sitcoms-related stories
Posted Nov 10th 2009 1:28PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Reality-Free, The Big Bang Theory
So last night I sat down for some laughs with the CBS Monday night sitcom lineup. It's a weekly thing I do with my spouse, a chance to get away from the computer screen and just relax for a while. Normally, I relish this time because -- for the most part -- I love 75% of the shows from eight o'clock till
CSI: Miami. (I usually empty the dishwasher during
Accidentally on Purpose, sort of half-watching it because, as I've said before, it's just not working for me.)
Well, it seemed like last night's CBS comedies went off the rails. They strained to be funny, in all the wrong ways. Here are my thoughts, show by show -- including
Accidentally (which I did watch):
Continue reading Monday's CBS sitcoms went off the rails last night
Posted Oct 27th 2009 6:06PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Reality-Free
Everybody has a love/hate relationship with TV Land these days. We love that they still show sitcoms like
The Andy Griffith Show and we like the idea of TV Land, but we also hate that movies and reality shows seem to be taking over the network.
But now
the network has announced that they are actually going to be creating their own sitcoms. The first two are
Retired at 35, which is about a businessman who visits his parents' Florida retirement home and decides to stay, and the second is from Sean Hayes (
Will & Grace) and
Frasier writer Suzanne Martin and called
Hot in Cleveland. It centers around a group of Los Angeles women who move to Cleveland.
Hey, look, I'm all for any type of programming on TV Land that doesn't involve a-hole high school reunion members yelling at each other or cougars in a hot tub.
Posted Sep 29th 2009 9:00AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Reality-Free
Has the loss of
Pushing Daisies left a big gaping hole in your heart? Are you wishing you could get ABC for pushing such quality programming off the air? Do you have some kind of blueprint involved in said wish with images clearly marked "rented van," "unlocked security door" and "army of heavily armed Mexican banditos"?
Well, call off your henchmen because one of the show's chief creators has something new and improved on his hands that you might like.
Barry Sonnenfeld, the executive producer of
Pushing Daises, is shopping around a new supernatural show that doesn't sound as deep or detailed as
Daises, but could be just as fun.
Continue reading Pushing Daisies chief pushing new superhero sitcom
Posted Jul 10th 2009 9:03AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Reality-Free
Napoleon Dynamite lead Jon Heder will star in a new Comedy Central sitcom written and produced via Will Ferrell's Gary Sanchez Productions.
Heder exploded onto the entertainment scene when
Dynamite made more than $40 million on the indie movie circuit after costing less than a million to produce. He went on to star opposite Ferrell in the less funny figure skating movie,
Blades of Glory.
Now Ferrell will shepherd Heder's first TV venture.
The show doesn't have a title yet, but it reportedly feature Heder as "an out-of-work IT specialist who leaves the city and returns to his small hometown to live with his parents and younger brother."
Continue reading Napoleon Dynamite's Heder heading up new sitcom
Posted Jul 9th 2009 4:31PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, Programming, Reality-Free
Is
Lifetime still "Television For Women?" I know that's not the official slogan anymore, but are the programs more geared towards people with female body parts than male body parts?
The network has grabbed the rights to CBS'
The New Adventures of Old Christine. They'll show all of the older episodes of the show as well as new episodes after they air on CBS. The show will start airing on the network starting in the fall of 2010.
Continue reading Christine's new and old adventures will be seen on Lifetime
Posted Jun 22nd 2009 10:08AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free
This isn't some random thought I suddenly had this morning, it's actually in response to
AOL Television's list of the 40 best TV shows of the 1970s.
The Odd Couple, one of the great, laugh-out-loud comedies of all-time, comes in at number 21, while
The Brady Bunch comes in at number 15. Sometimes shows can't be judged the same (for example, comedy vs. drama or drama vs. animated), but come on,
The Brady Bunch so far ahead of
The Odd Couple?
I don't think I'm giving anything away by revealing that shows like
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
M*A*S*H, and
All in the Family are at the top, but there are a few entries that you and your friends can argue about.
Posted Apr 20th 2009 9:05AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Reality-Free
Yup, it's that time of year again, the week when we're supposed to shut off our TVs (and computers, I assume) and go outside and get some fresh air, maybe eat a salad.
I mention this every year, and it has gotten to the point where it would be ridiculous to give the opposing viewpoints yet again (but you can read them
here and
here). Suffice to say, we think you should leave your TV on this week (and in September - there's a
TV Turn-Off Week then, too - when the new fall season starts!). If you don't, you're going to miss some cool stuff.
Continue reading It's TV Turn-Off Week (yes, again)
Posted Apr 17th 2009 3:11PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Web, Reality-Free
I'm going to assume that one of the big reasons why you can now watch full episodes of
various TV shows on YouTube is because of the success of sites like
Hulu and
AOL Video. There have been a lot of TV shows and movies uploaded to YouTube, often in hard-to-navigate "parts," with bad sound. But YouTube has made deals with several networks/studios, including Sony, CBS, Showtime, and Discovery to show full length, legal copies of many TV shows.
It's a fair collection, including current shows like
Harper's Island,
Jimmy Kimmel Live,
As The World Turns,
Man vs. Wild,
Mythbusters, along with classic shows like
Bewitched,
MacGyver,
Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
Barney Miller,
I Spy,
I Dream of Jeannie, and many others. It's not the selection you'll find on Hulu, but it's OK (and I'm sure the list will grow). I just wonder if it's enough to get people to drift away from other video sites.
