Are sitcoms essentially disposable trash?

Like everybody else on this forum, I love sitcoms. However, in a hundred years time, when we're all dead and buried, will anybody still watch any of the shows we discuss here? Are even the best examples of the art - Fawtly Towers, The Office, Peep Show - doomed to be forgotten? Or, at best, only discussed in universities as part of academic courses looking at late twentieth century/early twenty-first century pop culture?

I think they probably will. Sitcoms don't seem to have the longevity of other art forms, such as plays or novels. Even hugely well regarded and popular shows of just a few decades seem forgotten about now.

But they're one of the longer-regarded types of TV/radio programme. The 'half-life' of drama is even shorter (name as many 30-year-old dramas that get mentioned), and no-one remembers any particular episodes of soap opera <spit> or reality show.

I'd say it's probably the *most* remembered of TV shows.

Dan

Quote: swerytd @ July 24 2008, 12:42 PM BST

But they're one of the longer-regarded types of TV/radio programme. The 'half-life' of drama is even shorter (name as many 30-year-old dramas that get mentioned), and no-one remembers any particular episodes of soap opera <spit> or reality show.

I'd say it's probably the *most* remembered of TV shows.

View original

Agreed. And DVD and Downloads have certainly extended it's lifespan, but is sitcom ultimately the poor relation to other written art forms?

People still study Greek comedies as well as tradegies - and Shakespeare wrote a lot of comedies that are still performed.

In the novel world, comedic books are seen as inferior, but in the TV world, I think comedy is seen as the hardest thing to do.

Quote: Simon Stratton @ July 24 2008, 12:48 PM BST

People still study Greek comedies as well as tradegies - and Shakespeare wrote a lot of comedies that are still performed.

In the novel world, comedic books are seen as inferior, but in the TV world, I think comedy is seen as the hardest thing to do.

View original

I certainly wouldn't disagree that sitcoms are incredibly hard to get right, but in artistic terms the novel and the play seems to have greater longevity, often being read or performed hundreds of years after they were first written. I'm not sure many of todays sitcoms will have that kind of shelf life. Not how many deserve it.

It's a problem that's been worrying me for some time. I like the likes of 'on the buses' and 'Two in Clover' they will be rare in about fifteen years and probably unavailable to buy. My favourite sitcom 'Dads Army' is thankfully still very popular today so have got all the DVD's- but when they are all worn out or DVD's are unheard of say in 40 years time- Dads Army will probably be forgotton- but at least I have the script book of all the scripts so I can read the scripts still when all is forgotton.

It just strikes me as weird that collectively we spend so much of our lives either watching sitcoms - or trying to write and sell them - and in forty, fifty or sixty years they'll all be forgotten about anyway.

I'd also be interested to know if anybody thinks the scripts to these shows actually stand up to scrutiny and deserve to be placed alongside the best plays or comic novels of our time? Is Steptoe and Son as good as Waiting for Godot etc?

Quote: Griff @ July 24 2008, 1:00 PM BST

Well, film as an art form has been with us for a good while now, and I reckon Laurel and Hardy are better remembered than Battleship Potemkin.

View original

Debatable, but I take your point.

I suppose the fact that its a situation comedy, means the situation has to have some kind of relevance, something that people can relate to.

Actually that maybe bollocks, I love Red Dwarf though I've never been to space...yet

Quote: Sunflick @ July 24 2008, 1:08 PM BST

Actually that maybe bollocks, I love Red Dwarf though I've never been to space...yet

View original

Nope and it's the interraction between the crew that causes the laughs not, predominantly, the fact they are in space. As long as there are people talking to each other and we still like to laugh then good sitcoms will always survive. Hancock is over 50 years old and some of the references and styles may be out of date but the humour is still very relevant.

Surely the longevity of sitcom as an extant art form is totally dependent on television surviving as a medium. If people in future times have regard for shows like The Wire or Sopranos or whatever, then I'm sure that the best of sitcom, at least, will live alongside.

Quote: Alan C @ July 24 2008, 1:15 PM BST

Nope and it's the interraction between the crew that causes the laughs not, predominantly, the fact they are in space. As long as there are people talking to each other and we still like to laugh then good sitcoms will always survive. Hancock is over 50 years old and some of the references and styles may be out of date but the humour is still very relevant.

View original

Yes, the humour is still relevant, but is it still watched? And will it still be watched in another fifty years time? I fear not.

Quote: chipolata @ July 24 2008, 1:17 PM BST

Yes, the humour is still relevant, but is it still watched? And will it still be watched in another fifty years time? I fear not.

View original

Yes it is still watched but it's not mainstream anymore - neither is Shakespeare

The problem is whether people can still relate to it in future. Novels and plays have an advantage there, because they leave enough room for imagination and interpretation (I guess that's why Jane Austen novels are adapted every 5 to 10 years). Comedy that relies to heavily on obscure contemporary references (Big Brother 'persons', for example) will be hard to watch even in ten years.

Also there's the problem of the sheer amount of stuff that is produced at the moment. That doesn't mean that the good stuff couldn't somehow get through the filter, but I doubt that it would have a really broad significance. There's too much on the table and you pick what you like, unlike 30 years ago when there were only two (or so) programmes and the family gathered round the TV and just watched whatever was on.
I know only two other persons in real life who even know the shows I watch, whereas I couldn't tell whether or not there has been a Big Brother series in Germany this year.

I think the only way you can tell if a sitcom will be remembered in a hundred years time is to wait until 2054: The 100th anniversary of "Hancock's Half Hour". If that is remembered, then the statement is true.