Great TV Sitcom

by Rick Mitz

Thirty years of unique entertainment. Everything you wanted to know, remembered with pleasure or forgot to look up. So many shows that made the generation of the tube.

Genres: Nonfiction

470 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1982

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me almost a month (!), but now I've read about EVERY SITCOM that aired from 1949-1983. This book is more of a research tool but I decided to read it cover to cover. Extremely fascinating and I recommend it for people in the TV biz. Unfortunately, the book was written before TV was considered an art form, and is far from academic. The author also uses some questionable/straight-up racist language, and there's a lot of bad puns about the cancelations. But if you look past the style, there's a lot of awesome synopses, joke samples, anecdotes, quotes from actors/writers and development stories. Check it out if you can (I know The Strand is selling one for $15).

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because some of us actually like "questionable/straight-up racist language," and hate things which are "academic." :)

[Joe Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mitz is a critic who writes a good read about terrible watches. Basically, I disagree with him on almost everything. He loves Norman Lear and everything he stands for. Every loud obnoxious character, political scream fest and no time for jokes that aren't mocking someone. He has no idea why America got sick of Lear for decades after 1976 as All in the Family dived from 1 to 12 and Maude died in the ratings. He moans for the rest of the book about every Lear failure, there would be roughly a dozen of them, and hates every other obnoxious show because it isn't by Lear. He loves dramedies and basically any sitcoms that aren't funny.
Nonetheless, he is a fun writer as he pronounces his wrong-headed opinions and adds cute taglines to his writeups about all the major shows of any given year. The research is amazing for a book written 40 years ago and it offers a window to a segment of America, liberal intellectuals with no sense of humor, that I've never personally met, for which I'm grateful.
I watched all his major shows and a few of the minor ones from 1948 through 1979 for hundreds of hours of TV sitcoms. I learned something important, the past is not better. The lion's share of all shows before 1980 were terrible. Cheers and Cosby saved the genre from pop-eyed overacting clowns, high concept trash, and politically correct noise.
For the record, if you must watch the past there are some fun shows, Burns and Allen, Phil Silvers, Andy Griffith, Dick Van Dyke, Get Smart, Green Acres, Bob Newhart and Barney Miller. Taxi and WKRP belong to the 80s. I just spent hundreds of hours of my life to bring you that public service anouncement.

[Mark Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summaries of sitcoms since the beginning of television, with pictures.