down to one in weeks. 1983-84 There were 34 situation comedies this season, but only one of the 19 new shows, WEBSTER, lasted out the season. This year also marked the end of one of the most popular situation comedies of all time, M*A*S*H. According to the Neilson's, the final two- hour episode of M*A*S*H was the most watched program of all time, gaining a 60.3 rating and a 77 share, or 77% of all televisions that were turned on in the country were tuned to the show. In its 11 year run, M*A*S*H consistently ranked in the top fifteen programs in the Neilson ratings. The variety show was down to one, THE LOVE BOAT. The only new show, THE 1/2 HOUR COMEDY HOUR, lasted only one month. 1984-85

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Twenty shows were canceled this season, including ten of the thirteen new shows. Only KATE & ALLIE and NIGHT COURT and one other survived, leaving only 25 on the air. The one other was THE COSBY SHOW, starring Bill Cosby. THE COSBY SHOW immediately shot to the top of the ratings, a position it continued to maintain. The rumor was that the situation comedy was dead, that theaudience didn't want it anymore. THE COSBY SHOW, as well as the rest of the NBC Thursday night schedule (FAMILY TIES, CHEERS, and NIGHT COURT), changed that idea. The variety show was basically a dead form. Only THE LOVE BOAT remained, and there were no new shows. 1985-86 The situation comedy was at its lowest point since 1974, with only 23 programs on the air. Because the situation comedy was considered a passe form of show, only seven new programs premiered. However, three of them, 227, GOLDEN GIRLS and GROWING PAINS, were hits. The variety show was still at one, THE LOVE BOAT. 1986-87 Because of the success of THE COSBY SHOW and the rest of NBC's Thursday night line-up of situation comedies, the sitcom was back in style and 22 new shows premiered, bringing the total to 37. Although some of the new shows, including the highly-touted and sure-to-be-smash-hit LIFE WITH LUCY starring Lucille Ball, were canceled almost immediately, others became hits. Those included AMEN, DESIGNING WOMEN, VALERIE, and WHO'S THE BOSS?. The variety show died this season when THE LOVE BOAT was canceled and there were no new programs. The only example of comedy-variety show left was the syndicated HEE HAW. 1987-88 The situation comedy continued to increase. Eighteen new shows were added, bringing the total to 43, only two shy of the all-time high of 45 in 1979. Most of the new shows were cancelled by season's end. This was the year that a fourth network, Fox, challenged the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) and began assemblying nightly schedules. Fox presented three new sitcoms, DUET, MARRIED . . . WITH CHILDREN, and IT'S GARRY SHANDLING'S SHOW. THE COSBY SHOW was the most popular show on the air, emphasizing family values. Now they came out with the antithesis of COSBY's ideal family -- MARRIED...WITH CHILDREN. Instead of warmth and wit, MARRIED had heat and halfwits with a totally dysfunctional family. The show appeared to be so anti familyvalues that a Midwestern woman named Terry Rakolta tried to start a sponsor boycott to get the show off the air. Her campaign backfired: the show got so much publicity that its ratings skyrocketed, guaranteeing it a slot on the Fox schedule. Dolly Parton tried a new variety show. After a rocky start she revamped the format, using more music and less glitz and production. However, the show was cancelled in a matter of weeks. It appeared to be the true end of the variety show. 1988-89
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The situation comedy made a slight readjustment, falling back to 39 on the air. Nineteen new shows premiered, including new shows for Mary Tyler Moore (ANNIEMcGUIRE) and Dick Van Dyke (THE VAN DYKE SHOW). However, they seemed unable to capture the audience the way they had in the past, and both shows were cancelled within weeks. DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD, starring Blair Brown, was also soon cancelled, but was picked up by a syndication company that continued making new episodes and placing the show on the independent cable network Lifetime. The two big hits of this season were ROSEANNE and THE WONDER YEARS. ROSEANNE violated virtually every principle of network television: the lead was a fat, raucous woman who bad-mouthed anything and everybody, but always with an undercurrent of affection and tenderness. THE WONDER YEARS was a nostalgic look back at the 1960s, but avoided the slapstick and pat situations and answers that were the hallmark of HAPPY DAYS (1974-84). It became almost a kid's-view dramedy, involving the lead, a 12-year-old boy with bullies, first love, going steady, and death in the Vietnam War. It used a mixture of humor, pathos and poignancy without every getting raucous or maudlin. 1989-90 There were 50 sitcoms on the air durng this year, 29 from previous seasons and 21 permieres. By the end of the season 21 shows were cancelled, including 15 of the premieres. One of the premieres was a show that Fox felt could challenge the Thursday night dominance of THE COSBY SHOW -- THE SIMPSONS, a cartoon sitcom featuring a nine-year-old brat named Bart, a genius named Lisa, Maggie, a pacifier-sucking baby, Homer, a dumb fat slob father, and Marge, the tender-loving-care mother with a three-foot blue beehive hairdo. For those people who were finding COSBY a bit cloying and plotless, THE SIMPSONS was a perfect alternative. 1990-91 Twenty-four shows carried over from 1989-90, and were joined by 22 premieres. Thirteen shows ended their runs, but only one, UNCLE BUCK, was cancelled before New Year's. However, of the new shows, only two could be considered hits: THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR and SEINFELD. The latter starred Jerry Seinfeld, a stand-up comic who played -- Jerry Seinfeld, a stand-up comic. As Seinfeld himself said, all the other actors on the show play characters; he's just himself. The show concentrated its plots around little things, like parking spaces and answering machines, with which the audience could identify. This was a break from the usual problemsolution plots of the average sitcom. 1991-92 Thirty-three shows carried over from previous seasons, but ten of the 22 new shows from last season weren't around this fall. In addition, 20 new shows premiered, of which eight were soon cancelled. One of the new shows, BROOKLYN BRIDGE, a gentle family comedy set in 1956, was almost cancelled, but fans, aided and abetted by a TV GUIDE magazine campaign, got it a reprieve. There was also an attempt to revive the comedy-variety show. Oneof the most popular C-V shows was THE CAROL BURNETTE SHOW (1967-78). However, this season's effort (imaginatively titled THE CAROL BURNETTE SHOW) died a quick death.
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SUMMARY Although there have been great fluctuations in the situation comedy over the years, from a low of 11 in 1950 up to 37 in 1964 to 16 in 1974 to an all-time high of 44 in 1979, it has nonetheless continued as a staple of the network programming schedule since its inception. Not so the comedy variety show. Since 1950 and its high of 25 it has shown a continually and basically steady decline to the present day when it is no longer in evidence as a part of network scheduling.

An Examination of the Situation Comedy

Disgruntled by Lucy's spendthrift ways, Ricky insists she would feel differently about money if she had to "bring home the bacon". With her neighbor Ethel Mertz' support, Lucy agrees to switch roles for a week--the women will get jobs if the men stay home and do the housework and cooking. The women go to an employment agency, lie about their qualifications, and land jobs at Kramer's Kandy Kitchen. Lucy starts in the candy-dipping section and Ethel in the boxing department, but both fail. They are transferred to "wrapping", where their task is to wrap each piece of candy as it goes by on the conveyer belt. Unfortunately, they find it impossible to keep up with the swift-moving belt and are forced to stuff the excess candies into their mouths, hats, blouses, etc. As "housewives", Ricky and Fred Mertz are doing no better, so the four finally decide to call off the switch. Anyone familiar with commercial television programming can point to a particular show with a plot like the one above and say, "That is a situation comedy". But what is there about that particular show that makes it fit into that genre, as opposed to a western, or a detective show, or a medical show? There are or have been western comedies (BEST OF THE WEST), detective comedies (SLEDGE HAMMER), and medical comedies (NURSES). It is the purpose of this chapter to clarify just what the components of the situation comedy are. This chapter is about the situation comedy in general, some preliminary statements about the situation comedy that apply to all types. Following this will be chapters giving details about the plots, characters, settings, and thought from my study of the actcom, domcom, and dramedy. Characters Main There are three types of characters in situation comedies: main, supporting, and transient. The main characters are those that carry the bulk of the action. In general, there is only one main character, but there may be as many as three. The limit on main characters is obvious from merely looking at shows. From Lucy in I LOVE LUCY to Balki and Larry in PERFECT STRANGERS to Leonard and Sheldon in THE BIG BANG THEORY, the main characters are the ones that the audience is supposed to watch; what happens to them is important. It is extremely difficult in a half hour to give everyone enough spotlight to make them all main characters.
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Supporting Supporting characters are members of the regular cast who do as the name implies: they support the main character and often act as foils. There are few supporting characters, for two main reasons. The first is monetary--the more characters the more actors that must be paid. The second reason is more important: in order to maintain interest and understand the story, the audience must be able to identify each character and remember rher personality on sight. When there are too many characters such identification requires a mental effort on the part of the audience, an effort to be avoided as it interferes with aesthetics, involvement, and acceptance of events. WKRP IN CINCINNATI started out slowly because of the number of characters, all of which had to be identified and understood by the audience. Eventually, because of their striking differences and personalities, it was possible to tell them apart without a scorecard, and the show became successful. M*A*S*H also started out with the characters that were in the movie. After the first season several of the characters were dropped: it was possible to develop them all in the movie and give them all something to do. On television this proved impossible. Transients There is extensive use of transients. Transient characters come in three varieties: the guest star, the small but necessary role, and the necessary but not constantly needed role. The guest star is a major role in a single episode, providing a plot problem. When I LOVE LUCY was set in Hollywood for several episodes such stars as RichardWidmark, William Holden and John Wayne were brought in. Herve Villechais appeared as a guest on TAXI, Danny Thomas played a dual role as both his own persona and a character on an episode of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, and Robert Alda appeared twice as a doctor on M*A*S*H. The role does not have to be played by an established "star", nor need the guest appear in his or her own persona; it can be any actor playing a major role in a single episode. Small but necessary roles are usually walk-on characters: delivery people, store clerks and customers, and other supernumeraries. They are necessary for the continuity of the plot by acting as agents for plot problems and complications, but they usually contribute little or nothing of themselves as characters. The third type of transient, the necessary but not constantly needed role, is a supporting role that does not appear in every episode. Often they will appear only two or three times during the course of a season, although occasionally their function is expanded. Bob's therapy group (THE BOB NEWHART SHOW) began as a single plot variation and was expanded to a regularly appearing part of the show. The psychiatrist, Dr. Freedman (M*A*S*H) was on as a part of a single episode about how the personnel coped with the insanity of their jobs, and soon became a regular poker player and medical consultant, almost a supporting character. The Fonz (HAPPY DAYS) was originally planned to be a supporting transient, but soon became the leading character. Transient characters provide plot problems and complications, or provide those purely mechanical functions of a story, such as delivering packages or notes, revealing complications, etc. Audience Perception of the Characters Most of the characters in a situation comedy are sympathetic. The audience can identify with them and their problems and care whether or not they can solve the problems.
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However, to provide necessary conflict there is at least one character, usually a supporting character but occasionally a transient, who is unsympathetic. He is, for want of a better term, the villain. HIs function is to provide obstacles and problems for the main characters. Examples of such characters are Mel Cooley (THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW), Frank Burns (M*A*S*H), and Dan Fielding, the district attorney on NIGHT COURT. The villain is not always a villain, though. A sympathetic side of the character is occasionally shown, particularly if the character is a continuing role in the show. Dan Fielding, although a scum of the earth male chauvinist oinker with the morals of a water buffalo in heat, nonetheless does have feelings and will help a friend in trouble or assist a single mother safely deliver her child. However, this character will continue to conflict with the main character. For example, Ida Morganstern, Rhoda's mother on RHODA, will often try to force her own lifestyle on Rhoda, but she eventually gives in and allows Rhoda to live her own life: at least, on that episode. In another episode she will try a different approach or point of view. Dan, of course, ends a show by leaving a trail of slime. Thought A factor applicable to all three types of sitcom is that the themes, plots, complications and characterizations are firmly rooted in the idealized American middle-class, either by representing it or departing from it. Because a majority of American television viewers fit into this class, this foundation is of great value: expositions which establish the societal norms against which to measure the incongruity in humor may be greatly condensed, the norms already being known to a majority of the audience. Time, always of great value in so rigidly structured an art form as television, is thus saved, the problem introduced very early in the program and the plot set in motion. The plots for many episodes will involve a disruption of the status quo by one of the characters attempting to break with the middle-class mores. For example, in an episode of THE ODD COUPLE, Oscar Madison is offered and accepts a job as a writer with a magazine strongly resembling Playboy. His life-style alters drastically toward the sybaritic. However, he is not happy, and only regains his peace of mind and contentment when he returns to his middle-class way of life. As another example, in an episode of EIGHT IS ENOUGH, a friend of David (one of the sons) is killed in an accident. David, taking it very hard and believing that all of his work and clean living is worthless and that one should live for the moment, quits his job and begins to live a hedonistic existence. After a period of dissipation he comes to the realization that his erstwhile middle-class life was not so bad after all, with good food and clean clothes, no hangovers or double-vision, etc., and returns to it. Not all types of situation comedies extol the virtues of the middle-class. Many of the solutions in a dramedy, for example, will show that middle-class morality and mores are stifling, opinionated, or just wrong. Nonetheless, it is the middle-class that is serving as a foundation and springhead for plot and resolution. In the following chapters there is a discussion of each individual type of situation comedy, the actcom, the domcom and the dramedy, going into detail about how they use and/or portray plot, character, thought, setting, diction and music.

