American television sitcoms

Title Television is a universal idea, for decades it has brought family, friends, and all sorts of relationships to come together. However, television can vary from country to country. What may be popular in one part of the world, might not even be aired on another. America and Britain are usually paired with one another when discussing ideas about the world, because they contain so many similarities. Throughout the course of my time here, I have discovered, although that is not the case when it comes to television. From sitcoms to game shows to just about all the little nitty details, there are quite a few differences when it comes to American versus British television. As far as television goes, throughout its history sitcoms have always…

The Effects of The Simpsons Sitcom on Humanity The Simpsons sitcom has been the longest running leading animated series with over twenty-seven seasons in 2015 and counting. Not only does The Simpsons have just about fifteen million fans in America, but the sitcom is also viewed by nearly sixty million people across the globe. Yet, The Simpsons did not start out with popularity and acceptance. With the first airing of The Simpsons in 1989 by the FOX network, the show was immediately criticized…

During the “Golden Age of Television,” which lasted from 1950-1970, America underwent a number of ideological and social changes, many of which can be found both on the television screen and in real life. Two sitcoms in particular exemplify these changes. Beulah, which was one of the first television shows to feature a black protagonist, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show which highlighted a career driven single women living in the city. Between the twenty year intermission between the makings of…

Today, television is an incredibly large part of basic American culture, with many people’s lives revolving completely around the little screens, or sometimes large, that dominate nearly every single living room in the modern family’s home. But, in the late 1940s, when TV was first introduced, this wasn’t the case. Television has always been on a rollercoaster between fads, and new technologies introduced throughout the decades. But one of the overall most influential decades for the television…

Leave it to Beaver vs. Last Man Standing: A Compare and Contrast The structure and topic selected for this paper is a compare and contrast of two family sitcoms, “Leave it to Beaver”, from the 1950’s, and “Last Man Standing”, from present day. Throughout this paper we will compare the similarities and differences in the plot of the shows, the values they present, the structure of the families, and the roles they play. In addition, we will determine application of the sociological concepts of…

(“TV History”). Hal Kanter was not the only American thinking the same thing. Today, television eats away at the average person’s life. For example, the average person working a full time job works around forty hours a week, which is the same amount of hours the average person spends watching television a week (Rowels)! However, watching TV did not used to be so consuming in everyday life. Television programming has undergone a chance since television’s invention. The idea of television came…

Battle of the Sitcoms The sitcom industry has been dominated by the British since 1946, when their first sitcom aired. Since then the empire of sitcom writing has been dominated by the British. British sitcoms, or Britcoms, have developed through every era since then; each one bringing new hit sitcoms and catchy, illustrious moments. Some of the more famous Britcoms include: Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, The Good Life (Good Neighbors) and Are You Being Served? Because…

the longest-running sitcom in the history of television was The Jeffersons. The Jefferson family owned a chain of dry-cleaning businesses. From the help of their business, the African American family was able to “move on up” to a fancy uptown apartment. (Garrison- The Evolution) This show changed the stereotype that most Americans had that all African Americans were poor. The show not only proved to Americans that African Americans can be successful, but it also featured an interracial couple.…

The hit television show The Jeffersons was an outstanding spinoff from the series All in the Family. The Jeffersons features George and Louise Jefferson a newly rich African American family living in Manhattan. The television show was based off the family dry cleaning business, Jeffersons Cleaners which eventually grew into a small chain business. The success from the family business allowed George, Louise and their son Lionel to move to a “deluxe apartment in the sky”. The television series The…

There is no doubt that Americans love to watch television and spend hours of time on their phones. In the article “Television”, Jeff Ousborne states “Over the last sixty years, no pop culture medium has done more to shape American life than television” (243). Instead of comprising a daily schedule before, now it is a schedule of a favorite show. Not having at least one television set in homes these days is unheard of. If we are greatly interested in a t.v. series, we will spend a great deal of…