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Sitcoms Part I · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: heart radio. Stuff you should know is recorded in front
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: of a live studio audience. Hey, and welcome to the PODCAST.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh and there's chuck and this is stuff you
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: should know. The WHAMOBAMO double episode about Sitcoms, probably the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: most important thing in any of our lives. Uh. Yeah,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: this is sort of our homage to the, more specifically
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the American Multi Camera Studio Audience Sitcom, even though we're
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about other forms of the genre. Yeah,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the Brits come up here, there maybe a Keywi appearance
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: and uh, and what we're gonna try to do, everybody,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is do this Sitcom Style and record to thirty minute episodes.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they're gonna be twenty two minutes
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: including the ads, but that would be that would be
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a stroke of genius. But we're gonna do our best,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: which means we're probably not gonna do a listener mail.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Then let's get right to it, right. Yeah, let's we're
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: talking sitcoms and just right out of the gate we
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: should explain what a Sitcom is. Everybody knows what a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Sitcom is, but if you stop and think about the word.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It's actually a Portmanteau of situation and comedy. A Sitcom,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that's right, uh, and it's a very you know ed
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: helped us put this together. It. It is definitely Portmanteau
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: that some studio executive no doubt came up with, because
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: it's kind of dumb, sounding like it's a comedy about
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a situation. You know what I'm saying? I do know
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: what you're saying, but at the same time I think
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it actually does aptly described sitcoms, because every Sitcom, the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: basis of it is you have your main characters in
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: some sort of dilemma situation and then by the end
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: of the episode that dilemma situation is resolved. The situation
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: is resolved. A Sitcom generally yeah, uh, and it looks
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: like that people in the industry. We're using this term,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: maybe even back in the radio days of the nineteen fifties,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: because it comes up in print kind of for the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: public's eyeballs in early nineteen sixty four. Uh, for the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: best we can tell, in life magazine and the Chicago Tribune,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: where they talk about what a Sitcom is and kind
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of have to explain it to the two people, but
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: they do indicate that it's it's sort of been used
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: as industry uh slang for a little while. Right, exactly. So, Um,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: there are certain things that do like make a Sitcom
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: a Sitcom, and you know, they started out as very
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: basic and then kind of built along the way and then,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: as you know, writers UH started to come of age
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: having grown up on Sitcoms, they learned to kind of
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: play with the format more and more and create all
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: sorts of different takes on sitcoms. But there are some
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: basic structures to basically every sitcom that's ever existed. Yeah,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and this is kind of fun because, like Ed nailed
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of this and some stuff. As a Sitcom Guy,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, not quite right, I'm so nervous. Now
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I know he did a great job, though. Well, first
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: of all, he points out that it's a comedy. Of
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: course it's Um sort of the obvious one. They are
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a half hour long, which is why these episodes will
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: be a half hour long. Yeah, I chuck. I looked
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: for one hour Sitcom and it just does not exist.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: The closest I saw was love boat, and I don't
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: know if you could really call love boat to Sitcom.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I think love boat defied genre. It's something it definitely did.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: For sure, from what I saw, was the only one
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: hour show that had a laugh track. Okay, well, yeah,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the laugh track. I think you can look forward to
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the shorty on Wednesday, right. Yeah, definitely all about the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: laugh track. Uh. So, the situation, and again these are generalizations.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: The form has been tweaked and subverted over the years,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: but it is almost always about a smallish group of people. Um,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: not always a family, but many, many times it's a family.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's a group of friends. Obviously that the UH
