Yabba dabba doo!

by David Benjamin 

“A little song, a little dance/ A little seltzer down your pants.”

—Chuckles the Clown, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”

 

MADISON, Wis.—Something has happened to TV situation comedies.

Or is it me?

For much of my life, I’ve been a sort of sitcom maven, not just watching and chuckling but analyzing and categorizing. Lately, however, as I wield my trusty remote, I tend to scroll right past sitcom after sitcom. Even if I stop to indulge in a re-run of “Friends” or a peek at “Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” I lose focus and move on. Friends (no quotation marks) urge me toward the genius and hilarity of “Ted Lasso” or “Veep” and I feel guilty for not immediately hunting down the relevant streaming service and buying a subscription. But, well … meh.

But why? 

I know this stuff. I long ago recognized that there are only two types of sitcoms: a) the sex comedy with oddball characters and b) the family comedy with oddball characters. 

The latter category literally bombarded the viewing public from the birth of network television, including classics like “Father Knows Best,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “My Three Sons,” “Ozzie and Harriet,” “Leave It to Beaver” and, of course, the grandmother of ’em all, “I Love Lucy.”

Conventional wisdom suggests that the sex comedy—which reached its apogee in shows like “Friends,” “Will and Grace” and “Two and a Half Men”—is a more recent sitcom variation. But the first one I recall dates back to 1955, “The People’s Choice,” with Jackie Cooper as a bachelor politician. In that show, the element of sex was subtle and strangely augmented by the voice of a basset hound named Cleo. The romantic sitcom bonded with the family sitcom in 1957 with “Bachelor Father.” And then, in 1959, sex moved from undercurrent to motif in “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” which introduced a panoply of stars including Dwayne Hickman as Dobie, Bob “Gilligan” Denver, Tuesday Weld and Warren Beatty.

As far back as “Our Miss Brooks” (1952) and “The Gale Storm Show” (1956), there were TV shows that might be placed in a third category, the “workplace sitcom.” But these ensemble shows, whose characters are intimate, sibling and constant, more accurately comprise a variation on the family sitcom. Some of our most inventive sitcoms fit this subset, including the seminal “Dick Van Dyke Show,” “M*A*S*H,” “Taxi” and “The Bob Newhart Show.” Consider, for example, the familial bond expressed in that final hug among Mary, Lou, Murray, Ted and Georgette on “Mary Tyler Moore.” 

Whether a sitcom is witty and heartwarming, like “MTM,” or darkly ironic like Dabney Coleman’s shortlived but brilliant “Buffalo Bill,” it adheres to two rigid rules: 1) the characters cannot, must not, change, 2) the story, at the end of a half-hour (minus commercials) must be tied up with a bow.

Now, we’ve all seen sitcom episodes that end with a hint of suspense that requires that we tune in next week to see whether Ross will get roasted by Rachel for sleeping with the hot girl from the copy shop. But the rule for this deviation is that the crisis, in the grand scheme of human affairs, is trivial and temporal. No blood is shed, no one dies, no regular is banished from the show. It all blows over and nobody grows. The hot girl from the copy shop is never seen again. 

There used to be a third rule—that the main characters must be likable, the sort of people you would welcome as friends. This rule was eroded—but also reinforced—by antagonists like Eddie Haskell, Ted Baxter, Louie De Palma and the insufferable Diane (Shelley Long) in “Cheers.” But then “Seinfeld” broke the mold. Instead of having one or two jerks in the cast, they were all jerks. If you were stuck in a car on a long trip with George or Jerry, Kramer or Elaine—and especially Newman—you would end up strangling at least one of them, or hitchhiking the rest of the way.

“Seinfeld, however,” was the perfect sitcom. No one ever got smarter or better, more likable or more appalling. Every episode—the bubble boy, the soup Nazi—was self-contained and the “set,” whether Jerry’s apartment or George’s office at Yankee Stadium, conveyed a vague sense of claustrophobia unique to the sitcom.

Here’s the rub. Pope wrote that a little learning is a dangerous thing. Knowing that there are really only two formulae and just two rules that govern all sitcoms is a sip from the Pierian spring that tends to ruin the fun.

I tend toward morbid nostalgia when I recall the days a new fall TV lineup burst on my senses and foiled my homework. I remember fondly my first encounter with Ray Walston in “My Favorite Martian” and my crush on Shelley Fabares in “The Donna Reed Show.” I can still sing, word for word, the theme songs of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Car 54, Where Are You?” and “Mr. Ed.”

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

And no one can talk to a horse, of course …

Nowadays, I have twenty-something friends who rave about their favorite sitcom. There are people my age who steer me toward this comedy or that, telling me it’s a must-see. But I resist, partly because I’m busy, partly because I don’t like being told what to do. But, mostly, it’s just sitcom fatigue.

The elements that make the protagonist of a novel or a two-hour movie compelling and credible are depth and change. A serious character unfolds like a peony, revealing colors, shapes, angles and depths that were invisible a little while before. In another moment, more change. The unfolding of the plot exposes a childhood, a family history, an education, a tangle of relationships, affairs, deaths and emotional crisis, triumphs and despair. All this familiar human experience enriches but also complicates the character. In a reflection of real life, the character adds layers imposed by other characters and events within the story. Conflict, heartbreak, triumph, love and crisis alter the character dramatically, sometimes surprisingly—and irreversibly. This is life, but it’s not sitcom.

In a situation comedy, depth and change are toxic. We cherish sitcom regulars because, week to week, season to season, they never really grow. If they do, if they evolve too much and become someone else (as everyone does), the comedy osmoses into drama. It gains weight and starts to resemble the existence we turn on the TV to escape, if only for a half-hour minus the ads for Skyrizi and Bud Light.

As I thought about the danger of change in TV humor, it occurred to me that the perfect situation comedy, which broke ground in prime-time television in 1960, was “The Flintstones,” in which the immutable two-dimensionality of sitcom characters was distilled to its essence. Fred Flintstone was Ward Cleaver was Ozzie Nelson was Andy Taylor was Colonel Potter was Cliff Huxtable, a cartoon dad in an animation cel, but it wouldn’t be make-believe if I believed …

Once upon a time, Opie Taylor and I were soulmates. I yelled at Archie Bunker. I sat on pins and needles waiting for the punchline in a dialog between  Deitrich and Yemana. I sat back and laughed out loud at Les Nessman’s pronunciation of “Chi Chi Rodriguez.” I knew what Latka Gravas wanted when he said, “Niknik,” and I could tell you the exact location of Adam’s Ribs in Chicago. But now I wonder.

Do I still love Lucy? Did I ever?