A. Very early television’s roots lie directly in radio (what Brooks and Marsh call "vaudeo"). These sorts of shows would include the variety comedy radio sitcoms adapted for television (like The Jack Benny Show, Burns and Allen, and Texaco Star Theater (now with Milton Berle instead of Fred Allen), and Your Show of Shows). This is why I wanted you to see Stars in the Eye, a CBS 1952 variety special which is completely organized around star talent.

B. However, the institutional forces on television quickly forge a new direction for the medium: largely due to the importance Hollywood comes to play in the production of shows for the new medium, by the late 1950s, television is remarkably unlike radio. Marc and Thompson discuss this shift in terms of a movement away from the importance of the performer as authorial signature toward the series producer as that mark of authorship.

C. Thus, whereas radio and early television is marked by performers (Benny, Burns and Allen, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar), television develops more like film, where authorial signatures take on added importance (thus, like John Ford directs a coherent set of Westerns in film, Paul Henning produces a coherent set of sitcoms (the barnyard sitcoms). Other television producers develop brand-name signatures (earliest is perhaps Desilu, Rod Serling in both anthology drama and The Twilight Zone). Later entries include: Norman Lear, Aaron Spelling, Stephen Bochco. This creator/exective producer role becomes the organizing force behind television programming, whereas with a few exceptions (Arch Oboler, Orson Welles), it was not for radio.

D. Example

1. Jack Benny successfully makes the shift to television. On early television, he did well, because his radio variety comedy format translated well: it was essentially a self-reflexive back stage sitcom. About Jack’s preparing for the show, just like his radio show.

CLIP #1: The Jack Benny Show (Bob Hope, 1951): Rochester and Jack prepare the show

However, the semi-seriality of the late 40s radio shows was not attempted on television. As television sitcoms began to move beyond the variety format (I Love Lucy), The Jack Benny Show became a throwback to a previous era of broadcasting programming. Jack Benny remained popular as a guest star on variety format comedy shows, but never in a recurring sitcom format. His day was over, replaced by a new kind of broadcasting, the television domestic sitcom.

2. The Beverly Hillbillies

Here is a CBS show that ran from 1962-1971. It was the number 1 rated show for its first two seasons, and in the top 20 until 1970. It is organized by Paul Henning, its creator and executive producer, according to an age-old tradition in American culture: the conflict between the city and the country. The show’s jokes (as in most of the barnyard sitcoms spawned by Henning in the 1960s) are built around miscommunication between city folks and country folks, with the country folks’ ways ridiculed, but also respected as harboring many of the core values of American culture (family, anti-greed, etc.). Despite the most vast social changes the country had ever known, from 1964-1971, the show cohered around this city-country split. This is not to say that the show did not respond to the social changes--it did--but that the show’s narrative universe was held together by this central authorial scheme. To see what I mean, consider a very early episode (from 1964, the 4th episode) and a very late episode (from 1971, the 267th, the 8th epidose from the end)

"The Seven Eras of Prime Time" by Tim Brooks

1. "Vaudeo" (1948-1957)

Variety comedy specials (Stars in the Eye)

Sitcoms based on variety-comedy radio shows (The Jack Benny Show, Burns and Allen)

Weekly variety spectaculars (Texaco Star Theater, Your Show of Shows)

-->The Rise of the Sitcom

Ethnic sitcoms (The Goldbergs, Beulah)

Domestic sitcoms from variety format (The Honeymooners)

Domestic sitcoms shot on film (I Love Lucy)

Domestic sitcoms shot telefilm style (Father Knows Best)

-->The Quiz Show Craze (mid to late 1950s): The $64,000 Question, 21

--> "The Golden Age of Television": live anthology drama from NYC

(Playhouse 90, Studio One, Kraft Television Theater)

2. "The Adult Westerns Era" (1957-early 1960s)

Telefilm production techniques. The Rifleman, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Cheyenne, Have Gun Will Travel

3. "The Idiot Sitcom Era" (early to late 1960s)

magicoms (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie); barnyards (Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies); monstrous (The Munsters, The Addams Family); escapist (Gilligan’s Island)

4. "The Relevance Era" (late 1960s-1975)

"The Television Renaissance": All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H

--> The Rise of Quality Television: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant, Cheers, Hill St. Blues, Northern Exposure

5. "The ABC Fantasy Era" (1975-1980)

Sitcoms (Happy Days, Mork and Mindy, Three’s Company)

Escapist drama (The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels)

6. "Soap Operas and the Real People Era" (1980s)

Prime-time soaps (Dallas, Dynasty)

Reality television (That’s Incredible, Real People)

--> The Return of the Domestic Sitcom (The Cosby Show, Family Ties)

7. "The Era of Choice" (1990s)

Eclectic drama (Twin Peaks, Picket Fences, Max Headroom)

Aggressive sitcoms (Married with Children, Roseanne, The Simpsons)

Reality Television (Rescue 911, Cops, America’s Most Wanted)

Newsmagazines (Dateline, 20/20)

1. Tim Brooks offers a teleological model of television evolution

A. Teleology (def., Webster’s): "The doctrine of final causes, especially that historic processes are determined not only by causality but also by their ultimate purposes."

B. I suggest, instead, a cyclical model of television evolution, that programming strategies historically recur at particular cultural moments, driven by economic and social contextual forces.

1. The Aesthetics of Television: Sitcom Production Techniques Recur Historically

a. Live, Proscenium Style: 3 camera production

CLIP #1: I Love Lucy ("Job Switching", CBS, 9/15/52)

Lucy/Ethel and Ricky/Fred decide to switch jobs

b. Telefilm Production Style

CLIP #2: Bewitched ("Sisters at Heart", ABC, 12/24/70)

The racist client apologizes

c. Return to live, proscenium style

CLIP #3: All in the Family ("Election Story", CBS, 10/30/71)

Claire Packer arrives at the Bunker house

2. The Ideology of Television: Representations of Patiarchy in the Sitcom

a. The Omniscient Father (1950s)

CLIP #4: Father Knows Best ("Beekman", CBS/NBC/ABC, 1954-1963)

Beekman makes fun of Roger to impress Betty

b. The Befuddled Father (1960s)

CLIP #5: Bewitched ("My, What Big Ears You Have", ABC, 12/7/67)

Darrin’s ears grow each time he lies

c. The Return of the Omniscient Father (1980s)

CLIP #6: The Cosby Show ("Which School For Denise?", NBC, 1988)

Cliff coaxes Denise to go to Hillman College

d. The Buffoonish Father (1990s)

CLIP #7: The Simpsons ("The Call of the Simpsons", FOX, 2/18/90)

Homer and Bart get lost in the woods

Click Here to Return to the MTA 400 ("The History of Television") Syllabus

This page was last updated on January 8, 2001

Questions or comments?  Please phone me at (406) 994-6403 or send e-mail to:  metz@montana.edu

Walter Metz, Department of Media and Theatre Arts, Montana State University--Bozeman