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: workplace comedy is going to be colleagues, but many, many sitcoms,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: especially in the Hadaia Sitcoms, were about families. Yeah, and Um,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the basic structure, from what I saw, the minimum essentially
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: is four you you want to have four characters and
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: there's actually a set of types for those four characters.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: There's the hero, the Anti Hero, the love interest in
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the buddy, and this pops up everywhere, from married with
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: children to Seinfeld. But then obviously, of course people have
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: toyed with that because there were six friends. I think
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: there were six characters. On how I met your mother.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: There's a bunch of them on Big Bang theory. The
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Simpsons are far and away one of the best sitcoms
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: ever and they have myriad characters who can have their
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: own episodes based on them. So, for in the family, though,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that's true. So so that seems to be kind of
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the nucleus that everything else grows from. As far as
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: the number of CA yeah, I was looking back at
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the fourth thing and it is interesting because you look
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: at Seinfeld and all in the family. I Love Lucy
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: had the two couples. The honeymooners had the two couples.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I think Dick Van Dyke had two couples as well. Well,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: he had himself and Laura Petrie's wife, Mary Tyler Moore,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: and then he had Rosemarie, I can't remember what her
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: character's name was, and then I can't remember what. So
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: he worked with a woman and a man and they
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: formed the other two characters. Right, right, right. They weren't
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: a couple, though, right, no, they weren't. They were just buddies.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: All right, it's been a while since I've seen that,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: but they all had sex with each other. Right. Well, yeah,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: in every episode they would end. It got really graphic,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: especially for the fifth you think got very weird. Uh.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: As far as the format goes, there is UH, like
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: if you're a screenwriter or you're reading a script of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: a of a Sitcom. I mean scripts are formulaic no
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: matter what, but Sitcom scripts are really, really formulaic, uh,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: in that they are twenty two minutes long. The there's
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: an a storyline, which is, you know, sort of the
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: main plot of that episode. Uh, and then you have
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: at least a B storyline, Um, and sometimes that's it,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: but sometimes you'll have c storylines, maybe even a D storyline.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: But kind of traditionally you've got an a and a
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: B and Ed points out that, and he's kind of
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: right in some ways, that generally the storylines are resolved
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: in each episode. But over the years that really sort
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: of fluctuated as far as you had running plot lines
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: that would last kind of a season, whether it's are
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: this character and that character going to get together or
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: one might get pregnant and so that season sort of
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: has a recurring storyline about them having a baby. But
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: generally what you wanted in a Sitcom was to be
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: able to watch them in any order and still enjoy
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: the show. Yeah, like if you if you watch any
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: episode of Gilligan's island or Mr ed or even the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Adams family. Like there's you can watch them in any
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: order and there every episode is going to make sense
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: because they were generally designed to stand alone, featuring the
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: same characters and the way that they do that. I
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: saw there's two TV tropes associated with this chuck. One
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: is the reset button, which is where that dilemma or
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: situation that characters are put in becomes fully resolved by
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the end of the episode and things go back to normal.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: That's the reset button. Then there's a snap back where
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: things aren't necessarily resolved, but in the next, next episode
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: everything's back to normal regardless, as if nothing happened previously. Yeah,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I mean occasionally he might hear a reference, but sitcoms
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: are famous, like you never heard Arnold and Willis in
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: subsequent seasons saying Hey, remember that time we were almost molested?
