Not Funny "Ha Ha"

By Nicole Angeleen  www.nicoleangeleen.com

Over Christmas break, I went home to snowy Kansas, and one evening, my mother, younger brother, and I were tucked cozy around the hearth, watching “Charmed.” In this episode, the Alyssa Milano witch casts a smart spell on herself. The sister who’s not Shannen Doherty says to her, “What’s up?” Alyssa Milano, because she’s so darn smart now, smartly replies, “Oh, the Dow Jones, housing prices, and the space shuttle Discovery.” Not Shannen Doherty witch says, “Huh,” and moves on, the appropriate response.

Then my younger brother said something interesting. “If they made that joke on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ there would be, like, thirty seconds of laugh track.”


Think I'm wrong?

We are at a moment in time when there are great sitcoms on television and then there are shows written by your pun-loving uncle. There is very little in between. Since this is a writing blog, from a writer’s perspective, I’m going to tell you why. Warning: I’m going to bag on “The Big Bang Theory” a lot, not because it’s any worse than most of the other offenders, but because the show is terminally inescapable, so I can assume we’ve all seen an episode or two.

Here’s why “30 Rock” and “Community” get gold stars in being funny where shows like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men” fail: the latter shows are lazy. Funny writers don’t go with the first joke that pops into their heads. The second joke is usually funnier, and the third funnier still, and when you drill down to the fifth, sixth, seventh ideas, you get down to the true essence of the joke. Great sitcoms are hysterical because they constantly surprise you. “Arrested Development” was one of the most riotous shows in history, and it was funny because you could never predict what was going to happen next; the writers didn’t say, “That’s funny enough.” Instead, they kept working until everything was as funny as it could possibly be.



It was time for Michael to do a little detective work.

“The Big Bang Theory” never does anything you don’t see coming. You, the audience member, thinks, “Hey, I was going to say that, and it was funny!” So you leap to the conclusion you’re also funny, and that makes you feel good. The writers on “TBBT” cut and print the first joke that comes to mind as if it’s comedy gold every time, and the laugh track reinforces how goddamn funny they all are.

Think about the funny people in your life. Are they funny because they burst out with the joke everyone’s thinking, or are they funny because they say something from a perspective no one else considered? That’s why “Louie” is so funny. Not only is it the next evolutionary step in sketch comedy, it mystifies the familiar and familiarizes the strange. He’s doing something like wrapping Christmas presents for his kids, and wrapping presents, at work, in the car, we’ve all been there, when everything is awful and breaking and impossible. We go into our own darkness safely with Louis C.K. It’s the opposite of, say “The Middle” or “Mike and Molly,” where the writers present us with a potentially wacky scenario and proceed to have their characters react the same way every damn last one of us would. Basically rational people doing basically rational things are not funny, don’t think I don’t see you, “Suburgatory.”

Christmas has never been more depressing...or hilarious.

“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” are funny because they take everything to the absolute edge, and instead of stopping as the sane do, they psychotically leap into the abyss. Would you want to be in the same room as any of the characters in “Sunny” or the “CYE” version of Larry David? Doubtful, and if you do, you’ve probably been called douchebag at least twice today. “TBBT” has this gag available, Sheldon is such an Aspergian ass clown he could be hated and reviled, and that would be fun! Instead, the writers are either too cowardly to go for it or too dumb to realize what they have, so Sheldon’s constantly saying things like, “The social convention dictates I do this thing, so now I am going to do this thing…” thus relieving the writers and the audience of having to deal with the wondrous burden of a character they can’t relate to but who might actually be interesting instead of someone I just want to run over with my Corolla. Nothing infuriates me more than writers taking a gift and exchanging it for cash.

(pause for laughter)

I’ve heard the arguments that “TBBT” sucks because the nerds are pigeonholed, and they are nauseatingly stereotypical dorks, skinny and intelligent versions of “The Simpsons” Comic Book Guy. Yet I don’t think those sins are greater than “Whitney,” the commitment-phobic (though she’s been in a relationship for years), edgy (incredibly stable), awkward (beautiful) girl who could easily be switched with Zooey Deschanel in “New Girl” and not a fucking person would notice. Now they just take the clichés and that’s the title of the show, a la “Guys With Kids” and the surprisingly racist “2 Broke Girls.”  Although, in defense of "2 Broke Girls," it was nice of the casting director to give two actresses with crippling voice immodulation a chance.

Literally dozens of people suffer from this debilitating illness.

Finally, we come to your precious “Modern Family.” Yeah, I’m going there. Three economically stable, two-parent families, each with an honest to God STAY AT HOME PARENT, cannot, under any circumstances, be considered a modern family, I don’t care how many Asian babies or gays or Hispanics or Al Bundys you throw in there. Every comedy doesn’t have to be cutting edge, but let’s stop pretending “Modern Family” is the family sitcom equivalent of “The Matrix.” Over twenty years later, “Roseanne” is probably the most modern family we’ve seen in the nuclear family genre, with two fat parents, nasty, backbiting teenage daughters, a weird son who isn’t also sweet or smart, and real money problems that can’t be fixed in a half hour. That show stands the test of time in a way “Modern Family” won’t. And as much as I enjoy “Parks and Recreation,” what’s with the documentary format on all these shows? Unless we assume “Modern Family” takes place in a future where there are no more wars, genocides, or awesome sports stories, there is no logical reason why anyone would make a documentary about this incredibly conventional family. No matter how hot Sofia Vergara might be or how ceaselessly hilarious Phil Dunphy is, none of it holds up under scrutiny. This format persists because it’s easy, jokes don’t have to be made with subtlety or intelligence, instead the actors can look right at the camera and do their in-character stand-up routines.

The original cast of "Modern Family." Can you believe they cast a Methodist?

NBC, the great harbinger of less mainstream but brilliant sitcoms, put out a press release stating they’re going in a “new direction” with their sitcoms. Hopefully that means more “1600 Penn” and not “Whitney,” but that’s wishful thinking. There’s hope for cable, but that’s about it. Great sitcoms force people to think, if only a little; they do what any good work of literature should do, make you slightly uncomfortable, and you’re not subjected to any of that if you watch “Last Man Standing.” So laugh it up while you can, geniuses. The tens of us who love smart, engaging, defiant sitcoms will surely be extinct soon, courtesy of Chuck Lorre.

Up next: Bernadette O'Keeffe talks to you about chicks, man.