Sitcoms
Do you ever scroll through Netflix or Amazon Prime and wonder where all the office sitcoms are? In the 80s, 90s and 00s the office sitcom seemed like a television staple, but if this is no longer the case, what does it tell us about contemporary culture and society?
In this week’s podcast, we discuss sitcoms. We trace back recent trends in comedy, discuss some comedy classics, speculate on whether the sitcom genre may be in decline, and reveal what we should be looking for to identify the stock comedy characters of the next five to ten years. Finally, we share our favorite sitcoms and the comedy characters we most identify with.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Peter Coghill, Nick Hare, and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. And this week we're discussing office sitcoms. Nick, go. Yeah, well, I feel like sitcoms used to be set in offices. Now, we'll discuss, we'll certainly discuss whether that's true. But it feels to me like that you used to see, well, actually, in general, films and comedies and various other things that were set in offices a bit more. And I'm thinking of things like, think of films like Office Space. Yeah. And even The Matrix starts out being set in an office. And you just used to see offices and stuff like people at work. And I feel like these days, sitcoms are more about quirky people and, you know, groups of friends and stuff. That was my perception. I have subsequently done a little bit of research and turned out that may not be strictly true. But what can we infer from the things that comedies are about? About what, you know, society in general, but also like the kinds of things we find funny or are scared of or, you know, are interested in. That's the question, really. Can we use sitcoms as evidence for a great
Speaker B:shift in societal something or other? And what can we infer from the fact that Mrs Brown's voice is still bafflingly popular?
Speaker A:Well, yes. But also, this feels also a bit like that podcast we did on authenticity. You know, what was on being yourself? Because there seems to be room for, there seems to be space for comedy within having to behave in a certain way. Who's going to go, who's going to pick this up and run with it for the moment?
Speaker B: it was released on Netflix in: Speaker A:Getting on for 30, I think. Getting on for, it was about 98, I think, maybe slightly earlier. Yeah.
Speaker B: it of a sort of spike, around: Speaker A:One of the things I used to think about Friends, normal-ish people, I sometimes used to think, watch that, yeah, Joey's really funny. But if you met someone like that, who was that stupid, you'd be worried about them. And they need some help or something. Anyway, I digress. I think someone has made these edits of, like, interactions in Friends, where they've taken the laugh track out. And it's really sinister, particularly Ross. Like, so there's some reason they picked on Ross. And like, some of the things he says sound really psychopathic. You're absolutely right.
Speaker C:Yeah. Well, I was just going to observe that Friends was the TV show that I loathed the most. Like, I had a really passionate hatred of Friends, based on not having watched very much of it. I really liked the theme tune. OK. I liked the theme tune. So that sucked you in. But I'm pretty sure it was a hit before it was the theme tune. So I remember, I don't know whether that's a false memory.
Speaker A:I'll Be There For You by the Rembrandts. Yeah. Yeah. But when the psychopathic clapping.
Speaker C:But I'm sure it was like a hit, like a couple of years before. That's it. But there was something about this that summed up that period of time that I hated at the time, which was this this collective group of people, all happy, all happy, falsely sort of socialising in this sort of early 20s way. I just. Weird enough, but not too weird.
Speaker B:Toxic positivity. Toxic positivity.
Speaker C:And it was it was like the mobile phone adverts of the time where you had these, you know, these groups. Well, yeah, there was that, but generally this sort of young people all, you know, aimlessly hanging out and smiling. I just wanted to go. Did you hate it more than everything else that you hated? Yes. I mean, it was in my big heap of things I hated. It was firmly at the top.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think Peter just put that nicely, which I think we're finding out more about you
Speaker C:than friends. Anyway, that was a digression. But I absolutely, it is probably the TV show that I hate the most from all of history. Oh, my God. So that's that's in your room 101.
