Kelsey Grammer is on the cover of this week’s Parade magazine, promoting his new Fox TV show Back To You, costarring Patricia Heaton. This new show, about the on and off set wrangling of a local television news team, triggered my annoyance about Hollywood: they write a lot about people like themselves!
In the drama genre we have always had crime or cop shows, lawyer and medical dramas. But in situational comedy, it used to be that you showed how regular people lived and how funny that could be. From Leave it to Beaver, the Honeymooners, and My Three Sons, to the well-loved Norman Lear and Gerry Marshall sitcoms of the 70’s, to Cheers, you had typical American families or places featured and there was much laughter in those “situations.â€
Now, the networks put real people in reality TV or game shows, but often they write comedies about themselves or people they hang out with, like the new Kelsey Grammer half-hour. Sure there are a few exceptions (The King of Queens, The Office, New Adventures of Old Christine), but the much-hyped shows are about people in the entertainment, media, or advertising worlds. Look at this list and see if I have a point:
• Studio 60 (TV show about a TV show)
• 30 Rock (ditto)
• Ugly Betty (magazine)
• Brothers and Sisters (one of the sisters is a conservative talk-show host)
• Hannah Montana (girl rock star)
• Two and a Half Men (life in Malibu? Maybe a stretch)
Considering how few sitcoms are made, I think that the percentage of self-involved scenario is pretty high compared to the general populace. I guess that Hollywood’s fixation on lives like their own is natural. This phenomenom has been part of TV history if you consider these examples from the past:
• Newsradio (news radio station)
• The Naked Truth (tabloid newspaper)
• Just Shoot Me (glamour magazine)
• Frazier (radio psychologist)
• Sportsnight (ESPN rip)
• Growing Pains (mom is TV reporter)
• Family Ties (dad runs a PBS station)
• Lou Grant (newspaper editor)
• Mary Tyler Moore Show (TV station)
• Dick Van Dyke Show (TV comedy writers!!)
Maybe it’s the American public who thinks that their lives are so boring they’d rather yuck it up with people living a celebrity lifestyle. But the true genius comes from shows like The Office, which takes a much more relatible story line and makes it hysterical!
August 27th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Hi Joel,
Some excellent points, but you have to agree that shows about the industry like Fraser. Lou Grant and WKRP In Cincinatti are highly regarded classics. I think it’s because the writers and actors developed these well rounded characters that were interesting and that you cared about. Maybe even related to…which made them “regular people” in my book. And of course the scripts were top notch…not lowest common denominator. They just happened to be set in a broadcast or newspaper surrounding. Actually, if you think about it, not much of the plot of Fraser actually revolved around the radio station.
And shows like Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyker Moore were just flat out funny…and timeless. Wouldn’t have mattered WHERE they were set.
August 27th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I think the truth lies in your last statement about people wanting to escape and think their lives are so boring compared to a Paris Hilton and other current idiots. Shows about show people present a side that the common person feels they will never have the privilege of living.
Maybe Irving Berlin was right. “There’s No business Like Show Business.”