It's not glitch-free, however. Take a look at
this and
this and tell me what the heck they have to do with
The Dick Van Dyke Show. Only five episodes of the show on there and two of them aren't even from the show.
Posted Mar 23rd 2009 2:10PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: TV Royalty, TV on DVD, Reality-Free
Actually, it's not every season of every show that Norman Lear produced and/or created. That would probably take two UPS trucks to deliver and a spare bedroom to store. But this sounds like an interesting collection nonetheless.
On June 9, Sony will release
The Norman Lear Collection, a 19-disc set that will include the first seasons of the shows that Norman Lear did over the years, including
All in the Family,
Sanford and Son,
The Jeffersons,
Maude,
One Day At A Time,
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and
Good Times. The set will include lots of bonus material, including new interviews with people like Rob Reiner and Jimmie Walker, along with the two unseen pilots for
All in the Family,
Those Were The Days and
And Justice For All (in the original pilot, the Bunkers' last name was actually Justice).
Continue reading How would you like all of Norman Lear's shows in one DVD box set?
Posted Mar 3rd 2009 1:28PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free, The Big Bang Theory
How happy is
Chuck Lorre this morning? I'd say on a scale of one-to-ten, he's an eleven. According to reports,
CBS wants more of its Chuck Lorre sitcoms. In particular, they're talking three years more of
Two and a Half Men and at least two for
The Big Bang Theory.
While other shows sweat out the word of renewal or cancellation, Mr. Lorre seems to be CBS's prime time player they count on the most. Okay, second-most.
Jerry Bruckheimer is numero uno with the
CSI franchises,
Without A Trace, Cold Case, Eleventh Hour and
The Amazing Race.
Continue reading CBS sticking with Men and Big Bang
Posted Jan 22nd 2009 10:56AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Game Show, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
If you watch a lot of TV like I do, you often go through patterns. You'll drift away from a show for many months or even years, and then you start watching an episode one night and find yourself watching the show on a regular basis again (I'm talking about watching the shows on TV, not DVD). Here are a list of shows that I've found myself watching again recently, usually at 1 in the morning when I should be in bed.
1. Home Improvement. What a good show this was, and the type of show you don't see much of anymore, a sitcom shot on video in front of a live audience (most filmed-before-a-live-audience sitcoms today, like
Gary Unmarried and
Old Christine, have that film look). I think a lot of people dismiss this show because it was about a guy who was more into cars and tools than reading and emotion, but the show was a lot deeper than that.
Continue reading Five shows I've been watching again lately
Posted Jan 18th 2009 3:03PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, Programming, Desperate Housewives, Scrubs, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
The network that brought you
Family Matters,
Cavemen and is still bringing you the parade of unfunny that is
According to Jim wants to bring the sitcom back to its rightful throne on the airwaves.
ABC made a solemn vow to bring back more hit, half-hour sitcoms to the airwaves starting with the new TV season, according to
Variety.
The network's heads made their announcement at last week's Television Critics Association gathering.
Continue reading ABC vows to bring funny back
Posted Jan 7th 2009 6:06PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Casting, Reality-Free
Do you think there are times when Patricia Heaton wishes she was still working on
Everybody Loves Raymond? What about Kelsey Grammer...don't you think there are days when he reflects on how lucky he was to have played Frasier Crane first on
Cheers then on
Frasier all those years, winning awards and having job security, critical acclaim, the knowledge that you were at the top of your game? That's not to say that either Patty or Kelsey are not on the top of their game now, but the failure of Fox's
Back to You last season must have been a shock to the system.
Now they're both working on new sitcom projects and hoping for the best.
Scrubs' Neil Flynn has joined Patricia Heaton in The Middles, an ABC sitcom pilot about a middle-class family living in middle America struggling in these tough economic times. They have three kids, too, just like the set up in
Everybody Loves Raymond. Meanwhile,
Kelsey Grammer's also doing comedy for ABC. The network has ordered a Grammer pilot about a corporate big shot who tries to reconnect with his estranged family.
Continue reading Grammer and Heaton: back to TV
Posted Dec 29th 2008 11:03AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, The Simpsons, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, The Dick Van Dyke Show
The TV neighbor has served many useful roles over the years; some that many thought had been lost by the unrelenting sands of time.
They've become the great modern philosopher like Wilson, the evolving thinker like Bill Dauterive, the bearer of bad news like Newman, and even the court jester -- as long as you don't count one of these guys.
Not only would we not want some of them living next door to us, we wouldn't want them living. Period. These are the annoying next-door neighbors who should have been run out by the Neighborhood Homeowners' Association with torches and pitchforks.
Continue reading Nine least-wanted TV neighbors - VIDEOS
Posted Aug 20th 2008 2:04PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Awards, Emmys, Reality-Free
We're used to reading all of the lists that rank the best and worst TV shows of all-time, now ABC is getting even more specific than that.
What are the top moments in television history?
You can vote for them at the ABC site and your answers will be revealed on the 60th Primetime
Emmy Awards, which will be broadcast on Sunday, September 21. There are two categories, comedy and drama (sorry fans of game shows and reality shows). No, you can't write in your own vote, you have to pick from the finalists that they've already chosen for you, so right off the bat you know there's going to be a lot of "but what about..." and "why did they include..." talk.
Continue reading What are the top moments in TV history?
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