Speaker A: y stretch from I Love Lucy in: Speaker C:Well, I'd be interested to know where the sitcoms sitcom viewership has gone up or down, because my sense is that sitcoms aren't quite the cohesive thing that they were, you know, in the way that everybody watched Friends in the 90s or whatever. I think they were much more definable. Yeah. And and and the office, for example, everybody, you know, would have watched that on the I mean, that's partly about how TV was delivered. But but, you know, people watched it at at the time and talked about it afterwards. And I I don't think sitcoms are as big as they were. I put that out there as a something I have no evidence for.
Speaker B:And I was quite surprised by how unpopular relative to other things, pop comedies are. I looked there's a great website called Barb.co.uk, which has got seems to be a fairly authoritative data set of UK viewing numbers. It has a series as well as individual one off things like the coronations and those sorts of things group by year in big charts. So you could you could piece together quite a good data set from there. But but in none of the sort of top one, none of the top 10, the top 10s. Yeah, I looked at the top 10s for the last two decades and there was not a single comedy in any of the top 10. What's what's what's dominating the charts? Yeah, it was. Well, it was sort of one off events like sporting events and TV. I said, I don't understand what the list is. So, well, they have top. Let me bring it up. So it's a given given something that was aired on TV. Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do. Top top data sets include top weekly top 50 shows. And you can you can pick your date range and you can get the tables for. They also have most watched thing. Most watched thing in any given year to the top. Sorry, any given year. Top 10. And yeah, the most watched things are dominated by sort of one off sporting events is that makes sense. Olympics is and that sort of thing.
Speaker A:But what you want is that consistent thing, what is consistently a sort of because otherwise you're just getting up, throwing outliers in there. I've got much to teach you guys about data analysis. Yeah. Thanks. Peter, I feel I feel I've like I've pissed on your chips. I don't know. Have you led yourself down a cul-de-sac?
Speaker B: well, just for example, like: Speaker A:Actually, I think that I think there's something to be said there for the fact that the most watched shows are those events. Right. Because one of the things about sitcoms as well as things like soap operas, for example, is that comfort, that that continual consistency and that you stay with it for a long time. And maybe that's why people feel strongly about them. Or am I making any kind of point here?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, I think I think so. There's a there's a there's a routine element. There are lots of things within sitcoms that, you know, it's character based comedy. Right. And you get the catchphrase very frequently in in comedy. And that's that's that's a if you turn up and you watch one episode of it, you don't you don't know what the catchphrase is and you don't laugh. So there is there is an element which is familiar familiarity, which is probably why the settings are things like workplaces, families, groups of friends, because they're trying to mimic the environment in which you, you know, you find yourself in every day in routine, routine circumstances.
Speaker A: s and: Speaker B:Yeah. Go on, Peter. We'll throw in a slightly skeptical hypothesis. I'm not I'm not completely sold on the idea that there is some sort of cultural quality that's driving the popularity of given shows. I think there's more of a I think it's probably a pretty perverted, failed market. I think what happens is a particular show is new, has a novelty to it, and it gains notoriety and popularity. And then other other broadcasters will imitate it. And it will ride it will ride that wave of the first one. It's close enough and it's funny enough that people like it get on board. But then the next kind of genre or a reimagining of an old genre comes along and dominates again. So I can I can imagine I can imagine in my hypothesis a slapstick comedy. There's a good one. You know, it's not Mrs. Browns Boys. There's a bit more cerebral to it, but maybe a surreal slapstick suddenly being the new thing. BBC has one runs for a couple of series. Then ITV Channel 4 and everybody else jumps on the wagon and they have their own.
Speaker A:Yeah. Yeah, it could be. Listen, guys, too much theorizing. OK, which is as important as it is and as devoted to that as you know, I am. I just want to the what I usually would reserve as a as a final question. I actually want to bring that forward and just sort of try and reexamine, examine that, pick that apart and to answer some of these questions. Right. So therefore, I've also got another backup final question, by the way. Really obvious one. Favourite sitcom. OK, let me let's just do that. Let's something that you really like that's defined as a sitcom and that you like. And let's look into that and also see if there's any, you know, between us, there's any common stuff that you really like. Who wants to kick off? So, yeah.
