I am told that the younger people today have no regard for the half-hour sitcom format. With the exception of shows like Friends and The Office, people under 40 have no interest at all in sitting down to an episodic, light-hearted TV show where nothing much happens from week to week and all of life’s problems are solved in 22 minutes.
That fact explains why you find so few traditional sitcoms on live TV anymore. The 18-34 demographic is the most desirable and even though few folks that age even watch live TV, their opinions still dictate what’s on. Simply put, it seems like the sitcom has outlived its usefulness. Like everything, it will come back eventually. I would never have guessed westerns would come back but, well, Yellowstone so there you go.
Sitcoms from the 20th century are easy to find on streaming because there were so many
There’s no question that the period from 1950-2000 was peak sitcom. According to Wikipedia I count 38 sitcoms on the 1984-1985 TV schedule from the broadcast networks. I count only 20 on the 2019-2020 schedule, which was the last one to be unaffected by filming requirements or strikes for a while. There were only 12 on the 23-24 schedule, but that also had a lot to do with strikes.
By the turn of the 21st century, viewers were primed for much more complex storytelling. DVRs allowed people to easily schedule recordings, and the internet allowed people to trade theories or comments about their favorite shows easily. The sitcom’s big draw — that you could miss an episode and not care — seemed less important. In fact, in every year starting with 2004 (when Friends ended) you could find articles proclaiming “Death of the Sitcom” along with the occasional “Rebirth of the Sitcom” articles when something like The Office came along.
Another factor in the slow demise of sitcom production was the rise of “prestige television” from major pay-TV networks. When you’re watching the nuanced stories of Mad Men, suddenly Men Behaving Badly doesn’t hit the same way. I also think that 50 years of excellent sitcom storytelling meant that every new show had to live up to a higher standard. Most couldn’t.
Where can you find sitcoms from the post-Friends era?
Believe me, folks, I’ve tried. Shows from the ’00s and ’10s aren’t old enough to find themselves on over-the-air subchannels. So far it seems like Hulu (or Disney+ with Hulu) and Prime Video are the best places to find these shows. And, that’s where I’ve been spending a lot of time this past month waiting for network TV to finally rev back up.
Those shows from 10-15 years ago are rarely “incredibly good.” They’re a little cringey, especially if there’s a stereotypical “manchild” in them making off-color comments about women. It seems like there usually is. It was a time when writers just didn’t know what to do with smartphones — characters often come off as laughably naive as they play with their new devices.
Plots of the time often suffer from one big flaw: most simple problems of the day only took a cell phone to solve. Yet, characters seemed oblivious. Folks still missed each other at airports or misunderstood each other since they wouldn’t use texting.
Still… there’s some nostalgia from those days which are suddenly quite a long time ago. It may not have been a better time. That’s true. But it was certainly a simpler time. Some days that’s all you really need to feel better.
So, what’s your guilty pleasure? Is it Two and a Half Men? How I Met Your Mother? What about the lesser known shows like Til Death, which never quite got off the ground but still managed to get almost 100 episodes? Where do you prefer to stream your ’00s and ’10s sitcoms? Leave a comment below!
