Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’ve got yet another Sitcom Potpourri, featuring brief commentary on a few short-lived series and picks for the episodes that I think best represent them. For this post, I selected three sitcoms that were also produced — like 30 Rock — by Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels’ company, Broadway Video. (And don’t worry — I’ve got a special pop-out planned later for Up All Night…)
THE TRACY MORGAN SHOW (Dec 2003 – Mar 2004, NBC)
Premise: A mechanic and his wife struggle to raise two precocious boys.
Cast: Tracy Morgan, Tamala Jones, Marc John Jefferies, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Katt Williams, Heavy D, John Witherspoon
Writers: David Israel & Jim O’Doherty, Alex Gregory & Peter Huyck, Bob Kushell, Tom J. Astle, Sally Lapiduss, Bernadette Luckett, Steve Joe & Greg Schaffer, Judah Miller & Murray Miller, Anthony Carter, Andy Glickman
Thoughts: The first aired sitcom produced by Broadway Video (in conjunction with Carsey-Werner) was this multi-cam vehicle for SNL alum and future 30 Rock star Tracy Morgan, trapping him in a fairly traditional MTM work-plus-home construct in which he goes back and forth from his middle-class apartment where he and his wife raise two mouthy, precocious boys, to the garage where he and his buddies work as auto mechanics. It’s a simple low-concept setup that puts all the burden on the characters and the ideas they help inspire. Fortunately, the scripts, led by scribes from 3rd Rock From The Sun, are humorous, and the cast is (for the most part) quite capable – the guys at Tracy’s garage are naturally comedic, and Tracy’s two sons at home, particularly the younger one played by Bobb’e J. Thompson (who’d again play Tracy’s son on 30 Rock) are hysterical. In fact, I’d go so far as to say Thompson – think: a sassier Rusty Hamer from Make Room For Daddy – steals the show, and indeed, it quickly becomes clear that home-set stories, or stories revolving around the family, have even more comic potential than those at Tracy’s work. The problem, unfortunately, is that, for as amusing as some of these players are, the series’ basic premise does not help spark any naturally great ideas, and nothing here storywise feels like something truly specific or unique to The Tracy Morgan Show and its characters. More importantly, as a vehicle for the crazy SNL star who’d later prove his brilliance again on 30 Rock, this show built around him never manages to showcase him well, eschewing centerpieces where his mad genius can be displayed (you know, like Martin was able to do for the similarly wild Martin Lawrence) in favor of formulaic domestic plots where he’s structurally forced into an anchoring, straight man role. Accordingly, while the show itself is comedically written – and some of the players (like Thompson) are a whole lot of fun – this isn’t a great sitcom, primarily because it leaves so much potential unfulfilled with its one-of-a-kind, truly hilarious star, who is never able to bring his special sensibilities into the situation or its episodic samples.
Episode Count: 18 episodes produced, 16 of which were broadcast. | Episodes Seen: All 18.
Key Episodes: #2: “Doctor? No!” (12/02/03)
#3: “Christmas” (12/04/03)
#6: “Coach Tracy” (01/06/04)
#14: “Class Clown” (03/06/04)
Why: #2 and #14 are some of the better showcases for the scene-stealing Bobb’e J. Thompson, while #3 and #6 come the closest to offering big comic moments with the kind of audacity motivated by and centered around the ethos of its otherwise underutilized star.
SONS & DAUGHTERS (Mar 2006 – Apr 2006, ABC)
Premise: A dysfunctional extended family lives close together in the same suburban enclave.
Cast: Fred Goss, Gillian Vigman, Jerry Lambert, Alison Quinn, Dee Wallace, Amanda Walsh, Eden Sher, Randy Wayne, Max Gail, Greg Pitts, Trevor Einhorn, Desmond Harrington, Noah Matthews, Nick Shafer, Lexi Jourden
Writers: Fred Goss & Nick Holly, Wil Calhoun, Justin Adler, Tom Huang, Jordana Arkin, Julie Bean
Thoughts: This frenetic hand-held single-cam about a large dysfunctional family was often compared at the time to Arrested Development, which shared a similar look and basic “large dysfunctional family” premise. But Sons & Daughters is more low-concept – there are no moguls facing legal troubles here — and both its stories and its characters reflect this fact, lacking the specifics of Arrested’s situation that helped cultivate a special ethos. No, this is basically just any ol’ extended family sitcom… made unique by the deliberately unpolished single-cam framing and the gimmicky selling point that it proudly advertises at the top of each episode: some of the dialogue is improvised! That’s right, just like Curb Your Enthusiasm (and other mid-‘00s sitcoms that turned to this gimmick to imply freshness via spontaneity, like Goss’ earlier Significant Others), Sons & Daughters was partly outlined/scripted and partly improvised. Obviously, it’s not nearly as funny as Curb – there are some funny people on it (Eden Sher, Max Gail, Dee Wallace, etc.), but no one is as well-defined as Larry David, and the character work is inconsistent as a result of improv’s inherent lack of deliberation, and that’s not great in this case because the premise is so low-concept that it needs more tangible things on which to grip. In fact, more than Arrested Development, I think the show Sons & Daughters most resembles is Modern Family, which came along three years later with a more similar low-concept design but an even funnier cast, and a much stronger command on how to craft precise, individualized leads – ultimately concocting an ensemble where everyone was distinct. And while that show also turned to a familiar single-cam framing – albeit, with added interviews (a vestige of the mockumentary form) – to similarly suggest both narrative realism and comic modernity, it wasn’t relying on that as its hook. No, the characters were always Modern Family’s main attraction. Here, the adjacent gimmick of improv seems to be the calling card – and naturally, that’s not ideal for a simple family show that needs its characters to shine. Now, I don’t want to sound too harsh – this isn’t bad; it’s affable and there are moments/elements that work (I’d say half the cast has potential)… it’s just that you can see better versions of this kind of show elsewhere.