Speaker B:So so mine's you could say it's part sitcom, part. What did I just say? Sketch show. Part sitcom, part sketch show. League of Gentlemen. OK, so wait, Nick. Fawlty Towers. Chris.
Speaker C:Well, I'm not I'm not a big fan of sitcoms, I have to say. So so I have to go back to a time when when I didn't mind sitcoms. So I would go for either The Young Ones or Red Dwarf. But I suspect they don't stand the test of time.
Speaker A:Good choices. And also for me, Fawlty Towers. That's what I wrote down. So let's go into that. So yours, I've forgotten what you said. It was League of Gentlemen. Brilliant. So how do we want to analyse this? We've got League of Gentlemen, Fawlty Towers. And let's say, well, actually, I think Chris touched on something interesting there. He said they probably haven't stood the test of time. If that's true, then that might tell us something about how comedy actually does in some sense need to be topical. So there's a whole there's a few sitcoms I can think of in the 70s and 80s that I kind of might. I like to say that I like. But actually, if I sit down and watch them, they're just they just don't do it. It's a bit like the carry on films. People often profess to like this.
Speaker C:Well, Up For Pay was the other one I was going to going to put forward.
Speaker A:So therefore, what makes something timeless? Is that what we're looking for? Well, no, I think more what has made it what has stopped something lasting.
Speaker C:Oh, OK. Well, just before Nick goes on, I was just going to say, I think that what we've slightly obsessed on is the setting as opposed to what they're about. Right. Which is not necessarily the same thing. What is the what is the focus of what are the focus of the jokes, which I think we should also touch on?
Speaker A:OK, so which approach? How do we attack this? Well, Nick, why do I like Fawlty Towers? I would say one of the reasons is actually, well, first of all, the meta meta level. They did two series and stopped and that's flipping great. So just, you know, they knew when to end it. I think they're just making a new one. Milk it. I bloody hope not. I think it's John Cleese doing it. It'll be bad. Must I love John Cleese. But that every single one is so perfectly self-contained, which is what you want from a sitcom. You know what they call the reset button at the end. But but but also I think the the the timelessness of the characters and their and their relationships to one another is, is, you know, that John Cleese is this this eternal every man, you know, who's struggling with all these relationships, you know, he has with with people and at the same time desperate to to raise himself up, you know, to to a sort of higher status. And that's what everything revolves around every week is, you know, his failure to to, you know, to to to be successful by his own lies, which is lies under a lot of comedy, I think. Yeah. I'd also but then tying into that is that beautiful thing, that kind of magic that happens sometimes is the quality of the writing and the quality of the casting stroke, the acting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Prinette Scales is just fantastic. Although Connie Whatsofchops is pretty not great. Oh, I love her. Really? Great. Yeah. So I got a bit lost. Connie Booth. Connie Booth. There you go. So sorry. How do we want to address this? So why is I agree with Chris that Red Dwarf actually hasn't and I loved Red Dwarf hasn't really stood the test of time. And but also, interestingly, Friends hasn't to the extent that I think they've had to ban some episode or ban, but not show some episodes because they're now a bit controversial, particularly ones about which are interpreted as body shaming. I really where they were. Part of the comedy is one of the characters put on as put on loads of weight. OK, just to be hilarious. Not you're not allowed to do that anymore. Yeah. Yeah. But also, I think Joey's behaviour and his approach to women has been sort of needs to has been reassessed, let's say. Right. Now seen as a misogynist rather than a playboy. Yeah. But also in the context of the Me Too thing, it's like slightly predatory. Yeah. You know, so Red Dwarf. I think it's a bit me. It comes over as a bit mean now. Like, I think we're probably a bit more sympathetic to characters like Rimmer. And and I know he does develop into a much more sympathetic character. But a lot of it is about how we should be, you know, actually that, you know, Lister is this kind of, you know, heroic sort of red bull. Slob. Yeah, slob. And Rimmer is this kind of, you know, overly officious sort of, you know, rules fascist.
