What Is A Sitcom? Meaning & History Explained

Friends get together at Central Perk. Seinfeld's gang endlessly debate nothing. The Office nails the cringe-worthy feeling of a workplace gone wrong.

Sitcoms give us that weekly dose of laughter from familiar characters getting into absurd situations in that same old, comfortable setting.

What's a sitcom and how did this format take over TV comedy? Let's dive into the genre that helped shape TV history.

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What is a Sitcom?

A sitcom is basically a TV show that boils down to funny scenarios with a cast of regular characters stuck in some sort of familiar setting. Each episode usually wraps up within 30 minutes or so.

Sitcoms rely on that tried and true ' characters clashing in everyday life' gag to get those laughs. The people may change, but the character traits stay the same from one episode to the next - that's where the humor comes from.

Sitcoms have been the main event on TV for a really long time because of their simple, easy-to-follow format. Viewers can jump right in and enjoy a single episode without getting all bogged down in an ongoing storyline.

That's been a winning combination for broadcast TV's weekly schedules.

The sitcom format is pretty simple - it's all about the people, not the plot. The characters are who you get to know and love - they're the ones that keep coming back for more.

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Sitcom Meaning

The term 'sitcom' stands for "situational comedy", it is a combination of 'situation' and 'comedy', which pretty much sums it up. Sitcoms try to get laughs from the situations their characters find themselves in.

The term started showing up in the 1950s, when TV was starting to pick up where radio left off with all the comedy shows.

Once you really understand what a sitcom is, you might start to notice some structural conventions that sitcoms tend to follow. Back in the day, sitcoms used to use multi-camera setups and film in front of a live audience.

The laugh track was another staple - that way the TV audience at home knew when to laugh. And don't forget about those super low production costs - shows had to keep it simple if they wanted to keep churning out episodes on a weekly basis.

Modern sitcoms have shed that old-school look and feel. Many of them now use single-camera setups and don't bother with the laugh track. We've also seen a shift towards more complex storylines and mockumentary-style shows like The Office.

Some Sitcom Examples

Let's take a look at some notable sitcoms that show the format's evolution over the years.

I Love Lucy basically set the template for the sitcom format back in the 1950s. Lucille Ball's physical comedy and the whole domestic scenario set the stage for decades to come. The show was also one of the first to try filming in front of a live audience and get syndicated.

Cheers took the cast of characters and put them in a workplace setting, and that worked out really well. You had your bar setting and then the constant change of characters coming and going, which led to all sorts of different types of humor.

It proved that a workplace setting could be just as funny as a domestic one.

Seinfeld was a game changer - it made the audience laugh by observing the mundane stuff in life. The fact that it was a show 'about nothing' made it stand out. It showed the sitcom world that you can make comedy work without getting all sentimental.

Friends became the main event in the 90s with its aspirational lifestyle presentation. That coffee shop hangout became a cultural phenomenon, and the show's syndication longevity showed that the format could be timeless.

The Office brought the mockumentary format to American audiences, with the documentary-style filming and the characters talking straight to the camera. It proved that there were all sorts of new ways to do comedy.

Arrested Development was one of the first shows to use a serialized approach to its sitcom format. Running gags and callbacks made the show rewarding to pay attention to - it showed that you can make comedic content more complex without losing your focus.

Parks and Recreation refined that mockumentary style, but with a more optimistic tone. You had your ensemble cast and the way the characters relationships evolved showed that you can balance episodic and serialized elements.

Modern Family updated the family sitcom with a documentary framing, with multiple household perspectives and confessional interviews bringing that contemporary style to a classic subject matter.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine combined workplace comedy with procedural elements, showing that you can mix up the formats and still get laughs.

Sitcom History

Sitcom history shows the evolution of TV comedy, from radio shows to streaming originals.

Radio comedies were the start of the situation comedy format back in the 30s and 40s. Shows like Amos 'n' Andy and The Goldbergs got big laughs with their episodic humor and recurring characters. When TV came along, they took that same format and ran with it.

The 50s and 60s saw the rise of the sitcom - I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners and Leave It to Beaver were the big names in domestic comedy. They all used that multi-camera setup and the live audience to get that classic sitcom sound.

The 70s saw Norman Lear bring social commentary to the sitcom. All in the Family, Maude and Good Times tackled tough subjects through comedy, and suddenly sitcoms were speaking to a lot more people.

Workplace comedies took off in the 80s and 90s. Cheers, Taxi and Murphy Brown showed that you could get laughs from the workplace, just as well as from home life.

Must-see TV in the 90s made Thursday nights on NBC the place to be. Friends, Seinfeld and Frasier were the top dogs and they made sitcoms the top priority.

The single-camera revolution in the 2000s changed the game - Scrubs, Arrested Development and The Office finally ditched the laugh track and the studio audience and went for a more cinematic look.

Now we're in the streaming era where you can get your sitcom fix on Netflix, Hulu, and all the rest. The shift to binge-watching has allowed for more complex storytelling, but still, it's all about the characters and the laughs.

Creating Your Own Sitcom Concept with LTX Studio

LTX Studio wants to help you develop your sitcom concept - they've got the tools to make sure your characters look just the same from one episode to the next. And that's key to making a sitcom that works.

Use the AI script generator to cook up some sitcom ideas and see if we can come up with anything that's really funny. Lets mess around with some character dynamics and comedic situations - see how different personalities clash and come together in a laugh-out-loud way.

We'll start by writing some pilot episodes to get a feel for the premise, setting and the relationships between our cast of characters.

Next, lets get out the old storyboard and start sketching out our sitcom scenes. We need to test the timing of our jokes, see if the visual gags we come up with actually land. Is a single-camera show the way to go or do we stick with the multi-camera approach for a more traditional feel.

Now that we have a better idea of the tone and style, lets start designing the sitcom sets. What kind of apartment, workplace or hangout spot do our characters call home.

We need to create some familiar spaces that become a part of the show's identity and anchor the episodic storytelling we do.

Before we even start looking for a network or streaming platform to pitch our show to, we need to develop a pitch presentation that really showcases our concept. This is where we get to show off our creative vision and demonstrate the potential for comedy and production value.

Conclusion

The beauty of the sitcom format is that it provides reliable laughs through characters we get to know and love in familiar settings.

From the classic multi-cam sitcoms to the more upscale single-cam shows, the format's evolved over the years but the key to success is still the character-driven humor and consistent episodic structure.

With LTX Studio, we can actually take our sitcom ideas out for a test drive during development - experimenting with character dynamics and comedic situations before we even start filming.