Television Humor PowerPoint Presentation

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54 1 TELEVISION HUMOR: Sit Coms & Late Night TV by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen

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54 2 TV Critic

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54 3 Ten Top Sit Coms of All Time

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54 4 How Sophisticated is Seinfeld? IN ONE EPISODE THERE ARE FOUR PRIMARY STORY ARCS: Jerry and his toys George and his animals Elaine and the sidler Kramer and the Merv Griffin Set (Note that the Merve Griffen set was found in a dumpster. Note also that this episode is scripted for Kramer (like the original Merv Griffin), but unscripted for everyone else) Seinfeld: Kramer and the Merv Griffin Set: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxhs-O_9BLc

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54 5 Drew Carey

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54 6 Family Guy

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54 7 Friends

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54 8 Kelsey Grammer as Frasier

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54 9 The Office

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54 10 Ray Ramono

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54 11 Scrubs

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54 12 Jerry Seinfeld

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54 13 The Simpsons

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54 14 Southpark

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54 15 Sit Coms: An Overview “Take a few stereotyped characters whose views/interests/inclinations are discordant; place them in a context of interaction from which they cannot escape; set in motion a course of events which leads them to formulate interpretations which clash, but without serious consequences; vary the action from one episode to another, but maintain the setting and the underlying patterns of conduct; provide clear and repeated signals of humorous intent; and arrange each episode in the form of a prolonged joke sequence with an ‘unexpected’ semantic reversal at the end.” (Mulkay 183-184). (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 5)

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54 16 Types of Sit Coms Anne Spangler classes sit coms by Setting: workplace, home… Main Characters: single, women, black… Tone: “warmedy,” “dramedy,” “surreal”… Leo Charney classes sit coms as: Family Sitcoms: The Goldbergs, Everybody Loves Raymond, Roseanne… Friends-as-Family Sitcoms: Seinfeld, Friends, Three’s Company, Cheers, Golden Girls… Workplace Sitcoms: Cheers, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Office… (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 10)

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54 17 Rick Mitz’s Categories “Careercoms” Cheers, Dick Van Dyke Show “Corncoms” The Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith “Couplecoms” I Love Lucy “Domcoms”: Father Knows Best “Ethnicoms” The Goldbergs, Sanford and Son “Kidcoms”: Leave lt To Beaver “Scificoms” Alf, Morc “Servicecoms”: M*A*S*H, N.C.I.S. (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 11)

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54 18 Static vs. Dynamic Sit Coms “Seinfeld and Friends demonstrate the two poles of the sitcom’s development: the show on which no one changes versus the show on which everyone changes.” (Charney 599-600) (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 7)

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54 19 Static Sit Coms The static sitcom, sticks to its expected characters and themes. On Seinfeld, Jerry, Elaine, George, Kramer, and above all, Jerry’s nemesis Newman have a great deal in common with such never-changing cartoon icons as Bugs Bunny and Road Runner, constantly bringing the same traits to the same situations. (Charney 599-600) (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 7)

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54 20 Dynamic Sitcoms Friends, Sex and the City, and Mad About You are dynamic sitcoms, “with their long arcs of character evolution and carefully worked-out resolutions.” They are a hybrid between the sitcom and the soap opera. The characters age, change, and grow as they would in real life. (Charney 599-600) (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 7)

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54 21 Sitcoms: Some Analogies There are military sitcoms, school based sitcoms, comedies that feature aliens from abroad as far as Mars and Ork, ethnic shows, urban and rural shows, and work-place comedies. “All the familiar character types of American humor from the wise fools of the colonial and early national literature to the ‘little men’ of comic strips, silent film, and journalism, to con men and tricksters are featured in sitcoms.” (Mintz in Raskin [2008] 295)

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54 22 Pre-TV: Radio Sit Coms Amos ’n Andy first aired in 1928, and was adapted for TV in 1951. Amos ’n Andy came out of the minstrelsy tradition, and came to television as “blackface comedy.” It was cancelled after two seasons. (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 9)

