The Unsung Sitcom

So what’s the great­est sit­com of all time? TV Guide would have you believe it’s Seinfeld. In fact, they’ll tell you 50 of the great­est shows of all time are any­thing but the show I’m talk­ing about. Well, in my opin­ion, Golden Girls is truly one of the most inno­v­a­tive shows ever aired. Now let me explain.

Seinfeld Helped kick off the roar­ing 90s of the Sitcom, truly one of it’s great­est era. But I’ve found that the sit­com has devolved (if it still exists) into noth­ing more than id ful­fill­ment. The self is the most impor­tant char­ac­ter, as proven week in and out with Seinfeld, cul­mi­nat­ing with our heroes ulti­mate impris­on­ment for their lack of con­cern for pub­lic wel­fare. Friends suf­fers the same issue, where each of the friends’ prob­lems cre­ates the cen­ter of their universe.

Now Golden Girls was one of the las great sit­coms to show us that being funny does not mean to sac­ri­fice moral val­ues. Almost every episode of GG has some social, polit­i­cal, or eco­nomic sub­ject at its core, using the comedic back­drop of the show as a soap box for pub­lic dis­cus­sion and infor­ma­tion. And it wasn’t in a man­ner that was dis­rup­tive to the shows integrity, rather it WAS the shows integrity. Subjects con­quered: Aging(duh), Assisted Suicide, Nationalized Healthcare, teen preg­nancy, drug abuse, AIDS, Age dis­crim­i­na­tion, and the list goes on and on.

The clos­est show to deal with issues of this mag­ni­tude in recent years would most likely be Home Improvement. In the later years of that show, deal­ing with Middle Age, then a much big­ger issue for the boomers of this coun­try, became the cen­tral sub­ject of the show. However, the core com­edy of the show was often sac­ri­ficed to bring the audi­ence into the state of mind of Tim “the tool man” Taylor. Similarly, Ellen made one of the bold­est moves in the his­tory of tele­vi­sion with the infa­mous Episode. However, com­edy seemed to remove itself com­pletely from the show there­after, and again proved the impor­tance of the self (Ellen’s cop­ing with being gay rather than the larger social impli­ca­tions) than with the community.

Just some thought before work must start. Talk to you soon.

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Reading:

Lester D. Friedman

Citizen Spielberg