NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Television comedy

Television comedy had a presence from the earliest days of broadcasting. Among the earliest BBC programmes in the 1930s was Starlight, which offered a series of guests from the music hall era — singers and comedians amongst them. Similarly, many early American television programs were variety shows including the Texaco Star Theater featuring Milton Berle; comedy acts often taken from vaudeville were staples of such shows. The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GBÂ£4 billion... Starlight was an early British television programme, one of the first regular series to be shown on the BBC Television Service in the 1930s. ... Music Hall is a form of British theatrical entertainment which reached its peak of popularity between 1850 and 1960. ... Texaco Star Theater, a comedy-variety show (radio, 1940-49; television, 1949-56), was one of the first hugely successful examples of U.S. television broadcasting. ... Milton Berle (July 12, 1908 - March 27, 2002) was an American comedian who was born Milton Berlinger according to his birth certificate. ... Comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humour with an intent to provoke[[ laughter in general). ... Vaudeville is a style of multi-act theatre which flourished in North America from the 1880s through the 1920s. ...

The range of television comedy is extremely broad to the extent that anything under the heading comedy can be put before an audience through the medium of television. However, it is true to say that certain genres of comedy transfer to the small screen more successfully than others. Comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humour with an intent to provoke[[ laughter in general). ... A genre is any of the traditional divisions of art forms from a single field of activity into various kinds according to criteria particular to that form. ...

1 Situation comedy
2 Sketch comedy
3 Stand-up comedy
4 Improvisational comedy
5 Animated cartoon
6 Gameshow comedy
7 See also
8 External links
9 Further readings

Situation comedy

Main article: Situation comedy

The situation comedy, or sitcom, has been the most common, successful and culturally significant type of television comedy. As the name suggests, these programs feature recurring characters placed in humorous situations. Since the early 1950s with I Love Lucy in the US and Hancock's Half Hour in Britain, sitcoms have always had a special place in the hearts of viewers and gathered highly devoted followers, as the familiar characters often become beloved. Often performed before a live audience (or, in some cases, a simulated live audience in the form of a laugh track), sitcoms are seldom presented as realistic depictions of life but often generate honest humor through the relationships between and ongoing development of characters. Since the debut of I Love Lucy television has never been without sitcoms and they have often been the most popular and lucrative of all program types. Even in the early 2000s, the cast of the NBC sitcom Friends were among television's highest paid performers and The Office has captured the British public's imagination on a large scale. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... // Recovering from World War II and its aftermath, the economic miracle emerged in West Germany and Italy. ... I Love Lucy, a CBS television sitcom that aired in the 1950s, was the most popular American sitcom of its generation and an unprecedented phenomenon -- in its second season, for example, its average ratings were a never-surpassed record of nearly seventy percent, compared to about 30 percent for the... Hancocks Half Hour was a famous BBC radio comedy series of the 1950s starring Tony Hancock. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... NBC (an acronym for National Broadcasting Company) is an American television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York Citys Rockefeller Center. ... Friends. ... The main cast of The Office UK The Office is the title of two television situation comedy shows created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. ...

Sketch comedy

Main article: Sketch comedy

Sketch comedy programs differ from sitcoms in that they do not generally feature recurring characters (though some characters and scenarios may be repeated) and often draw upon current events and emphasize satire over character development. Sketch comedy was pioneered by Sid Caesar, whose Your Show of Shows debuted in 1950 and established many conventions of the genre. American sketch comedy reached a later peak in the mid-1970s with the debut of Saturday Night Live, originally a variety program but soon devoted mostly to sketches. In the UK, two of the more successful examples are Monty Python's Flying Circus and Little Britain. This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... 1867 edition of the satirical magazine Punch, a British satirical magazine, ground-breaking on popular literature satire. ... Sid Caesar (born Isaac Sidney Caesar on September 8, 1922) is an Emmy-winning comic actor and writer, best known as the leading man on the 1950s television sketch comedy series Your Show of Shows. ... Your Show of Shows was a live sketch comedy television series appearing weekly in the United States, from 1950 until June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. ... Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late night 90-minute American comedy-variety show based in New York City which has been broadcast live by NBC on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975. ... This article discusses the series itself. ... Little Britain is a character-based BBC radio and television sketch show written by and starring Matt Lucas and David Walliams. ...

Stand-up comedy

Main article: Stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy has been fairly well represented on television. Stand-up comedians have long been a staple of variety and late-night talk shows; indeed, talk-variety shows such as The Tonight Show traditionally open with a comedy monologue performed by the program host. Television stand-up reached a peak of popularity on British schedules with the immensely popular ITV programme The Comedians. Their style of comedy was swept away almost entirely in the Britain of the early 1980s when a new generation of stand-ups challenged what they saw as racist and sexist humour and revolutionised the form under the banner alternative comedy. In the US, stand-up comedy programs became popular on many cable television channels beginning in the mid-1980s, as such "brick wall" shows (nicknamed for the stereotypical use of a fake brick wall as a backdrop) were cheap to produce and air. Stand-up humour later had mixed fortunes on the small screen, often shunted away to the small hours or as part of a larger entertainment extravaganza. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... It has been suggested that Channel 3 (UK) be merged into this article or section. ... NOTE: This article does not refer to the Graham Greene novel The Comedians. The Comedians is a British television show from the 1970s (later reprised in the 1980s) which gave a stage to nightclub and working mens club comedians of the era, including Stan Boardman, Frank Carson, and Bernard... The 1980s refers to the years of and between 1980 and 1989. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Coaxial cable is often used to transmit cable television into the house. ...

Improvisational comedy

Main article: Improvisational comedy

Improvisational comedy has recently been popular with television audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably with both British and American versions of the program Whose Line is it Anyway?. Improvisational comedy (also called improv) is comedy that is performed with a little to no predetermination of subject matter and structure. ... Whose Line Is It Anyway? (sometimes abbreviated to Whose Line?) is a short form improvisational comedy show. ...

Animated cartoon

Main article: Animated cartoon

Animated cartoons have long been a source of comedy on television. Early children's programming often recycled theatrical cartoons; later, low-budget animation produced especially for television dominated Saturday-morning network programming in the US. A few prime-time animated comedies, notably The Flintstones and The Simpsons, successfully mixed attributes of traditional cartoons and sitcoms. An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn (or made with computers to look similar to something hand-drawn) film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot (even if it is a very short one). ... The Flintstones is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. ... Simpsons redirects here. ...

In addition to broad comedy program types, comedy often appears on television in much more subtle forms. Comedy is often a necessary part of other programming, particularly drama. Attempts at mixing comedy and drama in various combinations (sometimes known as dramedy) have been attempted over time. This does not cite its references or sources. ... Dramedy, a portmanteau of drama and comedy, is a genre of movies and television in which the lines between these very different genres were blurred. ...

Gameshow comedy

There are many UK comedies in which the format is that of a gameshow, and may give the guests a chance to perform stand up comedy to win a round. Examples of the genre include Have I Got News For You, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Mock the Week. This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... 8 Out of 10 Cats is a comedy panel game made by Zeppotron (a subsidiary of Endemol) for Channel 4. ... Mock the Week is a British topical panel game, hosted by Dara Ã“ Briain. ...

External links

A History of Comedy on Television: Beginning to 1970 - by Richard F. Taflinger
A Bibliography of Books and Articles about television comedy - UC Berkeley Libraries

Contents

Situation comedy var ACE_AR = {Site: '756743', Size: '300250'};