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54 23 Amos ‘n Andy (1930s Radio) (1951-1952 TV)

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54 24

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54 25 Molly Goldberg Molly Goldberg first aired on radio in 1929 and was adapted for TV in 1949. After five years on TV, it was cancelled. It represented a middle-class Jewish family living in an apartment in the Bronx. (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 9)

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54 26 The Goldbergs (1930s Radio) (1949-1953 TV)

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54 27

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54 28 Sit Com Zeitgeists 1950s: Traditional Families Nuclear family White, Suburban, Patriarchal Conventional Stereotypes: businessman dad, stay-at-home mom, good-hearted and law-abiding children Examples: Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 12)

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54 29 Mayberry RFD (1950s TV)

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54 30 The Addams Family: Lurch (1950s TV)

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54 31 1960s: Beginnings of Diversity Nuclear Families (Dick Van Dyke Show) Fantastic Families: The Munsters, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie Single Parents: My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show Single Working Women: That Girl, Julia, Hazel (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 12)

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54 32 The Munsters (1960s TV)

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54 33 Beverly Hillbillies (1960s TV)

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54 34 1970s: Controversial with Social Awareness Wholesome Families: Happy Days, The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie Crass, Bigoted, Racist Families: All in the Family, Maude, The Jeffersons Feminist Sit Coms: Mary Tyler Moore Show Sex-Liberation: Three’s Company Blended Families: Brady Bunch, Diff’rent Strokes Taboo subjects like abortion, rape, interfaith marriage, poverty, antiwar sentiment are treated (Brooks 87) (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 13)

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54 35 Alf (1970s TV)

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54 36 All in the Family (1970s TV)

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54 37 The Brady Bunch (1970s TV)

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54 38 1980s: Realism & Variation Wholesome Sitcoms, some with Dual Career Marriages: The Cosby Show Animated Sitcoms: The Simpsons Rude, Crass, & Blue-Collar Sitcoms: Married…with Children, Roseanne Children tend to be independent; there are different types of families in terms of fathers, mothers, race, etc. (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 14)

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54 39 The Cosby Show (1980s TV)

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54 40 The Simpsons (1980s TV)

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54 41

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54 42 Golden Girls (1980s TV)

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54 43 Roseanne (1980s TV)

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54 44 1990s & 2000s: Few Taboos & Total Diversity Family: Home Improvement Animated: Beavis & Butt-head, Southpark, King of the Hill Teen Audience: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Dawson’s Creek, Malcolm in the Middle Single, Working Women: Will & Grace, Sex and the City Character Development & Growth: Seinfeld Sixty-Minute Format: Ally McBeal (Morrison PowerPoint [2009]: 16)

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54 45 Family Guy (1990s TV)

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54 46 Friends (2000s TV)

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54 47 Home Improvement (1990s TV)

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54 48 Seinfeld (1990s TV)

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54 49

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54 50 Ally McBeal (2000s TV)

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54 51 SITCOM WEB SITES 30 ROCK: http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/ AMERICAN DAD: http://www.fox.com/americandad/ BETTER OFF TED: http://abc.go.com/shows/better-off-ted THE BIG BANG THEORY: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/big_bang_theory/ DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: http://abc.go.com/primetime/desperate/

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54 52 CHEERS: http://www.tv.com/cheers/show/66/summary.html COMMUNITY: http://www.nbc.com/community/ THE COSBY SHOW: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086687/ CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: http://www.hbo.com/larrydavid/ DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES: http://abc.bo.com/primetime/desperate/ EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/everybody_loves_raymond/

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54 53 THE FAIRLY ODD PARENTS: http://www.nick.com/shows/the_fairly_oddparents/index.jhtml FAMILY GUY: http://www.familyguy.com/ FRASIER: http://www.tv.com/frasier/show/70/summary.html THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098800/ FRIENDS: http://www2.warnerbros.com/friendstv/container.html FULL HOUSE: http://www.tv.com/fullhouse/show/1026/summary.html

