Sitcoms Research Paper

Sitcoms are often overlooked, seen as silly sketches that go for too long. This essay will attempt do disprove that and put forward that sitcoms are a complex genre. Sitcoms are highly formulised and well constructed. They need to satirise issues and make us laugh without being at all serious, which is quite a challenge. I will discuss the four major elements of a sitcom: setting, plot, how the humour is created and most importantly the characters. Sitcoms are character driven, the plots come from the character’s lives and the settings and humour come from the lives of the characters. There are common settings in sitcoms, which are very familiar to the viewer, and the humour is formed from the various conflicts between characters or the
embarrassing situations they get into. All these parts need to be well developed. Often sitcoms deliver a moral lesson, however, examples will be given of sitcoms which disregard this is norm.

Characters need to be well built for a sitcom to work. Sitcoms have many different characters because a certain type of character is needed for every situation. A stereotypical personality trait for male main characters is always being sarcastic. Frasier uses it for comebacks and insults, Chandler from Friends uses it to cover-up his insecurities, Ross, again from Friends, uses it to show that he is upset or annoyed. Jerry from Seinfeld often uses it as well on different occasions. A particular master is Frank from King of the Hill who uses it to show his boredom and annoyance towards his life.

Sitcoms are character driven, which means that the show is based on the successes and upsets of its characters. Most characters are based on common stereotypes, for example. the lazy couch potato, obsessive parent, annoyed dad, out of control children, eccentric friend or relative, macho men, troublemakers and narcissists et al. All of these stereotypes are recognisable to us, which is essential if a sitcom is to be believable.

Characters all have their trademarks; Kramer from Seinfield has his pompadour hair, vintage clothing and his usual barge into Jerry’s apartment. Elaine, also from Seinfeld, has a habit of pushing people and saying “get out” and always grabbing a drink from Jerry’s fridge every time she enters the apartment (through the strangely unlocked doors). Joey from Friends has his classic pick-up line “ How you doin?”, his famous lazy attitude and love of sandwiches. These little eccentricities that every character possesses is what makes characters become more predictable and more endearing. As the characters grow on you, you start begin to predict and understand a characters actions. This means that characters can create better humour.
With predictable and unpredictable actions, we can be ready to laugh and anticipate or we can receive a shock which both can create funny situations. Take for example Cat from Red Dwarf, in one episode he gets his love for himself sucked out by a polymorph (an emotion sucking alien) and becomes an alcoholic hobo and wanders about mindlessly being the exact opposite of himself. This would create huge laughs to see Cat, an egocentric narcissist become a hobo with no self-respect. Another example is Kramer from Seinfeld who normally acts selfish and child-like, but sometimes out-of-the-blue, he will say astonishingly bright and deep things.

Settings in sitcoms always seem familiar. This is because they are stereotypical places that we, the viewing public, are believed to frequent. For example, many sitcoms are set in places such as apartments, coffee shops, workplaces and parks. Good examples of these types of settings are Seinfeld, Frasier and Friends. Friends is mainly set in the apartments of the main characters and Frasier is mainly set in Frasier’s apartment and the radio station. Like Frasier, Seinfeld is set in Jerry’s apartment. Also, they ALL have meeting places, which is a pretty normal thing because we all have our places where we meet with friends, our own spot. Friends has the Daily Perk, a coffee shop not far from the apartment block where they live. These settings are great examples of possible ‘real life’ situations. Frasier has the café downstairs and Seinfeld has Monk’s Café.

One sitcom sub-genre that is quite big at the moment is the animated-family sitcom. A good example is King of the Hill. This sitcom is based in a fictional town in Texas, rather than a big city like New York or Seattle. Its meeting place is outside the main character’s house drinking beer. The Simpsons, another famous animated sitcom, is also set in a small town environment, Springfield. Often there are many settings such as one of the main character’s houses, a bar, a restaurant or convenience store near his or her’s home.

