A Fool's Utopia 11.20.08: Evolution of the Sitcom
Posted by Ron Martin on 11.20.2008
This week in one man's utopia we take a look at how the sitcom has evolved into what it is today from what it was, get depressed over (the lack of) Jones Soda, find out what goes down when a Leprechaun gets loose in the Hood and watch a very special Thanksgiving special. Oh, and lots of Sci-fi channel -- that's like my thing now.
There was a time not all that long ago when the sitcom ruled the world. In the 80s, shows like The Cosby Show, Cheers and Family Ties ruled the world. Not just in my head, but in the ratings. It wasn't abnormal for the majority of the top rated shows to be half hour sitcoms. In the 90s, it was more of the same with Roseanne, Seinfeld and Friends. Things are different now. Something's a little off in my night time TV viewing. I guess it's the evolution of sit-com television. What's so different?
A major difference would be the storylines. We crave storylines in our television viewing. Sure there were overriding storylines for even the most cardboard shows. Jack Tripper had to act gay to live with the girls the whole series; the Cosby kids grew up and Cheers had a running rivalry with Gary's Olde Towne Tavern. Blame it on Lost if you will, but I'd like to take it a decade or so earlier and place the blame partially on the X-Files. I know X-Files wasn't exactly bringing the funny, but it did show that America, as dumbed down as we may be, can follow a convoluted plotline through not only several episodes, but several seasons. The days where a problem presented itself before the first commercial, took a turn for the worse before the second and was nicely and neatly taken care of never to be remembered again by the third were never quite the same. Now a successful sitcom almost has to follow different rules. On The Office, Ryan will always be "the fire guy." In the 80s, no one would have remembered there was a fire the next week. It probably would never have been mentioned again. Call it the dramatization of the sitcom.
One of the main reasons why the successful sitcom is more challenging in this day and age is because we're getting the funny in our dramas. I'm not above double dipping on my examples, so I'll call this one the Buffy. In 1997, Buffy the Vampire Slayer started it's run as a one hour drama/horror show, but it amazingly brought the funny. Sure, other dramas had their moments here and there – that's how explain the whole Corky thing, but not like Buffy. With witty banter and pop culture references that make The Family Guy blush, Buffy took things to another level. And people loved it. Now every show has that aspect. Shows like House, Life and Chuck live on it. With all the laughs you can get on Buffy, Bones and Monk, the need for the half hour variety of comedy has taken a big hit.
Let's talk about how outrageous sitcoms have become. No longer can the TV execs bank on the typical suburban family or a show based on a comedy act. Not to say there aren't a few that are successful, but ever since Married…with Children, the bar has been raised. Shows can become more and more ridiculous without fear of retribution from the audience. Could you imagine Richie Cunningham talking about bodily functions or how bad the bathroom smells after Mr. C got done in there? Married…with Children got the ball rolling, Roseanne kept it afloat and now we'd be suspicious if there was a sitcom that shied away from such things as a mom opening the door topless or shaving off back hair.
How many times have you seen a parody of "This week on a very special (place your favorite sitcom here)?" This should probably be an intro into the RETRO section, but the sitcoms of yesteryear (for the most part) tried to teach us lessons. Maybe you remember the relationship Tracey Gold had with a pre-Friends Matthew Perry? He died on the show and it was "a very special episode" with maybe half a dozen jokes if any at all throughout the entire episode. In a late season episode of That 70s Show a character dies in a cutaway as a punch line to a joke. No very special episode there. We don't want emotions in our comedy any more – we have our dramedies for that.
I'm not saying that these reasons are why we seem to be in a sitcom dark age. I know there are exceptions to these observations even today, but I don't think anyone can argue that the current format for a successful sitcom is much different than it used to be. As these things go, I'm sure it'll morph again and in another twenty years some airbag will be blathering about how different sitcoms are than when he was a kid. Eh, such is life – what you gonna do about it?
-- There's no reason why I should. I'm not a big Vince Vaughn fan. I try to outright avoid Reece Witherspoon. Why do I want to go and see Four Christmases then? It defies all logic known to man.
Sci-Fi Corner
For some reason, lately the Sci-Fi channel has dominated my DVR, so I thought I'd dedicate a whole section to the channel this week with some random thoughts.