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54 54 FUTURAMA: http://search.msn.com/video/results.aspx?q=futurama&FORM=VDRE THE GOLDEN GIRLS: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088526/ GROWING PAINS: http://www.tv.com/growingpains/show/118/summary.html HOME IMPROVEMENT: http://www.tv.com/home-improvement/show/635/summary.html IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA: http://www.hulu.com/its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia THE JEFFERSONS: http://www.tvland.com/shows/jeffersons/

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54 55 THE KING OF QUEENS: http://www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows/kingofqueens/ MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE: http://www.fox.com/malcolm/ MARRIED WITH CHILDREN: http://www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows/marriedwithchildren/ MAUDE: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htm1M/maude/maude.htm MY HERO: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/myhero/ MY NAME IS EARL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460091/

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54 56 THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/old_christine/ THE ODD COUPLE: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063374/ THE OFFICE: http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/ SCRUBS: http://www.nbc.com/Scrubs/ SEINFELD: http://www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows/seinfeld/ SEX AND THE CITY: http://www.hbo.com/city/

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54 57 THE SIMPSONS: http://www.thesimpsons.com/index.html SISTER, SISTER: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108927/ SOUTH PARK: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155394/?tab=featured SPIN CITY: http://abc.go.com/primetime/spincity/ SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS: http://www.nickelodeon.com.au/toonroom/sponge/menu.php STEVE HARVEY: http://www.steveharvey.com/

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54 58 STILL STANDING: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/still_standing/ THAT 70S SHOW: http://www.that70sshow.com/ TWO AND A HALF MEN: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/two_and_a_half_men/ TYLER PERRY’S HOUSE OF PAYNE: http://www.tbs.com/shows/houseofpayne/ THE VICAR OF DIBLEY: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgfj WAR AT HOME: http://www.fox.com/warathome/ THE WINNER: http://www.fox.com/winner/

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54 59 !!Late Night Television Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert

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54 60 !!!Greg Beato writes in “Amusing us to Depth” “Multiple Surveys by the Pew Research Center and the Annenberg Public Policy Center have found that viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are among America’s most informed citizens.” (390)

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54 61 !!!TALK SHOW WEB SITES ADAM CAROLLA: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004805/ STEPHEN COLBERT: “THE COLBERT REPORT”: http://www.colbertnation.com/home JIMMY FALLON: http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/ CRAIG FERGUSON: http://www.cbs.com/late_night/late_late_show/

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54 62 CHELSEA LATELY (CHELSEA HANDLER): http://www.eonline.com/on/shows/chelsea/index.jsp DAVID LETTERMAN: http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/ JIMMY KIMMELL: http://abc.go.com/latenight/jimmykimmel/index?pn=index JAY LENO: http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/

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54 63 DEMETRI MARTIN: http://www.demetrimartin.com CONAN O’BRIEN: http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/ SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/ SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM: http://sarahblog.comedycentral.com/ JON STEWART: “THE DAILY SHOW”: http://www.thedailyshow.com/

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54 64 References: Apter, Michael J. “Fawlty Towers: A Reversal Theory Analysis of a Popular Televison Comedy Series.” Journal of Popular Culture 15.3 (1982): 128-138. Balirano, Giuseppe, and Marcella Corduas. “Detecting Semiotically-Expressed Humor in Diasporic TV Productions.” HUMOR 21.3 (2008): 227-252. Beato, Greg. “Amusing Ourselves to Depth.” Language Awareness, 10th Edition. Eds. Paul Eschholz, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark. Boston, MA: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2009. Bergelin, Paul. “Thirty-five Years of Corrupting Children’s Minds”?: Pat McMahon and the Wallace and Ladmo Show. Studies in American Humor New Series 3.23 (2011): 67-80.

