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Comment by petra | Hacker News Reader

Isn't it simple ? most working class jobs are boring. But law, police, medicine, a tv show(rock 30), or just changing jobs and random situation puts you in a lot of variety and that makes comedy easier.

And the expectations of comedy today are far bigger than the 80's. So something had to give.

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You can have blue-collar characters without showing them at the jobs; I don't remember ever seeing Archie Bunker at work, for example.

>Isn't it simple ? most working class jobs are boring.

That wasn't a problem in the past. Besides, nothing more boring than being a regular cop, lawyer, doctor etc.

It's the treatment that makes it look exciting, not the patrolling around for 8 hours and eating doughnuts reality of being a cop.

And you wouldn't believe how tedious being a doctor is, either in a private practice or at a hospital.

Nothing like ER or House at all -- it's the social interactions and plot scripts that make it all interesting, not the actual real life jobs.

Tedious but mostly not boring.

Tedious for reasons other than why it makes good TV.

No, I mean tedious of the boring variety.

There's nothing very exciting about a day at the hospital or a day on patrol.

Yeah, you get to have some nice interactions now and then, but if you filmed the actual day to day life it would be like watching paint dry.

And this is from your personal experience as a physician? I disagree.

But that wouldn't seem to explain the many years of success Roseanne had. Also, as to the comedy, viewed in its time-period, it was a very funny show.

Do you consider it(Roseanne) a classic ? would you rewatch it today, like i watched blackadder(just an old example) ? or like i rewatched 30 rock ?

Roseanne was fantastic. No it didn't have a brand new comedy line for every episode, in fact it was largely the same problems over and over again (money, relationship, bitchy daughters, etc.) but I still love it and watch what little I can on Netflix because while the problems weren't always shiny and new, they were identifiable and made the characters more real. I can't stand most sitcoms because their problems have to be built out of literally nothing that would even tip my proverbial Problem Scale a little bit, and it comes off as cheap, and the characters just look weak and stupid.

Maybe it's a thing that only people who grow up in that kind of area get (I'm about 250 miles from Landford's fictional location) but seriously most sitcoms just make me cringe with disgust. "THAT's your biggest problem today? I'll trade you any day of the week and you can find out what a REAL problem is."

Maybe it's growing up in that area. I'm from Israel, so i wouldn't know.

Personally i don't find any strong relation between identifying with characters and laughing from their jokes. It may add another dimension to the experience in comic dramas, but if i'm watching a pure comedy/sitcom, i don't think it's a big deal.

But i guess people are different.

The problem scale of Roseanne is within a believable distance from my own. I have had to dismantle washing machines and clothes dryers to repair them. A show like Seinfeld would make the appliance repairman a character and the repair would be the secondary theme of the episode. A show like Friends would either not acknowledge the existence of laundry machines, or pretend they do not ever break. The only show currently on broadcast television in which I would believe a broken washing machine as a plot element is The Middle.

Here's a potential middle-class The Middle plot line for you: the Glaussners wash the mud off of their off-road 4-wheelers in the street using the Heck household's hose. They do not turn the water off. It runs all week, straight into the gutter, before someone notices and turns it off. The Hecks get an unexpected $300 water bill, which passes unnoticed in their huge monthly stack of bills, as they pay the usual, average monthly amount. Then one day, their water is shut off, and they can't get it turned back on until after Mike's next paycheck.

That's a believable middle class problem. Can you guess why it's believable? Because it's based on a true story.

Yes! It's a fantastic show. In fact I had rewatched several episodes of Rosanne a few months ago and plan to rewatch more.

>most working class jobs are boring.

Seinfeld proved mundane everyday life can be funny and entertaining for audiences.

The other thing is you can have someone living with the challenges and lifestyle of the working class without showing their actual work.

I think The Office was a huge success without any the characteristics you point out. I don't think it's about the setting per se, but whether the material connects with the viewer in a particular way.

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