In the British sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf, the setting has a new meaning. The characters of Red Dwarf include: the last human, the last of a cat-human species evolved from a cat smuggled on board the ship, a hologram, a clean-a-holic android and an overly sarcastic computer. These characters are the last of their kind, they cannot escape and the people they’re stuck with aren’t exactly their best friends. The setting in Red Dwarf is one of loneliness and despair. This creates a good background and gives us an insight into the character’s state of mind. This form of setting is heavily derived from the plot.
Plot in a sitcom is simple, a series of problems are portrayed and the characters work their way around them, either succeeding or failing. If they succeed, then a classic way to end a show or extend a story line is to make a new problem or bring back an old one. This means that they really didn’t succeed and depending on the problem or subject there could be a moral lesson. An example of this is in King of the Hill, where in one episode Peggy is opposed to her niece Luanne getting married to Lucky. Lucky has a code of honour that won’t let him marry Luanne until he passes his GED (adult learner certificate). Peggy, as his tutor decides to make him fail so that he won’t marry Luanne. It all comes back to hit Peggy when Lucky refuses to marry Luanne when she turns out to be pregnant and breaks Luanne’s heart. Peggy then learns her lesson and admits what she did and then helps Lucky do the test again so that he can marry Luanne. The moral of the story is: don’t play with other people’s lives and don’t be judgmental.

There are sitcoms that do not place importance on moral lessons. This is mainly because certain sitcoms place more interest on jokes and story lines rather than morals. An example is Seinfeld, where the characters are so childish and self-absorbed that they fail to notice or care about anyone or anything else but themselves. In series 7 when George’s fiancé dies from licking the poisonous glue on their birthday invitation, none of them care. The show stood out from other sitcoms of its time for not placing a shred of interest on the characters learning a moral lesson which is mainly because the characters are too ignorant to learn anything. Seinfeld can be described as an anti-sitcom because although a lesson is sometimes presented, the characters fail to recognise it. The characters in these sitcoms are not usually likable because of their awful personalities, which is why the character’s only friends are each other.

This form of sitcom is rare however.
More sitcom writers prefer to keep to the standard family style sitcom. But this plot style often gets boring, which is why fresh and different sitcoms like Friends and Seinfeld that move off the beaten track attract larger audiences and become much more famous. As humour in sitcoms can come from a variety of different places the plot is important to create the chances and opportunities to bring in the jokes. For a sitcom to work the characters need to be strong, different and cling to a stereotype, plot needs to be about something new each time (only reminiscing for jokes and insults); and provide lots of chances for characters to exercise their stereotype. Writers use the stereotypes and plot movements to create one-liners or embarrassing situations for the
characters.
Conflict resolution is important to keep each episode fresh and different. Generally plot lines should finish with each episode; all conflicts need to be resolved so that a new problem can be used in the next episode. It is only very rarely that a topic will be mentioned again, but if they are mentioned they are only mentioned briefly. An example might be characters talking about what someone did in an earlier episode. This is common in Seinfeld. However, a continued plot line (“to be continued” style) is NEVER used.

The last element of a sitcom is how the humour is created.
Humour in sitcoms is created by using characters to their maximum. Sarcastic characters will make witty one-liners, babies will always disappear, the boss will always be picked on, all these things that we see stereotypically happening HAPPEN. Friends is a good example of character stereotypes being milked for all they are worth. Joey’s snappy one-liners and his never ending quest to be an actor that leads him into various funny situations like him trying to be 19 or always being late to auditions. Phoebe’s weird lyrics and strange on-and-off long term relationship with David is another example. Classic stereotypical jokes and situations are what make sitcoms so funny and the jokes are what make characters
memorable.

To conclude sitcoms are like a cake, they need all the right ingredients and need to be cooked perfectly if they are to succeed. The ingredients are the characters, humour and settings and the oven is the plot line that brings them all together. The most important part is the temperature to cook at. This is the moral. The moral is not a silly story written by some Greek philosopher, it is a view or an idea that is given from the outcome of a sitcom. Whether it is pointing out that no one knows the true meaning of Christmas these days or how ridiculous Paris Hilton is, sitcoms need to give us a thought in our heads, not one to produce a debate but one to help keep our conscience in check.

Sitcoms satirise our world, and sooner or later themselves. Sitcoms have evolved, from being annoying, cheesy, badly acted family based comedies to funny comedies about many different people and their lives, pointing out theirs and others mistakes. Although they vary in topics and characters they all share one thing in common: they are one of the most successful TV show genres ever. This is because they entertain, make us laugh and point out the silly flaws in society that we often forget.