R.I.P. 30 ROCK R.I.P COMMUNITY R.I.P. PARKS & REC

Scrubs was pretty weird, like NBC kept trying to kill it, then changed its mind over and over again before dumping it to ABC. Zach Braff becoming popular for a minute probably helped it for a season or two, much like the whole Tina Fey/Palin moment. The ratings were never THAT great, though, just solid... good for NBC, though?

I think The Simpsons had really good timing, as it'd been a really long time since a prime-time cartoon had been big, and they broke out after the peak of that whole TGIF/super wholesome family sitcom era of TV, and started/rode the wave of generally more snarky 90s TV

Yeah, Happy Endings is one of my favorites, but there's rarely any kind of second-layer to those jokes.

Yeah - Happy Endings is smart and quick, for sure, but its a show which has limited boundaries and sticks well within them.

simpsons was on a network that had had one 'hit' to that point (married w/ children) and was looking to establish a brand that simpsons played into, was like nothing that had ever been on tv before, and was incredibly well written and funny and vaguely dangerous initially. also: merchandising. in fact, ppl forget this, the merchandising predated the show somewhat (though, like dave matthews take on 'all along the watchtower', it took it to a whole nother level after the show premiered), the tracey ullman sketches had done well enough that i can remember talking to other kids on the school bus about looking forward to the simpsons getting their own show, and i can remember camelot records and tapes had a bart simpson 'underachiever and proud of it' poster i almost got before opting for a beasties one instead. what's weird w/ the simpsons is that the actual creative peak of the show is probably after it's mass phenom popularity peak - those first two seasons feel somewhat odd but THAT's the simpsons that inspired black bart t-shirts, george bush jeremiads, etc.

what's amazing to me is that a show like seinfeld could not only be a hit but be THE hit. faster than happy endings, more 'coastal' than 30 rock, weirder than community (arguably, definitely relative to what came before it), waaay meaner and 'unlikable' than any of these shows w/ only one attractive protagonist. one of the hugest smashes in tv history. what are the odds.

I'd probably quibble that Community at its weirdest is further out than Seinfeld's weirdest but yeah, Seinfeld had no heart at all. And even Julia Louis-Dreyfuss wasn't exactly Jennifer Aniston or Christina Applegate or anything. I put it down to a 90s zeitgeist.

Here are some differences though:
i) You can jump in and watch any episode of Seinfeld and understand it without needing the context of the rest of the series. This is not the case with at least this season of Community.
ii) The humour in Seinfeld does not generally rely on layered cultural references. You don't need to know a bunch of other things to get the jokes on Seinfeld. I often think that e.g. as much as I love "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", no one will find much of it funny in 20 years when Bjork, Tim Burton, and Lost are no longer current (or recent).

My parents can get The Office but not 30 Rock or Community.

in fact, ppl forget this, the merchandising predated the show somewhat

Absolutely true. Just recently came across my Simpsons trading cards...which featured stills from the Ullman shorts.

yeah community is weirder but i think in comparison to sunny, 30 rock, happy endings, himym it's not as far from the norm as seinfeld was in comparison to cheers, cosby, friends, raymond. i guess the main difference is community's weirdness frequently dominates the entire episode whereas w/ seinfeld it was usually just the kramer plot. still before troy and abed in the morning there was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4SewgD0Vz0

Yeah, as much as I love these serialized sitcoms, I don't know how NBC fails to realize that they also need some sitcoms that people can just dip in and out of. The investment necessary to really enjoy their current Thursday night crop is an awful lot to ask of the casual viewer.

My parents can get The Office but not 30 Rock or Community.

They can get Monty Python and Woody Allen btw so it's not just a 'weirdness' issue.

The humour in Seinfeld does not generally rely on layered cultural references

30 Rock's recent live show may be an extreme example of this.

the show i'm holding my breath for renewal on is happy endings, which i like at least as much as community (tbh more this season)

otm

You guys are reading into and basing A LOT on a few largely speculative articles. I wouldn't be surprised if most of these ended up being given longer than 13 eps, there's nothing suggesting they likely won't*, NBC is just being cowardly and faffing around as is apparently usual.

