No Laughing Matter

by Sam Denoff 

Okay. I’ve been asked to write a piece called Changes in Comedy, Then and Now. I didn’t like that title. So I changed it. I can do that. I’m in charge. I own the computer and the paper and the printer. And since I am the creator of this opus I should be in charge. I mean, that’s the way it should work. Well, at least that’s the way it used to work. Aye...there’s the rub. Ah yes, Shakespeare. Isn’t it great that our friend Willy is once again a big hit. A pretty funny guy when he wanted to be. However, I digress. But then, I always do.

At the outset let me assure that the following are not the ravings of an unhappy, non-working aging scribe. I am aging, quite gracefully, I might add, but I am working quite a lot and being paid handsomely for my scribbling. I have all the money I need unless I have to buy something. However I must confess that I am unhappy.

I am unhappy about what passes for comedy that we see on the screen today. The small screen to be precise. The process that takes one’s idea from concept to script to the television screen has changed so drastically that the creator is now, too often, just a highly paid stenographer.

There are dozens of brilliantly talented and funny young writers today who, I believe, given the chance, would give us shows of great quality and humor. When Bill Persky and I started out we were allowed to execute our ideas the way we conceived them. We worked, at first, under the tutelage of geniuses like Carl Reiner and Sheldon Leonard who insisted that we do it our way. That’s the way they learned how to do it from people like Jack Benny and Sid Caesar. Carl and Sheldon were gleefully passing the baton to us.

It no longer works that way. Have you recently been on the set of a situation comedy on the day of a cast reading or a run-through? It’s an awful spectacle. Literally dozens of people from the production company and the network converge on the stage like killer bees, buzzing with the expectation that they will take one look at the show and FIX IT! The fact that it may not need fixing is irrelevant. These people, who have never written a script or produced or directed anything besides traffic, are endowed by their superiors with the power to turn witty and intelligent ideas into half-hours filled with a mindless barrage of pointless jokes.

The Seinfeld show was hyped as being “about nothing.” That was not true; it was about friendship! Four people who loved each other and felt responsibility for each other’s welfare. That’s what made it work. Oh yes, and it was very funny. Most of what we see now is really about nothing.

A network recently announced the development of a new comedy that is so “out there” that if it were a feature film it would get an “R” rating. It’s going to use language, including George Carlin’s famous seven words, that has never before been heard on network television. It’s really going to “push the envelope,” they said. Well, without even seeing it I suggest they put it IN the envelope and send it really “out there” on the next mission to Mars. I have it on good authority that Martians would say that!

That really is the essence between then and now. Shows stayed on the air for years without once resorting to the use of blue material to get a laugh. Granted, we weren’t allowed to.  That was good because we were forced to actually be creative rather than going for the dirty joke. Today the producers are urged to fill their scripts with smarmy, sophomoric jokes using the euphemism of the day for all the private body parts as well as all the bodily functions, either done alone or with some other animal regardless of whether it has two legs or four. They feel that this will be appealing to the targeted demographic...young adults. So far it hasn’t worked very well. On the whole, the ratings are dreadful and shares are at an all-time low. Instead of just good story-telling, they use another device to try to grab the audience. At least once a season a series will do an episode on a subject like abortion, breast cancer, rape or the ever-popular drug addiction. Those are all fine for the dramas but not great stuff for comedy, folks!

I hope you’ve noticed that I have not raised my voice once during this discussion. That is unusual because I am very passionate about this subject. I love this business and I hate seeing it being dumbed down to near extinction. I swear, I was just interrupted in my typing by a close friend who is some thirty years my junior. He is a bright, talented writer/producer. He informed me that his latest pilot script was turned down because the star attached was in her fifties! I have read the script. It is terrific. It is bright, well-plotted, and very funny... grown-up funny and perfectly suited for the star’s talents. So, here is a guy who has executive produced several top network scenes, not yet forty, who is beginning to feel he is out of the loop. What the hell is going on here? Now I’m shouting. This is the kind of guy who gives us good, solid, funny stuff and they don’t want him to do what he does best. Instead they want a lot of attractive single people with only one purpose in mind... looking to get laid. Hey, so am I, but it’s not funny.

Back to the original topic... Changes in Comedy, Then and Now.

It was better! But don’t give up

Sam Denoff is the one you’ve heard about who writes clean and funny.