Sitcoms 101: Five Lessons From the Debut of “Happily Divorced”

Good Morning class, and Welcome to Sitcoms 101! I am Dr. Kelley, Professor of Sitcomology and I will be teaching today’s class. Now did everyone finished watching last night’s homework, Happily Divorced? Good, because it’s going to be the basis of our discussion today. So, let’s begin!

Lesson One — Characters

Now, some people might try to tell you that in order for a sitcom to be good, it needs to have interesting characters. This is obviously untrue. It only needs a bunch of entitled white people who are propped up by a couple of tired, uninspired clichés.

The best and most classic starting place is with privileged white woman who will act as the main character. Of course, she needs to have a cynical, perpetually single best friend, a sassy black friend, a gay best friend, wacky parents who say embarrassing things and an ex-husband that she can constantly butt heads with.

The great thing about our case study is the way they didn’t just phone it in with these cliché characterizations. They were actually really creative with the way that they made the cynical best friend also be black and sassy! And, of course, the gay BFF and the ex-husband are the same as well. You want your characters to be able to check off as many clichés in one swoop as possible, because anyone who works in Hollywood can tell you that casting is a bitch.

Lesson Two— Racial Stereotypes

It is important to know how to deal with race in a sitcom. As anyone can tell you, race is a complex issue in our society, affecting how we interact with one another in a variety of unseen but intricate ways.

But you can just ignore all that with sitcoms.

Now, everyone get out your “Race stereotypes” cheat sheet — remember, we have a quiz on this next week.

Okay, who can tell me how you identify a French person? That’s right, they have a ridiculously heavy accent and they are sure to be rude and dismissive!

Now let’s talk about some of the other important race depictions you will see. For example, a sitcom may want the main characters to have a person in their service, like a maid or in this case, a gardener. Now, it is actually a violation of several laws, as well as a couple of international treaties and a number of edicts of the Geneva Conventions for this person to be any race other than Hispanic. This person should also make sure to refer to the main characters as “Mr./Mrs.” and then their first name.

See, by giving these people qualities that only preschool age children have, the viewer will know that they are not important and subordinate to the main character.

Also remember — all black people are sassy. That’s all you need to know about that.

Lesson Three — Subtlety Kills

One of the most important things that a sitcom needs is obvious humor. The way to go about that is to really get in as many jokes about a topic as possible, no matter how tired, obvious or unfunny they are. As long as the character says it, then the goal is accomplished.

Sometimes it won’t be enough to just say the joke, the character will really have to go all out with it. For example, if you are making a gay joke and referencing the song "YMCA," it isn't enough to just say the words. You have to make sure to act it out in an extremely over exaggerated fashion. That will make it at least ten times funnier, and not at all more ridiculous.

Also, if a sitcom has an interesting premise, like a recently out gay husband, you'll notice that this info will be repeated as quickly as the actors can say the words. So in this situation, obviously the “gay” aspect was the key issue. A great trick to drive this information home is to repeat the word as many times as possible during the show. Even if you can only say it eighteen times*, the audience will swear that it was said at least 436 times, if not more.

Lesson Four — Ridiculous Situations

One of the most important things that needs to happen in sitcoms is for the characters to be in a ridiculous situation, even if it doesn’t really make sense in the context of the show.

So for example, first dates don’t have a lot of room for comedy. But, what can happen is for one of the characters to have a near death experience, so you can focus on the main character going through all the objects in her purse. We saw this technique first hand last night in Happily Divorced when Fran's date had an allergic reaction to truffles. The dramatic tension of the scene really makes the classic comedy moments stand out. Trust me, they always end up being hilarious.

The flip side of this rule is that you don’t need to worry too much about reality when it comes to sitcoms. So if you want your main character’s mom to make a gay joke about the ex-husband and new boyfriend, it is perfectly okay to just have the parents come over at the same time that the new boyfriend is also inexplicably there.

These situations don’t have to be explained, but sometimes the characters may say something like “we brought lunch!” in order to qualm any questions in the audience’s mind, even if the staging of the main character has her in her pj’s and drinking coffee, which would suggest that it was actually breakfast time.

Lesson 5 — Judging Whether the Sitcom Was Successful

Sitcoms like Happily Divorced are supposed to be fun and funny, leaving their audience feeling happy or even just vaguely amused.

Really, anything that rates higher than the queasy feeling you get when you just ate wayyyy too many potato chips that were a little too salty and a little too oily, but you just kind of kept eating them because they were next to you, but you really wish that someone would come over and move them so you wouldn’t even be tempted anymore**.

So what did everyone else think? Will you watch Happily Divorced again?

*Actual number of times that the word “gay” was said in last night nights episode.

**Actual feeling that I had after watching Happily Divorced.