Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Sunday, 13 Dec 1992 00:30:38 CST
From: <U54778@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.tv.seinfeld
Subject: Re: THE CONTEST
 <sf9D45G00iV284Oe0b@andrew.cmu.edu> <92344.011555U54778@uicvm.uic.edu>
 <1992Dec9.204223.857@u.washington.edu>

In article <1992Dec9.204223.857@u.washington.edu>, xylorg@stein.u.washington.edu
(XyLoRg) says:
>
>In article <92344.011555U54778@uicvm.uic.edu> U54778@uicvm.uic.edu writes:
>>In article <sf9D45G00iV284Oe0b@andrew.cmu.edu>, "Richard W. Rees"
>><rr20+@andrew.cmu.edu> says:
>>>I vote "The Contest" the best premise of a sit-com in 1992.  I'll wager
>>>this has never been attempted in TV history.  Having Elaine enter what
>>
>> I strongly disagree.  I vote for it being the best and most hilarious
>>premise of a sit-com in the last 10 years.  And having Elaine enter into
>
>Just out of curiosity, why only 10 years?  What show beat it out in the early
>nineties?
>

I dunno, I really picked 10 years off the top of my head.  It's so hard to
choose best humourous sit-com episodes because humor is so personal and
unique.  I first think of certain shop routines of Palin/Cleese from Monty
Python but these are not sit-coms.  I next think of several episodes of
Soap, I would vote in.  There were, if not whole episodes, segments of
WKRP that I fondly remember.  But you see, immediately readers are going
to trash my picks and offer theirs.  I have a tendency towards absurdist
humor and what I choose would reflect this.  I find that Seinfeld and his
writers are seeing things from a deep pit of absurdity.  Even though, I
would think that a great amount of readers here would agree, some large
percentage would not.
And age is a factor.  If you had not grown up with
all the gyrations that the afternoon soaps went thru, an absurd comedy on
this tendency would probably only look silly to you.  The same goes for
WKRP.  Much comedy is rooted in it's social climate.  And this is the
reason for much annotation in classic comedic plays to help the reader
understand why this particular tidbit was so funny.
  Still there are timeless qualities and patterns which go back through the
ages.  One episode of WKRP had two threads running through it that smashed
head on in the middle of the episode.  One thread had Johnnie Fever, thinking
to help Jennifer stop Herb Tarlick's romantic advances by telling Herb that
Jennifer is really a man after a sex change operation.  The other thread
Is Andy and Arthur Carlson wringing their hands over how to tell Les Nesman
that he has been barred from the football shower room (as a reporter) because
he has been accused of being gay.  When all four meet in Carlson's office,
Arthur and Andy keep trying to broach the subject unsuccessfully and are
glad when Herb volunteers to tell Les.  Herb, thinking they have been talking
about Jennifer all this time, blurts out "Jennifer is a man" to everyone's
amazement.  Developed confusions of this sort go back to English and French
farces, if I am not mistaken.   I think of "The Importance of Being Earnest"
as an example.
  Again on WKRP, when Les asked why Johnie is trying to get others to let
him sleep over at their place, he replies, "They're fumigating at my
apartment house."  Les then asks, "What for?"  Johnie answers, "Lizards."
Les, after some thought, tells Johnie, "You know, you've got to cut down
on your drug input, John."
  Much of our appreciation of humor is based on what characters we come
to like in a personal sort of way.  As exemplified by the last vignettte,
some of the humor comes from coming to know and like the particular
character's image and viewpoint.  I'm 45.  I was in the crowd in front of
Hilton in 1968.  Johnnie Fever as a character is very familiar to me.
And very likable.  I know plenty of people who saw no humor in WKRP
because they didn't like the characters.
  I find that I have to watch a sit-com through several episodes before
I find the humor reaching me.  I have to come to know the characters first.
This includes Seinfeld.  I can count on one hand the number of people who
found Molly Dodd funny.  They usually rejected it because they found her
too whinny.  I found the dropping of a laugh track, heavy handed doses of
NYC centered humor and the sharpest, most full bodied etching of
individual absurd characters, not just hilarious but deeply hilarious.
I don't find the depth that Dodd went into character humor in anything else
that comes to mind.
  I don't think that I'm easy, either.  I find most of what passes as
sit-com humor to be terrible.  Mostly trash. I feel that I'm attracted
to either an original point of view or a finely tuned appreciation of
standard humorous patterns.  I found reruns of Dick Van Dyke funny even
though their story lines could probably been found on cave paintiings
made by early man.  The humor was in watching excellect actors, perfect
in timing and nuance act out sketches as old as the hills.  I didn't find
MTM particulary funny but it had it's moments such as the Clown's Death
episode because they played against character.
  BTW, I also find Northern Exposure funny.  I don't mind their underlying
thread of philosophical preaching.  I find the individual characters as
seen from the script writer's eyes as being quite humorous and at times
very absurd.  Marilyn, vocalizing the least of all the characters, is the
funniest in the way the others bounce their views off of her.  I find the
binding of the oldest and the youngest cast members in a hot romance
particularly absurdist in these times of Politically Correct behavior.
Maggie, as the perfect foil to Joel's rational world view, is very funny.
I will admit that all this context is dealt with very gently.  It does not
have the edge or the quickness that Seinfeld has, which I find very
bracing and energizing.
  Which is what I would expect most humor from NYC to have in its makeup, i.e.
Molly Dodd, New Yorker Magazine, all the New Journalism advocates, movie
"After Hours", etc.
(OH No, again, I'm going to get my butt kicked by the "NY thing police".
Will I never learn?)

  As an exercise in finding what the humor background and overall mood of
those who find Seinfeld funny, maybe those interested would like to
either trash or support me with what they have found funny throughout their
lives of exposure to TV?  What did you cut your humor teeth on that has
brought you to read and write to this newsgroup?
ALAN ROGERS