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Actcom: Action-Based Situation Comedies

The action-based situation comedy, or actcom, is the most common form of situation comedy on television, 88% of the total number of sitcoms. Plot Orientation The plots of actcoms are plots of action. That is, the emphasis is on the action rather than on characterization or thought, as will be shown below. Exposition The exposition is usually under the opening credits: still photographs, cartoons, or film showing the characters, settings, and basic premise. For example, the opening of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW shows photographs of the cast, as does FAMILY TIES. C artoons were very popular as openings in the 1960s (BEWITCHED, I DREAM OF JEANNIE, IT'S ABOUT TIME), and films showing characters and locations are often used (CAVANAUGHS, NEWHART, RHODA, THE WONDER YEARS). If any information other than visual is needed, then the lyrics of the title song supply it, as on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND or THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES. Problem The problems in an actcom are mistakes, misunderstandings, attempts to influence the behavior of others, or unforeseen circumstances, all of which disrupt the status quo. In one episode of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW (see appendix C) the plot is precipit ated by Mel Cooley, the producer of "The Alan Brady Show" (for which Rob Petrie, Sally Rogers, and Buddy Sorrell are writers) and Alan's brother-in-law, who rejects a script about a man rising to the top by marrying the boss' daughter, thinking the script is about him. He is wrong but he realizes it only at the end of the show, allowing a half-hour of comic results built on his misunderstanding. In another episode of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, the plot is started by Ritchie, Rob's son, being in a school pl ay. In an episode of I LOVE LUCY, Lucy thinks the romance has gone out of her marriage and wants to induce her husband, Ricky, to show the same interest in her that he did when they were first married. She never mentions this to him, but instead embarks on three different schemes, each designed to get Ricky's attention. Sometimes the character attempts to influence his own behavior rather than someone else's. Rhoda, on RHODA, frequently tries to behave in a manner not consistent with what she believes her character to be. In one episode, she rebels against her ste reotyped upbringing that insists that a woman wait for the man to ask for a date, and asks the man of her choice to go out with her. On yet another show, DELTA HOUSE, the boys want to impress their parents on Parent's Day at the University. Most often the problem is an unforeseen occurrence: Mork (MORK AND MINDY) demonstrates his gullibility; Lucy and Ricky (I LOVE LUCY) prepare for an overseas trip; the station (WKRP IN CINCINNATI) is holding a contest with a cash prize; Tabitha (BEWI TCHED) wants a toy elephant; Cosmo (TOPPER) needs money to pay his wife's bills; Brad's father (ANGIE) wants
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Angie and her mother to come meet him; Roper's (THREE'S COMPANY) drain needs fixing; Alex (TAXI) picks up an old lady; Murray, the cop, (THE ODD C OUPLE) meets Felix' new girlfriend and remembers that he raided the play she is in; a space capsule is going to pass directly over the island (GILLIGAN'S ISLAND); Frasier and his new girlfriend invite Sam and Diane over for dinner (CHEERS). All of the above examples are simple, yet set off chains of events that comprise the bulk of the show, all of them physical rather than mental or emotional actions. Complications The complications are flaws in the plan to solve the problems or natural outgrowths of the problem. In the first DICK VAN DYKE example, complications include Rob quitting in protest to Mel's canceling the script, and Buddy and Sally not quitting wit h him. In the second example, Rob has to leave town and can't go to Ritchie's play. In the I LOVE LUCY example, complications include Lucy's schemes to get Ricky's attention. In other examples: The Delta House boys realize that the last thing that wil l impress their parents in their junkyard of a house. In addition, their faculty advisor is told to get contributions from their parents or face an unrenewed contract; Morkmeets an escaped prisoner who tells Mork that he escaped in order to visit his mo ther; Lucy has to get a passport for the trip, but can't because she has no birth certificate; Johnny Fever, the WKRP disc jockey, misquotes the amount of the cash prize, saying that it is $5000.00 instead of the correct $50.00; Clara the witch, Tabitha's aunt, wants to give Tabitha a toy elephant, but mixes up her magic spell and creates a real elephant instead; Cosmo gets involved in catching counterfeiters; Angie's mother is afraid to fly and therefore won't go to see Brad's father; Roper can hear what is said in the apartment upstairs through the open drain; the old lady likes Alex' company and sets up a regular meeting for him to drive her around; Felix thinks that his girlfriend is a librarian, not a nude actress; the castaways attempt to signal the capsule; Frasier and his girlfriend, Lilith, who has just moved in with him, begin arguing about their personality foibles. Each of the complications is fairly simple and straightforward, and do not lead the characters to any great moral decision or mental strain. They lead quite naturally to some type of action, in which the characters do something to solve the complica tion: Rob tries to get back in time to see the play; Lucy tries yet another scheme to get Ricky's attention; the Delta House boys take over the swank Omega House; Mork frees the prisoner; Lucy tries to find someone to vouch for her at the passport office ; the disc jockey tries to rig the contest so nobody can win; Clara tries to get rid of the elephant; the ghosts try to get rid of the men in Cosmo's basement who are counterfeiters; Angie tries to get Brad's father to come to see her; the three kids upst airs give Roper a good piece of false gossip; Alex feels like a gigolo but goes along; Felix and Oscar go to the theatre to see if Felix' girlfriend is really a nude actress; the castaways on the island try a variety of ways to signal the space capsule; L ilith locks herself in the bathroom. Crisis The crises are the points at which it is 1) necessary for the protagonist to make a decision about what action to take, or 2) the events place the protagonist at a low point. The decisions involve no great soul searching, philosophical pondering, no r consideration of possible consequences beyond the solving of the immediate problem. The greatest amount of thought is devoted to the actual mechanics of carrying out the decision. The low point is the failure of a plan, or circumstances that put the p rotagonistin some sort of trouble.
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Examples of the first include: Alex must decided whether he should continue to see the old lady; Oscar must decided whether to tell Felix about his girlfriend. More often, the protagonist finds himself in trouble: Mork is arrested for freeing the prisoner; Lucy can't find a witness in lieu of a birth certificate; someone wins the WKRP contest for $5,000.00; a loan officer and investigator are coming over a nd will see the elephant; the ghosts think Cosmo is the counterfeiter; Roper thinks thatChrissy is pregnant. Climax The climax is the highest point of physical and verbal action. The protagonist has gone to his farthest extreme in mistake, misunderstanding, attempt to influence, or to cope with the unforeseen occurrence. A result must be obtained, either vindica ting his actions or showing him his error, thus achieving resolution. The resolution of actcom plots in most cases is a restoration of the status quo. In both THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW and I LOVE LUCY examples, once the protagonists have admitted what they were doing (Rob hating Buddy and Sally for not quitting with him and Mel admitting his error, and Lucy trying to rekindle romance), the facts were told and the status quo restored. In the other examples: Mork is vindicated when the prisoner returns from visiting his mother; the WKRP prize money is stolen by a conman, but Johnny, the disc jockey, redeems himself by getting it back; the bank inspector is made to look a fool and thinks he hallucinated the elephant; the ghosts alter the printing plates to make play money and catch the counterfeiters, saving Cosmo; the Om ega House is destroyed but the advisor has checks for contributions, saving Delta House and his job; Roper looks like a fool and the kids get what they want-- $50.00 off the rent; Alex tells the old lady off, refusing to be a gigolo; the capsule blows up; Rob dreams he's a puppet and his wife is pulling the strings to get him to his son's show; both Lilith and Diane end up in the bathroom, upset with Frasier and Sam. Denouement The denouement shows that the status quo has been reestablished. It can occur very quickly. In the above I LOVE LUCY example, it is simply Ricky and Lucy embracing after he reassures her that he does indeed love her. More often, though it is a sho rt scene showing that all is once again as it was at the beginning, with everyone happy and laughing together: Ritchie sings his song from the play for Rob; Johnny offers a new prize--a tube of lip gloss; Mrs. Topper had $10,000 in counterfeit money but couldn't find anything she wanted to buy; the checks the advisor gave the dean were forged by the Delta House boys; Roper has done a bad job of fixing the drain -- it leaks all over him; the old lady agrees not to try to buy Alex, but is not sure she can stomach the places he can afford to take her; Oscar sets up a date for Felix with Felix' ex-wife, Gloria; Mr. Howell, who had money on the space capsule when it blew up, throws a tantrum; Frasier locks the bathroom door from the outside and he and Sam go upstairs to watch television. As can be seen in the above examples, the orientation of the plots is toward action rather than character or thought. The problems are superficial and often invented by the characters themselves, and are minor occurrences happening to the main or a s upporting character leading to further action. Character
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The characters in an actcom are not human, but humanoid. That is, though they have the appearance of humanity, certain characteristics are exaggerated in an actcom for effect. When a character is in love rhe wanders aimlessly, moony-eyed and sighin g; when rhe cries rhe screws up rher eyes and wails; when rhe's angry rhe tears rher hair, bugs rher eyes and yells. Characterizations are generally shallow, the writer emphasizing certain characteristics and ignoring others. For instance, Harry on THE LUCY SHOW is loud, belligerent, and constantly angry and exasperated when he is not being obsequious to his super iors. Ricky (I LOVE LUCY) is also loud and ill-tempered, as is the Skipper on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. On WKRP IN CINCINNNATI, Johnny Fever is so laid-back he approaches comatose, and Herb is a smug, often stupid yes-man. Oscar (THE ODD COUPLE) is a slob and Felix is a neurotic neatnik. Mrs. Topper (TOPPER) is a scatterbrain, as is Chrissy on THREE'S COMPANY and Howard on THE BOB NEWHART SHOW. Woody on CHEERS is naive to the point of stupidity and Christine on NIGHT COURT is sweet to the point of syrup poi soning. Other characteristics may exist, but they are introduced only on a particular episode for effect. The main characteristics may be counted on to appear in all episodes. In addition, there is a great deal of stereotyping. The husband is the breadwinner, usually the only one in the family with a job, as in I LOVE LUCY, THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, BEWITCHED, and TOPPER. The wife is the homemaker, staying in the house. I f she does get a job she usually quits by the end of the episode, having proven that she is incompetent outside the house. The children are either cute and winsome, brats, or both. Of course, as society changes, so do the stereotypes as they reflect tha t society. In the last ten years, women have become more and more important in the workplace. Thus, sitcoms now have the wife working. Nonetheless, much stereotyping still exists. Many actcoms, such as I LOVE LUCY, THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW and NEWHART, will have what I will call, for lack of a better term, a star, as opposed to a main character. A star is the leading character in virtually every plot, being the focal point of t he action, the instigator and the one who carries out the bulk of the action, and the most visible character. Lucille Ball, Bob Newhart, and Dick Van Dyke were all the stars of their shows, acting as focus to the action. In recent years, Harry Anderson on NIGHT COURT, Tony Danza on WHO'S THE BOSS?, and Alf on ALF are the stars. There are certain characteristics devolving on the star depending on whether the star is male or female. If the star is male his character is often confused and beset, he tries to do his best but often fails, tries to be honest and straightforward b ut is defeated by the forces around him. If the star is female her character is often confused and confusing, flighty, ambitious, and devious. Along with the star there is often one other character who is the second lead. Ricky on I LOVE LUCY, Laura on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, and Joanna on NEWHART are examples. If the second lead is male he is usually loud, volatile, and exasperated. If the second lead is female she is often docile but determined, supportive, and witty. A female second lead is also often more intelligent and well-rounded that a male second lead. Joanna and Jill (HOME IMPROVEMENT), for example, are witty and clever, ver y supportive but not above making disparaging remarks about their respective husbands, Bob and Tim. Many actcoms have a basic unit of a man and a woman as main characters. Actcoms based on gimmicks such as magic or other supernormal powers always have this basic unit, although it may
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be a hybrid such as MY FAVORITE MARTIAN wherein the basic unit i s a man and a Martian, or MY LIVING DOLL in which the unit is a man and a robot (although the robot looks like a beautiful woman). In gimmick-based actcoms one member of the basic unit has unusual skills or characteristics: Samantha (BEWITCHED) is a witch, Jeannie (I DREAM OF JEANNIE) is a genie, Uncle Martin (MY FAVORITE MARTIAN) is a Martian with the ability to disappear, lev itate objects, etc. In all cases, the other character is both the victim and the benefactee of the first character's skills. An interesting point is that in all cases wherein the basic unit is a man and a woman, it is the woman who has the special abilities. It appears to be assumed that it is acceptable for a woman to take advantage of a man by turning him into a housefly or dropping him into the middle of the Gobidesert, but not for a man to take advantage of a woman in a similar fashion. In most actcoms the main characters are shown as shallow and superficial, physically rather than mentally or emotionally motivated, with certain characteristics exaggerated. The motivations and emotions that are shown by the characters are few and s imple, basically those necessary to continue and illustrate the action. Motivations can be jealousy, greed, envy, curiosity, fear, etc., but they are never complex and rarely mixed. The same is true of the emotions shown: they are basic--grief, fear, e xcitement, love, etc.--and usually exaggerated for comic effect. However, in the more sophisticated actcoms such as RHODA, THE GOLDEN GIRLS and HOME IMPROVEMENT, the characters are more dimensionally human: they respond to stimuli in a fashion denoting an ability to think rationally and not necessarily comically. They have a tendency to use wit rather than slapstick, tears rather than crybaby wailing, sarcasm rather than yelling. The more sophisticated actcoms approach sex as something more than simply that which one avoids telling the children. The main characters are rarely virginal in mind or body. For instance, Rhoda and Brenda on RHODA both think of men not only as mar riageable but as sexual objects. Dan on NIGHT COURT thinks of women only as sexual objects. Granted, they often use oblique language, but they are rarely reticent in admitting to sexual encounters. Supporting characters in actcoms are usually henchmen, dupes and straightmen. They provide assistance, wittingly or not, and are occasionally the targets of schemes. They also provide straightlines for the main character's punchlines. Their dramatic function is usually limited to being confused and beset, rarely providing plot problems, simply aiding and abetting, or being the victim of the main character's actions. Colonel Bellows (I DREAM OF JEANNIE), Gladys Cravits (BEWITCHED) , Maynard (THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS), Mr. Roper (THREE'S COMPANY), and Cliff (CHEERS) are examples. In the more sophisticated actcoms, such as THE GOLDEN GIRLS and THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF MOLLY DODD, supporting characters are also often relatives of the main character, intimately involved in rher life: mother, father, siblings, spouse. They do pro vide plot problems and complications, often by imposing themselves on the main character's personal life. In addition, the supporting characters can, like the main character, grow and change, affected by the events that occur. Unsympathetic characters are often supporting characters, providing a variety of functions. They are foils for the main characters, are perpetual obstacles to overcome, and are continuing butts of complications in constant confusion. Larry Tate on BEWITCHED, Mel Cooley and Alan Brady on
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THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, Herb on WKRP IN CINCINNATI, Dean Wormer on DELTA HOUSE, Brad's family on ANGIE, Louis on TAXI, and Dan Fielding on NIGHT COURT, are examples of this type of character. In any case, supporting characters are as shallow and superficial as the main characters in the same show, their special characteristics exaggerated and others ignored. Transient characters have three purposes. First, they provide plot problems and complications. Second, they provide comic bits of business, aiding the regular characters in comic scenes. Third, they make it possible for many plots to function, per forming those bits of business that would be dramatically impossible for a regular character to do. Transient characters can often be unsympathetic, providing conflict with the main character or one of the supporting characters, or both. The relationships between the characters on an actcom are only as close and deep as is necessary to make the actions possible and believable. Families and friends often appear to have no life beyond that shown on the screen, leaving a sense of super ficiality, as though families were barely acquainted, much less related. All characters in actcoms have one special purpose: to be the agent to carry out the dictates of the action. Their characterizations are developed only to the point at which they can carry out their function, with little or no growth or change as p eople. Settings The settings for an actcom are generally simple and functional, serving as a background for the action rather than being a part of it. They show little personality, either of their own or of the characters inhabiting them. They are kept to a minimu m, usually just the home (the living room, kitchen, and occasionally a bedroom), and the main character's place of work. They are generally middle-class, occasionally lower-middle-class, but very rarely upper-class. Lower- and upper-class settings are only used when they are a basic part of the situation, as the rundown shack on GREEN ACRES, or the mansions on THE BE VERLY HILLBILLIES, THE GOOD LIFE, and THE POWERS THAT BE. The rooms are often not even designed to be functional. For example, the kitchen on THE LUCY SHOW has the refrigerator upstage center, the sink stage right, and the stove stage left. This would not be remarkable were it not for the fact that the ki tchen appears to be approximately 20 feet across. Such a distance and arrangement of appliances would make cooking more an act of endurance than a preparation of a meal. If one is to believe an actcom, bodily functions do not exist. Bathrooms are almost never used. If a bathroom is shown it is only if specifically required for the plot in a particular episode, as in an episode of THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW in which Lau ra gets her big toe stuck in the bathtub faucet. However, the only fixture that appears in this bathroom is the bathtub. The rest of the room is empty. In another DICK VAN DYKE episode, Rob thinks he is losing his hair, but he comes out of his house's bathroom to check his scalp's condition in the bedroom dresser's mirror. A most unusual house, that has no mirror in the bathroom. On an episode of CHEERS, the bar's men's room was used, but only because Diane's name and number were on the wall, and she had to go erase it.
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The basic locations on place-based actcoms are dictated by the format. For example, on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND the basic location is a jungle-covered deserted island which acts as all the regular basic areas. APPLE PIE uses a living room and kitchen and no place of work. PLEASE STAND BY has a living room and a place of work, the TV studio. The locations are still a background to action, but with some personality in the major location. CHEERS has a warm and comfortable-looking bar, APPLE PIE has a liv ing room with furniture in the style of the 1920s and 1930s, rather shabby and in keeping with the personalities of the characters, and HOGAN'S HEROES' Stalag 13 has all the charm of a leaky outhouse in a Buffalo winter. Due to the nature of gimmick-based actcoms many special locations are used: clouds, icebergs, jungles, deserts, etc. These locations are easily conjured up by magic. Nonetheless, the majority of the action takes place in settings just like any oth er actcom. In general, the settings in actcoms are unimportant. They are impersonal backgrounds to action, generally middle-class unless altered according to the dictates of the format. As the show's type becomes more sophisticated the settings become more pe rsonalized to the characters. However, in all cases the settings are merely functional to the comic action. Thought The characters in actcoms rarely seem to indulge in rational thought. At most, they devise schemes to accomplish their purposes, to solve their problems. Further consequences of their actions are either never considered or shrugged off as unimporta nt. Their thought processes are also superficial, their motivations based on first impressions, appearances, and hasty conclusions. Rob automatically thinks his friends have deserted him when they don't walk out with him when he quits; Mork believes eve rything he sees and hears; Lucy, trying to get her passport, almost commits a Federal crime because she doesn't think about the consequences of lying on her application; the WKRP prize is easily stolen because the characters don't even consider asking for identification from the man who comes to claim it; many of the magic spells on BEWITCHED backfire because no one thinks of alternative possibilities that the same spell could produce. Actcom plots rarely have a theme, a point of view expressed or implied by the writer. Occasionally, there is a moral, as on HAPPY DAYS when Fonzie says, "Stay in school-it's cool", but such morals seem almost an afterthought, tacked on and out of pl ace because it is not prepared for during the course of the show. Instead, the show uses action and humor for its own sake. Diction The language used in actcoms in generally simplistic, the emphasis being on physical action, not verbal wit. It reflects the shallow characterizations found in most actcoms, and is limited to only what is necessary for the plot. When a character is witty, it is usually done for effect, the incongruity of the character speaking like Oscar Wilde or Mark Twain being funny. For example, Frasier Crane (CHEERS) is a psychiatrist, and often speaks in a very erudite fashion. However, when he does, the re st of the characters either make fun of him, or look at him with a blank stare, at which point he translates what he said into simplistic terms. Music

