Martinex1: Well there's a first time for everything - so today our topic has a double-billed header! This topic straddles both categories: TV Guided and Rank and Filed! What a high concept! And what a coincidence that today's focus is on high concept television situation comedies!
So what is a high concept? I define it this way (and keep in mind there are many definitions that can apply) - it is a program with a simply stated premise that tends to blend an oddity or an imaginary element into a normally functioning world for the purpose of humor. The comedy and story rely less on character development than they do on the juxtaposition of the prepositioned conceit.
The pitch for the television program's vision can be whittled down to a general statement or question. Examples of a possible pitch or show explanation and the resulting program may include:
What if a normal guy married a witch? Bewitched
What if an alien lived in a suburban home? Mork & Mindy or Alf or My Favorite Martian
What if a monster family lived next door? The Munsters and The Addams Family
I think you get the idea.
When we were growing up, these types of shows graced the airwaves and tended to capture my imagination. They were a lot of fun - full of crazy misunderstandings, pratfalls, puns, and comfortable silliness.
Today's entertainment has shifted, and I struggle to think of any current sitcoms that take this approach despite all of the classic success. The high concept approach has seemed to have migrated to dramas and film instead, particularly with the semi-serious success of superhero movies and Harry Potter.
I particularly liked Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie; they seemed to run on almost continuous afternoon loops on syndicated stations when I was growing up. I always found the frustration and curiosity of Mr. Tate and Dr. Bellows to be quite entertaining despite the distinct similarities of the shows. So they are definitely in my top three along with Mork & Mindy. I can remember the schoolyard discussions around the hilarity of Robin Williams when the show was first spun-off from Happy Days. But I have to also say that I liked the Munsters - and much more so than the The Addams Family. My wife and her family watched Alf together and have fond memories of that show.
My least favorite was a short-lived 90's sitcom Meego starring Bronson Pinchot as the title alien who is taken in and protected by three children and their single father. It had a fairly decent cast, including Ed Begley Jr., Michelle Trachtenberg, and Jonathan Lipnicki, but the comedy was cloying and horribly redundant as Meego always tried to pass himself off as Canadian. The laugh track was desperately needed as the jokes fell horribly flat. The shows from the late 60s and early 70s made that goofiness seem so effortless.
So what were your favorite television shows of this type? How would you rank them? What were your top choices? And what was the flop? Are our kids missing out on some classics and should the genre be reignited or has it run its course?
23 comments:
Aghh! You sneaky devils-- you've foisted SMALL WONDER upon us yet again-! Ohhhh, is there NO shame?? (Ha!)
Lordy, and MY MOTHER THE CAR. That artifact has popped up on AntennaTV in the past year-- and if anything, it's even worse than I'd remembered from my kid-hood. It's kind of an on-in-the-background-while-cooking show. And for some reason there are some episodes where they tried it w/out a laugh-track. . . which was like watching a slow-motion demolition ball in action. . .
But sooo many of these shows play even better to me now than they used to. It's not really the base concept, because most of them don't have any depth beyond an initial, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if--?" inspiration. Wasn't always the writing, except when the writers were allowed to just keep taking an idea wherever the heck they wanted. I think. . . I think the ones that worked and had a sustained life were buoyed by really solid, talented casts (or casts that clicked well), and smart, subtle directing and pacing. Something can be over-the-top funny w/out appearing to try too hard at it, whereas if you see a show "trying" to be funny- really working at it- it becomes unwatchable. (SMALL WONDER, MR BELVEDERE)
Boy, we're playing right in my home-field of interest again, here-- but I must run to a. . .(shudder). . . mid-day Staff Retreat. . .
HB
Hi all! I tend to think " what if a normal person suddenly had 'super powers'" fits this concept vs. being a witch or a genie who has "super powers?" There are numerous such shows on, today. But as far as these new shows being funny or "wholesome " clearly not. I did enjoy Jeannie, Bewitched, and Mr Ed!
Colin J may set me straight but the British don't do the high-concept thing. Our sitcoms tend to be class-based (The Good Life or to some degree Fawlty Towers) or satirical and exaggerated (The Office or The Young Ones)
The closest I can think of is Red Dwarf but in that case we have Lister (everyman) living on a spaceship with, variously, a humanoid cat, a hologram and a robotic servant. So in this case the concept is turned on it's head - the straight guy is in weird situations rather than the other way round.