Speaker B:I did watch a few. I went on a YouTube rabbit hole sometime like a year or so ago and ended up watching several bits of Red Dwarf. And I think it did. It did still work. But there were two bits to the one bit that worked was the situational jokes where they get in the scrape and somehow through their own incompetence managed to get out of it. That was still funny. But as you say, as you as you mentioned, sort of alluded to the character bits didn't quite work anymore. So, yeah, they're sort of they're a bit mean. Well, because they were mean. They were mean to Lister. So they mean to Rimmer. He just just wasn't as funny as he seemed back in the day. And but and the sort of the main joke about Lister is just that he was this slob. And rather than heroic, he was kind of stupid. And that wasn't really funny anymore. And it wasn't funny that Crichton was this sort of over earnest android.
Speaker C:So those aspects of the character comedy that probably were things that you liked at the time. For some reason, we've evolved beyond that. And I think that's what the point I was trying to make about. You know, we it's not the setting because at the end of the day, you know, there weren't lots of sci fi based comedies. Right. You know, I mean, there were a few, but very few. And so so, you know, that that's a setting that didn't fit with anything else. But I think like what what is the comedy actually about? And that was about, you know, perhaps quite a bunch of stranded misfits, stranded misfits. But there was quite a sort of harshness to the comedy, perhaps that we've evolved beyond now.
Speaker A:You know, I thought so. I think the characters and the writing and the acting is just OK. You've got concerns about the quality of the production. I don't think that's a good thing for me. No, just a thought, really. And I think it I think it might tie that in with some of the other things and this concept of timelessness, which is that if comedy relies on archetypes, they have to exist for us to understand them. And so I was just thinking, like, actually something like On the Buses or Steptoe and Son, which involve or Only Fools and Horses, where you have these at what would have at the time been very recognisable characters, the kind of Cockney wide boy of Del Boy or, you know, the working class kind of, you know, boy. It's sort of like someone like the, you know, the younger Steptoe, you know, who was who would have been. Perhaps he went to he went to school till he was 16. His dad or whatever, you know, and that being a thing you recognised and you recognised that there was this sort of striving that he had that his dad looked down on. And all of these characters, quite extreme poverty. But you would have pointed at them and gone, I've seen that guy, I know them. And you could have a laugh almost with them, sort of at them. But now they're museum pieces. Those characters don't exist in real life.
Speaker B:To give you a data point in support, amongst military friends, old, old comedies like It Ain't Half Hot, Mum and The Navy Lark were still popular, ring true, because those archetypes do still exist. Because military is so kind of old fashioned in that sense.
Speaker A:I think we've cracked it. And by we, I mean, not Nick. I mean, it was me who came to that. OK, look, we need to wind things up before we do anything. I've got a question. But before we do anything to add anybody. Well, I think just to then to bring it all back to the sort of potential trends is that perhaps you cannot have a comedy about a typical, you know, the kind of classic 80s sitcom dad. Well, meaning, but incompetent, classic 80s sitcom mom, you know, a little bit overbearing, but hyper competent in the home. You know, those things work because they were the parents that the viewers and the writers grew up with, you know, comedies were the writers of comedies about offices, you know, in the in the in the 60s and 70s probably had met. You think of someone like CJ in in The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin, the kind of classic boss with a high seat and a mustache and he looks down his nose at you. They don't really bosses aren't like that anymore. It wouldn't work. And I guess like that's that's you need to have recognisable character types in order for these things to work like David Brent. Yeah, well, exactly. I think David Brent was a is a perfect example of that. Like he actually he's a very sort of 90s, noughties boss, you know, trying to be down there with the troops.
Speaker B:And I and I suspect the management from a book. Yeah, yeah. And a weekend course in in in Ibanez or something.