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The first auditory effect noticed on an actcom is the sheer volume of the lines. I can think of no other type of television program on which the characters shout with such consistency. There is little or no use of background music and few sound eff ects. They almost invariably used a laugh track. There are four basic reasons to use a laugh track. First, people are more likely to laugh with someone else than they are to laugh when they are alone. Thus the track provides them with that crowd. Second, even though many shows use a live audience, a live audience simply doesn't put out the volume and intensity of sound for it to work. Several shows, including I LOVE LUCY, THE ODD COUPLE, and MORK & MINDY tried to dispense with the laugh machine and use only the live audiences' laughter, which, with each of those shows, was rich and heavy. The results sounded thin and anemic, sort of like the polite noises made by a matron hearing a dirty joke. Therefore, even shows with live audiences "sweeten " the laughter with the machine. Third, as a stage actor knows from being in shows, when rhe says a laugh line, the audience laughs, and the actor waits until the laughter begins to diminish before continuing to insure the audience doesn't miss the next line -- it's called holding for l aughs. However, on a TV show, particularly one without a live audience, there is no way for the actors to know at what the audience will laugh, or for how long. If you watch the shows carefully, you will see the actors "hold for laughs" after a purporte d funny line, leaving a window of opportunity for the audience at home to laugh and not cover the next line. However, many supposedly funny lines are duds that the audience doesn't laugh at. The laugh track is there to fill that hole of silence so the a udience doesn't notice that the actors are holding. Finally, of course, "they can assure themselves some laughs during an otherwise mundane show." However, the laugh track is not there just to be annoying, but is there for some purely, necessarily technical reasons. The laugh track is a major characteri stic of the "music" in actcoms.

SUMMARY In conclusion, the actcom is a basic, even simplistic, form of comedy. The idea is to get laughs, not examine character or discuss social or personal problems. Action is the means by which humor is created, rarely verbal wit or subtlety. Little or nothing is placed in the way of the action, neither setting nor diction, and little thought is given to possible outcomes of action. In recent years there has been a trend toward actcoms examining social ills, such as crime, drug and alcohol use, and sexual diseases. However, many times this social consciousness appears tacked on rather than an integral part of plots. Since to exami ne social problems the characters have to respond to them as people involved and affected by them, not merely agents of actions, actcoms are particularly ill-equipped for the task.

