Sitcoms

I'm a sucker for sitcoms.......I grew up on them. And not just U.S. sitcoms, I actually really liked Chinese sitcoms that had roughly the same script and setting as U.S. ones: I remember watching a sitcom with my parents when I was really little, not old enough to even understand the jokes, but it was something similar to the Cosbys or Home Improvement: wholesome family entertainment, a family of four or five, with a grandparent or two sprinkled in to catch the previous generation's favor. I remember feeling warm and fuzzy after watching those shows, like I was part of that family and all was right with the world because at least they could work through their problems and have a few laughs in between, and there was hope for normal families in this world after all. Those sitcoms, though, were sandwiched between viewings of violent stuff like "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (history of infighting within China, captured in a novel) and other historical dramas that had tons of death and murder, so I guess I should have told my parents to stick with the sitcoms if they could. My favorite comedy of all time has to be The Office, which is slightly different from a traditional sitcom in that there are no set pieces, it's a mockumentary style comedy that follows one camera to interview various people within the Office; I watched the Office with college friends sitting around the dorm room, and it was funny back then even without having a concept of what a 9 to 5 work schedule is like. The key, of course, linking all the good comedies I've seen, is that I watched them with other people, who were in on the joke and knew where the laugh points are. I miss those days; watching reruns of Mike and Molly or That 70's show is much more convenient now with streaming and I can pull it up almost anywhere in the world whenever I watch, but I'd have my headphones in and nobody else would know. That was part of the appeal of the Office, and to some extent Parks and Recreation (kind of a sequel/spinoff) right after it: not just Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute being extremely funny caricatures, but because in real life people didn't have iPhones yet to suck up their attention, they actually wanted to be in person watching it with other people and didn't have devices distracting them. Maybe some traditional families still do it, but I can't imagine that many do what I did with my parents back in the 1990's: watch the same show togethero on one television screen. My sister, for example, wouldn't be able to look up from her phone of anime videos while anything the family was on. I really hope that Baby Girl and I, when she's ready for screen time and TV, can share in some experiences with me and have some of the same interests. MJ and I don't really watch sitcoms but we've gone through some really great shows like both seasons of The Pitt, Emily in Paris (I was kind of hate watching it), Korean dramas. The book I recenty read about 101 of the best sitcoms ever sure makes it sound like I have a lot of catching up to do for some of the classic sitcoms: Family Ties, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirely, One Day at a Time, Sanford and Son, The Brady Bunch.....it's hard distinguishing between all those family dramas in white suburban neighborhoods, with the exceptions of course of MASH (set in the "Korean War" a proxy for the Vietnam War at the time) and Gilligan's Island (on an island), but the most praise in the book was given to Frasier as one of the best written, best dialogue shows ever. High praise, and I do like very smart shows that you have to think hard to catch the jokes (that's probably why a lot of trivia people love the Simpsons- so many inside jokes you have to know stuff to get the jokes).