A Funny Sort of History

Stories from the history of comedy

  • The Golden Girls – No Gimmicks (Part 2)

    The Golden Girls – No Gimmicks (Part 2)

    In the last article, I described how a simple skit had evolved into a pitch for a sitcom. The setup was simplicity itself: four women all over the age of fifty sharing a house in…

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  • The Golden Girls – No Gimmicks (Part 1)

    The Golden Girls – No Gimmicks (Part 1)

    The world of sitcom is big and filled with a diverse range of shows. Writers and producers can be forgiven for wanting to stand out from the crowd and coming up with original situations, unexplored…

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  • Sitcoms

    Sitcoms

    It’s a good thing that I’ve talked mainly about sketches over the last few weeks. That’s because sketches share some things in common with the subject of this article, situation comedies (a.k.a sitcoms). Consequently you…

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  • You Are Now Leaving Sketch Land

    I’ve spent the last few weeks focusing mainly on sketch comedy, so I think it’s to depart from that and move onto some other topics. That’s not to say I won’t discuss sketches again in…

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  • SNL: Black Jeopardy with Tom Hanks – Joyfully Making a Point

    SNL: Black Jeopardy with Tom Hanks – Joyfully Making a Point

    In recent articles, I’ve written about the basic elements of comedy sketches and also about subtlety in political and satirical sketches. In this article, I’m going to incorporate what I wrote into an analysis of…

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