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Domcom: Character-Based Situation Comedies Plot, Thought, Diction, Music, Spectacle

The domestic comedy, or domcom, is the second most numerous form of situation comedy on television, 11.5%, lagging far behind the actcom's 87.5%. The first TV situation comedy that could really be called a domcom was FATHER KNOWS BEST, which premier ed in 1954. In the FATHER KNOWS BEST syndrome, the pratfall laugh gave way to family warmth. The father had a sudden rise in I.Q., the mother had important things to do, and the children actually had a part to play in the plot. There are two major differences between the type of comedy represented by FATHER KNOWS BEST and what had gone before. First, there is an attempt to create an actual feeling of family among the characters, rather than a simple conglomeration of come dic actors playing characters with the same last name. This provides a sense of family warmth out of which the humor can grow, with the problems being solved by, at first, the father assisted by the mother, then in recent years, by the parents acting in partnership. Second, the situations in which the characters become involved are more believable. Less emphasis is placed on contrived misunderstandings to set off the plot and more on actual personal problems that could plague the average American. The domcom comes in several varieties, each of which will be discussed separately. The types are: 1) standard; 2) single-parent; and 3) pseudo-domcom. All three types use the same plot orientation and elements. It is in the characters and setting s that they vary. Plot Orientation The plots of all types of domcoms are most often plots of character. The emphasis is on the characters, their emotions and relationships with other people and society, rather than on action or thought. Exposition The exposition of a domcom is, like the actcom, the establishment of characters, settings, and basic situations. It is shown in the opening segment, with the credits, just before or after the teaser, and often consists of the protagonist either arri ving home and greeting his loved ones, or doing something lovingly paternal or maternal, all showing the personal relationships of the characters. For examples, the opening of FATHER KNOWS BEST shows the father entering the front door of his home, where he is smiling greeted by his wife and children; Andy (THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) is walking along a dirt road, taking his son fishing; Tom (THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER) is playing with his son on the beach; Prof. Howard (THE JIMMY STEWART SHOW) is riding his bicycle through the tree-lined streets to his home where he is greeted by his loved ones; the family plays football on the lawn (EIGHT IS ENOUGH); photographs of the individual characters are shown on the mantle, followed by a family portrait (FAMILY TIES). In any case, the impression to be gained from such expositions is one of place and character rather than situation, a middle-class residential district and house inhabited by a loving family.
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Problem The problems are those of character, in which a character is presented with a moral and/or emotional dilemma which needs solution. The problem is usually a child's: a problem in growing up, maturing, learning to live in human society. Such problem s include sharing with others, sibling rivalry, responsibility to work, home, family and self, sex, school, drugs and alcohol, etc. Once the problem is introduced the entire family, but in particular the parent or parents, become involved in discovering the full extent of the problem and finding the solution. Problems can include: Mary (THE DONNA REED SHOW) is called "wholesome" by her boyfriend, a description she finds insulting; Opie (THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) wants some spending money; the Free Clinic (ONE DAY AT A TIME) is going to be filmed for a documentary; the family (FATHER KNOWS BEST) is on a trip at Christmas; Beaver (LEAVE IT TO BEAVER) wants to go to Eddie Haskell's house. Complications The complications are new developments in the problem that challenge the character's abilities and understanding, forcing the character to grow and develop as a person. For example, in an episode of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, Opie, Andy's son, wants a job to earn his own money for toys. A job opens for a grocery delivery boy. The first complication is the arrival of a competitor for the job. The grocer, wanting to be fair, tells the boys that he will hire them both for a week and then hire permanent lythe one that does the best job. The next complication comes after Opie gets the job and finds that the other boy needs the money for his family. However, Andy is so proud that Opie got the job that he can't just quit, nor would the other boy accept w hat he would consider charity. Other examples: Mary wants to find out what other people think of her; the director of the documentary is an egomaniac who gets on Julie's nerves; the family's car breaks down and they're stuck for the night; Beaver's mother insists that he do somet hing he promised to do. Crisis The crises are the turning points at which events can go different ways. In the above example, the crisis is Opie learning that the other boy needs the job to help support his family. If the grocer had picked the other boy there would have been no crisis. In a domcom, crises will go in the direction of forcing the character to the point of making a moral, ethical and/or emotional decision. The crises in the other examples are: Mary wants to change her image, to be vivacious and exciting instead of wholesome; Julie finds that she's in love with the director; the family can't get home before Christmas morning and Kathy, the youngest, is very upset; Beaver snubs his mother and makes her upset. Climax The climax is the point at which the character's moral, ethical or emotional decision bears fruit, when the consequences of his decision culminate. Opie decides to make it appear that he is not responsible enough for the job, saving the other boy th e embarrassment of receiving what he would perceive as charity, even though this strains his relationship with his father. However, Opie goes ahead, bearing his father's upset and disappointment, until the climax, at which point Andy learns the consequen ces ofOpie's actions, apologizes and supports Opie's decision and actions. In the other examples, the climaxes are: Mary realizes that she should be herself because, even if she is wholesome, she is unique and wholesome is not bad; Julie, who has been fighting the relationship
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with the director because she doesn't want to be hurt, decides to take a chance; Kathy realizes that Christmas is not a place, but a feeling with the family, as they put up a tree and give her presents that they made during the n ight while she was asleep. Denouement The denouement shows that equilibrium has been reestablished. However, the characters are not the same as at the beginning: the child has learned something important about himself and life, and the parent has learned that his child is growing up. The denouement is very often a short, funny scene. There is a purpose to this. The climax can often be sickly sweet and present a definite possibility of syrup poisoning. Thus arose what is called "treacle-cutting". The lecture, soft words, tende r loving care usually hit a peak at the end of Act II. We are thus hip-deep in a morass of molasses during the commercial break. Therefore, rather than leave the audience with a saccharin aftertaste at the end of the show there is a tag, an ending about 45 seconds long, that, it is hoped, ends the show with a laugh. This, again it is hoped, cuts the treacle and leaves the viewer with a good taste that will carry over to the next time the show is on the air, removing the stickiness and making it palatab le. For example: Mary returns home from a date with the boy who "insulted" her and he again says that he thinks she's wholesome. He also thinks she's exciting, vivacious, scintillating, etc.; Julie and the director decide that the bathroom is not the p lace to patch up their relationship and go out to the living room to join the rest of the family. It should be noted that domcom plots resemble actcoms in many ways until the crises, at which point the emphasis on action gives way to an emphasis on the effects of the actions upon the characters. Opie's competition for the job is pure action, muc h of it slapstick, as are the reactions of the townspeople as they watch the contest. Nonetheless, once the action setting up the complete exposition of factors involved is complete (usually at the point of crisis), the plot then turns to an examination of the effects on character. Opie learns that the other boy needs the job; from there the only real physical action is Opie not going to work but instead going to play. However, this is done in a deliberate attempt to appear irresponsible so that the ot her boy will get the job, an act involving an examination of character, not simply physical response to physical stimuli, as would be the case in an actcom. In an actcom, the factor of the other boy needing the job for his family would never have arisen; it would probably end up with both boys competing for the job and losing it to a girl, the grocer's niece.

Thought In a domcom the characters think in a rational manner, although their thinking is often clouded by emotion or a desire to believe a theory in spite of facts. Nonetheless, they do think and are motivated by a desire to learn and grow. Future consequ ences of their actions are a major consideration, at least by those who stand outside the emotional implications and attempt to solve the problem. When David Bradford (EIGHT IS ENOUGH) goes on a hedonistic, dissipated binge in order to "live life to the fullest", the rest of the family think carefully about what it could do to his future and try to make him abandon his new lifestyle. When Julie (ONE DAY AT A TIME) falls in love with the egotistical director, she wants to break off the relationship becau se of fear of future consequences.
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Thought processes are, in general, cogent and deep, with attempts at understanding the complexities of society and human behavior. Domcom plots often have a theme, but it is strictly related to domestic crises; e.g., how to handle cheating at school, sibling rivalry, premarital sex, alcohol and drug use, etc. Such themes almost invariably reflect middle-class values and morals, and try to instill an attitude of social responsibility and consciousness. Settings Settings in a domcom are more carefully done than in an actcom, due to the fact that the settings are more a part of the show and less a mere background to the action. Standard Domcom The setting is almost always a house, a single family dwelling. The basic locations are the living room, the kitchen, the den, and bedrooms. Most action takes place in one of these four locations, or the peripheries thereof (foyer, dining room, hallway, driveway). The living room is neat, tidy, clean, and furni shed in keeping with the personality of the woman. For example, in FATHER KNOWS BEST and EIGHT IS ENOUGH, it is solid, attractive, not frilly but not plain, just like the women of those homes. The living room is used for semi-formal or formal family gatherings and for entertaining guests. The kitchen is the second most common setting. It is the province of the woman. It is her space, and everyone else who enters appears almost a visitor, including other members of the family. It is used for discussions in which the mother is being consulted about problems. It is neat, clean, and functional. The father's province is stereotypically male: the den, the garage, the workshop. From the behavior of the characters when they enter to speak to the father, one is sometimes given the impression that the character is entering the shrine of the ora cle wherein judgments will be handed down. It is used for important discussions and decisions, and is usually the place of the final judgment and disciplining. The area is always very masculine, decorated in wood and leather and books, or power tools an d projects. It is mainly the children's bedrooms, rather than the parents', that are used, and then only for the most intimate discussions. They are furnished in keeping with the personality of the occupant: on FATHER KNOWS BEST, Betty's room is frilly and femi nine, while Bud's room is angular and little-boy masculine, with pennants on the walls and models on the shelf. The bedrooms are used for discussions of a personal nature, usually as one or the other of the parents try to determine and explore the child' s problem and help them find a solution. Any other locations are those dictated by the plot. In the FATHER KNOWS BEST example, above, there is a deserted shack on Christmas Eve. The place of work of the father is shown if the problem is related to the father and his business or dictated b y the format (such as HOME IMPROVEMENT's workshop/studio), but this is rare. In general, other locations are shown only if they are necessary to the telling of the story of that particular episode.