Speaker A:Yeah. And I but I sort of and I suppose if you were to project forward, you'd say, well, who are the who are the people now that we you know, that we would recognise who are the characters? And it actually, you know, offices probably receding. But then you imagine things like, you know, the kind of tech tech bros that you get in Silicon Valley, for example. And, you know, so so it's it's actually, yes, it's like I think what it tells you is who are the characters, who are the stock characters of your everyday life? Yeah, probably what you find in sitcoms for the next 10, 15 years. Yeah, because something I don't come into contact with these people every day, but I sort of know that they're out there, which is so, for example, in the in Rick and Morty, the daughter called Summer. Yeah. Yeah. And she's that very kind of I always get my generations wrong. She's not millennial. She's whatever the next one is. Yeah. Yeah. And the way she speaks and.
Speaker B:Summer is a great character. She is a great character. Because she she's actually super competent trying to be Valley Girl. She's trying to fit in.
Speaker A:But the point is, it ties in with this. We know who that person is, even though I'm not surrounded by Valley Girls. We need to draw a. But it's interesting, it makes me think that actually this is almost a continuation of the commedia dell'arte of the of the, you know, late medieval period. It's like it's like eco stock characters. You've got your Harlequin and your, you know, pantaloons and all these kind of characters. You look, you tend to look back and go, oh, how boring. They were the same bloody characters every year. You know, they would show the, you know, like in pantomime, you get the same characters. Why do people like that? Well, now we look back on the same sort of phenomena. And in fact, we we're still we're still doing it today. Yeah. And it still works. Still works. And talking of characters. Nothing funnier than Harlequin. I think it's hilarious.
Speaker C:Yeah. I mean, if you want to if you want to see comedy that doesn't age, go, you know, go and look at the Greek comedy or even Shakespeare for that matter. I mean, you don't actually laugh at Shakespeare. I mean, you can try.
Speaker A:You do, you laugh very loudly to show that you understand. OK, so here's a question for you to round us all off. What's the character with whom you most identify in a comedy, ideally a sitcom?
Speaker B:I know there is a trope, but I can't place it where the trope is that the main protagonist is kind of the only sane person in the world and everything else is weird around him.
Speaker A:Well, someone like, yeah, like Curb Your Enthusiasm or something. Yeah, yes.
Speaker B:Well, I've got a particular worldview and I think everybody else is mad.
Speaker A:Yeah. OK. Either of you guys? I have this suspicion that I'm I'm actually like David Brent. I've always had always had a lot of sympathy for him as a character. I think he's just, you know, he's he's he does try his best. And, you know, I think he's he's unfairly unfairly treated, I think, by the by the writers. He's misunderstood. Yeah. But he does try hard. He tries. Yeah, exactly. He's just crap. But he's also he always tries to be personable, doesn't he? He's always trying to relate to people and kind of get on with people. And some people and a lot of people don't like that. And I feel.
Speaker B:He's being the best manager he can. Yeah.
Speaker A:Um, Chris.
Speaker C:Yeah. So I think I would pick the actor Mark Heap from Spaced and also I think he was in Greenwing. Oh, yeah. And so I see the artist. He's the artist. That's right. Yeah. And very intense, very intense. But I think there's something just very funny about tall, thin people, men generally tall, thin men like the faulty, you know, Basil Fawlty and the Rimmer character from from like sort of uptight, tall, thin men just are.
Speaker A:It's a universal stock character in your which you are a good example. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm a mix between Basil Fawlty, absurd and preposterous and pompous and just just generally hassled in life. But with your pretensions and half between that and is it Jeremy in Peep Show, who's a bit of a layabout who thinks he's really creative and special, but it's just a bit of a dick. That's a good call. Yeah. I'm not going to I'm not going to jump to contradict you. It's a very good, very good. Know thyself. Venn diagram. Yeah. That's a bit worrying, isn't it? Okay. Right. We'll stop there. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare, Peter Coghill and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.
