There’s something about these sitcoms that really just works for me. The sitcom where there’s (maybe) one sane person surrounded by increasing levels of wackiness that always seems so funny.
WKRP In Cincinnati, Night Court, News Radio, The Office, and CSI Miami are all great examples of a workplace sitcom with this whirlwind of craziness that I’m referring to. I really loved those shows when they were (or still are) on. I would even throw Newhart in there as he was essentially the one straight man to the town full of outrageous characters.
What are your favorites and as a follow up, what characteristics of these shows do you like about them?
O.K., I can see how David Caruso could be considered funny looking and his eyeglass whipping can become a little comical but CSI Miami is not a sitcom. Or were you making a joke?
I agree with the OP’s choices (with the qualification that I love the original British “The Office” and have never seen the Amercanized one), and would add “Taxi”, “Scrubs”, and “Seinfeld”. I think one of the strengths of these shows is their ability to take a storyline in almost any direction; the more bizarre the better at times.
Big Bang Theory kind of follows this routine too, which is a popular show. Hard to say why I like it, and the shows mentioned above (um CSI except Miami). I have always found them to be very funny though.
Wasn’t there a discussion about whether or not CSI Miami is intentionally campy?
Coupling, with (Steve-Susan) as the “sane” couple.
Is MASH one? There was at least one per episode, and they were frequently getting up to wacky hijinks. Or at least there was a fair share of wacky episodes.
How about the grandmother of them all, I Love Lucy.
But NOT the honeymooners. I remember being 9 or 10 and my aunts and uncle watched re-runs of it on a local channel here. He would threaten to punch his wife in the face constantly. Having grown up around drunken domestic violence-- the “brive a dust” funny moments never, ever made up for the ‘I’m gonna kick your ass’ moments.
I’ve always been fascinated by this show in an existential sort of way. Being the only sane person in an insane world would just as easily make this an episode of the Twilight Zone. After being Mr. Douglas for a few weeks I’d probably say what the hell, why fight it, and just join right in.
Who’s to say who is sane and who is crazy in . . . The Twilight Zone.
The Andy Griffith Show was a great early example of this.
You had the relatively normal and sensible Sheriff Taylor and his family, sharing a town with the likes of Barney Fife, Gomer and Goober Pyle, Ernest T. Bass, Otis the Drunk, and so on.
Does “Northern Exposure” count as a sitcom? It’s an hour-long, and filmed like a TV drama, but is far too whimsical, wacky and funny to be considered a ‘drama.’ And it fits the bill of one (semi-)sane individual surrounded by a whole contingent of crazy wingnuts.
Michael Bluth was the one sane-ish person on Arrested Development, although he got less relieable as the show continued. At first he was the biggest thing keeping the show realistic, then he loosened up and increased the humor, then it went too far and things got more zany, so there wasn’t a lot of contrast. But my favorite thing about the show was always the wide variety in different types of humor they used.
Some of the Simpson adults used to be pretty sane - Marge, Ned Flanders, and sometimes Homer. That’s also mostly gone away. But the Simpsons has a historically large and crazy supporting cast, drew on a huge base of cultural references, used all types of humor and successfully used real emotion in places. That’s all generally still true.