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Single-parent Domcom The basic settings in a single-parent domcom are the living room and the child's bedroom in the house or apartment of the family. Most scenes take place in these two locations due to the fact that most plots are showing the personal relationships b etween parent and child. Therefore, the most personal space for both is used: the living room for the parent, and the bedroom for the child. The placement of these locations is a stylistic and/or format consideration, varying from show to show. For example, ACCIDENTAL FAMILY and THE DORIS DAY SHOW are both set on ranches. MY THREE SONS and THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW both have houses. JULIA and THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER are set in apartments. Another location that is important to a single-parent domcom is the parent's place of work. This can be anything from Andy Taylor's sheriff's office (THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) to Tom Corbett's magazine editorial office (THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER ). This location provides plot variations by allowing the introduction of transients and transient plots and a location for nondomestic scenes, including those relating to the parent's work. The place of work is also an excellent location for the paren t to reflect upon and discuss the problem, allowing him or her time and assistance in discovering the solution. For surrogate mothers, the primary location is almost invariably the kitchen, where she can always be found by either child or parent for her special insights into problems and solutions. Surrogate fathers never seem to have a place of their own, bu t can be found in the parent's areas, either the living room, or, more likely, the place of work. Other locations, such as other places of work, other children's bedrooms, other adults' apartments or homes, and the bathroom are very rarely shown as regular locations. They do appear, however, as elements of an episode's plot. Pseudo-domcom The basic setting for a pseudo-domcom is the place of work. The rule is that everyone in the pseudo-family work in the same place, as on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, ROOM 222 and CHEERS. Thus, the place of work replaces the home, taking the place of living room, kitchen, and den/workshop. The characters' apartments or houses take the place of the children's bedrooms and serve the same function as bedrooms on other forms of domcom. THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW clearly illustrates this use of setting. The newsroom took the place of the living room, where most action took place. Lou's office, when he was being the father, was the den. Mary's apartment, which was basically one room, served as kitchen when she was mother, and bedroom when she was child. Rhoda's apartment, also one room, was her bedroom. Ted's dressingroom when he was single and apartment when he was married served as his bedroom. On CHEERS, the bar represented the living room, and Sam's office and the pool room represented the bedroo ms. Other locations are very rarely used unless specifically called for by a particular episode. Diction The language in domcoms is often filled with what is called smalltalk, conversation that does not necessarily further the plot, but creates an atmosphere of homeliness and togetherness, and helps
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delineate character. For example, in an episode of TH E COSBY SHOW, time was devoted not to any plot development but to Rudy, the youngest child's, tea party, where the discussion revolved around jokes about Rudy's missing front teeth, and her wonderful "invisible tea". The feeling created was one of warmth and togetherness in the family, not the solving of a problem. Again, there is little use of wit, although the characters, being human, occasionally say witty things. Music The delivery of the lines by the actors is much more subdued than in the actcom, high volume being saved for strong emotion rather than a standard way of communicating. There is greater use of oral interpretation to supply emotion to the lines. The domcom is also the only type of the three situation comedies that uses mood music to any degree to underscore the moments of greatest emotional impact. The laugh track is still used, as in the actcom, but to a lesser degree: more appreciative laughter, fewer belly laughs. Summary The domestic comedy, the second rank in number of situation comedies over the years, broke with the action comedy pattern by devoting itself, not to action, but to character. The plots, which usually have children rather than adults as their central figures, revolve around the character discovering what the real world is like, examining rher own character and learning from each new problem and solution. The characters are much more human than those in actcoms, having real emotions and motivations, and reacting to situations in a more rational rather than purely mechanical fashion. Settings are important in a domcom. They establish the atmosphere in which the family lives, serving as more than a simple background to the action. The domcom, since it does devote itself to character and the growth as a person of the character, is a more difficult but at the same time more satisfying form of situation comedy for the audience. It is possible to get involved in the story and the characters, and truly care what happens. Characters The characters in all types of domcom are more like human beings than those in actcoms. They are not so one-dimensional and stereotyped: no scatter-brained conniving wives; no perpetually confused and angry husbands; the neighbors are people, not s tooges or henchmen. They experience real emotions: grief, not wailing; love, not panting desire. In addition, all characters are important, not just the star or main characters. The main character is not necessarily the pivot point of every plot: the supporting characters are central to the plot much more often than in an actcom. Also, soluti ons are not always provided by the main character: they are sometimes provided by supporting characters or even transients. For example, in an episode of THE BRADY BUNCH, Jan's aunt, a transient character, proves that Jan is not ugly. In an episode of

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EIGHT IS ENOUGH, David, a supporting character, pushes Mary into realizing that she is trying too hard in medical school and is making everyone miserable in the process. Supporting characters are much more important in their own rights. They are not strictly underlings to the main character. They lead dramatic lives of their own away from the main character. They are often involved in plots of their own. The supporting characters in a domcom are the children, neighbors, friends, and the parents' coworkers (In domcoms of the 50s and 60s the wife rarely had a job that took her out of the house. However, as women moved more and more into the workplace , so did the wife in domcoms.) The children are the characters that have most of the problems, usually associated with learning about living in a social world. The relationship between parent and child, and the children themselves, is good and loving. Though there is sibling riv alry and hostility, there is even more love and support. A major problem with television's series programming is solved by having the children as the characters with most of the problems. For a piece of drama to be gripping for the audience, it must take place during the major event in the life of the pro tagonist. For OEDIPUS REX to take place while Oedipus was on the road, rather than at the moment when he discovers the truth about himself and his life, might be interesting, but also might leave the audience asking, "So what?" For E.T., THE EXTRATERRES TRIAL to be about E.T.'s trip to Earth, rather than about his meeting and surviving his encounter with humans, would lack immediacy and tension. Hamlet's life at school could be fascinating, but is nothing compared to the dramatic impact of his desire to revenge his father's murder. Thus it is clear to see that whatever happens to the character, the piece should be about the most important thing to happen to him/her/it in his/her/its life. What this means to series television is -- it's impossible. If what happens in this week's show is the most important thing that can happen in the character's life, then next week's show is an anticlimax, as is the next, and the next, and the next, if there is a next (if the audience loses interest, the show loses its contract). However, what if the characters with the problems are children? Children are incomplete adults, still learning about the world around them. Therefore, every problem they have is potentially the most important event in their lives to that point. Ne xt week's problem can be even more important. This solves a major problem with the dramatic quality of series television. It is now possible to tell a story every week that is the most important thing in a character's life without having to change chara cters. Other supporting characters in a domcom rarely have problems of their own for the family to resolve, but merely act as comic intensification and foils for the main characters. Though they rarely have problems of their own they are often instrumental in the solution by either providing a sounding-board for another character to discover the solution or by discovering the solution themselves. A prime example is Tim Allen's next door neighbor on HOME IMPROVEMENT. Although his face is never seen, he al ways has a perspective on Tim's problems that gives Tim a new approach. Transients are most often the cause of a plot problem or complication, coming into the show for one episode to create a problem for one of the main characters or children. They play roles ranging from
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total stranger to rarely seen relative, and thei r problem, often the most important event in their lives, is resolved through their interaction with one or more members of the family. The number of transients is kept to a minimum: the interest is in the family's reactions to the problems, not the transient's problem. For example, in an episode of ONE DAY AT A TIME, Schneider is confronted with someone to whom he once said, "Keep in touch". The man shows up, just out of prison. Schneider, Ann and Barbara are all apprehensive about having him around, but as they get to know him they realize they were prejudging him. He turns out to be a nice but socially unskilled person, having spent half his life in jail. They get him a job, which solves his problem, although the next moment the police come to take him back to prison for having left it without the formality of being released. Schneider, Ann, and Barbara resolve to visit him, having discovered something about themselves, that they tend to be prejudiced and resolve to avoid it in future. As can be seen from the above example, it was not the convict's problems that were the focus of the episode: it was the family's reactions to the problems. The resolution of the episode was not for the convict, who ended up right where he started, in prison, but the effect on the family and their new knowledge about themselves. All characters, with minor exceptions, are sympathetic. The plots do not arise out of a protagonist/ antagonist conflict, but a mental and/or emotional conflict within a character, and attempts by the character and his family to eliminate the conflic t. At most, a character, usually a transient, will be a personalized representation of the conflict, and thus appear unsympathetic. However, with the resolution of the conflict, any antipathy toward this character will disappear as it is realized that e ither his motivations were misunderstood or he is to be pitied rather than despised. One thing that distinguishes a domcom from an actcom is the competency of the characters to cope with problems. The parent does not always have the answer but does always have some explanation by the end of an episode. The children have an amazing degree of understanding of human nature and the problems of children and parents. # The following sections discuss the differences in the characters in the three types of domcom: standard, single-parent, and pseudo-domcom. Standard Domcom The standard domcom is one which uses a complete family as the basic unit. That is, there is a father, a mother, and children. The main characters in a standard domcom are the parents. The father is the head of the family, in keeping with the idealized middle-class American family. He is a fount of wisdom, firm but gentle, and the final decisions rest with him on all matte rs financial, the general running of the household, and discipline. In other words, he is a benevolent dictator, the breadwinner and provider for the family. He may be occasionally unsure of what to do but he is always willing to try and do his best. The mother is the father's right hand. She runs the home, handling the details of cleaning, shopping, cooking, etc. She maintains order in the home, deferring to the father in most matters of discipline, providing the emotional facets of all proble ms, leaving most of the logistics to the logical and rational mind of the father. As Mrs. Brady says on THE BRADY BUNCH, "I don't have to be
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logical--I'm a mother." The mother is the wellspring of comfort and mother love, and attends to the emotional we ll-being of the family. In recent years, as women have become more individual and independent, the wife has occasionally assumed the traditional "husband" characteristics, contributing more to the financial and disciplinary well-being of the family. At the same time, the husba nd has contributed more to the emotional aspects. On THE COSBY SHOW we often see Claire Huxtable handling discipline, while Cliff Huxtable provides comfort and emotional support to the children. Nonetheless, the standard characteristics of husband and w ife detailed above still hold true in the majority of shows and episodes. Primary among the supporting characters are the children, who range in age from about six to about seventeen. At least one child will be very young, rher innocence and lack of experience providing many plot problems and complications as rhe learns about the world around rher. For examples, there is Kathy on FATHER KNOWS BEST, Nick on EIGHT IS ENOUGH, Patty on THE DONNA REED SHOW, Cindy and Bobby on THE BRADY BUNCH, and Rudy on THE COSBY SHOW. At least one child will be old enough to experience problems with growing up in society. This child is learning not only about the world but the people in it, and experiences problems with friends, the opposite sex, money, egotism and snobbishness. For example, there is Bud on FATHER KNOWS BEST, Tom and Elizabeth on EIGHT IS ENOUGH, Jeff on THE DONNA REED SHOW, Jan and Peter on THE BRADY BUNCH, and Vanessa on THE COSBY SHOW. The other children, if any, will be older, beginning to cope with adult problems. The parents will guide rather than dictate solutions to these children, and the character will most often discover rher own solutions. In addition, this character wil l help with the raising of younger children, providing examples, good or bad. For example, there is Betty on FATHER KNOWS BEST, Nancy, Susan, Joanie, Mary, and David on EIGHT IS ENOUGH, Mary on THE DONNA REED SHOW, Marcia and Greg on THE BRADY BUNCH, and Theo and Denise on THE COSBY SHOW. If a show has a long enough run, four or more years, you will often see a new child added to the family in order to maintain the age spread as the original children (read, the actors playing them) grow older and move into new slots. For example, FAMILY TIES had the age spread the first few seasons with Jennifer, Mallory and Alex. However, as these three characters aged, a new child, Andy, was added. Andy provided the youngest, Jennifer moved from the youngest to the second slot, Mallory moved to the o lder teenage slot, and Alex became a new slot, the young adult. Other supporting characters are most often the parents' friends or family. They are often professional people (doctors, especially). They will aid in the raising of the children by offering advise and encouragement. Rarely do they provide anything in the way of plot problems and complications. On those shows in which the main characters are the children rather than the parents, such as FAMILY TIES, other supporting characters are often the children's, rather than the parents', friends. There is extensive use of transient characters, portraying in particular friends of the children. Through these friends the children can explore various ways of learning about life: peer pressure, success and failure, other families.
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Single-parent Domcom A single-parent domcom has a family broken for some reason, such as the death of one parent, or a divorce. Thus, the basic unit is that of having either a father or mother, but not both, and one or more children that the single parent must raise. The main character in a single-parent domcom is usually the parent, such as Andy Taylor on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW. Occasionally, however, it is the parent and the child. Tom Corbett and his son, Eddie, on THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, is an exam ple of this. Most shows of this kind use a widower. This appears to be due to an assumed effect on the audience, that men are less competent to raise children and thus there is a greater poignancy in a father trying to be a mother as well. The supporting characters include the children, the surrogate parent, and friends. The children are usually young (six to twelve years of age). If the show has a long run the children naturally grow up, and new young children are brought in. For e xample, on MY THREE SONS, which ran for 18 seasons, the oldest son grew up, got married, and moved out, so they adopted a new youngest son. This maintained the age range for interesting plots (and incidentally insured that the title remained applicable). The surrogate parent is a member of the cast that fulfills the role of the other, non-biological, parent. There are, of course, two types of surrogate parents: surrogate fathers and surrogate mothers. Surrogate fathers are usually well-intentioned but bumbling. Schneider, on ONE DAY AT A TIME, is constantly offering advise and assistance to Ann on the raising of her two daughters. The advise is often inapplicable and the assistance obstructive. Nonetheless, it is obvious that he believes that what he says and does is for the best. Bub, and later Uncle Charlie, on MY THREE SONS, played the wife to Steven Douglas' husband. Bub/Uncle Charlie did the cooking and housework, and provided some of the emotional support for the children. Surrogate mothers are warm and loving, stable and dependable. When they are not it is for the purpose of plot complication or problem. For example, Mrs. Livingston on THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER is always there, warm, smiling, gentle. On one e pisode she was in danger of deportation to her native Japan, and little Eddie had to cope with the prospect of losing her and try to understand the wonders of government. When Tom manages to get her permission to stay in America, Eddie is ecstatic, but a lso more aware of life in the big world. Occasionally there is a hybrid form of single-parent domcom, in which there is a parent and a surrogate parent of the same sex. KATE & ALLIE and MY TWO DADS are example. In this case the role of parent and surrogate parent trade off. In some episodes K ate is the surrogate father to Allie's mother, in other episodes vice versa. The parent's friends are often bumbling but well-intentioned, providing a foil for the parent's levelheaded competence. Barney Fife on THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and "Uncle" Norman on THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER are examples of this type of friend. Friends are almost exclusively of the same sex as the parent. The parent will rarely have a friend of the opposite sex. Anyone of the opposite sex turns out to be an employee, an employer, a co-worker, or a love interest.
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Transients brought into a single-parent domcom are usually important. For the parent they are either a love interest or a family complication for the parent, the child, or the surrogate parent. For the child the transients are brought in to introdu ce questions or problems for the parent to answer or solve. For example, on JULIA, Earl introduces the problem "Is Santa Claus black or white?". On an episode of THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, Eddie wants to marry his babysitter, who in turn wants to marry Tom. This is a problem for Tom to solve. Pseudo-domcom The characters on a pseudo-domcom are a set of adults who bear relationships to one another that are analogous to those in a regular domcom. An example is THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, in which Mary, Lou, Murray, Ted, Georgette, Rhoda, Phyllis and Sue Ann take the parts of the family, Mary as the usually calm and level-headed single parent surrounded by children older than herself. Occasionally an actcom will mature into a pseudo-domcom, as why the characters do what they becomes more important than the mere fact that they do it. A prime example is CHEERS. CHEERS, a pure actcom for the first few seasons, matured as the characters began examining why they did things. Sam, an inveterate, egotistical skirt-chaser has tried everything he can think of to get Rebecca into bed. He sees his opportunity when Rebe cca has lost the love of her life and is vulnerable. He moves in, then suddenly stops as his conscience (something he never had the first few seasons) bothers him: how can he take advantage of someone who needs a friend to talk to, not a roll in the hay ?Sam bolts from the room and calls Rebecca from the lobby of her apartment house, knowing he can't be a friend while in the same room with her -- his old reflexes are too strong. Sam's examination of his own character, realization of a moral dilemma, a nd decision to do something different from his normal behavior patterns, are factors that make this episode a domcom rather than an actcom. Although most episodes of CHEERS are actcom, many are domcom, with the characters in the bar taking the roles of parents and children, swapping the roles around according to the dictates of individual episodes. The only difference between a regular domcom and a pseudo-domcom, once the concept of the pseudo-domcom is understood, is that the character of parent, surrogate parent and child(ren) in a pseudo-domcom will often rotate between the characters.

