Althouse: "The Sitcom Code breaks down what needs to happen in each episode, by the minute."

January 4, 2015

"The Sitcom Code breaks down what needs to happen in each episode, by the minute."

"'Sitcoms, minus commercials, are typically 22 minutes long [with] a script of 25-40 pages. Every sitcom episode has a main plot (story A), as well as one or two subplots (stories B and C).' There are three main acts, divided by two commercial breaks (in most American TV), with 3-5 scenes per act. One of the distinguishing characteristics of sitcoms, as opposed to other forms of television, is that the main protagonist(s) barely change from one episode to the next, let alone from season to season (Maggie Simpson has been sucking on a pacifier for nearly thirty years). Therefore whatever happens in the episode, the situation must end largely where it began...."

From Noam Charney's "Cracking the Sitcom Code/After signing up to write a script for Croatian television, I learned that virtually all TV comedies, from Seinfeld to South Park, follow a simple formula. "

40 comments:

Michael K said...: All plays and movies have three acts. I think that comes from Aristotle. Freytag said five acts but three is usual.; 1/4/15, 5:38 PM
James Pawlak said...: Is the intense study of logic and math now required for the producers and directors of such garbage?; 1/4/15, 5:42 PM
Dr. Paul Meartz said...: Sitcoms almost always take place in the same geographic location. A move is rare. MASH moved only twice and came back to the same place by the end of the episode.; 1/4/15, 5:50 PM
Rob said...: Damn, for a few seconds I thought Noam Chomsky was writing a Croatian sitcom. I'd have paid to see that.; 1/4/15, 5:54 PM
Witt's End said...: Are you familiar with Joseph Campbell's monomyth theory, a.k.a. “The Hero’s Journey”? The basic premise is that the same character types and plot points repeat themselves in story after story. It could be Star Wars (Geroge Lucas was firm believer) or Happy Gilmore: the hero’s journey is there.

Anyway, here are puppets explaining it by acting out scenes from Harry Potter, The Hobbit, The Wizard of Oz, Indiana Jones, and more.

http://vaviper.blogspot.com/2013/06/joseph-campbells-monomyth-theory-aka.html; 1/4/15, 6:00 PM
Mr Wibble said...: It's not just sitcoms or stories. The ancient study of rhetoric is based on the idea that there were certain ways of speaking, certain formulas and ideas in a certain order, that were most effective in persuading an audience.; 1/4/15, 6:09 PM
Jaq said...: I really liked the line, from Guardians of the Galaxy, where the guy is explaining movies to aliens. He relates the story of the great hero, Kevin Bacon, who saves a small town in Utah.; 1/4/15, 6:23 PM
Jaq said...: The rhetoric of story telling aside, the article is interesting in that the form of a sitcom is as tightly constrained as a sonnet.

Family Guy plays with this convention a little bit, sometimes problems get solved in the middle and a new episode begins, sometimes episodes end with the character's circumstances changed, but they get around this because the viewer always knows that in the next episode, none of it will have happened. Except the time they killed Brian, it was four episodes, I think, before they brought him back.

OMG, Was that Chris Cristie rooting for Dallas instead of the Giants?; 1/4/15, 6:29 PM
Michael K said...: "The basic premise is that the same character types and plot points repeat themselves in story after story. "
There are Seven basic plots according to the article linked.

"The Prisoner of Zenda" may have been a new one and has been repeated multiple times.

Others attribute most plots to Boccaccio.; 1/4/15, 6:44 PM
William said...: The youths, forever young, pursue forever the maidens, forever beautiful. Sam and Diane are destined to forever pant and never to entwine. Sitcoms are our Ode to a Grecian Urn......I think the Mary Tyler Moore show on the funeral of Chuckles the Clown would have more weight and dignity if it were performed with the surviving cast members. Probably wouldn't be as funny though.; 1/4/15, 7:07 PM
Revenant said...: "Cracking the code"? As codes go, it doesn't rise to the level of Pig Latin.

They are called "situation comedies" *because* nothing ever changes!; 1/4/15, 7:18 PM
John Enright said...: It's a simple formula that is somehow hard to follow to success.; 1/4/15, 7:18 PM
rcocean said...: Well duh.

That's why most people who watch Sitcoms on a regular basis aren't very smart - or are very young.

In any case, its all in the execution/acting and the quality of the jokes - not the plot.; 1/4/15, 7:42 PM
Dan in Philly said...: Things which are predictable are almost by definition boring.
I don't like wasting my time watching sitcoms.; 1/4/15, 8:04 PM
KLDAVIS said...: Tale as old as Hegel:

Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis.; 1/4/15, 8:31 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: And this is specific to sitcoms?

Episodic shows are episodic: ask Perry Mason.

I am Laslo.; 1/4/15, 8:44 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Of course, I am dismissing the obvious: that 'very special' episode of M*A*S*H where -- after so many, many seasons -- Alan Alda's 'Hawkeye' decides that the purpose of the Korean War was worth fighting for.

No one saw that coming.

I am Laslo.; 1/4/15, 8:47 PM
Gahrie said...: OMG, Was that Chris Cristie rooting for Dallas instead of the Giants?

