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
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
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