Dramedy: Thought-Based Situation Comedies

The dramatic comedy, or dramedy, is the rarest of all forms of situation comedy, representing slightly more than one percent of all sitcoms that have been on the air. Nonetheless, the dramedy is also the most popular form of situation comedy for aud iences, virtually every one that has been on the air staying in the top fifteen shows on the Neilson rating list throughout its run. The final episode of M*A*S*H, a two hour made-for-tv movie, was the highest rated program of all time. With the undoubted popularity of the dramedy with audiences one would think that it would be the most common form of situation comedy, not the rarest. However, it must be understood that the
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dramedy is also the most difficult of comedy shows to produce because it must contain three things: 1) a superb cast working as an ensemble; 2) a clearly delineated sphere of activity for plots; and 3) excellent writing. Thus, the needs of the dramedy meet head on against the exigencies of television. Television is a voracious eater of time, money and talent. For there to be a strong cast the actors must have the ability to work without becoming exhausted. However, since there is an almost literal deadline to get a show's film or tape to the net work in time for broadcast, it is sometimes necessary to work 16 to 18 hours a day, six or seven days a week. This can totally exhaust a cast. What applies to the actors also applies to the writers. They work under the gun, needing to get a script in working condition in time to film the show in time to get the show in to the network. Thus, it's sometimes necessary to take shortcuts in the writing, to go for easy slapstick rather than the witty response, to follow a formula and "fill in the blanks" rather than to be original and thoughtful, to use stereotypes rather than carefully crafted individual characters, to use bathos (a ludicrous descent from the lofty or elevated to the commonplace) rather than pathos. Sloppy writing would be the death of a dramedy. The sphere of activity must not only be clearly delineated but must have an essential nature of its own, one that by its very appearance gets a reaction from the audience. Such locales are either rare or difficult to establish for the audience. Thus it is clear to see that the dramedy, although possible to do as evidenced by the fact that it has been, is extremely difficult for television, with its many limitations imposed by its time constraints. Plot Orientation Dramedy plots are most often plots of thought. However, because purely intellectual argument can become dry and didactic, character development and physical action are also well developed, more so than character and thought are in plots of action, o r action and thought are in plots of character. A dramedy is perhaps the best mixture of all three elements to be found in the three types of situation comedy. There are two kinds of dramedies. In the first, the human dramedy, the emphasis is on the characters battling the theme as it relates to the theme's effects on other characters. In the second, the advocate dramedy, the characters are in two warring factions, each faction advocating a certain point of view about the theme. M*A*S*H and BARNEY MILLER are examples of the first, ALL IN THE FAMILY and MAUDE are examples of the second. Exposition The exposition, as in the actcom and the domcom, establishes the settings and major characters. However, since the locale is so important in the dramedy, it is more strongly emphasized behind the credits. For example, the camp and surrounding territory are clearly shown in the opening of M*A*S*H, and the neighborhood and house shown for ALL IN THE FAMILY. Problem

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The problem opens the area to be explored in that episode. It can be the effects of battle fatigue that make a soldier think he is Jesus Christ, or a white bigot's niece deciding to go out with the boy next door, a boy who happens to be black. It c an be the effects on other people when they come in contact with a "Jesus Christ" arrested for disturbing the peace on the sidewalks of New York, or a woman discovering she's pregnant, something she doesn't want to be. Human dramedies usually have a subplot, the only type of situation comedy that does. The subplot is often comic, underscoring the main, more serious plot. It is also usually a conflict between people, rather than a conflict between people and the intangible forces surrounding them. For example, in one episode of M*A*S*H, the main plot problem is a wounded soldier suffering from hypothermia, being so cold that his body temperature falls to 85 degrees and his blood flows sluggishly. The subplot is about everyone trying to stay warm, particularly the conflict between Majors Winchester and Hoolihan over a pair of gloves--she has them, he wants them. In an episode of BARNEY MILLER, the main plot centers on a bigamist who is to be extradited to Cleveland. In a subplot, Fish wants a separate vacation from his wife. The main plot is a conflict between the man and the laws against and effects on ot her people of multiple marriages; the subplot is a conflict between Fish and his wife. The subplot underscores the theme of marital relationships. In another episode of M*A*S*H, the main plot is about an emergency at the front lines: the surgeon at the aid station has been killed and a new one is needed immediately. The subplot centers on the conflict between the characters left at the M*A*S* H unit and their fears for the safety of the doctor, nurse and orderly who went to the front: most fear for their safety; Frank Burns worries that Margaret and Hawkeye are having an affair at the front. The main plot is a conflict between the people at the front trying to save lives and the fact that they must do it in the midst of battle, an attempt to take lives; the subplot is a conflict between the people who worry about the people at the front and Frank Burns, who worries only about his relationship with Margaret. In all cases, the subplots underscore comically and thus intensify the main plot. In advocate dramedies, the problem also opens the area to be explored. However, instead of conflict between people and intangible difficulties, the conflicts are between two factions who battle over points of view. In an episode of ALL IN THE FAMILY, Gloria thinks she's pregnant. Mike, her husband, blames her for not being more careful. In another episode, the problem is Archie being asked to deliver the eulogy at a friend's funeral. Whatever the problem is in either kind of dramedy, it will require the major characters to try to cope with it, to try to solve it, or, at least, learn to understand or comprehend it. Although the characters may never change their minds or positions , they do gain a new perspective. Complications The complications are based on the theme but involve character or action. They are new developments in the problem that require the characters to examine their own thinking or take an action that opposes or supports their point of view on the theme. In an episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye saves the life of a wounded Korean woman. The complications include the appearance of a ROK (Republic of Korea) colonel who wants to take her into custody because she is a North Korean guerrilla fighter. Hawkeye must, according to his beliefs in the sanctity of the individual and a person's innate goodness, oppose the colonel. Other examples include: the hypothermic soldier
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failing to respond to treatment; the bigamist's New York wife coming to the precinct station and attempting suicide; the wounded coming into the front line aid station too fast for Hawkeye to handle, so Margaret, who is not a surgeon, must actually operate on them; Gloria insists that Michael take care of contraceptive measures in the future; Archie must deliver the eulogy in a synagogue, his old friend turning out to be Jewish. Each complication forces the character to examine his abilities and beliefs. Crisis The crises are the points at which the characters must decide what action to take. For example: Hawkeye decides to divert the ROK colonel's attention and get the woman out of camp; the doctors must undertake a dangerous procedure to raise the hypothermic soldier's temperature; the bigamist's wife tries to commit suicide and must be saved; the front-line aid station is shelled, but the operations must continue; Michael is confronted with having a vasectomy; Archie is faced with a room full of Jews. The characters are presented with a dilemma and must do or decide something to relieve the stress. Climax The climax is the point at which the characters must decide what to believe. For example: the colonel finally takes the woman into custody. Hawkeye, enraged, tries to take her back, and the colonel is forced to hold him back at gunpoint. The woman speaks to Hawkeye in Korean and the colonel translates her scorn for the doctors and their work, their beliefs, and their attempts to save her. Her desire is not the thank Hawkeye but to kill him. This forces Hawkeye to reconsider his belief that all human beings, if treated with dignity, understanding and compassion, will respond in kind; the hypothermic soldier dies, but the doctors labor over him and revive him, renewing their faith in their value and their contempt for war; the bigamist's wife is saved, but the incident makes the bigamist reappraise his decision to marry two women; the people from the front return, safe and sound, more certain than ever of the value of life; Michael has the vasectomy, but Gloria finds out she is not pregnant. They reexamine their feelings about the operation, and decide that they were right; Archie realizes that his friend was still his friend, no matter what his religion. In all cases, the climax forces the character to examine his or her beliefs and actions in support of them, and either vindicates or condemns him or her. Denouement The denouement shows the results of this examination of beliefs. Hawkeye thinks that his beliefs still hold true in general, though specific cases may deny it; the hypothermic soldier will live; the bigamist goes willingly to trial in Cleveland, wan ting to atone for what he had done to the women; the people who were at the front lines have an expanded view, ignoring pettiness (Frank Burns and his jealous suspicions) and admiring those who went through the ordeal; Michael and Gloria are happy with their decision, and each other; Archie believes in his friends, but his prejudices remain intact. The denouement of a human dramedy will often end with the conclusion of the subplot, thus ending the show with a laugh rather than deep introspection. For example, the hypothermic soldier episode ends with Winchester getting the gloves from Margaret by trickery; Radar gave away all of Klinger's clothes while Klinger was at the front line aid station. Character
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Human Dramedy The regular characters in a human dramedy are in occupations that allow them to meet and deal with characters who have problems relating to a societal ill. For example, in M*A*S*H the characters are doctors and nurses in a Korean war zone, and deal with such personalized problems as war, loneliness, fear, prejudice, poverty, illness, pain, futility, and death. In BARNEY MILLER the characters are New York police detectives and deal with such problems as crime, murder, poverty, prejudice, insanity (paranoia, suicide, and assorted maniacs), loneliness, frustration, pain and death, old age, and emotional distress. Unlike characters in other types of situation comedy, they are rarely the instigator or creator of the problem. Instead, they discover and try to solve the problem; the problem thrust upon them by the nature of the societal ill with which they are concerned. Though their occupations demand detachment, the characters are very human and cannot avoid personal involvement. They are usually compassionate, human, and try to believe that each person is an individual worthy of respect and personal regard. The gender and number of the regular characters are unimportant except as regards reality and the practicalities of television. For instance, in a Korean war zone, doctors were male and nurses were female. When a female doctor or a male nurse are brought in, it is for a specific purpose: to show the chauvinistic attitudes, both male and female, that were prevalent in that period -- that female doctors were incompetent and that a male nurse is ludicrous and no better than an orderly. New York Citydetectives are male. When female detectives are used they are symbols of such problems as male chauvinism and the qualifications of women as police detectives. The number of regular characters is kept to a workable level. If there are too many there is not enough for each of them to do. On the other hand, if there are too few, there are too many problems and too much with which any human being could realistically cope. The number of characters on M*A*S*H is eight; in BARNEY MILLER six. Psychologically, the characters are as close to fully rounded human beings as can be found in situation comedy. They are capable of depression, exhilaration, love, hate, anger, serenity, sentimentality, compassion, wit and stupidity. Most important ly, they are capable of logical and rational thought tempered with intuition and emotion. They are not perfect. They are also not always predictable, other than in established habits and customs, such as B.J. will stroke his mustache and Hawkeye will sm ell each bite of food before eating it, and the fact that they care about and will attempt to help people. There is one main character: on M*A*S*H it is Hawkeye; on BARNEY MILLER it is Barney. This character bears the brunt of the problem. He is usually, but not always, the first to see or experience the problem and the usual leader in the search for a solution. Most plots revolve around this character, usually as he works to solve the problem, but occasionally he is the bearer of the problem. When the problem is his, the other characters band together to help him. An example of this happening is when Hawkeye gets depressed or overemotionally involved with a patient. Another example is when Barney (BARNEY MILLER) was separated from his wife because she could no longer accept his job as a policeman.