Christie grew up a Cowboys fan, and both of the teams that actually play in New Jersey, persist in calling themselves "New York".....so if I was the governor of New Jersey I'd shun them too.; 1/4/15, 8:52 PM
FullMoon said...: tim in vermont said... [hush][hide comment]

The rhetoric of story telling aside, the article is interesting in that the form of a sitcom is as tightly constrained as a sonnet.

Family Guy plays with this convention a little bit, sometimes problems get solved in the middle and a new episode begins, sometimes episodes end with the character's circumstances changed, but they get around this because the viewer always knows that in the next episode, none of it will have happened. Except the time they killed Brian, it was four episodes, I think, before they brought him back.

FAMILY GUY, that's a cartoon, right? Reminds me of a line in some old move "That Barnie Rubble, he's a hell of a actor"; 1/4/15, 8:54 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: That 'very special' episode of "Family Ties" where the liberal PBS parents of Michael J. Fox's conservative Alex realize that he was actually right about a lot of things.

I am Laslo.; 1/4/15, 8:56 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: That 'very special' episode of "Law & Order" where the big business wasn't actually part of a dastardly criminal conspiracy.

I am Laslo.; 1/4/15, 8:58 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: That 'very special' episode of "Murphy Brown" where her child really wants to know where Daddy is.

I think you can see what I am doing.

I am Laslo.; 1/4/15, 9:03 PM
DKWalser said...: This is new? It was discussed in my 8th grade English class, along with the forms for sonnets, plays, and other common types of literature. Some writers demonstrate creativity by breaking the "rules" imposed by such formats. The best are creative while staying within the rules. Or, so I was taught.; 1/4/15, 9:04 PM
Janette Kok said...: "One of the distinguishing characteristics of sitcoms, as opposed to other forms of television, is that the main protagonist(s) barely change from one episode to the next, let alone from season to season."

If they do change, that is called "jumping the shark."; 1/4/15, 9:24 PM
madAsHell said...: I couldn't finish reading the assignment. The writer kept pushing off. "I've discovered the formula, but first you need to know this."

So, obviously there is nothing to say. Yes, I do not watch television.; 1/4/15, 9:26 PM
Bob R said...: This is just the 22 minute version of Save the Cat.; 1/4/15, 9:29 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: All of these formulas for story writing -- including Campbell's -- ignore something that needs to be acknowledged: stories all have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Every single one of them, it's self-defining. Whenever we look at anything, even non-human, non-living things like cosmology, we still see a beginning, a middle, and an end, just like the human experience life. We can't not see it.; 1/4/15, 9:34 PM
Charlie Martin said...: Sigh. Yeah, and? Read, eg, Blake Snyder's _Save the Cat_. Of course, the same analysis can be done for most any opera, pretty nearly any symphony -- the "Unfinished" Symphony is known as that because it violates the conventions.

It seems like about once a year, someone "discovers" that there are repeatable patterns.

Next, how _Frozen_ is just like _Lion King_.; 1/4/15, 9:44 PM
Roughcoat said...: Joseph Campbell was right about the monomyth, but he was a thoroughly loathsome person: "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," in which he articulated the monomyth thesis, was also a vicious screed against Christianity and Judaism. He was blatantly anti-Semitic and made no bones about it.; 1/4/15, 10:43 PM
rcocean said...: Old 60s TV was very episodic. That's because no one had VCR's and you only saw a TV show once a week.

As for Joe Campbell he was very anti-Semitic yet beloved by Liberal Jews.

He was ironic.; 1/4/15, 11:07 PM
rcommal said...: WTF? From Seinfeld on?

As if. Yet another narrative revision designed to convince that discovered anew = cancels achieved before that.; 1/5/15, 12:23 AM
rcommal said...: Shorter: B.S.; 1/5/15, 12:24 AM
rcommal said...: It's no wonder that Noah Charney is discovering anew and thinking that it's new. LOL.; 1/5/15, 12:30 AM
rcommal said...: I am still chuckling. Remember when when all those shows referred to were seen as breaking new ground? (And not just that, but also breaking the old formulas, casting aside what came before?) Now, according to Mr. Noah Carney, those old shows are the new moldy, golden oldies the riffs on which can shine a light to a path for creating comedy, situational or otherwise.

Man. How rich.; 1/5/15, 1:19 AM
AlanKH said...: "There are Seven basic plots according to the article linked."

Or one basic plot, where Mel Gibson is involved: family member gets killed, kidnapped, assaulted, etc., Mel gets even.; 1/5/15, 1:44 AM
rcommal said...: Noah Charney is boring, and not only that. Alas.; 1/5/15, 1:45 AM
netmarcos said...: Decoded this as a child; that's why I find 95% of all sitcoms unwatchable.; 1/5/15, 9:09 AM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: Charlie Martin said...

It seems like about once a year, someone "discovers" that there are repeatable patterns.

Hey! I'm sensing a pattern here!; 1/5/15, 10:09 AM
Bryan C said...: When Noam Chomsky walks into a bar, does everybody turn and shout "Noam!" ?; 1/5/15, 11:18 AM
RonF said...: Really? He had to be asked to write a sitcom before he figured this out? I've been annoying my wife for 30 years by sitting and watching a sitcom with her and accurately predicting what the characters were going to say and do before they did it.

When she asks why I like to watch sports I tell her "Unlike most TV, you don't know what's actually going to happen before it actually does happen."; 1/5/15, 11:43 AM