ARTICLESspacetrash Writing
The Spacetrash crew is opinionated. Sometimes informatively so, sometimes annoyingly so. Yet we somehow are always right.
Stick it.
music on Vide
TV and sitcoms – the decline of comedy. written by Spacetrash TV Ranter, Mortimer VanHousen
What in the world makes TV sitcom writers think that in a half-hour comedy, the viewer would want to be drawn up in some kind of drama between characters, or worse yet, be moralized to in the last 10 minutes of the show, when what they tuned in for was comedy? The theory seems to be that comedy is somehow deeper and more interesting if the viewer has some compassion for the characters, or can be drawn into some kind of caring about the characters. This is bunk. One only needs to look to the most successful TV comedy, Seinfeld, to see that in a TV sitcom, drama is entirely unnecessary. None of the characters on that show elicit compassion, empathy, or a desire to see their lives or loves succeed in any way. (The same was true for the early All In The Family, although it later succumbed to the curse that befell Mash, which was the slow infusion of drama leading to the lessening and eventual complete removal of any actual comedy.) Mash (the TV show – the movie is a whole other tragedy) was indeed the leading culprit of the temporary death of funny TV sitcoms. A true comedy at the beginning, albeit with a biting undertone, it devolved into a half-hour anti-war rant drama, with Alan Alda becoming completely bitterly sarcastic and completely unfunny. Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with drama, social commentary, and biting sarcasm, but a half-hour TV sitcom is not the place for it.. In fact, infusing comedy with drama is the death of comedy in most instances. (Conversely, infusing drama with comedy works quite well sometimes. Boston Legal, with William Shatner leading the comedic relief works brilliantly.) Cheers, another fine example of a terrible show in the same vein as so many others, seemed more interested in drumming up the drama between the leads; an awful choice particularly because the leads weren't particularly likable. Add to that the whole glamorization of wasting one's time and brain cells in a Boston bar as being the thing friends do for a good time. The viewer at least was instantly warned about the sad alcoholic mood of the show by the horrible melancholic theme song. If anything is worse than drama in sitcom, it's moralizing. I do not need to be preached to about morals by of all people, TV comedy writers. The Cosby show, following in the foul footsteps of Mash, was a particularly annoying example of this. It had some good comedy thanks to Bill himself (listen to Bill's early records for some side-splitting material) but like clockwork, at the 20 minute mark, the moralizing begins and caps the show, ruining every episode.
|
Have a Ringin' Good Time.
Do comedians think they have some kind of duty, or worse yet, some kind of right to be the moral guardians of society? If so, they need to reevaluate their place, job, and value in society. Laughter is medicine – a vital and extremely needed medicine for human adults. Modern humans have lost the tendency to smile and laugh during the day. A child laughs something like 40 times a day – an adult, 10 if they're lucky. Forcing yourself sit and watch good comedy once a day and thus laugh, is not a bad thing. It's a great thing for the heart and brain – increases circulation and breathing, releases endorphins, relieves depression, creates a healthy perspective on life. There's a reason the Buddha laughs – the absurdity of existence is funny. In fact being mildly humored may be the ultimate state of mind, and the clearest.
There are other instances of moralizing comedies – one only has to look at most family sitcoms and watch the clock; at 20 minutes, the comedy turns to a moral drama and dies. Even good and inventive shows like Scrubs succumb to the idea that drama somehow adds to the show. I mean holy crap, do they think we really care about these fake people's lives and loves? Ross and Rachael was the turd in the pool of friends. Can't the writers see this? To enjoy the show Friends, one has to suspend disbelief at the whole setup of the show – the huge NY city apt. that a waitress can afford – Ross not being gay -the absurd setups that seem more suited to an I Love Lucy era comedy – and then we are to care about some awkward love affair between annoying and false characters?
Which brings me to the show that for a while, reinvented the sitcom and revitalized TV in the 90's – Married With Children, a great comedy that succumbed to a different kind of ruination – the glorification of the character you started out rightly despising in the beginning.
Al and Peggy Bundy and family are despicable people. They were funny because they were the selfish, modern, 80's American family, taken to the extreme. No moral sense among any of the lot, including the neighbors. A Reaganistic sense of entitlement to all the soft, sensory lures of the American consumer (consumers of whatever form of hedonism they can financially and conningly accrue) fueled the lazy, self-loathing group, like some cockroaches trapped in a pail, forced to finally eat each other's excrement. Jokes about housewives sharing shower massage heads while a husband is out of town, broke through the squeaky clean veneer of the Cosby 80's, by none other than Fox, the continuing source of TV raunch, and paradoxically, right-wing righteousness propaganda. (Seemingly paradoxical until the unifying reason of Money becomes the obvious driving force.)
Unfortunately, Al Bundy became a hero to the stupid masses of men he was mocking; a figurehead for the ditto-head minions of unapologetic slack-jawed suburbanites, satisfied to rot in their own crapulence.
(to be continued.)