No genre is as prevalent, recognizable, or unique to television as the sitcom. There are certainly many cases where the business of the industry holds back the artistry of the medium, but the evolution of the sitcom is not one of them. The business of grabbing larger audiences for bigger ratings and more ad revenue often has very different goals from the writers, producers, and performers trying to make a good show. But the sitcom is as much a product of the business world as it is of the creative. Even more importantly, its evolution is a chronicle of the American family, which has resulted in some of the brightest, bravest, and most profitable moments in TV history.
Though the genre’s proper name, “situation comedy,” sounds laughably generic at first (as George Carlin once pointed out, everything is a “situation”), the name really does capture the genre. TV networks want to create franchises that keep people coming back every week, but they don’t want to scare off new viewers coming in halfway through a season. This is why serialized dramas, though they can capture tremendous audiences and buzz in their first run, don’t work as well in repeats, and are often not as valuable in the long term. Enter the situation comedy. The producers create a premise (the “situation”), often explained in the opening credits, that acts as the model for the series. Each episode works within this structure, and presto! New viewers or casual fans only need know the basic premise to follow an episode, and the diehards can still enjoy coming back each week.
Through fierce exaggeration, great comedy has a way of holding up a magnifying glass to our culture, and you won’t always like what you see.
Sitcoms almost always center around families, and these families come in limitless shapes and sizes. From the Cleavers of “Leave It To Beaver,” to the Bunkers of “All In The Family,” to the Simpsons, family has always been the bread and butter of sitcom writers. A common offshoot is the “workplace family,” which has essentially all of the same elements but in a different setting. The news team from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” the gang of bartenders and barflies from “Cheers,” and the paper pushers of “The Office” are all classic workplace families. There are also countless hybrids with friends who act as a family, like “Three’s Company,” “Seinfeld,” and, of course, “Friends.”
The evolution of the sitcom is the story of the deconstruction of these families, a story that continually delves deeper into the American character. Since we began in the ’50s and ’60s with traditional, nuclear families like the Cleavers, we’ve met the audacious Archie Bunker, the hilarious and heartbreaking Evans family from “Good Times,” the dynamic Huxtables of “The Cosby Show,” and the colorful Connors from “Roseanne.” Like other art forms, sifting through countless imitators, we find truly groundbreaking series along the way that explore new corners of the American landscape and new aspects of American life.
No matter how much these series broke down traditional values and perceptions of family, at the end of the day they came back to the importance of family sticking together. The Cleavers represented the picture-perfect, suburban nuclear family of post-World War II America, where the only worry was what harmless trouble their lovable kids had gotten into. The Bunkers’ humor came from a generation gap that broke with these values, delving into the tumultuous discord of post-Vietnam America. “Good Times” explored the previously un-televised trials of lower income families in urban America,and “Roseanne” did the same for the vast working class of the Midwest. “The Simpsons” has taken all of these themes a step further, spoofing virtually every facet of American family life in over 400 episodes and counting.
But in breaking down the traditional model and values of the American family, none went so far as “Married…With Children.” One of television’s only true black comedies, “Married” let go of sitcom’s central conceit:that the family is inherently good because they love each other. Homer Simpson may be one of the most flawed characters, the Falstaff of the Midwest, but his love for his family always redeems him in the end. Al Bundy gets no such redemption. As Bob Thompson, a media scholar says, “there is no question that everyone in that family would be better off if they were not in that family.”
There is one current series that takes black comedy even further—“It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” on FX is a complete deconstruction of both home and workplace families. Never have there been such deeply flawed sitcom characters as the friends and family members who work at “Sunny”’s south Philadelphia bar. No matter what problem arises, their answer is always to find the dumbest, most selfish solution, and to take advantage of each other and everyone around them in the worst possible way. Pick a deadly sin and every one of the characters has it in spades.
I don’t consider myself a pessimist, but unfortunately, like the Cleavers in the ’50s and the Bunkers in the ’60s, I do think this series has something to say about the American character in the early 21st century. Through fierce exaggeration, great comedy has a way of holding up a magnifying glass to our culture, andyou won’t always like what you see. I’m not saying there aren’t great things about Americans, nor am I discounting the importance of family. But in every pound of comedy there’s at least a few ounces of truth, and that’s what makes it so funny.
-Column by Tom Hoban
Tom Hoban works in cable television in New York City. Ask him why he thinks Aristotle would have loved “Saved by the Bell.”