*Except maybe for 30 Rock, which is something of a special case.

yeah tbh i wouldn't be surprised if NBC's slate of new fall comedies fails so immediately that they start ordering more episodes from the older shows.

in fact, ppl forget this, the merchandising predated the show somewhat

Absolutely true. Just recently came across my Simpsons trading cards...which featured stills from the Ullman shorts.

iirc those Butterfinger commercials had a hand in blowing Bart up--since they were pure Bart-being-badass snippets

I think the days of a sitcom like Seinfeld finally finding its audience three seasons in are over.

― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Friday, May 11, 2012 12:16 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the way major labels treat bands now too, sadly

Yeah, the days of a Laurie Anderson getting a seven-album deal with a Warner Bros. are pretty much over.

From a business standpoint, it's often a sound decisions to order third and fourth and partial fifth seasons of a very middling, only moderately popular show /w cheap production costs (multicam, standing sets, low cost actors at launch) to get to the traditional 100 episode syndication watershed. Since a lot of shows run in the red until they're sold off/stripped/sent overseas, it's not that risky to expect that a long-running show w/ poor ratings to be given a final run of episodes that won't garner many viewers as 'new TV' but will position it for a longer cable or syndicated run.

yeah i don't know if america will ever get behind these shows in a major way, but shows that hit a niche are probably as likely to get a decent life somewhere on tv today (esp if the cougar town tbs shift works out) as they ever where.

i thought 30 Rock's overall ratings/cultural profile would raise after syndicated reruns started this past year, but if anything the opposite has happened.

a thousand points to the first web journalist to find a kid raised on 30 rock reruns who had no idea NBC was a real network

lol

Here are some differences though:
i) You can jump in and watch any episode of Seinfeld and understand it without needing the context of the rest of the series. This is not the case with at least this season of Community.
ii) The humour in Seinfeld does not generally rely on layered cultural references. You don't need to know a bunch of other things to get the jokes on Seinfeld. I often think that e.g. as much as I love "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", no one will find much of it funny in 20 years when Bjork, Tim Burton, and Lost are no longer current (or recent).

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Friday, May 11, 2012 12:27 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM, at its base, seinfeld was about really primal human stuff - vanity, hate, boredom, pettiness, etc

tbh i sometimes see early 30 Rocks on syndication and some of the references are already starting to become incomprehensible

For all I know, Bjork and Tim Burton will be taught in schools 20 years from now

like, yeah, there are alienating elements to these shows that make them less likely to achieve Wings-like ratings, but if these shows age like SCTV...I'm fine with that.

wings was p dope overall

i didn't mean to suggest wings wasn't mad fresh

church

i) You can jump in and watch any episode of Seinfeld and understand it without needing the context of the rest of the series. This is not the case with at least this season of Community.

I think Community is off-putting for new viewers, (Seinfeld probably was too--taking several episodes for viewers to figure out who you were supposed to be rooting for: no one) but it's not really any more of a serial comedy than most other sitcoms--certainly not like Parks and Rec with its season-long story arcs. What do you really need to know about the Community mythos to enjoy that Law & Order parody? These characters are wacky?

ooh a law and order parody i bet that was funney

dear community,

your arms are too short to box with god.

http://www.emcblue.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/law-nd-order-svu.jpg

Parks renewed for 13 episodes and slated for the fall, so a back 9 isn't out of the question. Up All Night also renewed. Not so much with the overhaul, then.

ughhhhh fuckin Up All Night

ParkandRec has been renewed for 22 episodes, not 13!

Whitney also renewed.

haha jesus christ

Outsourced aside, pretty much all the new comedies NBC has canceled in the past 2 years are far more tolerable than the ones that have been renewed

HAPPY ENDINGS will be back for a full season of 22 episodes.

^^^Important news not to be slept on^^^^

Yay for P&R, Up All Night and Happy Endings!

Hope that The Office really does go away, but it probably won't.

Parks renewed for 13 episodes and slated for the fall

Good news for Schur's proposed arc to have Ben working in D.C. through the first week of November.

glad for 'up all night' even though i've never watched it tbqf, a friend of mine is on that show.

more interested in watching 'parks and rec' or 'community' at some point.

are you friends with the baby

is the baby ur friend on up all night

Up All Night has the same general feel as Modern Family to me, except there are fewer characters to follow and it's (thank goodness) not shot documentary style.

I do not watch Modern Family regularly, though, so I don't have the same sort of attachment to any of its characters as I do Up All Night.

hooray for everyone!

max otm

Up All Night has the same general feel as Baby Blues comic strips to me