Sitcom Tropes

Brilliant!

At least one cast member will get so bloated from booze and drugs, that you are shocked at how cute they were when you see a photo of the original cast.

At least one cast member will lose so much weight from coke and other drugs that you are shocked at how cute they were when you see a photo of the original cast.

A character will have a previously undisclosed gambling addiction, and after feeling confident they can now control their gambling they'll fall back in deep. Rest of cast will be shocked and helpful.

Same scenario as above, only this time it's smoking. Character will be caught with a lit cigarette and try to conceal it when caught.

One of the core male cast will find himself in circumstances at work or a social event where he appears to be gay and hilarity ensues as he tried to correct this without seeming homophobic.

One of the core male cast will take a cock up the arse.

A female character mulls a boob job.

this would have been a better "Lets be a sitcom trope" thread!

The least conventional character has the most unexpected insights.

Every light know to man is always on in their homes no matter the time of day.

At some point an entire vacation will be cancelled at the very last minute due to something funny or romantic. They will wait until they are at the airport so you know they will never get a refund on that flight.

The front door is always slammed when the enter. Must be a Sitcom rule.

Holidays can never be just ordinary boring affairs. There always have to be some bizarre and out-of-the-ordinary incidences and events happen on those days.

For that matter R10 characters routinely fumble around at night without flipping on a lamp yet an unexpected middle of night comment in bed requires a light on to be turned on.

F4 also a quicky stubbed out cig never leaves lingering odor. Someone can be sneaking a puff in one room but in the living room no one can smell it. Reality is that the stench would be noticed immediately.

Everyone sits at one side of the dinner table (e.g., Golden Girls).

In high school shows, when they go off to college they all attend the same college

It's funny this should be mentioned here. I've been hitting 1970s sitcoms pretty heavily over the last several months, and thought a lot about how for a long time, there was a "box set" of tropes & episode plots everyone used.

Camping, Bowling, ATM Malfunction...etc.

The shortest character gets the funniest lines.

[quote]-The token ethnic character(s). Thankfully this is changing--finally--and we have shows like 'Insecure' and 'Atlanta'.

There were several long-running, all-black cast, network sitcoms in the '80s and '90s: Why do people forget that?

e.g.,

THE COSBY SHOW (1984-1992)

227 (1985-1990)

AMEN (1986-1991)

A DIFFERENT WORLD (1987-1993)

FAMILY MATTERS (1989-1997)

THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR (1990-1996)

MARTIN (1992-1997)

HANGIN' WITH MR. COOPER (1992-1997)

LIVING SINGLE (1993-1998)

Huge mugs of coffee that are quite obviously empty. Also, in Friends did they ever go out for drinks or just coffee? I thought that was weird for a group of singles in NY.

R18, how DARE you bring those shows up!!

You are RACIST!!!!

All the extras in the bar are the same every week.

I had a regular gig for one season in a bar set that was in almost every episode.

The show got canceled, but I hoped if it had gone on a few years, I would have had a steady gig and then maybe be given a line or two someday.

Onward and upward

Another one I just thought of...the actors who play high school kids being waaaaay too old for the roles. This has also gotten better in recent years, it seems.

A pregnancy test is needed, hilarity ensues

In the last two weeks (not kidding):

*

Ann got her finger stuck in the kitchen faucet

Ann got her big toe stuck in a bowling ball

Laura got her big toe stuck in the bathtub faucet

Ricky thought he was going bald

Rob thought he was going bald

This will but Matthew Perry a week’s supply of OxyContin

The main teen sitcom character invariably has two friends: one who is beyond dim-witted and another who gets the other two in trouble by convincing them to do something risky like use fake ids or sneak into a celebrity's hotel room. Hijinks followed by a morality lesson ensue.

Nobody’s couch is ever against a wall. It’s always in the middle of the room.

R27, nobody moves my furniture!!!

It looks like a main cast member will leave due to a job transfer/new start/family obligation but at the last minute stay put.

OP is just projecting [italic]Friends'[/italic] flaws onto shows that are actually funny.

not Op, but these tropes, flaws whatever can make a show good or boring and predictable; it's all in the executiion.

casting is key...I read Nichollette Sheridan was up for the role of Grace; I can't picture that show with her over Debra Messing, who made Grace both selfish and sympathetic and funny

I see Nichollette and I can't get Paige out of my head.

[quote]The cast always hangs out at the same coffee shoppe/bar/restaurant. Either those locales or the main character's abode host any special event, whether it be a baby shower, a fundraiser, or a holiday party.

OP, there's a reason they're called situation comedies; they're premised around a situation, usually a family unit, or a social or professional unit that functions like a family. So it's not an accident that the settings stay consistent from week to week; these are the physical representations of the "situation."

Imagine Seinfeld, but instead of 50% of it being in Jerry's apartment and 25% at the diner, it was split evenly between the 4 lead's apartments and we never saw the diner. Would it have come together the same way? Hardly. It would be a much different show, and the dynamics of the characters and their relationships to each other would be altered greatly.

Also, you do realize one feature of sitcoms and their enduring presence on TV schedules is that they are cheap to produce? Keeping the weekly action to a small number of recurring and reusable sets obviously keeps the cost down.

