Robert David Sullivan

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 88: "Greenzo," 30 Rock

88. "Greenzo," 30 Rock (2007)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here.

Looking at this episode nearly five years after it first aired, I'm struck by how funny Kenneth is when he's genuinely angry, as opposed to grinning like an idiot even when he tells his friends that the world is ending and they're all going to hell. I don't know why the 30 Rock writers seem so reluctant to bring back Pissed Off Kenneth when he was in one of the show's best episodes.

"Greenzo" has a lot of stuff that I normally don't care for in sitcoms. It's got three unconnected storylines (which all happen to be good), stunt casting (all clever, including David Schwimmer basically telling Today Show host Meredith Viera to shut up), and a bunch of gratuituous cutaway gags (but who can resist a campaign ad warning of Hillary Clinton's plan for an "all-homosexual" army?). Even the jazzy incidental music, so often a stand-in for a laugh track on single-camera sitcoms, actually works to build comic momentum in "Greenzo," especially in the run-up to Kenneth's disastrous party.

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 89: "Big Brother," Yes, Minister

89. "Big Brother," Yes, Minister (1980)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here.

Yes, Minister is one reason I was never wild about the far more idealistic American drama The West Wing. The British satire, which pits well-meaning but rather cowardly cabinet minister Jim Hacker against red tape and bureaucracy, can be enjoyed by those on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson would see it as proof that the government is a bloated, slow-moving creature whose only purpose is to suck up more and more money. But to Leslie Knope, the lesson of the sitcom would be that government needs energetic reformers (like herself) to shake the old boys' network out of its torpor.

In an echo of the previous episode on this list ("Daphne's Room"), "Big Brother" deals, at least tangentally, with privacy issues. Hacker, new to the cabinet, is saddled with the implementation of a "national database" with details on every citizen — much like Facebook without the cat avatars. He's flummoxed when a TV interviewer inquires about safeguards against the leaking of personal information (quotes from TV.com):

Jim: I'm glad you asked me that question, because... It's a question a lot of people are asking. And why? Because a lot of people want to know the answer to it... and let's be quite clear about this, without beating about the bush, the plain fact of the matter is... that it's a very important question indeed and people have a right to know.
Interviewer: Minister, we haven't yet had the answer.  
Jim: I'm sorry, what was the question?

Blogging update: Sitcoms, politics, and anything else you're interested in

My blog posts may be shorter this week, since I have deadlines for the freelance work that actually provides me with an income (writing and editing on public policy matters). But I welcome new readers and will try to keep the Top 100 Sitcom Episodes countdown proceeding on schedule.

Older readers of the blog may wonder what happened to posts on politics, urban life, Boston, and the like. There will be some more political posts as we get closer to the fall (like my 100-year charts and my piece on "What Each State Does Best in Presidential Politics"). Other stuff depends on my work schedule and my success rate at finding interesting experiences.

Please comment or e-mail if you have suggestions, questions, rebuttals, etc. Thanks for reading!

 

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 90: "Daphne's Room," Frasier

90. "Daphne's Room," Frasier (1995)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here. NOTE: Thanks to the A.V. Club's Todd VanDerWerff for tweeting about the project!

At least half of all sitcoms are primarily concerned with how people share households without "driving each other crazy." In the 1950s, this was kind of boring, since most sitcoms were about married couples, usually with young kids, and writers couldn't have the characters go at each other's throats because Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? hadn't been written yet and couldn't be parodied. And even Edward Albee didn't put child actors in his play.

Plot possibilities grew enormously as more and more sitcoms featured grown children still living at home (like Steptoe/Sanford and Son and All in the Family) and, then, completely unrelated adults (like The Odd Couple). There was more comic tension because the characters could threaten to move out, and the very survival of the household was at stake in many episodes. And as sitcoms got more risque (from Three's Company to Friends), writers could add all kinds of plots involving sexual tension and jealousy. Funnily enough, America has evolved to become more like the modern sitcom, with more and more households that include adults of different generations.

Another vote for multi-camera sitcoms

The groundswell for a return to decently written multi-camera sitcoms continues with the A.V. Club's Joel Keller, who contributed to a forum on "magic pop-culture wishes":

When a show like Frasier or Everybody Loves Raymond comes along, the comedy seems so natural and effortless that it’s easy to forget the show is being done in front of an audience. Thanks to CBS, TV Land, and—surprisingly—Disney and Nick, the format is far from dead. But with more writers coming up who were “raised” on web shorts, Adult Swim, and single-camera shows like The Office, the legions who were students of the multi-camera form are starting to disappear.

Sadly, President Obama completely ignored the shortage of good multi-camera sitcom writers in his State of the Union address.

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 91: "The New Car," The Odd Couple

91. "The New Car," The Odd Couple (1973)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here. 

"The New Car" is what I call a Twonky episode, named after the 1953 schlock film about a new TV set that terrorizes its owner (see clip at bottom of post). In our last post, we learned from sitcoms that changing one's appearance is a bad idea. This time, the lesson is that adding any object bigger than a breadbox to one's household is a bad idea, and the object must be banished by the end of the episode.