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: That was crazy. Yeah, they don't reference that stuff. No,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: and then we'll get a little more into like those
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: kind of serious episodes of Sitcoms, because those were landmark
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: episodes for a reason. But the reset is is a
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: pretty funny trope, I think, totally Um and then there's
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: really a big distinction in how they're shot. There's really
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: two ways that they're shot and they're they're kind of
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: wrapped up, or there named, I should say, by the
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: original ways that these sitcoms were shot, and they're called, Um,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: one camera or three camera, and you would think that
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: three camera would seem like the more innovative, expansive kind
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: of sitcomment. Is Actually the opposite. The three camera one
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: is what the traditional Sitcom is, is filmed, is right. Yeah,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and they kind of say multi camera these days. But
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: if you're talking about the old school live in front
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: of a studio audience, uh, what you have is this,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and I have to bring up the fact that I
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: was on one. I was on dear John, I was
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: on one too. Were you really well? So if you
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: should know, yeah, alr, I guess I was on two then. UH, yeah, well,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: ours was. We'll talk about ours in a minute. But Um,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: if you're talking the live in front of a studio
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: audience thing, what you have is very long, wide stage
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: with bleachers where people sit, and then in front of
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: that you have usually two or three permanent sets, uh,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: and what's called a swing set, which they would bring
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: in each week. So what's the swing set. Well, on
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: like let's say cheers, would have always, of course, the
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: bar and then like Sam's office, were probably permanent sets
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and a swing set might be like if that episode
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: they dined out at a restaurant or something like that.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: So it's something that you could like. It's kind of generic.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: You could strip down and repurpose it in many different ways. Yeah,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and they bring in these set walls and redress them,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: but like let's say Seinfeld, obviously would be Jerry's apartment
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and the diner would be the permanent sets and if,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: like the season where George worked for the Yankees, his
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: his office set would be a swing set. That would
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: be just sort of stored and wheeled off and preserved,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: because you want to you don't want to have to
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Redo all that stuff every time. But sometimes it was
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: just like one week only it would be like an
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: antique shop or something. Or in my case on dear John,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: it was a restaurant, uh that I played a bus
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: boy in, and I was texting with my brother, actually,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Scott has a you know, he worked on dear John
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and had a lot of experience on some of these shows,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and he said there were always at least two permanent sets.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: He said some shows had as many as four. I
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: think he thought UH was one with Charlie Sheen that
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I never watched. UH, two and a half men? Yeah,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I think he said two and a half men had
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: what he thought was four permanent sets, and it all
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: kind of depended on how big these the stages were,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: where they shot it, Um, and also how how well
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: funded the the show was too. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Uh.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: And then like something like Seinfeld, they all the street
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: scenes and stuff like that. They shot those on the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: adjacent backlots and in when they shot the real shows, uh,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: in front of an audience, they would they would show
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: those bits on the TV screen while they're like changing over,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: just so the audience would sort of be able to
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: all along. Oh, Gotcha. Okay, so we'll talk a little
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: more about the different camera setups. Right. That just that
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: distinguished the two basically the two types of sitcoms. A
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: little more in a minute. But do you want to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: talk about the origins of Sitcoms? Yeah, should we take
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a break, like Sitcom style? Okay, let's do it. We'll
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: be right back after this word from Ben Gay. I
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: want to learn about a terrestortic college for it Actyl,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: how to take the perfect but with all about fractals,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: think it's gone. That's a hun the Lizzie border murders,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and again I've all runs on the plane. Everything we
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: should know. Word up, Jerry George. Okay, we're back and
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: we're talking sitcoms and everybody thinks TV when you think
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: of Sitcoms, but it turns out that sitcoms have their
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: origin further back in that uh on, in radio, and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: actually it goes even further back than that to Vaudeville.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: But the first even contours of a Sitcom is found
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: in a radio show called Sam and Henry, which became
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: much more famous after it changed its name to Amos
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and Andy, and a lot of people say that was
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: probably the first Sitcom because it had recurring characters. There
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: were situations that the characters were put in catch phrases.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: That's another big, you know, kind of trademark of of sitcoms.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: If you can get America saying like one of your