I watched almost the entire slate of new Sci-Fi shows in the last week, starting with The Unexplained with George Noory. For those of you not familiar with Mr. Noory, he is the host of the late night AM talk show Coast to Coast AM. The talk show deals with out of the mainstream topics like UFOs, ghosts, conspiracy theories and the like. Unexplained is just a shorter, more compact version of the nightly 4 hour broadcast just in television form. There is one thing to be said about radio – we wouldn't have to look at that brown and blue suit that even I knew was bad news that George was wearing. The first episode was on reincarnation. Nothing new for anyone who is a regular listener to Coast to Coast, but brought to life to introduce to a new TV audience. This week is a trial run for the show to see if it can get ratings. I can tell you that George has been pimping it out on his show and that he has literally millions of listeners worldwide. If he can harness even a percentage of those for the TV show, he will be the highest rated program on the show and an easy choice to pick up. My only beef with the show really was that it was too rushed. I don't know what Noory's schedule is like, but if you're going to do this show, then you got to go balls out and put it on an hour a night. What else is Sci-fi going to put on? Another original movie?
Speaking of, when is Sci-Fi going to be out a collection of their original movies. These things are so bad that they are almost can't miss. I Sci-Fi original movie box set would look really nice sitting underneath my Christmas tree next to the hardback new Stephen King novel that is 30% off at your local retail chain (hint, hint for my girlfriend who may be reading this). These are the B-movies of our generation. So bad, they're good. Maybe twenty years from now these movies will be gazed upon by movie goers with the same reverence of The Brain that Wouldn't Die and Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Chase and Estate of Panic both debuted this past week. Chase, I went into pretty deep a few weeks ago, but this was my first look at Estate of Panic. I liked it. It's more of a gameshow than a reality show. Players are thrust into a room with a bunch of money and told to grab as much as they can. Two players are eliminated a room – the one with the lowest amount and the one who is the last out of the room. It's a sneaky little trick. Get lots o'cash, but you can't stay too long. Oh yeah, and the rooms all have neat little tricks like flooding pipes, tons of snakes, electrical shock wires and the like. Estate is the better of the two shows. Chase is hurt by the "eliminating" of players just being tagged – it seems anticlimactic. Regardless, neither show is terrible. I wouldn't say they're must see, but if you can't find nothing else to watch – you could do worse.
-- I can not express in words how disappointed I am that Jones Soda didn't even bother with a Holiday Edition this year. I'm going to try anyways. I thought the Thanksgiving dinner in a bottle was a big seller. They've made me drink liquefied mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese casserole and herb stuffing – they owe me, damnit! I didn't even mention the turkey and gravy beverage that might just be the worst thing I have ever put into my mouth – and I've eaten dog biscuits. It was on a dare, okay? I almost scrubbed my lips completely off trying to get that taste off of them. I look forward to watching friends and strangers a like contort their faces to positions they never knew possible by drinking these things. Instead, this year Jones has skipped right to Christmas by offering four packs of Candy Cane, Pear Tree and Mele Kalikamaka, whatever the hell that is. It's hard to believe they went ahead with the Halloween products but skipped the Thanksgiving ones. Bleh! I will have no part of this damn Mele Kalikamaka.
Your Fearnet Movie of the Week: Leprechaun 5
Make no mistake about it, Leprechaun in it's original incarnation was supposed to be a moneymaking machine that would spurn a ton of sequels and put the Leprechaun in the horror slasher hierarchy with the likes of Jason, Mike Myers and Freddy. It didn't quite work out that way, did it? Not only did Leprechaun fail to reach the heights of even Chucky, but became a horror joke. Trimark, however, has come to the decision that they were going to make their money on the elaborate Leprechaun makeup/mechanical face and they didn't give a damn how many movies it took. By the fifth one, they stopped trying. They stopped trying to make it scary or even make that much sense.
You know the story. Someone steals his gold and the leprechaun goes on a murderous rampage until he gets it back. It just so happens that this time, it was some pimp who screwed over a local rap group. The rap group gets back by stealing a lot of the pimp's gold inadvertently freeing the Leprechaun. The pimp is played by none other than Ice-T who totally meant all the badass rapping he did in the 80s. He totally didn't use it as a way to make money acting in terrible b-horror movies and an equally terrible though highly rated cop drama. Ice-T would never do that.
