Situation Comedy Today’s lecture is about situation comedy, its history, its characteristics and some famous comedies in the

Situation Comedy
    Todays’s lecture is about situation comedy, its history, its characteristics, and some famous comedies in western countries.
    [1] A sitcom or situation comedy is a genre of comedy performance originally devised for radio but today typically found on television. [2] Sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a format in which there is one or more humorous story lines centered around a common environment, such as a family home or workplace.
    The situation comedy seems to have originated in the United States, but today they are produced around the globe. Many countries, such as Britain, have embraced the form and so that sitcoms have become among the most popular programs on the schedule.
History
    [3] The situation comedy format originated on radio in the 1920s. The first situation comedy is often said to be Sam and Henry which debuted on the Chicago clear-channel station WGN in 1926, and was partially inspired by the notion of bringing the mix of humor and continuity found in comic strips to the young medium of radio. [4] The first network situation comedy was Amos & Andy which debuted on CBS in 1928, and was one of the most popular sitcoms through the 1930s.
    Situation comedies have been a part of the landscape of broadcast television since its early days. [5] The first was probably Mary Kay and Johnny, a fifteen-minute sitcom which debuted on the DuMont Television Network in November of 1947.
    This type of entertainment seemed to originate in the United States, which continues to be a leading producer of the genre, but soon spread to other nations.
Characteristics
    [6] Traditionally, situation comedies were largely self-contained, in that the characters themselves remained largely static and events in the sitcom resolved themselves by the conclusion of the show. One example of this is the animated situation comedy The Simpsons, where the characteristics of animation has rendered the characters unchanging in appearance forever — although the characters in the show have sometimes made knowing references to this (the writers have made reference to that by calling The Simpsons a "frozen-in-time" show).
    [7] Other sitcoms, though, use greater or lesser elements of ongoing storylines: Friends, a hugely popular U.S. sitcom of the 1990s, contains soap opera elements such as regularly resorting to an end-of-season cliffhanger, and has gradually developed the relationships of the characters. Other sitcoms have veered into social commentary. Examples of these are sitcoms by Norman Lear including All in the Family and Maude in the U.S. and the controversial Till Death Do Us Part in Britain.
    A common aspect of family sitcoms is that at some point in their run they introduce an addition to the family in the form of a new baby. One exception to this is the several sitcoms starring Bob Newhart, who insisted that his sitcoms not have babies or children. However while babies are cute and give adult characters opportunities to act silly, toddlers are of little use in comedy as besides the difficulties of the "terrible twos" they basically can only look cute and say a few words — thus most sitcom kids are aged to four or five within two years of their birth — for example Andrew Keaton on Family Ties and Chrissy Seaver on Growing Pains. Cases of sticking with the same child such as Erin Murphy’s Tabitha Stephens on Bewitched or The Olsen twins’ Michelle Tanner on Full House are the exception to the rule.
    [8] Most contemporary situation comedies are filmed with a multicamera setup in front of a live audience, then edited and broadcast days or weeks later. This practice has not always been universal, however, especially prior to the 1970s when it became more common. Some comedies, such as M*A*S*H, were not filmed before a studio audience. (In the case of M*A*S*H, the use of multiple sets and location filming would have made this impractical).
Specific Countries of Origin
    Most U.S. sitcoms are written to run 30 minutes in length with commercial breaks, leaving about 20 minutes of show time, although ones made outside the U.S. may run somewhat longer. [9] U.S. sitcoms are often characterized by long series runs of 20 or more episodes, whereas the British sitcom is traditionally comprised of distinct series of six episodes each. U.S. sitcoms often have large teams of script writers firing gags into the script and round-table sessions, whereas the British sitcom is usually written by two co-writers or is the work of one person.
Canada
    Despite Canada’s wealth of comedic talent, [10] Canadian TV’s conventional sitcoms have generally fared poorly with both critics and audiences. One particularly notorious example is The Trouble with Tracy, regarded by many Canadians as one of the worst TV shows ever made. Other Canadian sitcoms have included Snow Job, Check it Out, Mosquito Lake and Not My Department, all of which were mocked in their time as being particularly unfunny.
    One of Canada’s most enduring comedic television series airing today, The Red Green Show, is essentially a cross between a sitcom and a sketch series. Each episode unfolds through short comedic sketches rather than a conventional sitcom plot, but unlike a true sketch series, the sketches always draw from a single set of characters and no actor plays more than one role.
The UK
    The United Kingdom has produced a wealth of sitcoms, many of which have been exported to other nations or redone in adaptation. Classic British sitcoms include Only Fools and Horses and Fawlty Towers. More recent successes have included Father Ted (a partly Irish sitcom) and The Office.
The USA
    Mary Kay and Johnny were followed by The Goldbergs which first aired on January 17, 1949. Probably the most well-known and successful early television sitcom was I Love Lucy, starring Lucille Ball which is well known because the producer took the step, unusual for its time, of recording the episodes, thereby inventing reruns.