I work at home, and when I need a break, I sometimes watch a sitcom rerun that I’ve Tivo’d . . . often Modern Family or Big Bang Theory, plus a few others. What I’m finding is that if it’s a Modern Family rerun that I’ve already seen, I just delete it. But I always find the BBT enjoyable, even if I’ve already seen it 2 or 3 times. Why do some shows retain their freshness through multiple viewings, while others are fresh only once?
I think the difference is that MF doesn’t exercise my brain, I can just passively sit back and chill; but BBT is more of an active experience.
Now that I think of it I think they are both similar in the way I enjoy them. In both cases its not the jokes or the writing that is funny. Its the way the actors react to each other. Which makes both pretty good for repeated viewing for me. I have to disagree with the brain part. I think MF has much better and smarter writing. More brain needed watching that show than BBT.
I love TBB because they don’t explain the jokes. You either get it or you don’t. My absolute favorite example:
Sheldon: Obviously another carnal fiasco with the ‘Shiksee’ goddess.
Howard: Shiksa. Shik-Sa.
Sheldon: Forgive me. Yiddish was not spoken in East Texas. And if it was, it wasn’t spoken for long.
I don’t get the love for MF. I tried on two occasions to watch the show and gave up each time after a half dozen episodes or so. It is incredibly predictable and generic in it’s humor. If you’ve watched sitcoms before, you’ll see most of the jokes coming.
This makes it a poor show for re-runs. Once you’ve seen the tired old jokes being rehashed once, why would you want to watch a re-rehash?
I started late-ish watching TBBT. It really took some time to get into the rhythm of the show. It works fairly well in reruns, especially the first 5 seasons or so. But still there are segments I FF thru if I’m watching on my own. (But Mrs. FtG is now a fan of the show and is watching the episodes, in order, so I’m stuck with the slow parts. We’re up to S07E05 now. Almost done.)
If only there wasn’t that awful “sweetened” laugh track.
Midterm Family is one of the few shows I can rewatch. I can’t watch BBT once most of the time. I don’t hate it, just doesn’t hold my interest. Takes all kinds of people I guess.
I have the exact opposite reaction. BBT spoon feeds you the joke and has the audience laugh track pound the punchline home. It is a blunt instrument with broad characters and while that may be fine for some, it is exactly what I consider a passive experience–because it does all the work for you. Yes, there are pop culture in-jokes, but they’re no different than the political jokes on Murphy Brown, with an obvious nudge nudge wink wink if you get the reference.
Modern Family is at a faster pace and has so many throw-away lines and small little visual jokes that it is very easy to watch an episode and miss things the first time that you only pick up with a repeated viewing. That is what I consider an active experience. Your reward is in direct proportion to how much you actually pay attention. I can’t ever imagine this happening with BBT (though some of the acting is fine).
Is there more to it than the general xenophobia of Texans? Maybe I’m not getting it either.
I haven’t watched much BBT, but the episodes I’ve seen have been about equal parts stupid and funny, kinda similar to HIMYM. Modern Family is a cut above in writing and story quality.
Sheldon grew up in Texas’s Bible Belt of Christianity. The reference is that anyone who spoke Yiddish (like Jewish people) were quickly run out of town.
Yeah, that was kind of my point. It’s hardly layered or oozing with subtext. It’s just “Ooooh! Texans don’t like people different from themselves!” Then again, I’m a little biased, because I am not the biggest fan of TBBT - I find the writing somewhat lazy and based on stereotypes and cliches. I will admit it’s gotten somewhat better in the later seasons, but still…
While I’m not going to profess Modern Family to be sophisticated comedy, I will say that one of my favorite jokes from the show was when Mitchell was planning Cameron’s “Wizard of Oz” themed birthday party (complete with costumes, actors and set-pieces) and these two twenty-something guys came to the door and said, in a very nonchalant fashion, the following.
Guy #1: Hey.
Guy #2: Hey. We’re the monkeys.
It wasn’t the funniest thing I’d ever seen, but I just found it to be clever (along with the “follow the big flag” comment at the end of the episode).