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The supporting characters in a human dramedy are much the same as the main character, except that in most cases they follow rather than lead. Usually one of the supporting characters causes antagonistic feelings among the others, and will usually bear the brunt of any subplot. His personality grates on the nerves of the other characters, and makes them desire abatement and/or revenge. On M*A*S*H, Frank Burns, and his replacement Charles Emerson Winchester, are of this type of character. Inspector Luger, and, to a much lesser degree, Dietrich, on BARNEY MILLER are of this type. In all cases, every character will do his job to the utmost of his ability, whether he likes the job or not. Winchester would rather not work in a M*A*S*H unit, but as long as he is there he will do his self-confessed considerable best. Even when the police union goes on strike on BARNEY MILLER, the detectives continue to do their jobs, all the while stating that "this is the last time". The transients in a human dramedy have two purposes: 1) they are the source of most of the primary problems, either as the creator or the bearer of the problem; and/or 2) aid in finding and/or applying solutions to the problem. The former is most common. On M*A*S*H these transients take the form of wounded soldiers, refugees, visiting officers, or Koreans. On BARNEY MILLER they are criminals of all types and their dependents, and the victims of crimes. It is most common on M*A*S*H for a transient to come in to aid in finding and/or applying solutions to problems, but not unheard of in other dramedies. This sort of transient usually has skills not possessed by a regular character. On M*A*S*H these characters take the form of specialist surgeons, teachers of new techniques and procedures, and, more often, psychiatrists such as Dr. Freedman. These characters are called in when the regular characters have discovered the problem but have realized that they are not competent to solve it. Advocate Dramedy The characters in advocate dramedies are much like those in domcoms, but replace warmth and loving with ice and vitriol. The main character is one who represents a definite point of view that is usually very limited and not subject to change. Examples of this are Archie Bunker on ALL IN THE FAMILY, an archconservative bigot, and Maude on MAUDE, an ultra-liberal. These characters resent and oppose any point of view other than the one they hold. They think they are always right, and anyone who doesn't agree with them is a fool, an idiot, or worse. They are outspoken to the point of crass rudeness, will voice their opinions loudly and long, and if proven wrong will not accept the argument but will make personal attacks on their opponent's intelligence, background, and morals. There are three types of supporting characters: allies to the main character, opposition to the main character, and involved neutrals. Allies are those who hold basically the same point of view as the main character. Such characters appear rarely, as the main character appears capable of expressing his or her point of view quite adequately alone. Opposition characters hold opinions and philosophies diametrically opposed to the main character's. It is from this opposition that plot conflicts arise. Such characters are usually in the main character's family, allowing ready access for battle. Mike and his wife Gloria (Archie's daughter) on ALL IN THE FAMILY, and Walter on MAUDE are such characters.
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The involved neutrals are peacemakers and clarifiers. They are most important, however, as representatives for the audience, giving the audience someone with whom to identify and enabling the audience to see the effects of extremism. Edith Bunker, Archie's wife, is such a character, as is Maude's daughter, Carol, on MAUDE. The transients in an advocate dramedy are personalized representations of aspects of political and societal problems over which the main character and his opposition can argue. These characters can represent such ideas as prejudice, racism, sexism, ageism, homosexuality, and other facets of American society. Thought The characters in human dramedies are constantly thinking, adjusting their attitudes, trying to understand. Their motivations are based on clear, although occasionally strange thinking: Hawkeye's attacks on the system are to gain greater freedom fo r the individual, or to cut through the red tape of militaristic/bureaucratic thinking and get on with his job of saving lives. If he must tread on a few toes or break a few rules to do it, he will. When human dramedy characters do not think rationally it is for a dramatic purpose, to show that the character is not thinking rationally because of the stress put on him by conditions. The characters in advocate dramedies do not think, they react. Their actions and words are motivated not by rational thought, but by an almost Pavlovian automatic response to any opposition to or support for their ideas and beliefs. There is a theme in virtually every episode of a dramedy. Very rare is the episode in which the writer is not attempting to communicate a point of view about a subject, be it war, crime, racism, or some other aspect of human society. Such themes are not didactic, nor are they delivered in generalities. They are personalized and personified, relating specifically to a character so that the audience can see the effect on the individual, a much more powerful statement than broad generalities about millions of people. Settings Human Dramedy The basic location is the place of work. It is not and is not supposed to represent a home, merely a place to work. Even when the characters do live there, as on M*A*S*H, it is made very clear that it is not home. On M*A*S*H, the characters often voice their desire to leave and go home. The place of work is appropriate to the work done. A MASH is a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and the place of work is actually composed of several different places: operating rooms, dispensaries, supply huts, living tents, etc. On BARNEY MILLER, the place of work is the precinct office with a holding cell for prisoners awaiting transport to jail. The place of work is not comfortable and quite often not even attractive, just functional. It is not treated with affection nor respect, other than for what it represents: a hospital wherein doctors and nurses work to save the lives of front-line soldiers; a police station, where the law and the people who represent it try to help and protect people.

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Other locations include the characters' homes, bars, restaurants, and various other locations dictated by the individual plots. However, in all cases, the other locations are simply a continuation of the place of work. The characters' personal lives are short interludes, often interrupted, in the relating to and solving of the problem. The settings clearly delineate a sphere of activity, a specific locale that can elicit a response from the audience. A hospital in a war zone, with its filth, lack of amenities for both staff and patients, and temporary, dangerous nature, provides a n essential although unstated feeling to all plots. The cramped, old, threadbare, and ugly room in which the detectives on BARNEY MILLER must work does the same. Although the settings are only backgrounds to the shows, they play a vital part in the over all tone and feeling of the show, much more so than the settings in either actcoms or domcoms. Advocate Dramedy The settings are much the same as in any actcom, the basic locations being the living room and kitchen. The appearance of the settings is in keeping with the class in society in which the main character lives. Archie Bunker is lower-middle-class an d thus lives in a somewhat rundown suburb of New York in an old, somewhat rundown house. Maude, on the other hand, is upper-middle-class and lives in a better quality house in a better quality suburb. Other locations in an advocate dramedy appear only as dictated by the plot. The bedrooms will be shown when the plot is about attitudes towards sex, etc. In general, however, the characters are placed in a setting congruent with their social status and allowed to do battle about their attitudes, opinions, and beliefs, the settings serving merely as a background to the action. Diction Wit plays a large part in human dramedies. The characters are usually very intelligent and given to the intellectual exercise of verbal wit. In addition, words are the best way to communicate ideas, a prime purpose of the dramedy. Sarcastic incongruity, rather than wit, is used in advocate dramedies: juxtaposition of opposing ideas and points of view, using exaggeration, personal attack, and anything else the character thinks will allow rher to win rhis point. Characterizations are aided by the diction: their backgrounds, thought processes, level of education, etc., are clearly shown. Music Auditory effects, other than those necessary to help create the illusion of place, such as gunfire on M*A*S*H, or for humor, such as the flushing toilet on ALL IN THE FAMILY, are little used. There is little or no use of background music. The ubiquitous laugh track, however, cannot seem to be escaped. Summary The dramedy, the rarest of all forms of situation comedy, is also the most difficult to produce, due to its very nature. Its emphasis is on thought, rather than character or action. However, in order to
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adequately explore a theme, the characters must be well rounded as human beings, able to think and react to situations in such a way as to examine complex ideas. Perhaps the greatest difference between the dramedy and other forms of situation comedy is that the dramedy is not dedicated to laugh-a-minute action. Although thedramedy is often very funny, it is not because of a deliberate striving for laughs no matter how they are gotten. It is also just as often very serious without descending into maudlin sentimentality. It uses both serious exploration and discussion and comic intensification to examine a theme and make the audience aware of intellectually and feel emotionally about it.