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: characters saying to one another like you've got a hit
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: show on your hands. You know, get a load of him.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: It was always something dumb like that, I guess. Oh Yeah, definitely,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: uh like Sanford and son had to be Elizabeth. I'm
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: coming to join you, are you big dummy, you big dummy.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Oh Man, I love that Joe so much. Yeah, it's
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: a good show, I believe some I mean there's you
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: talked to different people about sort of what the first
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: sitcoms were and you're gonna get some different answers. Uh.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: One is certainly going to be one called fiber, McGee
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and molly, and it had again, all the ingredients that
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: you might think of as like typically Sitcom, although that
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: was a radio show that only had a brief appearance
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: on television. Uh, and he had shows like the honeymooners,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of course, one called Mary Kay and Johnny H that
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of people say was the first Sitcom. That's
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: where I put my money. Yeah, but when you ask
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of people what really broke it open as
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: far as the genre goes, I think most people will
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: say I love Lucy for sure, which I think debutede
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: and it changed everything. Is We'll talk about in a second.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: But we have to shout out pin rights progress, which
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: was a BBC Sitcom that air did nineteen six so
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: it beat Mary Kay and Johnny by a year. But
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: no one knows what it's about because no one, no
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: one preserved any of the episodes. Yeah, it's funny. It
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: seems like the UK and the United States are far
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and away the leaders in the genre, because I did
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: look at other countries. It's never been that big in Australia.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I mean there are examples, of course, but the UK
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and the US just ate it up for some reason. Yeah,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it's like dueling banjos. Yeah, who's the guitar player and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: WHO's the Banjo player? I think it changes from time
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to time depending on the quality of the shows put out.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: But I said something check that I think is really
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: important pin rights progress. I it's probably a falsity to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: say that no one knows what it is about, but
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I don't believe there's anyone alive, probably never heard of it,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: who's seen it. I hadn't heard of it either. The
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: reason why no one's seen it is because in the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: early days of television, we're talking like the late forties,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: um even mid forties, they would just broadcast the thing
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: live and you sat down in front of your TV
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and you watched that thing and it never existed again.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: It's kind of thing that. Yeah, our friend Alex from
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: ephemeral has probably done an episode on this kind the thing. Yeah,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: great show, by the way. Everyone should check that out.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: But that's how they that's how they made shows originally right.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And then finally they're like, okay, we've got two coasts here.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Most TV shows were broadcast in New York, filmed in
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: New York live, but you know, they were at like
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: say eight pm on a Friday, and most Angelino's in
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: San Franciscan's didn't want to rush home from work to catch,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the latest Um Mary Kay and Johnny. So
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: they figured out that they needed to somehow preserve that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: show so that they could send it off to the
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: West Coast and they came up with something called kinescope,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: the lowest hanging fruit they could have reached. Some some
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: executive said, why don't we just show it on a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: TV and then film that television screen with a camera,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: with a thirty five millimeter film camera, and the frame
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: rates are gonna be weird and it's gonna look terrible,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: but at least we can broadcast it on the west coast.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: And they did that for a while and that was
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: sort of the first Um, the first time that the
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that they were both coasts were able to watch the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: same show. Yeah, and Chuck, it sounds clugy. It gets
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: even clugier at like at first there was no way
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to actually broadcast from the east coast of the West
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Coast vice versa, for the first few years of television.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: So they would film that, that show off of TV
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: onto film and then they would take that real and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: mail it out west for them to show. And then
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: finally in n a t and t came up with
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a coaxial cable that allowed for the first transcontinental broadcast.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: But even still they were using kinescope and they used
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: sometimes what was called hot kinescope because the film had
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: just been developed within the three hours before they needed
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to broadcast it to the West Coast. That's how fast
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: they were turning it around. Man, I bet there was
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of tension, yes, to turn that stuff around,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you know, and they didn't even have cocaine in the
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: industry yet. They were just taking it as a medicine
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: at the time. That's true. Yeah, uh. So when what
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: really broke things open and what, as a landmark show, both,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: you know, as a comedy and technically, was I love
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Lucy and I looked a little bit more into this. Uh,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: while they developed this three camera set up. Um, it
