There isn't a lot of great comedy work being done right now, though Louie on FX is hysterical.
I agree, comedy is too watered down these days. I miss shows like Roseanne and Married With Children that didn't care what people thought about them. They wouldn't be as funny today as they seemed back then, but at the time they were great. Louie is awesome, but doesn't get credit, because it has no real mainstream audience.
30 Rock is uneven, but by and large pretty good, I have professed my love for Cougartown elsewhere, and Community and Parks and Rec have both hit their strides nicely.
If not for Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock would have been cancelled years ago, he's the only funny one on the show, and I only watch it by accident these days. Alec Baldwin is just too lame for me to stomach.
I just don't get either BBT or TAAHM, at all. The delivery is canned, isn't there still a laugh track? Ugh. After being told by people I respect that TAAHM was hysterical, we tried for four episodes; we have a different sense of humor, I guess.
Like any show, they have good and bad episodes, they even had a couple of seasons that were horrible. But if you watch the first 2 seasons when Jake was like 9 years old, they are some of the funniest things ever put on tv. The laugh track is irritating as hell though, I've always hated that.
And El, I agree dramas aren't great on network TV these days, but you just missed Friday Night Lights, which was a GREAT show, Parenthood has its moments, and even the Good Wife is pretty good. You need to try Justified though. I am rewatching the first season now and it is a helluva show. Really, REALLY well done. Exciting, entertaining, thrilling, funny, etc. On AMC, Mad Men is at times, extraordinary. The Suitcase last year is one of the best hours of television I have ever experienced.
Whoa wait....you're a fan of The Good Wife and Cougartown? I'm worried about you, I believe we need an intervention
Oh, and Extreme, I never liked Seinfeld when it was on. My college roommate LOVED it, obsessed about it. I never got it. I find it more funny now than I did then, but still not my favorite (sorry everyone else).
Ok, you've redeemed yourself
I will give it to them that they have some funny characters, but it was such watered down safe comedy, and way too cheeky for e. I just never got the infatuation. Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards just aren't funny, and Jason Alexander is one of the actors who irritates me more than mos actors in tv history. I just couldn't get into it. My brother was addicted to it, but every show seemed like it was on a continuous loop, always the same thing week in and week out.
Cheers I love, but it's more of a nostalgia thing for me. I watched that growing up, and that's more about memories than it being a really great sitcom.
Cheers was ahead of my time by a few years, but the episodes I watched (the last 2 seasons) I didn't find more than slightly funny, and don't recall ever actually laughing when I watched it.
Friends? Meh. The first two seasons were really good, after that, not so much. My all time favorite sitcom may just be Scrubs (first 5-6 seasons). Huge Bill Lawrence fan, loved Spin City too (with Michael J Fox, NOT Charlie Sheen). And Sports Night is another all time fav.
Scrubs was comedy gold, and I still haven't got over that being gone. When I meet people who hated it, it just makes me wonder what the hell they were watching, it was hilarious. Spin City was awesome too, and I liked both versions. It was the first thing I ever saw Charlie Sheen in that I didn't hate him in.
(I will add the entire family likes Wipeout. But I rationalize and tell myself its a gameshow.)
I just saw that for the first time last week and have to admit that I laughed my ass off. Something about it just gets me, I loved it.
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