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Brooks, Marla. The American Family on Television: A Chronologyo of 121 Shows, 1948-2004. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005. Cantor, Muriel G. “The American Family on Television: From Molly Goldberg to Bill Cosby.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 22.2 (1991): 205-216. Cantor, Paul A. “The Simpsons: Atomistic Politics and the Nuclear Family.” Political Theory 27.6 (1999): 734-749. Carter, Bill. The Late Shift: Letterman, Leno, and the Network Battle for the Night. New York, NY: Hyperion, 1994. 54 65

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54 66 Cassino, Dan, and Yasemin Besen-Cassino. Consuming Politics: Jon Stewart, Branding, and the Youth Vote in America. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009. Chan, Fong Yee. “The Use of Humor in Television Advertising in Hong Kong.” HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 24.1 (2011): 43-62. Charney, Leo. “Television Sitcoms.” Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide: 2 Volumes. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. Crawford, Alison. “ ‘Oh Yeah!’: Family Guy as Magical Realism?” Journal of Film and Video 61.2 (2009): 52-69. Dalton, Mary M., and Laura R. Linder, eds. The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed. Albany, NY: State Univ of New York Press, 2005.

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54 67 Davis, Dinah. “Illusions and Ambiguities in the Telemedia Environment: An Exploration of the Transformation of Social Roles.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 39 (1995): 297-335. Dobson, Hugo. “Mister Sparkle Meets the Yakuza: The Depictions of Japan in The Simpsons.” Journal of Popular Culture 39.1 (2006): 44-68. Edge, Braínne. “Comedy Improvisation on Television: Does It Work?” Comedy Studies 1.1 (2010): 101-111. Eisner, Joel, and David Krinsky, eds. Television Comedy Series: An Episode Guide to 153 TV Sitcoms in Syndication. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 1984. Gardiner, Judith Kegan. “Why Saddam is Gay: Masculinity Politics in South Park—Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 22.1 (2005): 51-62. Goldberg, Andrew. Family Guy: Brian Griffin’s Guide to Booze, Borads, and the Lost Art of Being a Man. New York, NY: Harper, 2006. Gournelos, Ted. “Blasphemous Allusion: Coming of Age in South Park.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 33.2 (2009): 143-168.

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54 68 Gournelos, Ted. “Puppets, Slaves, and Sex Changes: Mr. Garrison and South Park’s Performative Sexualiry.” Television and New Media 10.3 (2009): 270-293. Gray, Jonathan. Watching with the Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality. London, England: Routledge, 2006. Groening, Matt. The Simpsons: One Step Beyond Forever. New York, NY: Matt Groening Productions, 2005. Hmielowski, Jay D., Lance R. Holbert, and Jayeon Lee. “Predicting the Consumption of Political TV Satire: Affinity for Political Humor, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report.” Communication Monographs 78 (2011): 95-114. Hurd, Robert. “Taking Seinfeld Seriously: Modernism in Popular Culture.” New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 37.4 (12006): 761-776. Jones, Gerard. Honey, I’m Home! Sitcoms: Selling the American Dream. New York, NY: Grove/Weidenfield, 1992.

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54 69 Jones, Jeffrey P. “ ‘Fake’ News versus ‘Real’ News as Sources of Political lnformation: The Daily Show and Postmodern Political Reality.” in Politicotainment: Television’s Take on the Real Ed. Kristina Riegert. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2007. Leamer, Laurence. King of The Night: The Life of Johnny Carson. New York, NY: Morrow, 1989. Leno, Jay, and Bill Zehme. Leading with My Chin. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1996. Lockyear, Sharon, ed. Reading Little Britain: Comedy Matters on Contemporary Television. London, England: I. B. Tauris, 2010. Mankoff, Bob. The New Yorker: Book of Literary Cartoons. New York, NY: Pocket Books, 2000. Marc, David. Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American Culture. New York, NY: Blackwell, 1997. Marc, David. Demographic Vistas. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 1984.

