Dogs & Doghouses

Situation Comedies

We’re all familiar with the description, “situation comedy”. These are the funny little half-hour shows with the same characters, week after week, cracking the most hilarious jokes that have ever been cracked; encountering and solving some pseudo-ethical dilemma week after week after week. They are brought to us by products like Bayer®, Tampax™, any number of restaurants, and Budweiser. What better sponsors of quality entertainment could a nation ask for? And in return all these sponsors ask is that we buy their products, what a bargain.

Now think about your favorite situation comedy. What exactly was the last situation? Can you remember the week before that? Maybe, being a super fan, you can remember three weeks worth of situations in a row. If you can, I think you’re the exception. But if you can’t that’s ok because, you see, the situations are really secondary to the characters. For every situation we can’t remember we certainly do recall most if not all of the characters involved with them. Situation comedies are actually character comedies. The situations aren’t sold to us. It’s the human characters involved within them where the connection with the viewer is mostly made.

Again, we know the names of the characters, but seldom recall the zany situations in which they find themselves. As far back as my memory of television goes, this has been true. I remember Captain Parmenter of “F-Troop”. I don’t recall what he did in particular. I know of Gilligan, Mary Ann, and most of the others, but for the life of me don’t remember many specific episodes (except maybe the one about the guy in the gorilla suit). I remember Lucy, Ricky, and their neighbors (the bald guy and his wife) but I can’t tell you much else. The same is true of Wally, the Beaver, their parents, and Eddie Haskel.

The general theme of almost all such shows is the same, week after week. You know it already, don’t you? There’s a problem and it gets solved. That’s the plot. There are no ramifications, no lasting significance, and certainly no consequences to actions, either good or bad. It’s the ultimate ideal of modern living – all the fun and none of the responsibilities. It’s less filling and it tastes great. Nothing can withstand modern man, just so long as a witty comeback can be told with a straight face. Television increasingly turns the law of the harvest (reaping what one sews) into a quaint ideal of a lesser age. At least that’s the theory.

From the standpoint of Christianity, our comedies beg the question, “What is Christianity?” You see, it’s never portrayed. Or what is sin to the characters of situation comedies? Characters never pray nor worship. They don’t tithe or own Bibles. By an ironic quirk of fate the only Christians they know are either the most rotten people in the neighborhood or are those who only come around during the Christmas specials. Again, the plot is to fix a problem, not to choose between right or wrong. Our characters are out to have a good time and get away with it. You would think we’d be bored with it by now, but the makers of Viagra™ must think otherwise, or else they would stop sponsoring our shows.

There have been two primary changes to this formula in the past 20 years. First of all, their used to be an authority figure in the shows. Lucy was always getting into trouble and her husband was always getting her out. The Beaver was always messing up and his mom and dad always let him, but only for a little while. In the end, reason and authority prevailed. This is the ghost of television past. Such has been laid to rest. And this leads me to the second change to the formula.

You see, there has been a great decline of what was once called decency. In our modern shows, there is no authority and no one knows best. And anyone who thinks they know best is usually portrayed as a buffoonish hypocrite. Thirty years ago, 1973 or thereabouts, it would have been unimaginable to base an entire show around the flaunted message of in-your-face homosexuality. No one would have watched such perversion. What a difference a few years make.

As an example, remember the show called “Friends”. Each main character on this show had numerous sexual partners through the years. Three of the characters either fathered or mothered illegitimate children. There’s drinking, gambling, promiscuity, homosexuality, and absolutely no Bible in any way, shape, or form. If anyone finds themselves in a church building, it’s only due to a hilarious funeral or wedding that never quite gets finished. Week after week this continues. The laughter rolls along and nothing much changes; all continues to be well among the friends.

I’m still waiting for the wacky episode when Rachel gets AIDS and spends her last days hooked to machines, taking drug cocktails as her body slowly shuts down, all because she committed fornication with the wrong guy. I just can’t wait to hear the one-liners zing on that episode. I’m still waiting for one of the male characters from “Will and Grace” to commit suicide, supporting the studies that have proven a very high rate of suicide among sodomites. Alas, I think I’ll be waiting for a while because that reality goes against the situation comedy episode template.

America likes to be shown people who aren’t real having problems lasting no longer than the prescribed 21 minutes (accounting for commercial breaks). The cult of personality is wildly popular. We eat it up.

Fifteen observations I’ve made while watching situation comedies:

1. All problems can be solved in a short period of time.
2. There’s no such thing as right and wrong.
3. People who worry about right and wrong are hypocrites.
4. As long as you are sexually attractive you can do whatever you want.
5. “Going to church” is for special occasions like funerals and weddings that never quite happen.
6. No one ever prays; unless you can get a laugh of it.
7. Bibles don’t exist.
8. Children never cause problems and never get spankings.
9. You can have children and continue living like a single idiot.
10. Children don’t need attention for more than a minute and apparently never have to eat.
11. Children are always clothed with nice, clean, new, latest fashions.
12. Since all problems get solved in short periods of time you can live your life without worrying about consequences.
13. There’s no such thing as a 40-hour a week job. Maybe that’s why there’s a generation of men who won’t work to support their families.
14. Everybody is a comedian and if what you say isn’t intentionally funny then it’s unintentionally funny (i.e. you’re stupid).
15. Serious minded people don’t exist.