At least this movie didn't take itself seriously. I'll give it that. Poking fun at the rest of the series, the fifth installment was almost a straight up parody with characters pulling weapons out of their fros and the leprechaun ending the movie by mesmerizing the rappers with a rap that has such moving lyrics as "Lep in the hood/up to no good" over and over and over again. Skip this if you want even the lowest bit of horror stimulation. If you run out to a video store and rent everything your buddy tells you was a waste of your time – then you need help. And this is a movie you want to watch. Coolio's best performance – ever.
You know what – just judge the movie on this clip. If you like this, you'll like the rest of the movie as well. If this hurts you to watch, then you are able to function in a normal society.
-- My two cents for the wrestling page this week is that unless he needs the money, Christian Cage (who happens to have been my favorite the last 6-7 years) is making a bad move if he goes back to the WWE. He may not be being utilized well at the moment in TNA, but they'd have enough faith in him to throw him in a PPV main event. Going back to the E, he'll be jobbing to Mark Henry and JBL within a month.
-- Remember when you had to remember people's phone numbers? When soda bottles were made out of glass? Remember when the potato chip options were limited to regular, BBQ and Sour Cream and Onion? If you do, then I believe it's time for you to connect with your inner RETRO.
**WARNING** RETRO works best with 3-D glasses.
Outside of the actual day of Thanksgiving, there are few Thanksgiving related offerings to partake of in the buildup to the big day. That hasn't always been the case. There used to be one night of turkey related offerings to feed our hunger for all things oven roasted. It began with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and ended with this gem.
No deemed worthy of a long term commitment, Garfield's Thanksgiving along with the rest of Garfield's holiday adventures had worn out its welcome by the early to mid-90s. Of the Garfield specials, it is probably the worst, having very little to do with Thanksgiving at all. Jon literally holds his breath until his veterinarian and longtime love interest, Liz agrees to spend Thanksgiving with him. Why she has Thanksgiving free on her calendar the day before it happens tells me that she didn't exactly have a whole lot of options so perhaps Jon didn't need to hold his breath after all.
Thing is, Jon can't cook so he needs to call in his badass motorcycle driving grandma in to take care of things. Wacky hijinks ensue and in the end, everyone is happy even Liz. Well, everyone but Jon because he didn't even get reach around action. I wasn't rooting for him to. They turn the dork meter up to a thousand on him in this special. That's alright, this Liz is no Jennifer Love Hewitt. At least we weren't subject to listening to them eating. I hate that part of The Simpsons.
There's some sort of subplot with Garfield on a diet, but it doesn't matter. As much as I want to love this special as much as I love my old school Garfield boxers, but it's just not there. This one seems forced and is head and shoulders below the Halloween special and has none of the charm of the Christmas special. Watch it because there just isn't that many Thanksgiving specials to watch. There is one thing I took away from this special – Grandma is a badass.
Yep – if you played that one, you're going to have it stuck in your head all day. You're welcome. Catchy and hideously repeatable, it wasn't long before this one caused me to tear my hair out every time I heard it. I know what you're thinking – how did Smash Mouth get all the stars of Mystery Men to show up in their video? I'm going to let you in on a little secret – they just edited as if the stars were interacting with the band members. I know it was extremely realistic and there will be doubters, but I am telling you're the truth. Re-watching the video almost ten years later, I have to wonder why the lead singer gets all the love? I mean, couldn't his band mates have helped him flipped the bus? This video did not age well at all. The only person I would even consider allowing to be in my presence during a late night Denny's trip is the guy jumping around in the garage. It seems his only job is to jump. That's the prerequisite to our Denny's trip, he must jump around aimlessly the entire time.
23 Years Ago Today
November 20, 1985
#1 Song
"We Built This City" by Starship
#1 Album
Miami Vice Soundtrack
Notables: "Miami Vice (Instrumental)" by Jan Hammer, "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins and "You Belong to the City" by Glenn Frey
#1 Movie
Once Bitten
I must leave you now.
Until next week, everybody play nice and a Mele Kalikimaka to you. Next week will be the big turkey day and I will be here with your annual guide of what to watch all day long, baby!