The Theory of Comedy Applied to Sitcoms

The plots of all three types of situation comedy provide four of the six basic criteria for humor: appeal to the intellect rather than emotion, established societal norms, incongruity to those norms, and the perception by the audience that the occurrences are essentially harmless to both the characters and to the sensibilities and beliefs of the audience. The societal norms are fairly well established by current American attitudes and mores that are well understood by the majority of American society. Any special attitudes with which the audience must be acquainted are given in the exposition to the episode to which they apply. Actcoms use actions that are incongruous with reality as perceived by society. When Rob (THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW) dreams he is literally a puppet controlled by strings held by his wife, it violates the norms of people not being controlled by strings and the idea that husbands are controlled by their wives. When on LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY, Laverne wants to be like Shirley and begins to act like her, it violates the idea of personal identity, and is incongruous with the character the audience knows Laverne to be. Lucy (I LOVE LUCY) violates the norms of action when she tries to convert her New York apartment into the Cuban countryside, complete with chickens and a burro. In all cases, in an actcom it is the actions that are incongruous, not the characters or thought. Domcoms illustrate the effects of behavior by characters that is incongruous with the established norms of behavior. In this way, the characters can be shown aligning their attitudes and actions with the norms. Barbara (ONE DAY AT A TIME) is pressured by her boyfriend to go to bed with him, and the conflict within herself is shown, until she aligns herself with the established norm of avoiding sexual relations until mature enough to handle them. Mary (THE DONNA REED SHOW) learns to be herself and that "flashy" isn't necessarily good. In all domcoms, it is the established norms of behavior by characters that is used to provide incongruity for humorous effect, rather than actions or thought. The dramedy holds societal norms up for examination by illustrating them in extreme cases. Attitudes on sex, crime, war, patriotism, race, religion, etc., are carried by characters who are either strongly for or strongly against societal norms for those attitudes. Hawkeye (M*A*S*H) is strongly for personal freedom and life, and plots show him in conflict with warmongers and rigid militarists and disciplinarians. Archie Bunker (ALL IN THE FAMILY) is a racial and political bigot, heaping
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scorn on blacks, Jews, foreigners and women, and anyone else whose political views are not as conservative as his own. He is shown in conflict with those whose attitudes and beliefs run counter to his. However, unlike other types of situation comedies, the characters in a dramedy do not hold the societal norms: the norms are the foundation from which they depart, their attitudes and actions incongruous with the norms in order to hold the norms up for examination. The actcom only appeals to the intellect in that it does not have an emotional content: the characters do not react in a fashion that could create a real emotion (e.g., grief, pathos, awe) in the audience. The domcom can and does appeal to the emotions of the audience, but only as a byproduct of illustrating growth in the character as he or she copes with an emotional situation. In any case, the emotion is shortlived as it is often maudlin and ended with a short comic scene, to relieve the emotion. The dramedy is the only form of situation comedy that has emotional appeal as a regular part of the effect of the show. The intellect is appealed to during the examination of the societal norm, but emotion is used to show the effect of the societal norm on the characters. In all cases, the actions and attitudes are perceived by the audience as harmless: people are not physically, mentally, or emotionally hurt by the events that occur. Even in the domcom, in which a character's emotions may be whipsawed by events, the audience is still aware that by the end the character will not only be spiritually unharmed but will be happier than before. Only in a dramedy is there a chance that a character will be harmed, and those moments are not humorous: they many be poignant, sad, or horrifying, but they are not funny. However, in the last several years sitcoms have begun taking chances, violating the norms, ideas or attitudes of the ideal "Middle American" family in such a way that some people seem them as harmful (and therefore not funny). Shows such as MARRIED . . . WITH CHILDREN and WOOPS! base much of their humor on not just violating but making fun of the norms. Those people that actually adhere to those norms feel insulted because their attitudes are being held up to ridicule, and thus they feel harmed by such humor. These people sometimes accuse the shows of being lewd, crude, and tasteless, and try to have the shows cancelled, or run campaigns to reduce sponsor support. The characters in all three types of situation comedy provide the final two criteria for humor: they are inherently human, and, for the most part, they react in a mechanical manner to stimuli. That the characters are inherently human is, in most situation comedies, obvious: they appear, talk and act like human beings. In those situation comedies, actcoms all, that have nonhuman characters (MR. ED, THE HATHAWAYS, MY MOTHER, THE CAR), such characters still give the impression that they are human beings, merely in disguise: Mr. Ed, a horse, talks and thinks like a man; the three chimps on THE HATHAWAYS act like human children; the car on MY MOTHER, THE CAR talks and thinks like a woman. In an actcom, as previously stated, human characteristics are either ignored or exaggerated. Nonetheless, they are human characteristics. The characters are also the most mechanically acting in any of the three types of situation comedy: they are almost robotic in their following of a course of action that, with a little thought, would obviously be doomed to failure. In many episodes of most actcoms, the same course of action is followed several times, each time in a way that is more elaborate and exaggerated than the time before. For example, in the I LOVE LUCY episode cited
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previously, Lucy tries three different ways to gain Ricky's attention, each more exaggerated than the one before. The final solution was simply telling Ricky that she wanted the romance back in their marriage, thus breaking the chain of mechanical response to the lack of results to her various plots. In the domcom, the mechanical responses to stimuli are greatly reduced as compared with the actcom. The main character, in particular, is a reasonable and reasoning person, although he or she will often have a knee jerk reaction in keeping with established norms upon first encountering the problem. Many of those around rher are not so reasonable and reasoning, and provide most of the humor. In consequence, the domcom is not as funny as an actcom, but more humorous in a human fashion, with a feeling of enjoyment rather than laughs. In the dramedy, mechanical responses are greatly reduced as part of the action: the characters will usually act in a manner indicating thought and foresight. Instead, the responses appear more in the form of verbal humor, jokes for their own sake, even practical jokes played on other characters so that the audience laughs along with the characters rather than at them, the mechanical aspects internal to the joke and relating to the plot only as comic intensification. The characters are, in consequence, the most human of all the characters discussed in the situation comedy, being funny because these people are just more consistently funny than the norm. Summary Those situation comedies that work, that the audience laughs at and enjoys and that the networks keep on the air because the audiences like them, use all six criteria for humor. They avoid emotionally involving the audience, they understand and follow the established societal norms and act to violate them, the audiences perceive the acts as harmless, and the characters are inherently human and act in a mechanical manner to stimuli. Those situation comedies that do not have all six criteria do not remain long on the air.

Conclusion

I began this book because, as a student of theatre and a child of the television age, I believe that television, the most ubiquitous form of entertainment in the United Statestoday, deserves the same in-depth examination that drama and film have received. Such has not been the case. Indeed, criticism of television entertainment has been pretty much limited to research into television's sociological, political, and legal effects, and reviews. I therefore decided to examine television as drama. The study did have to be limited: television is an extremely broad area covering news, sports, public affairs, information, advertising, and, of course, entertainment. I elected to confine my study to commercial prime-time (8:00 - 11:00 pm) television, and the form of programming called the situation comedy. There were two things I wanted to accomplish with this study: 1) trace the development of the situation comedy from 1950 to 1993; and 2) develop a set of criteria describing the situation comedy in the various forms it assumes, based in general on more than 40 years of observation, in specific on the study of hundreds of examples, and the application of two sets of principles, the neo72

Aristotelian principles of drama, and the six criteria I found for comedy. The two sets of principles are considered separately because the neo-Aristotelian may be applied to any television program, while the principles of comedy should apply only in the case of comedy programs. The neo-Aristotelian principles I used for my study were action, character, thought, spectacle, music and diction. The elements of comedy were: 1)the action appeals to the intellect rather than the emotions; 2)the action is inherently human; 3)the beings carrying out the comic action behave in a mechanical manner; 4) there is an established set of societal norms; 5) the comic actions are incongruous to the norms; and 6) the action is perceived as harmless by the audience. The trends in situation comedies since 1950 show a move toward a more liberal attitude about subjects of humor. In other words, in the element of thought, instead of societal norms such as awoman's-place-is-in- the-home, or horses-can't-talk, or the-man-is- the-master, as in the 1950s and 1960s, the norms used in many situation comedies today are attitudes about sex, violence, racism, and other subjects that didn't even exist in early television comedy. The field of permissible subjects has greatly widened, illustrating that ideas and thinking have replaced pat situations with pat resolutions. The situation comedy can be divided into three types: the actcom, the domcom, and the dramedy, each type characterized by differences in their fundamental elements of action, character, and thought. The actcom, the original and most numerous type of sitcom, has the following characteristics: 1. The plots are action-oriented, and based on personal crises of a superficial nature. 2. The characters are not complex: few motivations are shown, and the characters are consistent and predictable in action and thought. The main characters are central to every plot, and are the masterminds of schemes to solve the problems and leaders of the action. Supporting characters are not necessary to all plots, are followers and not leaders, and are often dupes and butts of jokes. 3. Writers use no specific themes, the plots written for the purpose of provoking laughter, not to communicate ideas. The characters are superficial in thought, clever rather than intelligent, and show a lack of foresight or consideration of future consequences of their actions. 4. The settings are strictly backgrounds to action, with little sense of personality, either of their own or of the characters inhabiting them. The domcom has the following characteristics: 1. The plots are character-oriented and based on domestic crises. The first segment of an episode is much like an actcom, but at the point of crisis, character and thought supercede action as the consequences of the action on the character are examined. 2. The characters are complex, with multiple and conflicting emotions and complex motivations. The main characters are emotionally stable and loving, and desire to instill moral values without stifling the personal growth and experience of their children. Supporting characters include the children, who are usually the bearers of the problem, and other who are used mainly as comic intensification and as a sounding board for the main characters.
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3. The writer usually has a theme based on intra- or interpersonal relationships, in particular those related to children growing up and maturing in a social world. The characters are usually rational, although their thinking is sometimes clouded by emotion, with attempts at understanding complex issues. They are also usually conscious of future consequences of their actions, consequences that are very important in their future planning. 4. The settings are again a background to the action, but they are much more personalized and in keeping with the personalities of the characters who inhabit them. The setting is almost invariably a home, either a house, or an apartment, comfortable and middle-class. A dramedy, the rarest type of sitcom, has the following characteristics: 1. The plots are thought-oriented, and examine the effects on characters when they are confronted with societal ills such as warfare or crime, or problems with which they are not equipped, either through training or background, to cope. 2. The characters are generally complex, with multiple and conflicting emotions, complex and mixed motivations, and a sense of self-reliant dependence on each other. In a human dramedy, the characters are concerned with the problems of others, and are generally humanistic and moderate on their view of life, society, and rules. In an advocate dramedy, the characters are concerned with themselves rather than others, and in general are selfish and self-centered, their own thoughts, beliefs and actions, to their minds, superior to all others and the only ones worthy of consideration. 3. The writers always employ a theme, try to communicate an idea, although it is not always a humorous one, that explores a point of view about some subject, usually one related to the effects of stressful situations on human beings. The characters in a human dramedy are constantly thinking, although their thoughts are occasionally clouded by prejudice or preconception. Eventually they achieve understanding, even if they do not embrace a new point of view. They are intelligent, witty, imaginative, and clever. The characters in an advocate dramedy appear to react by conditioned response rather than by thoughtful analysis of a situation. They are argumentative, but are dogmatic rather than reasonable. 4. The settings are backgrounds specialized to the format of the program, and often personalized according to the personalities of the inhabitants. The settings serve to establish the ambiance in which the characters cope with the problems with which they are presented. # The plots in all three types of situation comedy provide four of the six basic criteria for comedy: societal norms, incongruity, appeal to intellect rather than emotion, and the perception by the audience that the occurrences are essentially harmless. Actcoms show physical actions that are incongruous with reality as perceived by society. Domcoms illustrate the effects on characters of behavior incongruous with the established norms of behavior. The dramedy holds societal norms up for examination by illustrating them in extreme cases. In the case of the dramedy, some occurrences cannot be perceived as harmless, and consequently are not humorous.
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The characters in all three types of situation comedy provide the final two criteria for humor: they are inherently human, and, for the most part, they react in a mechanical manner to stimuli. In recent years, some shows are blurring the line between one type of situation comedy and another. As mentioned earlier, some actcoms, such as CHEERS, mature into pseudo-domcoms, although most episodes are still actcom in nature. Some shows go even further. For example, NIGHT COURT is usually an actcom. However, on occasion there are episodes that explore character, with the characters taking on relationships that turn it to a pseudo-domcom rather than an actcom. There are even episodes that are dramedic, as the characters explore a societal problem and its effect on people. However, for a show to cross over from one form to another, it must possess at all times those features inherent to each form. NIGHT COURT can, at times, be any of the forms because it has the characters, relationships and settings, as well as the writing and producing quality that allow it that latitude. Such qualities are rare and difficult to develop in the pressure cooker atmosphere of commercial television. # Television has been called many things, most of them unflattering: chewing gum for the eyes, the vast wasteland, junk food for the mind, the boob tube, the vidiot set. However, no matter what is said about it, it cannot be denied that television is the most pervasive single element in American society, dominating time, conversation, attitudes, thought, and the entertainment industry. As such, it is well deserving of an examination that will heighten viewers' awareness of what they are watching. As I discussed the sitcom, I'm certain, dear reader, that many images and memories sprang into your mind. As I wrote this book, I talked about it with many people. Each had their most and least favorite shows, and enjoyed discussing them at length. They particularly enjoyed finding out why they felt the way they did about the shows. Although this book only covers a single facet of television, it is, I hope, a beginning in understanding what goes into the making of television programming, and will provide a basis for future evaluation.

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