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: was because of Philip Morris. They were the sponsor of
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the show and they didn't want Um. They thought that
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: there were more smokers. Well, I think they had dated
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that said that more people smoked east of Chicago. Apparently
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: out West it. I mean, obviously people smoked back then,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: but not like they did in the northeast and on
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the East Coast. So they didn't want the show to
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: be shot and produced live in Hollywood. That's why they
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: really wanted it in New York City. Um, at the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: same time, Desi Arnez and Lucy, I think lucy was pregnant.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: They also wanted uh to stay in L A. So
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: there was a bit of a budding head situation of
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: sponsor versus is like a TV star, and they worked
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: it out with this three camera format. Yeah, so essentially
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: what they did. So movies were already around at the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: time and there was a process for making a movie
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: where you would shoot a scene, taking a few takes
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: of it, then you would move your camera, relight the scene,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Um and then do the same scene from a different
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: angle and so on. And so forth, until you had
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the scene and all those things could be edited together.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: But Lucy and Dezi really wanted to have a live audience,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: to have that energy and that kind of feedback, in
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: that laughter that you can only get from a live audience.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: So they combined that movie making, Um kind of format
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: with a live performance, and they did it by making
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: three static cameras, one wide, one medium and one for
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: close ups, that they had pointed at the set that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: they would perform this episode on as if it were
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: like a live stage play. Yeah, and they got in
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: touch with a guy, an Oscar winning cinematographer and kind
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: of a genius, named Carl Freud, and he at first
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: was like this isn't possible, because he was an artist,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and he was like you, it's gonna look at least
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: one of the cameras is gonna look bad at all
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: times because you're not lighting for that camera. And they said,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: you gotta work with this buddy, like you can't be
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: so precious, like it's a movie. UH, we're not shooting
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: the Maltese Falcon here. Um, we need to figure out
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a way to do this. So they came up with
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: this grid lighting system when you're shooting a movie or
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: when you're shooting single camera TV shows, even though these
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: days these multi cameras on basically everything, ever since digital
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: came out, but they still call it single camera. You would,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and we've been on these shows where you have lights
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: on stands kind of right around what you're shooting. They
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: came up with this grid style system where everything was
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: lit from this lighting grid above the stage and it
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: didn't look as good. It was sort of flat, but
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: it it was all lit well enough to where it
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: looked okay, and Carl Freud kind of gave in and said,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: you know, this is what we're gonna do with TV.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Then it makes sense. We can cover everything all at once,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and basically the sort of basis of the genre was born. Yeah,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: so like everything from Seinfeld to friends to frazier to cheers,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: they were all filmed as three camera and now, like
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: you said, they call it multi camera sitcoms Um. That
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: is like the traditional Sitcom, and you can ultimately thank
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Lucy and desi for that, whereas the one cameras Sitcom
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: is the one that you think of as more it's
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: made more like a film. There's more real world, there's
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: more Um you know, uh, like on location shooting, it
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: just seems a little more movie like, like arrested development
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: is a good example of a single camera Sitcom. But, Chuck,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I want to give a little shout out here because
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: everybody thanks Lucy and Desi for everything, for basically creating
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the format. But, Mary Kay and Johnny, we're doing this
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: before Lucy and desire camera. They had two cameras. They
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: were doing it live and they had some poor Schmo
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: who was switching between cameras depending on what was happening
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: in the scene live. Can you imagine the stress? That's
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: pretty cool that the you know, just having been on
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: dear John, that they have it down so well in Hollywood,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: even though that kind of show is sort of out
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of fashion now. During the heyday, you know, they those
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: cameras were on these huge circular dollies and the cameras
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: were very big and they would just so fluidly sort
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of move around to where they you know, they block
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: it all lot ahead of time so they knew exactly
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: where each camera was supposed to be, and the result
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: is you shoot a twenty two minute episode in about
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: an hour. Or less. Uh, you shoot it in order
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: so the audience can follow along like a play. Yeah,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: just like a play. Yeah, and you would, Um, you
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: would go back generally at the end of each scene.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: They would do like all right, uh, they would. There
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: would be a few minutes of conferring, like and then
