Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941) is a classic film, that basically serves as an argument in praise of comedy. A film director who wants to make serious social dramas is told he doesn't know anything about struggle, so he goes out on the road, pretending to be poor so he can learn to understand the plight of the lower class. Through a series of mistakes he gets arrested and ends up in a prison camp. One night they take the prisoners to a church where they are treated to a sermon, followed by several Mickey Mouse cartoons. The prisoners sit there and crack up, and for a few minutes they are able to escape. Through an inventive scheme, the director gets out of the prison camp, returns to the studio telling them he is no longer interested in making "message" movies, he wants to make comedies, because it's all some people have. You should watch it if you ever get the chance.
That said, what's happened to comedy?
I remember growing up, Friday nights we'd go to Pizza Hut to order food, then while it was cooking we'd run over the video store that had this deal where you could rent 5 games for 5 days for $5. We'd load up on Sega games, go pick up the delicious pan pizzas, then head home, scarf, and play video games until TGIF came on. Full House, Family Matters, Step by Step, Boy Meets World, Hangin with Mr Cooper, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Dinosaurs [which I never could watch, it freaked me out...which just meant I got to play an extra half hour of video games], and the criminally underappreciated Odd Man Out were a staple of my childhood. Every last one of them were classic comedies that were fun for the whole family. I see them on the various Disney channels today and they are still just as good as they were when I was 9.
Tonight, what's on in prime time? WWE Smackdown, Supernanny, Men in Trees, Deal or no Deal, Law & Order....not a comedy in sight. What happened to those classic family sitcoms?
The sitcom died a terrible death on ABC when they tried to revive TGIF, slipping into oblivion with dreck like According to Jim, George Lopez, Freddie, and Hope and Faith. It's no surprise there isn't a single sitcom in the ABC's fall line-up.
CBS Monday nights [up against football] and Fox Sunday nights [also up against football] are the only comedy blocks on the air this season.
NBC, the former home of comedy, must-see tv they called it, has 2 comedies total on it's schedule, The Office and My Name is Earl, both of which are great, but they are up against Survivor and Celebrity Duets [seriously, wtf people?] and their ratings are paltry at best.
The new CW has a few sitcoms scattered through their lineups I believe. Everybody Hates Chris is funny and people need to find it and watch it.
Look at the comic strips in your local newspaper sometime and count how many of them over the course of a week are actually funny. If that is a number you can count on one hand, there is a problem with the comics.
Also, where are the comedy films? Little Miss Sunshine was very good, I hear Talladega Nights was amusing...but other than those, was there another memorable comedy in wide release in the 2 or 3 months prior? I finally saw Wedding Crashers, the film that set the country abuzz last summer, many hailing it as the next great American comedy. I was borderline offended by how mediocre it actually was. Have our standards honestly dipped so low when it comes to "the funny"?
Maybe our world is just too serious for comedy today, it's no longer the carefree Clinton era. Everyone writing in TV/film seemingly has/thinks they have something important to say, something to contribute to the grand conversation and they don't know how to wrap it in comedy or feel they can't be taken seriously in comedy (guess they haven't seen Dr. Strangelove or King of Hearts).
Comedy died once before, in the late 70's/early 80's, then the Cosby Show hit and everything was back on track until now. So I imagine this is just the calm before the next great wave of comedy descends upon us.
In the meantime, we live in a golden age of television drama, which isn't an altogether bad thing, I just hate having to watch any show for an hour, because there are soooo many commercials, which are almost all bad, except Geico commercials: the new gecko with a british accent, the cavemen, and of course, Little Richard...who knew auto insurance could be so fun?
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