Loved The Munsters and Addams Family growing up. Hmm, maybe it's time for a rerun.
A bit off topic on my own post, but check out the link Kent Allard supplied on yesterday's post to the JLA (World's Greatest Superheroes) comic strip. I had never seen that before and the art is by some classic artists. See Kent's commment on Tuesdays column.
On today's topic - it is interesting that the British shows didn't go this route. I wonder about other countries' television of the era. Over the next decade we would copy many British shows from "Sanford and Son" to "Three's Company".
Like HB I find some of these programs pictured today to be surprisingly current and still funny while other types of programs get dated fast.
CH47 - I agree with you about superhero programming, but I was trying to focus on half-hour sitcoms and I couldn't think of any, although I think there may new show out right now of that type - but it is flopping.
Colin's right. There aren't many high-concept British sitcoms but, off the top of my head, the following come to mind:
"Heil Honey, I'm Home," an early 1990s sitcom about a family who discover that they live next door to Hitler. Given that it was deliberately designed to cause maximum offence, I don't think anyone was surprised when it had the plug pulled on it after just one episode.
"Mulberry," an early 1990s BBC sitcom about an angel of death who's sent to take a grumpy, elderly spinster to the Afterlife. That lasted for a couple of seasons and, given its subject matter, was strangely sentimental and soft-hearted.
"Kinvig," an early 1980s sitcom by, "Quatermass," creator Nigel Kneale, about an electrical repair man who encounters a beautiful alien in need of having her spaceship repaired. That only lasted one season and was viewed as a failure.
"Goodnight, Sweetheart," a fairly limp 1990s sitcom about a man from the present who finds a way to travel back to World War II London where he can cheat on his wife and claim to have written all the Beatles' songs. It lasted for what felt like a million seasons and, given that it only had one joke in it, no one could ever understand why.
"The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy," which I think is fairly well known, despite only having lasted for one season.
Oops! I forgot, "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace," a mid-Noughties sitcom set in a hospital that contains a gateway to Hell. It sends up 1980s horror anthology shows and horror authors like Clive Barker and Stephen King. It was blessed with a cast of great comedy actors pretending to be terrible straight actors, and I loved it.
Well, I watched a lot of these as a kid, but most don't hold up too well. I always liked Bewitched more than I Dream of Jeannie, probably because of the guest stars (Paul Lynde was always hilarious as Cousin Arthur). I hated My Favorite Martian; never really watched the Munsters or the Addams Family (though I always thought Yvonne DeCarlo was kinda hot as Lily); I loved Mork & Mindy, at least till the final season. As I mentioned here before, I watched Small Wonder, but it wasn't great.
Would Beverly Hillbillies fit the category? (What if a bunch of hicks got rich and moved to Beverly Hills?) It was pretty good overall, but got rather repetitive in later seasons.
Important question! When Jeannie was obliged to cover her navel, did you find yourself watching less??? Just curious... I still tuned in!
Just wrote a lot, then my Google account experience an error.., grrr. To try and regurge..
Loved the Britcoms of the Bronze Age, like Faulty, No Honestly, Young Ones, The Goodies, etc.. I didn't get to watch much Adder or Dwarf, since they came later in the 80s.
As for American cliché-coms.., most didn't really last after the first season, like Mork, Perfect Strangers with Bronson Pinchot, and others. The joke kinda was over by then. Others like the Beverly Hillbillies, Mister Ed, and Its About Time stayed fun; even the '80s Third Rock From the Sun, stayed funny primarily due to the absurd writing and manic cast intensity, especially with John Lithgow.
Yeeeeah, I tried 'My Mom the Car'..., just trying to imagine Jerry Van Dyke being talked out of Gilligan's Island for that..? Sheeesh.
Oh yes, Blackadder. Another straight guy transplanted into wild situations.
Not really right to generate a rule from such slight evidence, but I wonder if the difference says anything about our respective cultures? A PhD to the first good theory.
Here is my theory: The bar for suspension of disbelief of a genie is lower for Americans because we can easily be distracted by a navel or a lack thereof to the point of actual censoring. The genie part doesn't bother us or even seem odd but the belly button does. Go figure.