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: they come out and say, all right, we're gonna do
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: a retake of the second part of that scene because
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: we didn't like the way Jennifer Aniston said this one line,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and they would all laugh and she would say sorry, everybody,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and it's a very personal, like engaging thing. Like if
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: you never, if you've never been to a live taping
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: of a TV show like that, even though they're more
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: few and far between, it's a lot of fun to
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: go to because they're right there, they're interacting with you.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: If they goof up, they'll like say something to the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: audience and it's just it's a really cool experience. But
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: the long and short is they'll they'll be done pretty quickly,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: even with the retakes right. So the more the multi camera,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: three camera setup is like a stage play. There's a
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: fixed set or a couple of fixed sets, there's a
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: live studio audience and they present it basically as if
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: they were putting on a play. There's just a bunch
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of cameras filming them while they do that's right. Uh,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the clock tells me we need to take our second break. Okay,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: let's do it quick, quick, quick. The good folks have
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: been gay. Aren't gonna wait. I want to learn about al.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Had to take a perfect but with all about fractal
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Kiscon that the hunt the lizzie border murders and they
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: kind of all run on the plane everything. This time
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: we should know. Word up, Jerry stry George. All right,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I guess we should wrap up this episode with a
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: little bit about what is the gold standard for actors
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and crew members in the film business and always has been.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I know they love to work on their super cool
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: streaming shows that are like movies. Prestige TV is great,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: but you ask any actor what they would rather be
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: doing and they would say, I want to be on
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a multi camera live studio audience show. Because I work
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: about forty hours a week. I show up to work
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: at about eight o'clock every morning, I leave at five
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: o'clock every day and we work Monday through Friday, and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: it's uh, we shoot twenty two, at least twenty two
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: episodes and if we get to a hundred it has
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: a good chance of going in syndication and then I'm
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: set for life. Yeah, that seems to be like the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: sweet spot for syndication. Eighty five to a hundred previous
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: episodes produced and aired, and I guess, my guess is
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: that that that means that the syndicating buyer feels like
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: they have enough reruns to really make some hay out
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of or make their money back from. Is that what
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: this why is the sweet spot? I think so. It's
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: like four to five seasons. Dear John Scott said that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that hit eighty episodes and did have a brief syndication run.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: That he said at the time one hundred was really
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: what they kind of shot for. It's still in syndication.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what channel happened, but I watched an
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: episode or two of it not too long ago. was
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: looking for you but didn't see you. You didn't see
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a handsome young buss boy. But no, not yet. But
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: it it is like a surprisingly good unsung show. Like
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: it was. It had really good writing, the characters were
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: really tight. It was a good, good show, for sure. Agreed. Uh.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: So should we go over kind of the weekly schedule. Absolutely.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: So Ed uh ignores Monday and Tuesday for some reason.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: But uh, as someone who who worked on a show
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and I had talked to Scott about it too. Um,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Monday's is generally when you get a table read Um,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and you know what that is, because we were luckily
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: enough to go to a Simpson's table read man. Thank
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you again to our friend Jesse, who got us in there.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: One of the nicest things anyone's ever done and and
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: coolest experiences in my life. Like easily. Uh. So this
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: is when the actors and the director and the writers
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: all sit down at a big long table and they
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: just read through the script. They make little notes and
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: make little changes and that's just sort of the first
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: read through of the week. Um, while this is going
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: on on Monday and Tuesday, they're doing, uh, costume fittings
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: and stuff during the day. UH, they're off to the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: side the art department in the props, building the swing
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: sets and sort of get all that ready and then
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: we hit Wednesday. So, yeah, Wednesday is where everything kind
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of picks up as far as ED is concerned. Um,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and that's when they really start, Um, you know, trying
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: out the script. There's no lighting, there's no cameras, but
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: the directors taking mad notes all over it, Um, and
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: just basically putting this initial lump of script into, you know,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: actual order and then getting ready for Thursday when they
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: do bring in like the lights and the cameras and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: start setting up and trying technical rehearsals. Yeah, and just
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: to be clear, on Wednesday they're not at the table,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: they're they're moving through the sets at this point, which
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: is the real differentiator. That is a big differentiator. And
