Is there a name for the style of sitcom, such as Malcolm in the Middle, Scrubs and Andy Richter Controls the Universe which are characterized by:
If not, we need to come up with a name for this growing genre. I propose zitcom, for no particular reason, but I’m sure you folks can come up with something better.
“Good?” 
Did this start in animated series, like The Simpsons, where it’s easy to do, and somehow find its way into live-action shows?
No, wait a minute—The Young Ones certainly predates The Simpsons.
Who did pioneer this approach?
Well, the first two describe what is sometimes called ‘film style’ or ‘movie style’ as opposed to the 3-camera ‘TV style’ (generally credited to Desi Arnez). In that its shot like a movie, with one camera, on sets not a sound stage, without a studio audience. And nobody uses laugh tracks anymore (thank Christ).
Malcolm is unique in that it is very unusual for a sitcom to be done ‘movie style’. Primarily because:[ul]
[li]Its too expensive[/li][li]Network execs think the audience won’t know when to laugh w/o a studio audience or laugh track[/ul][/li]I don’t watch much network TV so I can’t say if there are any other sitcoms shot ‘movie-style’.
This doesn’t have to follow the first two, but the first two are usually prerequisites for the third. IOW you can’t really do flashbacks or fantasy sequences on a soundstage in front of a studio audience.
‘The Young Ones’ was shot TV-style (and on videotape) but it used a lot of post-production editing and recombining for all its fantasy elements.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-63) fits this perfectly. It was also done without a studio audience, AFAIK, but I don’t think they were all that common back in the 1950s. Most shows just had laugh tracks attached.
And shows that used lots of “outdoors” scenes along with basic sets were hybrids. Gilligan’s Island, McHale’s Navy, and The Monkees for a few.
But really it all starts with MASH*, the king of the filmed sitcoms. It had a laugh track to begin with, but lost it over the course of the series. That’s the one everybody’s been copying from since its success. There have been dozens of filmed sitcoms (and dramadys - half dramas, half comedies), although not many that have had more than one season.
And British television had union rules that required film crews for outdoor shots, which is which the visual look and feel of Monty Python varies so greatly between skits.
Sure you can. It just makes the taping that much longer. Nobody cares how long the audience has to sit while they change clothing and sets in front of them.
Oh, I just remembered two of the strangest examples of all.
The Adventures of Superman was filmed on an extremely low budget. All the scripts for the year were written ahead of time and the scenes bunched together. For example, all the scenes in the Daily Planet offices were filmed in one session at the beginning of the season while sets were built around them for other scenes. That’s why the staff always wore exactly the same outfits in every show. (They had several identical costumes, and rotated them while the others got washed.)
Fred McMurray, who was a huge star way back when, had the same deal when he did My Three Sons. His contract said that he would work no more that 65 days a year. So all the shows were written ahead of time again, and all the upstairs hallways sequences were filmed one afternoon, all the kitchen scenes for the season another day. His sweater never changed.
You couldn’t get away with that on American network tv these days, but in Britain, the shorter sitcoms seasons - 6 episodes, often - mean that they also are written in advance and I imagine they could be shot that way. I don’t know if they ever are, though.
A few shows are the brainchildren of one writer, which means that today’s normal big-group-sitting-around-a=table-making changes didn’t happen. Carl Reiner had at least 13 episodes of The Dick van Dyck Show written before casting started. Larry Gelbart talks about his dramady United States in his book Laughing Matters. He and his collaborator Gary Markowitz wrote the whole season, jettisoned the laugh track and the peppy intro music, and used mobile taping equipment rather than either film or a three-camera studio setup. Didn’t work. Canceled after eight weeks.
So basically, the hundreds (thousands) of sitcoms that have appeared over the past 50 years have tried just about every conceivable variation. They come and go, one style running until people get sick of it, then the pendulum swinging back for something fresh - until that goes stale.