Sitcom Plots

1. Character A overhears character B's conversation with character C and misinterprets it to mean that character D is pregnant/dead/gay/the result of a sex-change/richer than he really is/poorer than he really is/in love with character A/in hate with character A/or some other equally silly idea. Character A then totally over reacts to this knowledge and "hilarity" ensues. I think every second _Three's Company_ episode used this plot.

• Relatives come to visit.

• Wife wants to get a job.

4. Husband/Wife thinks wife/husband is having an affair, develops elaborate scheme to catch her/him in the act. It turns out to be something innocent.

5. Wife/kid breaks/kills something and tries to find something to replace it.

And now for some blathering: I don't think using these plots or others like them is the kiss of death for a show. Some shows like _The Simpsons_ or _I Love Lucy_ have so much going for them in sight gags and comic characters that the plot isn't all that makes the show.

Then there are shows which essentially had the same plot every episode, only with variations on it.

1. Three's Company -- somebody misunderstands the roommates' living arrangements.

2. Bosom Buddies -- the two men have to come up with a scheme to prove that they are women.

stuff deleted

And when they have squeezed out even the well known sitcom plots they make either a compilation of the best scenes from previous episodes or they create a dream episode. The dream episode is the worst case and a sure sign that the show is going down the drain ... :-)

Don't let this get in the hands of the alt.tv.simpsons people :-)

Ciao jh

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

   |\/\/\/|      Office:                         Private:

   \      _)     Germany - 3300 Braunschweig     Phone: +49 5300 / 67 14
    | ,___|      Phone: +49 531 / 391-5555
    |   /        FAX:   +49 531 / 391-5549
   /____\        EMAIL: C0031018 @ DBSTU1.EARN
  /      \              c0031018 @ dbstu1.rz.tu-bs.de (134.169.1.1)

In article [email] (Johannes Heyer) writes:

stuff deleted

   And when they have squeezed out even the well known sitcom plots they
   make either a compilation of the best scenes from previous episodes
   or they create a dream episode. The dream episode is the worst case and
   a sure sign that the show is going down the drain ... :-)

An even surer sign of a sitcom's decline is the introduction, by adoption, of a cute little kid. Kids by pregnancy seem to be a lot rarer and don't suffer this problem. The notable exception to this is My Three Sons, which went for quite a while after the adoption of Ernie.

i don't know if this one was brought up, but in the old TAXI series, the cabbies collectively bought (or tried to buy) paintings because they had an inside tip on the artist's failing health. oh, no jr. mints were involved...

If you saw Computer Chronicles this week, you saw a demo of a program that prompts you with questions about how you are developing your characters in your story as you write it, and another program that offers thousands of plot-advancing ideas from literature as you move along writing a story. So expect ideas to be even less original in the future. My approach to writing (for performance art) is to try to report what I saw happen in as much detail as I can. Tom Janzen

I thought that this software was for people writing novels, not sitcoms...

===============================================================================
Matt Brockman                                           [email]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    "While a llama may produce some of the world's finest of wools, prized
        around the world, their breath, on the other hand, could only
            be prized somewhere in the far reaches of llama hell."
===============================================================================

In Family Ties it was Skippy and Mallory. In Night Court someone was in the elevator giving birth. I think there was a storm and they lost power. In Gimmie-A-Break Nell and her fat friends got stuck in an elevator. I remember watching her look at the weight capacity sign. There're were a about six of them in there. She added her weight and one of her friend's and she said "OH, BOY!" or something to that effect.

Elevators are popular to get stuck.

J. Pacella

writes:

there was >a storm and they lost power....

Dan also got stuck in an elevator with a gay male (he was only in this particular episode). The guy thought Dan was gay before they got into the elevator.

alim

Taxi: Latka stuck in a car with a woman during a snowstorm- they make love to stay warm and survive. Latka's wife (name?) knows this the instant she looks in his eyes. Great Taxi episode.

While we're on the subject of "trapped" episodes....

"Perfect Strangers" had one where everyone was locked in the basement, but this one had a twist. The basement was flooding!

I'm sure there's more...this one just came to mind reading this subject thread.

Sorry, you're mistaken. It was EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of Three's Company!

I liked your list of overused ideas, though.

Family Ties (Mallory and Skippy were locked in the basement and at least one of them was wearing a chipmunk suit.) I can't remember whether they showed clips or not. Also, my friend tells me that on Diff'rent Strokes, Arnold and Willis were locked in the attic, and they did indeed show clips! And on 227 they were locked in a store.

This has also been done to death on every soap opera there is, not too surprisingly.

Amanda

Wait, i thought cheers was nothing but characters trapped in a basement!

What about the episode of "Magnum P.I." when Tom Selleck and Carol Burnett are trapped in a bank safe? Also I remember an episode of the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" when "Will" and his girlfriend are trapped in the basement? "Gilligan's Island" need I say more?!

Mad About You, had the couple locked in the bathroom. You have to be educated in America to not know how to get out of a bathroom when the doorknob has come off. It's happened to me, I got out both times. Tom -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas E. Janzen 58A School Street #2-L Hudson, MA 01749-2518 USA (508)562-1295 [email] Looking for work, C (some C++) VMS (some **IX) AmigaDOS, s/w engineering. See me in "Readings in Computer-Generated Music" from IEEE Computer Society Press 1992, ed. Denis Baggi, and probably in June 93 C User's Journal for deconvolution. __________________________________________________________________________

If you want a show with an obvious plot, how about "Double Trouble" (I saw it this weekend on the USA network)? It's about a pair of twins, and I think every episode dealt with some supposedly funny situation that happened because people got the two twins mixed up.

I never watched it when it was originally on, but I don't think they ever got stuck in an elevator.... :-)

[email] (Ted Schuerzinger) writes:

Point of trivia: the twin sisters on that show are, in real life, the sisters of actress Katy Segal, who plays the wife on "Married With Children".

In [email] (Roy Eassa) writes:

Another Point of trivia: the mother on the show is the actress who plays "Jill" on Home Improvement.

How about Gilligan's Island? It wasn't a *room*, but the whole series was made with the same basic idea; that these seven people were trapped together, with nobody ever coming around to rescue them...

-Nathan Ng

--- Via UCI v1.21 (C-Net Amiga)