Yes, sitcom is not 'com' it is 'sitcom', and it is the reason why not hilarious joke filled shows like The Good Life become truly great sitcoms. What we are getting these days is odd, bare arsed mutations from standup comedy pretending to be sitcoms - they bleeding well aint, as genuine sitcom character Alf G might have put it.
The Good Life had a real charm and real laughs because the characters were all so strong and defined.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ February 7 2010, 5:59 PM GMTthey are scared of backing unknown talent and are too tied to existing 'names' (v much believe this)
The sitcoms you are bashing were written by unknowns, so I am not quite sure I understand your thesis.
More that an unknown is more desperate and malleable?
Of course it was, it was written by genuine sitcom writers who knew what sitcom was, that sitcom comes from real life, has caricutures of real charcters and, possibly the most forgotten thing in modern 'sitcoms' today, it aims to make viewers feel good! The Good Life is pure class, but even Terry & June was a superior sitcom to what we are getting mostly now. Why is this old formula so passe?
Quote: sootyj @ February 7 2010, 6:04 PM GMTI haven't seen any of these shows. But gag stuffing is pretty basic and something I thought most good comedy writers grow out of.
Sitcom is sort of a halfway house between drama and comedy. Really great classics have worked because they're "situation comedies."
Character, plot and situation all create the humour. The actual gags are usually quite slight.
Sitcom is a broad church; I think it is a mistake to be too prescriptive. I have recently been listening to radio repeats of Hancock, and they are stuffed with gags. Gag stuffing is not necessarily something writers grow out of, but perhaps the genre did. I am quite glad the genre is rediscovering its roots; it makes a pleasant change from smugly patronising single camera mockumentraries following some poor sap making an embarrassing arse of himself.
Though actually The Persuasionists is not particularly stuffed with gags, it is more a silly sitcom in the Father Ted style, though with rather less charm (possibly a fault in part of the setting.)
Hancock may have tonnes of good gags but it was an embarrassment of riches. Wonderfully anarchic but well structured plots and was there ever a more defined character than Tony?
I am sick of 'silly' 'sitcoms'. Only Miranda managed to have any sort of charm about it, and had references to real life. Father Ted, as good as it was, has helped spawn a lot of chidish crap.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ February 7 2010, 6:43 PM GMTI am sick of 'silly' 'sitcoms'.
There should be room for all kinds of sitcoms. Personally I hope to see many more 'silly' sitcoms; and many more gag fests, and many more Office-like sitcoms. Basically many more sitcoms in general.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ February 7 2010, 5:59 PM GMTthere IS a scientific formula for great sitcoms already devised by Oxford grads,
Yeah, writers should all follow some formula, rather than going with their own ideas and insticts. That is crazy talk sir!
Quote: Matthew Stott @ February 7 2010, 6:47 PM GMTYeah, writers should all follow some formula, rather than going with their own ideas and insticts. That is crazy talk sir!
And that's why you'll never be a brain surgeon.
Go with your own ideas and instincts but follow at least some of the rules of sitcom! What we are getting mostly now is hardly anything to do with sitcom. Ofcourse there are some rules.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ February 7 2010, 6:57 PM GMTGo with your own ideas and instincts but follow at least some of the rules of sitcom!
Most sitcoms, if not all, do. They might not do it well, but they're following familiar patterns and ideas.
IMO Keaton with the 'happiness bag' in last Thursday's episode was almost Pythonesque
Quote: Matthew Stott @ February 7 2010, 7:06 PM GMTMost sitcoms, if not all, do. They might not do it well, but they're following familiar patterns and ideas.
Big Top followed them perfectly in the episode I saw, extremely plot centric, lots and lots of gags, and definable characters with distinguishable voices, but it was a flop. Bach didn't follow the rules of the classics, he invented them, there is no set formula to making a good sitcom, as Big Top and The Persuasionists show. Maybe the reason why BBC comedy is failing is because these shows are so formulaic?
Surely in order to be a sitcom, certain criteria have to be fulfilled, whether you call them rules, or formulas, or whatever? I mean, clearly there has to be 'situation'? If enough rules aren't followed, you end up with something other than a sitcom.
