"Johnny Staccato" was produced in New York and probably employed the services of a lot of people from the so-called Golden Age of Live TV (though it was shot on film, live television drama having kind of shrivelled away by 1959).
It's not surprising that its style and storytelling holds up better than something like "Delvecchio," which -- for all that Bochco was clearly trying to do something a little different -- was part of the assembly-line production system that Universal had set up in the '70s. Except for "The Rockford Files," it was hard to get a lot of individuality or sophistication into those shows because they were being churned out so fast and so mechanically, like B-movies in the '30s. It's hard for shows to hold up well when they're produced that way (the people from "Delvecchio" went on to do "Hill Street Blues" at MTM, which gave a little more leeway to creators and directors to do things differently).
I think the tighter storytelling of today's drama shows may have something to do with, ironically, one of the worst things about today's TV: the incredible number of commercials and the short running times. Shows in the '70s and even up to the early '90s had several minutes more than they do today (and yet they had fewer B stories and running story threads), which created the temptation to pad out scenes and just try to film enough footage to fill out the 45-50 minutes. Today, with 40 minute running times, the one advantage is that the producers have to make sure they don't waste a second. (This may be one reason why dramas are doing better than sitcoms these days: 40 minutes isn't a bad running time for a drama, but 20 minutes is just too short for a sitcom).
Jerry Seinfeld once famously opined, "I'm not sure comedy wants to be a movie." I think he's often right -- especially for modern tastes, a comedy that actually makes you laugh for 80 or 90 minutes straight is a rarity -- unless it takes a go for the kitchen sink approach that may be funnier, but to my mind is less of a movie.
The reason why the sitcom was such a dominant form for so long was because it was a great length. A half hour is a doable amount of time -- you can have someone in a good, laughing mood for a half hour.
But when the half hour becomes 20 minutes, with lots of longer breaks, the rhythm of what is setup and what is punchline, the ability to get people into that state of laughter, becomes considerably harder.
In my experience, too, network pressures are forcing them to demand things that are essentially killing comedy. Used to be that one of the most satisfying things about comedy was being able to set something up that paid off in the third act. Or at least making a joke that then could go away and be "called back" later. This didn't mean that things weren't funny up front, it just meant that you had to be inventive about having different kind of funny stuff up front, while you laid the pipe for the massive ha-ha that would be your big setpiece scene near the end.
So in Cheers, you'd have a good bit of business with Norm, or Coach or Woody up front, before the plot got started. On Frasier, there would be one of the phone in bits on the radio show, which were usually self-contained jokes that had an element of the game to them, because the caller voice was always done by a celebrity, and you could have fun guessing who they were.
But now, the demand seems to be to get everything up earlier. You know that Act One out? Can that be in the teaser? The demand for big laughs, big stuff up front -- well that's a way to go, but I'm not sure that can be reconciled with the rhythms of the comedy structure as we know it.
To paraphrase Seinfeld, I'm pretty sure that comedy doesn't want to be a movie, but I'm dang sure that it doesn't want to be one four minute chunk followed by a seven minute chunk, followed by a nine minute chunk - where everything has to be set up in the first act. When there's no time for comic timing, you're in serious trouble.
South Park, still scabrously funny and massively transgressive, responded to the shrinking time constraints of the half hour by swimming against the grain. They don't do subplots. Look at their very successful episode runs over the last few years, and you see that they're literally one story, start to finish.
Maybe the whole A-B or A, B, C runner structure we've been working with in comedy -- maybe we have to toss that out? Maybe the time we've got to tell the story can no longer support it?
Something to think about.
Oh, and further to nothing, I'm slowly coming around on How I Met Your Mother. And I think I'm done with The Class.
2 comments:
Did you notice that Happy Hour was back on the air this past week?
Since you, me and Cunningham seem to be its entire audience, if any of us miss a week, the rating will be cut by a third.
The comment on A-B-C story lines tweeked my interest. I know, with the series I have in development, the networks are demanding fuller, richer characters. Yet shorter scripts. It is difficult to create multiple storylines arching out over more than one episode with only 20 minutes to try and breathe life into the characters. More and more we run into the problem of too many stories and too little time. Sometimes it means dropping a storyline completely or extracting it from the outline of that particular episode and pushing it to the next. The issue then becomes what do you do with the supporting characters to give them life other than have them act like your protagonists’ posse; just standing by, nodding and supporting the A story line? Now I am still learning the craft. I am also a big fan of KISS (keep it simple stupid) but surely having an A-B story is still simple? Is the solution speed? Can sorkin-like warp speed dialogue and quick cuts solve the problem? I don’t think so. Even though I loved it ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT had to move at such a breakneck pace that, in my opinion, it strained the digestion of the average viewer and helped kill the show. Even with Ron Howard narrating to fill in the gaps and boost us along. Surely the sophistication of viewers and the success of shows like WEEDS and ENTOURAGE show us there is an audience for complex multi-layered plots? Those luxurious 4-7 extra minutes allotted to cable shows indicate that, within that time frame, a show can flourish. It can provide us with three dimensional characters and full rich, layered stories. Also it creates a loyal almost cult-like following. So, what is to be done? How lean can half-hours become and still fulfill an audiences hunger for entertainment? And how do we, as writers, face that challenge? Is it just a matter of becoming more creative? Is this just the natural evolution of TV? I am becoming a watcher of 30ROCK which has managed to entertain within the 20-22 minute straight jacket. Maybe K.I.S.S.ing the networks ass the only solution. Model your show for 20 minutes. Shave it to the bone. That being said, as far as ½ hour television goes on Network/Free T.V., aside from 30ROCK, I am not watching any other ½ hours. Nothing else grabs me. I do watch My Name is Earl and The Office occasionally but nothing in these shows pulls me in enough to HAVE to watch every week. But I am a loyal fan of cable ½ hours. Both Weeds and Entourage are MUST WATCHES on my list. If enough audiences shift away from the The Class and the other ‘comedies’ perhaps the networks will have an epiphany and grant us 3-5 extra minutes of story rather than lose their audiences all together? Or maybe the hour long drama’s will get cut so tight that they will become the next 30 minute. So the HOUR is then the new HALF-HOUR and the HALF-HOUR becomes the next 15 minutes? Or maybe the HALF HOUR’S just evaporate to short filler for in between ad’s for the HOUR shows. OR maybe a giant meteorite strikes the CBC building in Toronto and the toxic CBC dust cloud chokes out the light for NBC, ABC and CBS and new evolutionary cycle begins and writers will walk the earth and reign as kings. Ya, that would be cool.
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