[quote]Everyone sits at one side of the dinner table (e.g., Golden Girls).

I was impressed with Malcolm in the Middle because it was the first TV show I saw that everyone sat around the entire table!

R33 Malcolm in the Middle was a single-camera sitcom, which is shot like a movie.

Multi-camera sitcoms like Golden Girls were taped (or filmed) like a play with an audience. These types of sitcoms, which are ever so rare now, often sat characters like that for the benefit of the live audience.

I’m intrigued by the 3 males one females core group that manages to propel long running shows. Seinfeld really set the bar high at the start, but then there’s Big Bang Theory (Raj is really a fifth wheel), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Letter Kenny.

- two adversarial characters end up being locked in an enclosed space (e.g., attic, basement, elevator) where they get to know each other better and realize they actually like each other... only for things to go back to the way things were in the next episode.

- two or more main characters having to sit for a baby overnight, resulting in the duo/trio/quartet singing to the baby to get it to stop crying/go to sleep and getting carried away. Someone usually walks in on them looking foolish.

Neighbors never, NEVER, knock before walking in.

I don't know how Ricky got Lucy pregnant because the Mertzes were always walking in. I guess when they were having sex, they just said, "Sit down and have a cigarette, we'll be done in a minute."

Maids were always comic relief.

Hazel

Alice

Mrs. Garrett

Florence

Hilarity ensues when the characters decide they need to get in shape for something and join an exercise class.

Obviously empty prop containers. For god's sake, the coffee cups don't have to be filled with piping hot liquid up to the brim. Just fill them with cool water so they [italic]look[/italic] and behave like they're is actually liquid inside.

OP should get tenure.

One of the main characters dating a doppelganger of another main character they have the hots for. However, only their friends and others notice the similarities.

[quote] The main character(s) nearly always learn a heartfelt lesson at the end of each ep. It usually involves something along the lines of family and friends are more important than money, status, or material possessions.

What? When has this been a trope unless it was Full House? Certainly not true of Friends, Seinfeld, Roseanne, Frasier, Will and Grace, Golden Girls, Small Wonder, Family Ties, Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, Malcolm in the Middle, Call Me Kat, or any modern sitcom of the last 30 years.

The poor character becomes the black character becomes the ethnic character becomes the gay character becomes the trans character...

Someone's birthday is forgotten, or at least pretended to have been.

R31 Messing was perfect as Grace . By the same measure I can't picture anyone but Sheridan as Edie. Too bad that her and Marc Cherry had such a beef, the show was dreary after she left.

[quote]The main character(s) nearly always learn a heartfelt lesson at the end of each ep.

Related to this is a central notion that no character may get ahead of himself or his station. He may not change, progress, or regress in any fundamental way, and, more importantly: his station in life is fixed.

The friends he had when he was 6-years-old? He is stuck with then for life.

Though the average American moves 11.7 times in his lifetime, the average sitcom character Nevers moves from his parents' house, or next door or the old neighborhood maybe. If he is young and living among a circle of young friend, he may live in the city - but not so far that parents can't pop by on short notice.

If he wins the lottery/luck's into some outrageous windfall, dates someone rich, gets an important and lucrative job he must give the money to charity, realize that he's better dating within his own economic class, or take a job as a teacher or a gritty public defender or a social worker. These are the limits of his movement above his financial station (none.)

One of adult characters mother is always a cliche rich, waspy, cocktail sipping narcissistic bitch. Who can never refrain from using withering one liners to put down their child. And the character will always say something like " this is why I've been in therapy for twenty years".

Fuck off R48. Not all of us are mothers.

Now, I thought we talked about that caftan?

r46 I always thought Sheridan brought a certain hardness to the role that I didn't particularly like. At the time I wondered what Heather Locklear would have been like in the role and preferred Vanessa Williams when she arrived as Renee

This...

And this...

If the sitcom is set in a work environment, the main characters have no other friends outside of work. Characters in work place sitcoms only socialize with their colleagues and invite all their colleagues to their homes and weddings.

And those wedding and celebrations are usually held at the workplace. CHEERS even had a bris at the bar after Frasier and Lillith's baby was born.

The annoying neighbor who no ever tells the get fuck out of the house.

R15, speaking of high school shows, some kid that’s always dealing with “life’s” issues and never seen studying after 8 years, I mean seasons, of high school are somehow near the top of their class.

Also, the popular girl who shops, does her hair each morning, and probably skipped school during some dramatic character arch, is also the salutatorian and never held accountable for her absence. She only had dreams of going to an Ivy League school. She and every one of their main friends will end up at the local public college. Gossip girl was one of the worst at this.

They bust their asses at an elite private school, were somehow at the top of their class, but doesn’t even end up at least going to Columbia. Instead, they got to NYU. That’s just not realistic.

[quote] There were several long-running, all-black cast, network sitcoms in the '80s and '90s: Why do people forget that?

The way you forgot the 50s?

The KIngfish was one of the better characters in early 50s sitcoms.

“Honey, can I see you in the kitchen?” (Couple walks five feet away from the character they want to talk about.)

The studio audience explodes into cheers and applause when a guest star appears though it is certain that the audience have already seen this person on set before the take.