Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Sitcoms in History

With the recent deaths of Bob Denver and now Don Adams, I would be a little worried if I were the next aging 60's sitcom star with a head cold at the moment.

I was thinking about sitcoms generally, and my personal favourites over the years. If I had any substantial readership, I suppose I could try starting one of those blog meme things, but who could I "tag"...

Anyway, for what it is worth, here's how I would vote in some sitcom categories:

Current favourite sitcom: "Malcolm in the Middle," although I missed some of last season and it seems to have been off the air here for a while. Genuinely very funny, with clever writing. Not afraid to be silly, but the characters still maintain a certain reality. A close second may be "Scrubs", as I have been watching the first season repeated on the Comedy Channel in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I think I have only seen one episode of the second series, as it was moved to some ridiculous time slot, and maybe the quality hasn't held.

[Australian TV executives sometimes have a bizarre way of hiding top notch sitcoms in obscure time slots for literally years, then finding that when they run them at prime time they are hits after all ("Frasier" is the prime example.)]

But generally, I have to say that sitcoms have not faired well in the last decade. I seem to remember many watchable sitcoms from the 1980's, but into the 90's the situation got much worse. "Friends" was good for the first season, and got sillier and sillier after that, tied with a somewhat irritating liberal take on everything. (It's credibility never recovered from having a duck living in the apartment.)

Favourite 60's sitcom: Get Smart, hands down. Addams Family, when viewed today, is still pretty good. Both have a certain ageless quality.

Favourite 80's sitcom: Maybe a tie between "Roseanne" (but only for the first 2 seasons) and "Cheers", which was consistently enjoyable, but the characters never felt 100% "real". How could any of them spend so much time in the pub? By the way, should the "Wonder Years" be called a sitcom? If it counts, the first 2 seasons were perhaps my favouite. (Again, it fell apart by the last season.)

Favourite 90's sitcom: Close tie between "Frasier" and "Seinfeld". These were both high quality, funny shows, but apart from them, the 1990's looked pretty bad.

Most overrated current sitcom: "Arrested Development", now being run on Comedy Channel. It's not awful by any means, and some good laughs to be had, but doesn't deserve all those Emmys.

Most unwatchable sitcom in the history of television: "Married with Children." Awful on every conceiveable level - and it ran for so long. I think I would prefer to watch some jive-talking black 70's sitcoms.

Most underappreciated sitcom of last decade: Bob Newhart's last sitcom - 1997's "George & Leo" ran on cable here on Saturday mornings not so long ago, and delighted me. I found it significantly funnier than his last version of the "Bob Newhart show" - the one in the inn in Vermont.

Best sitcom of all time: "Mary Tyler Moore." Very funny, but with sympathetic and realistic characters. The best sustained quality over many years for any sitcom. Still funny in repeats today, and observing 70's style is now part of the fun.

You may have noticed that no British sitcom makes the list. Well, they certainly are in a dire state now, and have been for years. I even remain ambivalent about "Fawlty Towers", it being a little too cruel and black for my taste, but I have seen every episode and admire its plotting and some of its humour. The problem with most British sitcoms is that they seem to have usually been done by only one or two writers, and it hard for them to maintain quality. American ones invariably have a raft of writers, and that must help.

I don't think "Blackadder" really counts as a sitcom. But it is probably the funniest British thing on TV over the last 22 years. (It started in 1983!!)

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