Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder Dares to Say The 'S'-word

WHILE I STRUGGLE to get twenty-six hours of work out of a standard twenty-four hour day, Friend-of-the-Blog Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder dips his gnarly, wizened comedy toe into the big bad blogosphere, with some truly spook-tacular, scaaaaaary thoughts about a scaaaary word that has a lot of people running scaaaaared these days. And though he writes specifically about the industry here in Canada, I think what he has to say is actually pretty universal.

So read on. Wake the neighbors, phone the kids, and as always, please...

...no wagering.

A Dispatch from Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder

So there's this interesting phrase I keep hearing a lot when it comes to comedy in Canada. It's something I've heard from network executives and producers over the years, to be sure. But, more often than not these days, I hear it from fellow writers, particularly emerging writers, about whose future I care deeply, if only because they may be in a position to hire my tired old carcass in years to come.

The writer has a pitch. It's an idea for a half-hour comedy program centering on a small group of individuals, let's say 4 - 8, who either live or work or play together on a regular basis, and each week some sort of problem comes up that needs fixing, and in doing so, the characters interact with one another and try a bunch of solutions and most of those solutions fail until maybe one succeeds, or doesn't, and there's your show.

Hopefully the pitch has a little more meat on the bones than that, but you get the general idea. At that point, the writer often takes a deep breath and says this: "But it's not a sitcom."

"It's not a sitcom." It is a phrase perhaps second in popularity only to the old standby, "We know your show will be funny, but what else will it be?"

(Well, you don't know it'll be funny. A thousand things have to go right before that happens. My name could be Giggles McChucklepants and you'd still have no guarantee the show I'm pitching you will be funny. We should be so lucky. Comedy is hard.)

But I digress.

My little theory is that there are three reasons why the fear and loathing of the word "sitcom" tends to persist. The first, I've grown to suspect, is particularly unfortunate: The writer in question refuses to use the word "sitcom" because it gives them a sort of insurance policy just in case the show isn't actually funny. For some reason, calling their project a "half-hour comedy" or, God forbid, "half-hour dramedy," seems to ease the pressure, because that way, if the jokes are few and far between, it was done on purpose. It's not a sitcom.

This is an important point because it distinguishes the "sitcom versus half-hour comedy" issue from being purely one of semantics to an issue of actual quality. It could just be me, but I believe that a comedy, no matter what you call it, should be funny. Quite funny. Like, ideally, a-couple-of-chuckles-and-one-big-laugh-on-every-page funny. If you're writing a comedy pilot and there aren't a lot of actual laughs, it's a bit like writing a Die Hard movie where there isn't a lot of actual action. The audience comes through the door expecting something and when we don't deliver it we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Now, please note I say "laughs" here and not necessarily "jokes." Personally, I like jokes, and lots of them, but I will labour to make the distinction because it speaks to the second reason people are sitcom-phobic, which is that the word "sitcom" seems to conjur a certain creaky set-up/punchline/my boss-is-coming-to-dinner-and-all-I-have-to-serve-him-are-my-pot-brownies kind of show, like, say, Three's Company (which had its merits, but whatever).

Personally, I say enough. It's time to re-claim the stupid word. The old adage that a sitcom should have "three jokes a page" may sound hacky and tired, but keep in mind that it's not all sarcastic retorts. It's wordplay, it's pratfalls, it's cutaways, it's bad behaviour, it's reactions to that bad behaviour. Things that are not all necessarily "jokes" but things that are clearly, demonstrably funny. Comedy scripts should be chock full of them. That's not to say we can't have dramatic moments, or land an emotional punch here and there, but if we're doing comedy, we have to earn that stuff, not just cram it in because we ran out of gags.

Cheers, Taxi, Everybody Loves Raymond, Will and Grace, Two and a Half Men, and Happy Days are all sitcoms. But so are Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, Flight of the Conchords, 30 Rock, Extras and so forth.

Now: You might look at that list and note that none of those shows are Canadian, which brings me to the third and possibly most common objection to the use of the word sitcom, which is that we don't have that kind of history up here. Well, you're right, we don't, which is why any time I get into a discussion about sitcoms in Canada someone invariably brings up The Trouble With Tracy. Truth be told, that was a perfectly good argument twenty years ago. Maybe even ten.

But I think we should move on. The Trouble with Tracy was nearly forty fucking years ago, and the tide has, I believe, finally turned. If we accept that Corner Gas, Trailer Park Boys, Rent-a-Goalie, Little Mosque, Made in Canada, The Newsroom, etc. are, by definition, sitcoms, then we have to come to the conclusion that we have, in fact, rounded some kind of corner in this country, and that there is nobility in building on this new tradition. Television comedy isn't dead. People like to laugh. It's like some sort of weird thing with them, in fact.

What kinds of sitcom are we going to make, traditional or groundbreaking? I'm not sure. I recently had a conversation with a very talented Canadian television writer who argued that not only is sitcom a dirty word, but that comedy had "evolved" past shows like Cheers.

I like this guy, but I say that's bullshit. The traditional multi-cam show has run aground in recent years, no question, but I am convinced it is resting and not dead. Much has been made of the fact that CBC are currently looking to produce traditional, family-oriented, multi-cam sitcoms. Some people question the idea, but I happen to like it a lot. There is something to be said for zigging while everyone else zags, and I actually believe that the Ceeb, rather than dragging behind the curve on this one, are in fact out-front, anticipating a time in the near-future when frenetic, uber-ironic, 40 locations-and-65-scene comedies wear out their welcome. People like shows where they can drop in to a place they know and actually hang around a while. It was nice to go back to the WJM Newsroom, or Mary's apartment. It felt good. Shows like Arrested Development had no real home base, and I think suffered because of it. The show was hilarious, but the emotional connection wasn't there.

This is related to my "Friendly Giant" theory of television, which is that people like a certain amount of repetition in their TV because it's ingrained in us at an early age ("I'll close up the draw bridge when you leave...") But that's another post.

Similarly, it's been a while since I sat down with CTV, and they may not be as interested in doing the multi-cam thing, but I can't believe they wouldn't love to have another Corner Gas on their hands. Are they gonna back away from the next great idea or vehicle simply because the man or woman pitching it calls it a sitcom? I doubt it. (Though if I'm wrong, don't sue me).

So, that's my little rant. Be curious to find out if I'm alone on this one.

Oh, one other thing: Assuming we ever get over the sitcom thing, could we also possibly put a moratorium on saying things like "It's a comedy about a family, but it's not "Frasier." Or, "it's a show about young people, but it's not "Friends." Or, "it's quirky, but it's not Seinfeld."

Why do we always pick the most successful shows in television history as an example of what we don't want to do? I'm not saying we should set out to re-make a show that's already been done, but wouldn't it be nice to at least duplicate that kind of success?

It always seems to me like it would make more sense to say "It's a story about a guy on the radio, but it's not 'Hello, Larry.'"

Now there's a pitch I could get behind.

"Hello, Larry"? Anyone? As I say, I'm old.

If you're an industry professional, and you'd like to guest blog here in Sticksville, drop me a line at the email link on Ye Olde Sideboarde. Thanks to Matt Neffer. Promotional considerations by Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat. This guest blog is a Mark Goodman/Bill Todman production.