My supporting hypothesis is that life is entirely much easier if you believe you can twitch your nose and magically change things (or even readily succumb to the thought that it might be fun)- and don't tell me you have not tried.
I submit that our country is most at risk from crafty leprechauns and talking animals.
In converse, My initial theory somewhat falls apart knowing that UK Marvel touched up and added clothing to scantily clad heroines
The thing with Marvel UK adding clothing to scantily clad women was always weird because, with TV, it was the opposite way round. Nudity seemed to be banned on American TV but was everywhere on British TV. I remember once coming home from school, at 3:45 in the afternoon and switching on the local TV station to find they were broadcasting a fully nude stage play at us. It's the sort of thing you could never see happening now. In light of that kind of thing, why Marvel UK were so terrified of corrupting our tiny minds, I have no idea.
As for why British TV doesn't tend to do high concept sitcoms, I suspect it's because high concept often involves special effects and British TV channels have traditionally been terrified of spending money on sitcoms. I remember reading an interview with the creators of, "Red Dwarf," where they said that, with the pilot script, they went out of their way to fill it with references to how mundane all the sets were going to be, in order to convince the BBC it wasn't going to cost them any money.
Bravo, Dr Marti PHD! I would also posit that while British humor gets points for disestablishmentarianism, we also fly uncomfortably close to cynicism.
I have always enjoyed American positivity and idealism - that's one of the reasons I love superhero comics published before Alan Moore came along and deconstructed them.
Marti - what you say is quite interesting. Americans do seem be quite able to suspend disbelief. I often wonder if it is b/c of our level of higher education? Only 25% have a 4-year degree and less than like 5 - 10% have one in a technical subject.
Colin B - Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic and having a French wife, I tend to think European cynicism is appropriate after two world wars, colonialism, etc. We Americans have happened to remain quite unscathed by that level of death and destruction; it's always "over there."
A room mate of mine, a student of social psychology, told me once that TV and movies tend to mirror a society's feelings "at the time." The USA being relatively very affluent after WW II (and we really are the "post-WWII generation" aren't we?) could afford to be happy-go-lucky and so we watched TV about taking horses, good-looking genies with sensuous navels, good looking witches, Hillbillys, Island Cast Aways, etc. Now, after 9-11, 15 years of war, the gutting of the middle class, $20,000,000,000,000 of national debt, etc. we are starting to become quite cynical ourselves as the election bore witness to and "fat, dumb, and happy" is no longer an option. And look at the most popular shows on TV: Walking Dead, grim superheroes... And that's why I loved LA LA LAND!!!
OK Marti - forgive me for the "deep dive!" I am going to watch 60s reruns on MeTV! Hopefully the Partridge Family will sing "I think I love you!"
Charlie I thoroughly enjoyed your deeper dive.
I am wondering how comparably cyclical today's American attitudes or the American zeitgeist will be to the early part of the 20th century (or later periods in the century). After times of intense trouble and stress pass will we see an emergence of fun-loving carefree attitudes reflected in the arts; will we relive the roaring 20s? Or follow with a rebuilding protectiveness and extreme hopefulness? Is La La Land a type of escapism (although maybe not cinematically achieved) the exact same type of "happy movie" that emerged in the early 30s following the Great Depression. Is it the edge of a new Busby Berkeley song and dance extravaganza working to get your mind off of everything else and lose yourself in fantasy for a couple of hours?
I think the one defining feature of Americans is that we are always so darn sure that "it" can get better even if we have to rely on fantasy to get there. At the same time we are pretty reluctant to say we are not the "best" at everything (except maybe cricket and curling). I would also say that we are pretty quick to use the cliche that "history repeats" while never quite accurately predicting it, while in hindsight saying "I told you so and thank goodness we were around to tell you so".
So what I find in American television throughout is a strange amalgam and swirling of cynicism and optimism. On one hand we are disgusted with everything but strangely explore it as normally silly. I think that is why Seinfeld was so popular. But I think Bewitched and Jeannie did the same thing essentially - they took "order" and not so subtly said "passion and outlandishmess and creativity make us great NOT structure". So Dr Bellows was the crazy one! Seinfeld brought more attention to it verbally - calling out what we consider "normal" when in fact we are all really quite goofy.
