With sitcoms such as “My Name Is Earl,” “The Office,” “Scrubs,” “30 Rock,” and so forth, there really is no end to the sitcom age. However, there are more likely to have new types of sitcoms while other types will cease to exist. My Name Is Earl and The Office are two of the most popular sitcom shows at the moment let alone on NBC. That was a pretty hilarious and very refreshing idea from what I have seen. Anybody that watches the show should be familiar with the concept of Earl Hickey getting a taste of bad karma and decides to make up for all the bad things he had done in the past.
Then there is The Office that revolves around an office building and the lives of the people that work there. Michael tends to be a very interesting boss that drags the people that work under him into all sorts of stupid situations. It’s so funny yet at the same time you have to feel sorry for the other people in a comedic way.
There is also the case with “Scrubs” which remains a very interesting sitcom revolving around the lives of the people working at Sacred Heart Hospital. The musical episode was classic with the “Guy Love” song being one of the best. With shows like Scrubs, sitcoms will still be alive. Let’s face it; we need humor and comedy in our lives. Without humor, we can’t feel any sorrow. We can’t embrace one emotion without feeling the other. Sitcoms make an excellent addition to the diversity of different genres of film and television today.
However, my main concern is with the decline of minority oriented sitcoms. In the past, there were plenty of African-American sitcoms on UPN and the WB. There were shows such as “Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper,” “Family Matters,” “The Jamie Foxx Show,” the “Steve Harvey Show,” and “My Wife & Kids.” Family Matters and My Wife & Kids were great shows that shattered the stereotype of African-Americans. But over the years, African-American sitcoms started to decline.
Currently, there are only a handful of African-American sitcoms. Three of them are on the new CW and the fourth one is on TBS. Unfortunately, a lot of the African-American sitcoms were axed during the WB and UPN merger. The only original sitcoms that survived the merger were “Girlfriends” and “Everybody Hates Chris.” “All Of Us” was cancelled after the merger. Unfortunately, a lot of the shows aimed at African-American audiences were given the axe after the merger.
Mara Brock Akil who created Girlfriends strongly criticized the CW network about the axing of the shows dedicated towards African-American audiences. She did have a point of the decline of minority oriented television shows let alone sitcoms. Girlfriends and Everybody Hates Chris are two of the strongest sitcoms right now. However, Girlfriends is probably hurting for the ratings since NBC’s “Heroes” also airs on the nine o’clock evening timeslot on Monday nights.
Having a show on the same timeslot on such a popular show such as Heroes is a killer. A few years back, George W. Bush was about to give a presidential address at eight. However, he had to set it back an hour because “The Apprentice” was going to be on. Something such as that predicament says a whole lot about a television show’s popularity.
There was an Asian sitcom on ABC for one year called “All-American Girl” that starred comedian Margaret Cho. But that one was short lived. It seemed that an Asian-American oriented sitcom didn’t appeal that well to audiences in the past. There wasn’t a show on TV afterwards that addressed Asian let alone Asian-American issues.
At the same time there were hardly Latino oriented sitcoms. There was the “George Lopez Show” on ABC but that got cancelled. As Mara Brock Akil criticized the CW Network, George Lopez criticized ABC about alienating the Latino community. However, Betty from “Ugly Betty” is Latino. However, Ugly Betty is more of a drama than it is a sitcom.
Of course the age of sitcoms is going to be around for a very long time. Unfortunately, there will be a bigger decline of ethnic-oriented sitcoms. As a result, that’s basically going to alienate minorities around the country.