January 17, 2012

When Sitcoms Get Real



One of TV's primary responsibilities is to bring people together during a difficult time, and help healing. Awhile back I did an article on when sitcoms do "very special" episodes. These are episodes where the series takes a serious turn and does a show on a social topic. They can be deadly serious like when Family Matters had its famous gun episode. These issues can include drugs, alcohol, and any number of things really. The one subject I didn't touch on in that other article was when sitcoms are affected by real life tragedies, moments so jarring or controversial  in the real world they are touched on in the fictional world of sitcoms. While these episodes will have the occasional laughter, usually they are mean to touch us and make us realize that we are not alone when thing happen.
Sometimes the writers will spin an episode about an event, but will change details so they are not talking about the actual event. For example, Murphy Brown's take on the O.J.Simpson mess was to create a story about a fictional sports hero who had gotten into trouble. The story and debate continued onto Love & War (It kills me I never taped that! I would share a clip if I could find one because Murphy's final speech in the episode is really good). Seinfeld did the same, but it was all for laughs.
Then there are shows that don't hide it, they dive right in and deal with the event honestly and frankly. I wanted to look at a few of these today.
By the way, all of these are on YouTube so if the video’s I attach don’t work for some reason then please don’t hesitate to follow the link to seek the clips out.

WKRP in Cincinnati/The Who Concert Disaster-Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati on December 3, 1979. The performance was marred by tragedy when eleven fans were killed and several injured in a rush for seating at the opening of a sold-out concert. In the episode "In Concert", WKRP had been promoting the event and giving away tickets. This episode basically deals with the emotions after the tragedy. I would never know this episode existed but caught it on a re-run once, and never forgot it. I guess that is one reason why these shows exist, to remind people after time has faded the story out of the collective conscience.
 http://youtu.be/Ch92FIHx-Hs?t=13m49s

Punky Brewster/Challenger Disaster-The shuttle challenger exploded on January 26, 1986 just 73 seconds after takeoff. As most people my age were, I was very into this event because of the whole teacher in space angle. I still remember watching a special on it the night before. And will never forget when I first heard the news. It is well established that Punky dreams of being an astronaut. In "Accidents Happen”, after her class sees the shocking events unfold the problem becomes, does she still want to become an astronaut? Punky has always dreamed of being astronaut, and even though her friends think she is crazy, she still wants to be one someday. Buzz Aldrin then appears and talks to Punky. For a silly show Punky Brewster had moving episodes, this was one of them. As you will see in the clip, the lesson is that as sad a tragedy as that was, if you want something bad enough you shouldn't let anything stop you.
 http://youtu.be/wN5U0EZU0qw

Full House/San Francisco Earthquake-At 5:04 local time a 6.9 mag earthquake struck the bay area on October 17, 1989. I was riveted by this story; I will never forget the pictures on TV of the destruction. It was truly amazing. The quake killed 63 people and delayed the World Series that year. Full House was set in San Francisco, so an episode probably seemed logical. "Aftershocks" is about Stephanie, who is scared to leave her father's side because it took him so long to get home the night of the earthquake, and she was scared she would never see him again. Of course, being Full House the solution comes easily, a therapist gets to the root of the problem very fast and it is quickly solved. Still a decent episode, especially the scene I am sharing below. Let me explain, at this point in the series Stephanie was a pretty mature kid. She was smart, had lots of self confidence, and usually led her group of friends. In this scene Danny tries to leave for a business meeting, and she starts to have a meltdown. For this character, this is way out of character and the scene is a bit jarring.
http://youtu.be/skgSKa0hLJs

Designing Women/Clarence Thomas Hearings-In October 1991 When George Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, the nomination hearings became a national circus after Anita Hill accused Thomas of sexual harassment. The hearings became very detailed, not to mention controversial, and this episode “The Strange Case of Clarence and Anita” did a pretty decent job of summarizing both sides of the argument. Of course being Designing Women the Anita Hill argument was discussed intelligently while the Thomas side of the issue was just ridiculed, but that's what this show did. Women were good and men bad. Nevertheless, this episode dives right into the actual issue rather than trying to cleverly discuss it by creating an “original” story based on it. Anyway, here is the clip.

A Different World/South Central LA Riots-On April 29, 1992 a jury acquitted three white and one Hispanic Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit. Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area rioted over the six days following the verdict. The episode "Honeymoon in LA" has Whitley and Dwayne reliving their experience of being in LA during the riots. The show recounts the events and the debate around them pretty thoroughly. Of course, hot racial related topics were the norm for this show. This is one time they tackle a real life topic, just a few months after the event actually took place.
 http://youtu.be/gCfFtstoCfU

Becker/September 11th-I don't think I need to explain what happened on September 11, 2001. A few dramas did touch on the events, such as West Wing and Third Watch, however sitcoms stayed away. Then came this episode of Becker called “A Subway Story”, which for most of it was a very normal episode. Becker is trying to get somewhere but an old lady in the subway keeps stalling his efforts. Finally, we find out what she is trying to do. Turns out she is trying to get to ground zero, but can't bring herself to go. See, she lost a son that day. The scene is very well done, nothing specific but enough detail is given so more than get the idea. And I commend the show for doing it.
http://youtu.be/OIQNOBtvd2g?t=7m1s

Unfortunately, it doesn’t need to be a local or national tragedy to have these kinds of episodes. Very often sitcoms have to deal with the personal loss of a member of the cast, and a tribute episode about that person is shot. Shows which have had these kinds of episodes include Barney Miller for Jack Soo, Night Court for Selma Diamond, Cheers for Nicholas Colassanto, Gimmee A Break! for Dolph Sweet, and Cosby after the amazing Madeline Khan lost her battle with cancer. The Royal Family was supposed to be the vehicle for Redd Fox to make his return to TV, until he suddenly collapsed on set and passed away.
Of course the two most tragic of these was News Radio after Phil Hartman was unbelievably killed, and 8 Simple Rules after John Ritter suddenly passed away, almost ten years ago. I will have more to say about John Ritter later, in another article. Finally, Who's The Boss? had a very moving episode after comedian and popular recurring character James Coco suddenly passed away. He had appeared a few times playing Tony’s father-in-law, and when he died unexpectedly the show put out a special episode in his honor, shown in the link below as an example of these kinds of episodes.



I feel like I forgot a lot more examples of these, if I did please let me know. As we can see, while sitcoms are meant to make us laugh they can also make us very sad, and it is these episodes that these shows seem more real to us than any others. I hope you enjoyed this look at when sitcoms get real.

No comments:

Post a Comment