Maybe Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" should be our national anthem. Read the lyrics of that sometime.
I hope I did not offend anybody because I love it here -and everything said was with my tongue in cheek and my foot in my mouth.
Cheers.
Fascinating discussion today! Excellent comments, everyone.
Marti and Steve- Marvel UK censored the artwork? I had no idea. It seems often that we Yanks have held the monopoly on 'delicate sensibilities'.
Charlie and Marti- kudos to both of your 'dives' into the cultural psyche. It will be interesting to see if "La LA Land" is simply a unique aberration or a harbinger of lighter things to come. At any rate, I firmly believe the world would be more pleasant if people took themselves a bit less seriously. And maybe twitched a nose, sat upside down on the sofa, or break into song on the freeway.
Oh, and I always loved "Jeannie", and even more, the Addams Family...
Hmm definitely I dream of Jeannie, 'cause Barabara Eden was da bomb in my young mind! Mork & Mindy was a must watch too (RIP Robin Williams); My Favorite Martian also. The TCM cable channel is rerunning ALF now, but somehow it doesn't capture my imagination as when I first saw it.
- Mike 'twitched my nose but nothing happened' from Trinidad & Tobago.
I wonderrrrrr if the mid-60's to 70's surge of these "high-concept", anti-formula shows might have themselves been an early display of pseudo-subversiveness? SO MUCH of television sit-coms up to that point had been simply an extension (and in MANY cases, a simple venue-shift) of the same, tired, sitcom formula that had already been dragging on for decades. LIFE WITH FATHER, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, OZZIE & HARRIET, LIFE OF RILEY, ARCHIE ANDREWS, HENRY ALDRICH, etc, etc--- there were soooo many, and they were allllll the same. Some better than others, mind you. You have a feeling that 'round about 1964 television writers were dying of artistic starvation, and thought, what the heck, let's toss some sure-to-be-rejected whoppers at the brass and see what happens. And somehow a show like GILLIGAN'S ISLAND sneaks through.
Hey-- the Smothers Brothers had a brief first-try supernatural sitcom as well! Tommy was an angel (Dickie's deceased brother, I believe?) who could only be seen by Dickie. Probably 1964 or '65? It wasn't good, no. But it was surely part of that surge.
HB
Oh say, I've mentioned it before, but not sure if it was here.
I've lately come to the opinion that Larry Hagman may have been one of the best comic Leading Men on television during the years that JEANNE ran. It's easy to miss because the dumb side-kick (Roger, in this case) is usually perceived to be the "funny" one in a show like this. But Hagman, I see now, was a flippin' brilliant and self-less comedian. Much like Dick van Dyke, he had physical skills (taking falls, hits, over-the-top reactions, etc) that were so well integrated into the moment that you'd lose track of the fact that he himself was performing pretty much as a big ol' clown. That, along with an ability to "underplay" a lie (the show being, of course, based on an unending stream of them), while keeping a cover on a boiling volcano of panic and anxiety is something that now has me rolling in gales of laughter on the kitchen floor. (Okay, that and Fred Gwynn on THE MUNSTERS--)
HB
Gents, this seems somewhat, sort of, relevant...
La La Land may win best picture but there was a stunning run of musicals winning Best Picture in the 60s (the time frame for our discussion): West Side Story (61), My Fair Lady (64), Sound of Music (65), Oliver (68) and then nothing more for decades. During this time frame Jack and Stan gave us a great batch of superheroes and then nothing more, really, since then.
Is this mere coincidence? AM I stretching things? I mean these shows, musicals, and comic-hero-creation started and ended roughly the same time. no?
Slept on the question and awoke with the thought:
American high-concept = the world is sane, understandable and ordered. But we are intrigued by possibility, the outlier, the bohemian. Let's throw that outrier into the mix and laugh at it/ourselves at the same time.
British high-concept = the world is insane and irrational.I stand alone in seeing through it, a beacon of common sense. Let's throw an analogue of me into the mix so that I can laugh at the craziness of confronting a crazy world.
Shorthand:
American - we are all sane except for that guy.
British - eVerybody is insane except me.
Apologies for the typos, I was walking through a windstorm as I typed!
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