Sitcoms

Latest Articles

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

An uninspired sit-com packed with Hollywood stars
It’s a light entertainment that can cash in with election-weary audiences.
By BRETT MICHEL | November 05, 2008

Um, Dianne Wilkerson and Sonia Chang-Díaz? Meet the Socialist Workers Party candidate who’s running for your Second Suffolk Senate District seat.
With his frosty hair, necktie, and wire glasses, William Leonard resembles Barry Bostwick, the actor who played Mayor Randall M. Winston Jr. on the sitcom Spin City .
By CHRIS FARAONE | October 22, 2008

Sight unseen

The fall TV season flies without pilots
Hollywood writers are no longer walking picket lines, but their 14-week shutdown of TV production reverberates through the 2008-’09 fall season.
By JOYCE MILLMAN | September 11, 2008

Control freaks

Get Smart dumbs down
Back in the ’60s, those crafty cranks Mel Brooks and Buck Henry spun the red-scare spook biz into a sit-com full of wit and absurdity featuring rival agencies KAOS and Control.
By TOM MEEK | June 17, 2008

Flight of the Concords

Sub Pop
Given my choice of late-night HBO comedy series about foul-mouthed acoustic duos with inflated senses of self-importance, I’ll take Tenacious D over Flight of the Conchords every time.
By MIKAEL WOOD | April 29, 2008

Clips ahoy

The treasures of Hulu.com
This past February, Tina Fey returned to host Saturday Night Live and announced, in mock triumph, that the Writers Guild of America had struck a deal with the studios that would pay them for on-line content.
By MIKE MILIARD | April 22, 2008

Pop in a hard place

Black Dice’s Load Blown
The norms Black Dice resist are significant and strong and worth resisting.
By NICK SYLVESTER | January 10, 2008

Uncertain Fey-t

30 Rock gives it another go
This time last year, who would have guessed that Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip would be dead by Emmy time and Tina Fey’s 30 Rock would be an Emmy winner?
By MIKE MILIARD | September 25, 2007

BBC America?

The networks put some English on the fall TV season
The British are coming! And they have American accents!
By JOYCE MILLMAN | September 12, 2007

Potty mouth

Louis C.K. has a filthy good time
Shamelessness has finally paid off for Louis C.K.
By TED DROZDOWSKI | June 25, 2007

World without end

David Lynch’s dark and fertile film
By the time it got to the anthropomorphic bunnies acting out a sit-com to a laugh track (or are they donkeys? subscribe to www.davidlynch.com to learn more), I knew that Inland Empire was David Lynch at his most seductive and a film I’d be thinking about for a lot more than the rest of the afternoon. Watch the trailer for Inland Empire (YouTube) Say ‘cheese’: Milking Laura Dern’s performance. By Peter Keough
By PETER KEOUGH | December 07, 2006

Thursday night live

Fey and Baldwin Rock the house
Tina Fey, ex-head writer of Saturday Night Live , has created a sitcom that takes viewers behind-the-scenes of a SNL -style sketch comedy show. And turns out her show is funnier than the real thing.
By RYAN STEWART | December 05, 2006

Reinas/Queens

Women of a certain age
Manuel Gómez Pereira’s ensemble comedy about five mothers and their sons the day before the young men are set to be married as part of Spain’s first legal gay marriage ceremony sends out whispers of Pedro Almodóvar. Watch the trailer for Queens (QuickTime)
By NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 20, 2006

Crossword: 'Five letter shuffle'

Mix it up

By MATT JONES | August 09, 2006

The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green

Not the comic strip
Eric Orner, creator of the underground comic strip on which this film is based, has said that he’s always envisioned the strip as an animated sit-com. Watch the trailer for The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green (QuickTime)
By NINA MACLAUGHLIN | July 19, 2006