Why is it called sitcom

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The term sitcom derives from the word situation comedy. This popular format of entertainment is a weekly show that entails a regular cast of characters in a sequence of episodes which mainly take place in the same location. A sitcom is a make-believe for 24 minutes a week. Either series are taped in front of a studio audience or canned applause is taped in. That means in contrast to telling a joke, a sitcom depends on the context in which humor is performed.

This includes either utterances that proceed or follow the given utterance or the non-linguistic environment Attardo In professional humor the communications as well as the characters are fictional. Most television programs use a standardized storytelling format having about three little stories which occur parallel.

Mainly, there is one major story and two minor ones. This multilayered concept serves to make the sitcom more interesting and versatile. Each of the stories is based around a group of characters. The beginning introduces the thematic context, including a problem, a difficult decision, or any sort of action. The next section, the middle, contains an escalation, obstacles and sometimes various misunderstandings which is supposed to increase the tension of the show.

In the end, everything is solved and everybody is more or less happy. Even though, surprise is an important and desirable element of comedy, quite often the end is fairly predictable [1]. Moreover, almost every sitcom starts with a short teaser. Subsequent to the final scene and the credits, comes a so called tag. It is about one minute long and can be seen as the final scene after the final scene Mack Holzer calls this the signet of the respective episode Furthermore, the characters of a sitcom are very important for good comedy.

A sitcom depends on traditional stereotypes and repeated happenings or jokes like running gags because the audience needs to identify with the characters and the show in order to follow it continuously. Knowing the background of the characters also supports that we identify with them, that we like them and suffer with them.

Irina Wamsler Author. Add to cart. However, this term applies to all types of situation comedy, and, as I will show, there are three distinct types of sitcom. For clarity, I will substitute terms for each type: actcom for the action comedy, domcom for the domestic comedy, and dramedy for the dramatic comedy.

In any case, the emphasis is on action, verbal and physical. The domcom is more expansive than the actcom , having a wider variety of events and a greater sense of seriousness. It involves more people, both in the regular cast and in transient actors brought into individual episodes. The greatest emphasis in a domcom is on the characters and their growth and development as human beings. A major factor in motion picture and theatrical drama is that the events portray the most important thing to happen in the protagonist's life.

However, in an episodic television series, the event must not be the most important event in the protagonist's life. If it is, subsequent episodes will be anticlimactic. The domcom neatly circumvents this problem. Children are incomplete adults, the physical and mental and emotional facets of their characters unknown, or at least not fully understood. Thus, the event can be the most important thing in their lives at that time, without it being the most important in their entire lives.

They may go through a major crisis without it affecting their future beyond increasing their growth and maturity. The problems encountered are more serious and related more to human nature than those in an actcom. In addition, the resolutions in a domcom are a learning experience for all involved rather than a simple clearing up of a misunderstanding.

Concepts of peace, love and laughter are emphasized, as are concepts of family unity. A dramedy is the rarest and most serious type of sitcom; its entire being is not devoted to evoking laughter from the audience. Its emphasis is on thought, often presenting themes that are not humorous: war, death, crime, aging, unemployment, racism, sexism, etc.

The humor is more comic intensification than an end in itself. The themes are personified, showing the regular characters in conflict with the themes as they affect individuals, not as impersonal labels for intangible concepts.

Often two factions are represented, either with two characters in direct conflict with each other, each representing a point of view on the theme, or characters in conflict with the intangible by observing the effects of it on others and attempting to aid them. Television is an important part of American life, and, although a great amount has been said and written about its significance and impact on politics, sociology, communications, technology, and the American life style, almost no attention has been paid to the programs themselves as an art form.

No one has actually described what appears on the home screen without moralizing or philosophizing about its effects on the world outside the program. It is my purpose to fill this lack for the television situation comedy, to describe what appears on the screen, to find what kinds of plots, what kinds of characters, what kinds of themes or lack thereof are used.

It was not my intention to do a finely detailed examination of scripts or authors' styles. Such a study would take a lifetime, involving as it would what I estimate at some 27, individual scripts. My technique was to observe and examine a random sample of programs over the period from to This involved watching at least one episode of each of the sitcoms that have been on the air, and between 50 and episodes of many.

Before wondering what sane person would watch 6, hours of sitcoms, examine your assumption. What makes you think I'm sane, at least now? From this study I derived a set of classifications and criteria for each type of sitcom that may be used in future studies as a guide, as an aid to the present or future creator or writer of comedy and TV shows, or for casual TV viewers who enjoy amazing their friends and confounding their enemies with their incredible insight into television.

To accomplish my purpose I first had to determine what a situation comedy is. To do this I relied on two sources: what other authors called situation comedies, particularly Vincent Terrace, Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, and Alex McNeil, and television itself, by watching the shows and comparing them with the six criteria for comedy.