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54 70 Marc, David. “Origins of the Genre: In Search of the Radio Sitcom.” in Dalton and Linder [2005]: 15-23. Mills, Brett. Television Sitcom. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. Mitz, Rick. The Great TV Sitcom Book. New York, NY: Perigee Books, 1988. Moon, Tony. “Spotlight Kids: The Depiction of Stand-Up Comedians in Fictional Drama: Film, Television and Theatre.” Comedy Studies 1.2 (2010): 201-208. Morreale, Joanne. “Revisiting the Osbournes: The Hybrid-Reality Sitcom.” Journal of Film and Video 55.1 (2003): 3-15. Morrison, Krystina. “The Radio and Television Sit Com.” Unpublished ENG 414 PowerPoint, Tempe, AZ: ASU, April, 2009. Mulkay, Michael. On Humour: Its Nature and Place in Modern Society. Oxford, England: Polity Press, 1988.

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54 71 Nagy, Victoria. “Motherhood, Stereotypes, and South Park.” Women’s Studies 39.1 (2010): 1-17. Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Nilsen, Don L. F. Humor Scholarship: A Research Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993. Ortved, John. The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History. New York, NY: Faber and Faber, 2009. Pavese, Edith, and Judith Henry. TV Mania: A Timeline of Television. New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1998. Morris, J. “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Audience Attitude Change During the 2004 Party Conventions.” Political Behavior (2007): 79-102.

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54 72 Putterman, Barry. On Television and Comedy: Essays on Style, Theme, Performer and Writer. New York, NY: MacFarland, 1995. Reincheld, Aaron. “Saturday Night Live and Weekend Update.” Journalism History 21.4 (2006): 188-195. Rice, Jonah Lee. “SpongeBob SquarePants: Pop Culture Tsunami or More?” Journalof Popular Culture 42.6 (2009): 1092-1114. Ross, Michael L., and Lorraine York. “First, They’re Foreigners”: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Limits of Dissident Laughter.” Canadian Review of American Studies 37.3 (2007): 351-370. Santa Ana, Otto. “Did you call in Mexican? The Racial Politics of Jay Leno Immigrant Jokes.” Language in Society 38.1 (2009): 23-45. Schwartz, Sherwood, and Lloyd J. Schwartz. Brady Brady Brady: The Completge Story of “The Brady Bunch” as Told by the Father/Son Team Who Really Know. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press Book Publishers, 2010. Scodari, Christine. “Sex and the Sitcom: Gender and Genre in Millenial Television.” in Dalton & Linder [2005]: 242ff.

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54 73 Senzani, Alessandra. “Class and Gender as a Laughing Matter? The Case of Roseanne.” HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research 23.2 (2010): 229-254. Shales, Thomas. Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live. New York, NY: Bay Back Books, 2002. Smoodin, Eric. Animating Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. Spangler, Lynn C. Television Women from Lucy to Friends: Fifty Years of Sitcoms and Feminism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Seinkiewicz, Matt, and Nick Marx. “Beyond a Cutout World: Ethnic Humor and Discursive Integration in South Park.” Communication and Mass Media Complete (2009): 5-18. Thelen, Jenna. “Humor in Sit Coms.” Unpublished ENG 414 PowerPoint, Tempe, AZ: ASU, 2009.

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54 74 Thomas, Ellen Mazur. The Origins of Graphic Design in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. Trueth, Michael V. Laughter in the Living Room: Television Comedy and the American Home Audience. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2005. Watterson, Bill. Calvin and Hobbes. New York, NY: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1987. Wertheim, Arthur Frank. Radio Comedy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992. Wisnewski, Jeremy. “Family Guy” and Philosophy. Maldon, MA: Blackwell, 2007. Zoglin, Richard. Comedy at the Edge. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2008.