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: then one other thing I want to point out. When
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: they bring in the cameras and the lighting and all that,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: if you think back to I love Lucy um or
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Mary Kay and Johnny, if you want to go even
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: further back, for my money, Um, you're talking about static
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: cameras that are in one place, and so it's the
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: actors that have to move into exactly the right positions
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: exactly the right time and look in exactly the right
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: direction to get that close up or that medium shot
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: or the wide shot exactly how it's supposed to be.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: That is mind bogglingly difficult. And they did this every week. Yeah,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: I mean we had to do that. It's called blocking. Uh,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and you can't stand six inches away from where you're
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: supposed to stand or it'll look goofy. So they have
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the camera department. UH, they put tape on the floor
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and every actor generally has their own color tape so
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: you know where to go. And the trick as an
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: actor is to be able to go and hit your
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: mark without looking like you're trying to hit your mark.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: And some people are great at it. George Clooney has
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: this great story about I think it was Spencer Tracy
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: who would be obvious about it, and he said if
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: you go back and look at Spencer Tracy movies, he
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: would walk in and right before he got to his mark,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: he would just look straight down at the floor and
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: kind of go huh and take a deep breath and
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: look up where he's supposed to but he played it
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: off like that was just a something the character would do. Well,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: plus he's just that likable too. I think, Oh yeah,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: but it's pretty fun. Hitting your marks is not easy and, uh,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: we screwed it up all the time because we didn't
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: know what we were doing. Oh yeah, I considered it
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: a form of ad living until you finally were like, Dude,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: you have to be. It's really important that you be
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in the spot they tell you to be. Yeah, it's
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: pretty funny. Um. So are we at Friday yet? Um,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I think Thursday. Did you mention Thursdays when they actually
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: light it and they're blocking with the camera and everything. Yeah,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: and then I think that night there was a dress rehearsal. Yeah,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: they would do a full dress without the cameras. And
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: then Friday is basically like game time because you're gonna
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: shoot it that night. UH, they shoot it in prime
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: time in the evening, but they go through like the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: full dress, full lighting, full camera and all that stuff
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: during the day. Right, okay. So then, Um, Friday afternoon
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: there's tons of rehearsals. Um, and then Friday night, apparently
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: at eight PM. And Chuck, was this just I love Lucy,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: or is this a standard for the industry? I seem
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to remember it being more like seven ish, but Um,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: it may have differed for each show because, you know,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: you got to fill up the audience. There's a warm
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: up comedian that comes out and gets everyone in the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: laughing mood. So it may have been eight. And then also,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: don't some sitcoms now film multiple episodes in a single
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: day if they can. Well not. Not shows like this,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: not live in front of studio audience. Just want it done.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: So Friday night at seven or eight they would actually
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: film the episode and then they would take the film
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: from the three different cameras, I love Lucy Wood, and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: they'd edit it together and there you go. You'd have
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: an episode that was filmed live in front of a
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: studio audience, but was filmed to tape so that it
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: could be rerun in perpetuity forever and ever. That's right,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and the cast comes out at the end and takes
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: a big bow and it really is like seeing a play.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun. Highly encourage anyone. You know
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: it's a, I guess, sort of a touristy thing to do,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: but if you ever go to l a UH, see
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: if you can get in and see a Sitcom being shot.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: It's really, really fun, very nice. So I guess here
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: in episode one of our very special two part episode
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: on Sitcom. So don't you think? I think so. Okay, well, everybody,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: we'll see you on Thursday and in the meantime, don't
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: forget to listen out for the short stuff on laugh
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: tracks coming out tomorrow. Alright, intrusive comform. We're not too
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: happy with the beginning of that last section. Uh, everyone
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: in the audience, so I think we should just go
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: ahead and retake that. Yeah, sorry, Ladies and Gentlemen, was
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: my fault. So Ed helped us put this together again
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and of course he goes through the weekly schedule of
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: how to do a Sitcom, but for some reason he
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: kind of left out Monday and Tuesday. Ed Don't like
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Mondays or Tuesday's. Thanks everyone, on behalf of Chuck, Jerry
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and I. You've been a wonderful studio audience. We'll see
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: you next week. Stuff you should know is a production
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of I heart radio. For more podcasts my heart radio,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: visit the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. M HM