Episode Count: 11 episodes produced, 10 of which were broadcast. | Episodes Seen: All 11.
Key Episode: #4: “BBQ Therapy” (03/14/06)
Why: There’s no standout entry, but #4 unites all the leads together at the same time and place, so you can really see the low-concept premise, and the basic character work, in full view.
MULANEY (Oct 2014 – Feb 2015, FOX)
Premise: A struggling comic who lives in New York with two roommates takes a job writing jokes for an eccentric game show host.
Cast: John Mulaney, Nasim Pedrad, Seaton Smith, Zack Pearlman, Elliott Gould, Martin Short
Writers: John Mulaney, Dan Mintz, Karey Dornetto, Justin Spitzer, Rachel Axler, Dan Levy, Marika Sawyer
Thoughts: This multi-cam vehicle for SNL writer John Mulaney was a deliberate throwback to the hangout comedies of the 1990s – particularly Friends and Seinfeld, the latter of which was a frequent point of comparison for critics, given Mulaney’s choice to similarly engage a semi-autobiographical premise about a titular comic who lives in a Manhattan apartment and hangs with his pals (with a standup set also gracing the top of every episode). Indeed, Mulaney – a lover of TV sitcoms – clearly respects this genre, and his familiar low-concept structure is as much an homage as it is a template. He also knows funny, adding real comic support via icons Elliot Gould and Martin Short (as the Mulaney character’s kooky neighbor and quirky boss, respectively), giving the show further bona fides as a wannabe-classic. Unfortunately, the obvious Seinfeld comparisons created a high bar that Mulaney was unable to clear in its brief life, especially during the mid-2010s, where single-cams had been the critically preferred form of sitcommery for nearly a decade, and many terrible multi-cams (from people like Chuck Lorre) had eroded trust in that setup, making it seem not just quaint and traditional, but clichéd and tacky as well… Now, I don’t think Mulaney is as bad as naysayers have said – the issue is more that it’s nondescript; its low-concept premise, even with the added “difficult game-show-host boss” wrinkle, craves more situational particulars on which to hang more personalized stories. To that point, I think it’s all somewhat loose and undefined intentionally — it wants to be Seinfeld: SO low-concept that a focus on minute, “everyday” trivia becomes part of the situation. Yet the episodic ideas themselves don’t reflect an originality or insight that makes this a fun choice. That is, there’s nothing equivalent to “stake outs” or “pony remarks” here – so the show never becomes reliably good at offering anything that audiences could favorably expect and consider a unique feature of Mulaney. Could it have found something eventually? Yes – after all, Seinfeld had a long warm-up. But, even in its first 13 episodes, Seinfeld already stood out from the crowd.
Episode Count: 13 episodes produced and broadcast. | Episodes Seen: All 13.
Key Episode: #8: “It’s A Wonderful Home Alone” (12/21/14)
Why: Mulaney’s one-sided beef with Macaulay Culkin is one of the only true specific comic details that the show ever uses within story – something that gives his character, and by proxy his sitcom, special color. It needed many more things like this.
Ultimately, I say forget Sons & Daughters and Mulaney, but enjoy a few clips of Bobb’e J. Thompson on The Tracy Morgan Show. And if you want more of my thoughts on short-lived forgotten sitcoms, pick up my new book — Great American Sitcoms of the 1950s, available now wherever books are sold. Also, be sure to check out my recent hour-long conversation about the book with subscriber Alan Greenstein on his podcast Support Our #Creatives.
Come back next week for another Wildcard! And stay tuned Tuesday for more 30 Rock!