Sitcom Padding

It's been mentioned before about the 30 minute sitcom containing padding. And only recently I've been reading The Vicar Of Dibley and the amount of padding with Alice is ridiculous. I quite like the show whenever I've seen it, but for writers to get the story in very early and stretch it to 30 mins will, to my mind, always require padding.

I see it all the time in Only Fools And Horses too. Whereas the American comedies, with their 22 mins, would be away and onto something else, we're hanging on so we can get up to 30 mins. What's the solution? Three, four plots an episode? Start the conflict later? Put the padding in at the start?

Well, padding is fine as long as it's funny and adds to the character.

Define padding? Some of the best sitcom episodes have virtually no plot at all, Porridge 'A Night In' being perhaps the best example.

I don't think I've ever heard a writer, aspiring or not, complain that he has too many minutes to fill. John Sullivan had up to 10 minutes cut from many of his episodes of Only Fools and was eventually given a 50 minute format. Do American writers enjoy cramming their work in to 22 minutes? This is a format they have to work to because of lucrative advertising breaks but I would assume they would love to have some time to breathe as well?!

I'm now thinking about Hancock's Sunday Afternoon at Home .. i don't know why

To me this is a case of off the page it's funny, on the page it's not.
The Vicar of Dibley scenes with Alice are always very funny but it's the way it is said/acted. A new writer would not have been given a second glance at the scripts but Dawn was 'in' and that's the way it is.

How anyone has the space for padding in a 30 minute episode is beyond me.

We always have to loose loads in each episode.