My sitcom story…

If I remember it correctly, Fraiser Crane’s series (by the same name) was my first american sitcom. It was a lot of high level rich comedy which was a little cerebral and snobby at times. It was a show that is based in ‘Rain City‘. It is sleepy but still makes you think when you listen to those witty jokes made by pretentious Kelsey Grammer and David Pierce combined with a quick pragmatic insight of blue-collared John Mahoney. A very good dialogue, I would like to share here is–Martin (John Mahoney) sets a fatty breakfast for snobby Fraiser (Kelsey Grammer) and asks if he wants cheese on it. In a quick reply Fraiser says that he would like to leave some blood flow for the clot to go swiftly into his brain. This series was filled with such brilliant jokes.

Some of the very BEST sitcoms.

I started watching Seinfeld right after that. It was like watching a cultural phenomenon. Probably the greatest television program of all time, Seinfeld had a different tune to it. It was a light show with astute observations of day to day life. It was the first show in which principle characters were absolutely unrelated. They didn’t work together, didn’t belong to a family or lived together but still remained pretty close friends. Seinfeld was the first and probably the only show in which characters didn’t mature and were stuck in a phase for its 9-season run. I didn’t realize this until after I was finished watching all the seasons and my good friend Liberalcynic pointed it.

I think I started watching ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ and Friends at the same time. One is set in Manhattan and other in the suburbs of long island. Despite being geographically close, they are two completely different shows. ‘Friends’ is about a group of people with completely different characters who came together and became friends to face the challenges brought about by ‘The Big Apple’. Show had characters ranging from smart and geeky (Ross), good looking but dim (Joey), charming but eccentric (Phoebe), sexy and wholesome (Rachel), efficient but neat-freak obsessive (Monica) and amusing (Chandler). One amazing scene, as I remember it, is when Phoebe spells her name as–‘P’ as in ‘Phoebe’, ‘H’ as in ‘hoebe’, ‘O’ as in ‘oebe’, ‘E’ as in ‘ebe’, ‘B’ as in ‘bibi’ and ‘E’ as in ‘ello there mate’. As oppose to that ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ was a bit family oritented show where an honest but lazy worker-writer (Raymond), a complaining housewife (Debra), an older brother who lives with his parents (Robert), a carefree and diehard father (Frank) and a nagging yet caring mother-in-law (Marie) come together. The show had everything from sibling rivalry, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law troubles, husband-wife fights, children responsibilities and a hell lot of good writing.

Modern sitcoms…

Now, the new generation of sitcoms (as I would like to call them) started with Scrubs which was fresh in the sense that it was a single camera sitcom with a young and dynamic cast. It had wittiness of ‘J.D.’ and cocky Dr. Cox. It was a well integrated cast which made it look very natural. I started watching ‘Two and a half Men’, ‘The Office’ and ‘How I Met Your Mother’ almost around the same time. It is always nice to mix sitcoms. Two and a half Men was made with a simplistic cast where the charm of Charlie Sheen and misery of Jon Cryer and dumbness of Angus T. Jon blended like a scotch. The Officie being the first mockumentary that I ever saw, was a very new experience. It is a copy of a successful british series by the same name, which I never cared to check out. Since I was new to the format, it felt so slow and taxing to watch for first few episodes but it grows on you. My good friend Liberalcynic stayed resistant to my suggestions about watching this one but ultimately when he started watching, it grew on him too. It is a series that is so close to reality and theater at the same time. 30 Rock and ‘How I Met Your Mother’ has been good and refreshing sitcoms. They are currently running. Goofiness of Ted and Marshal combined with class nay “awesomeness” of Barney and not to mention hotness of Robin adds a zing to ‘How I Met Your Mother’.

My most recent sitcom, ironically enough, was a very old one by the name ‘Cheers’. It seems to be, in many ways, the grand daddy of most of the sitcoms that came after it. It was probably a pioneer in some of the concept that proved to be hit for so many sitcoms that followed. Some examples would include having a dumb guy who is constantly patronized, having a popular guy who is showed to be with a smarter appearing female and having a romantic couple that never gets to their happy ending.

It was nice to visit or, as it looks after 686 words, catalog the sitcoms that I have been exposed to. It goes without saying, do comment if you remember a particularly funny part from any of these series.