It's happened with a motorcycle on The Dick Van Dyke Show, "Barney's First Car" on The Andy Griffith Show, a fish tank on Everybody Loves Raymond, and a piano on Will & Grace. It even happened with a $2,000 toilet on Raising Hope. (I thought the Chance Family deserved to keep that one; it's not like it messed up the set design of the show.)

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 92: "Big Haas and Little Falsie," Designing Women

92. "Big Haas and Little Falsie," Designing Women (1988)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here. 

Most of us try to change our appearance from time to time. We try to look younger or sexier or more self-confident, or we just want to see something different in the mirror.

Sitcom characters have the same impulse. But because they're expected to end each episode looking the same as they did at the beginning (unless amputation by sea mammal is involved), their self-improvement efforts are almost always disastrous. The lesson is that we should be happy with the way we are — which is odd, considering all the commercials between scenes that tell us the opposite.

A dye job is maybe the most common method sitcom characters use to change their image (see the examples of Archie Bunker and Laura Petrie at the end of this post), but Designing Women got a little more daring with "Big Haas and Little Falsie," in which Mary Jo considers getting breast implants. "Big breasts are always looking down on us little breasts," she complains to Julia, who isn't crazy about being included in the latter category.

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time: Shows that didn't make it, A-Z

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here. 

I have been asked by acquaintances whether certain sitcoms are going to show up on my Top 100. It would be no fun to list all the shows that made it, but I can let you know some of the ones that fell short:

Are You Being Served? I’d probably enjoy a cabaret act with the characters of Mr. Humphries and Mrs. Slocombe. But when I’m sober, I get my fill of pussy-based double entendres pretty quickly. 

Bewitched. Samantha isn’t a witch; she’s as omnipotent as God. And she doesn’t age, so she’s just playing at being a housewife for the mortal equivalent of five minutes. None of this would matter if it were fun to watch her drive people insane. It isn’t. 

Corner Gas. Some people think this is the greatest of all Canadian sitcoms. There are no Canadian sitcoms on the Top 100 Episodes list.

Diff’rent Strokes. Nope, not even the one with WKRP’s Mr. Carlson as a pedophile.

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 93: "Seinfeld," Curb Your Enthusiasm

93. "Seinfeld," Curb Your Enthusiasm (2009)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here. 

Many of my favorite sitcom episodes are characterized by their hitting just the right tone before the closing music swells up, and that's certainly the case here, with Larry and Cheryl's reconciliation interrupted by his obsession with "respecting wood" (literal wood, not Big Bang Theory wood). If forgetting to use a coaster can break up friendships and marriages, I wonder if any wars have been started over rings on summit tables. 

This is one of the most tightly structured episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Though the dialogue still seems improvisational, there are stakes here (Larry's plan to win back Cheryl's affections by casting her in the Seinfeld reunion show), as opposed to the many episodes where misunderstandings simply pile up on one another. Not that there's anything wrong with those episodes...

Top 100 sitcom episodes: Sorry, "King of the Hill"

I decided to exclude animated series from my Top 100 Sitcom Episodes list, but if I had to make an exception it would be for King of the Hill. Not because it's necessarily the best animated comedy but because it's the closest to a live-action sitcom sensibility. Some of the scripts are easily up to All in the Family, Cheers, etc. in terms of character development and dialogue. (Though King cleverly takes advantage of its animated format as well, as I wrote back in its younger days in 1999.)

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 94: "The Librarian," Barney Miller

94. "The Librarian," Barney Miller (1981)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for winter 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here and an introduction to the project is here. 

Barney Miller is one of the strongest arguments against watching a sitcom from the beginning (Parks and Recreation is another). The first season of the New York City cop sitcom isn't terrible, but the show doesn't have a voice yet, and it tries too hard to channel the multicultural shouting matches of Norman Lear shows like All in the Family and Sanford and Son. It also leans too heavily on ethnic (and gay) stereotypes, and its breakout character — Abe Vigoda's broken-down Sgt. Fish — is overused and given too many repetitive jokes, like a Saturday Night Live character. (Vigoda also mugs for the camera to a distracting degree, but it's possible he was directed that way, as the show's answer to Happy Days's Fonzie or Good Times's J.J.)

Did I mention that Barney Miller is one of my favorite shows of all time?

100 years of presidential election trends in the 10 biggest states

I don't expect to be blogging that much about campaign tactics or psychoanalyzing the presidential candidates this year, as there are plenty of other people to do that. (Of course, like Donald Trump, I will accept the will of the people if they demand that I serve.) But I hope to continue writing about political geography, as in my "What Each State Does Best in Presidential Politics" post. (I may have to revise that South Carolina entry.)

One thing that fascinates me is the geographic bases for each party have shifted so much over the past century. If you compare two close elections almost 100 years apart — 1916 and 2004 — you find pretty much a 180-degree turn, with 40 of the 48 states (no Alaska or Hawaii in 1916) switching parties.

The charts below show how the (currently) 10 largest states have shifted allegiances since 1900. For each state, I showed how much it varied from the national percentage for the Democratic Party in each election. I also charted the growth in the number of voters in each state, since new voters are often responsible for party switches (as opposed to voters moving from one party to another).

This is a work in progress, so any suggestions on chart design and data are welcome. At some point, I hope to break down individual states to show how major counties have shifted over the past 112 years.

BTW, you can find the voting statistics behind the charts at the fantastic Atlas of U.S. Elections.