Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 12:09:49 PM

Login with username, password and session length

"Comedy Drama"

Started by Neil, September 19, 2011, 12:51:49 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Neil

Was discussing this term with chand.  It's really fucking hatable, isn't it?  Wek and pissy - sounds like something that isn't funny enough to be called a comedy, nor dramatic enough to be called a drama.  When, obviously, it attempts to combine both elements, and is presumably a marketing term to hopefully snare more people.

Is it unfair that it has such baggage, and immediately makes people's eyes roll, and expectations drop?  What great comedy dramas have there been?

jutl

Entourage is one of these, I believe. I'm not sure it's such a dishonourable genre. It makes me think of great series of the past like All Creatures Great And Small and M*A*S*H.

edit to add: Oh, and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet

Neil

Greg Proops covers the final Entourage in blistering form in the latest Proopcast. 

M*A*S*H is an interesting name to chuck in here, because with the term comedy drama, I would tend to think 'oh right, it's an hour long then.'  Which, again, leads to negative, unfair thoughts like 'well, they just can't fill a whole hour with comedy, so they have to call it something else.' 

What is it that has dragged the value of this term down? 

vrailaine

I don't view it negatively at all, always associated the term with Freaks and Geeks though so maybe that's why.

Consignia

Quote from: Neil on September 19, 2011, 01:00:16 PM
What is it that has dragged the value of this term down? 

ITV's comedy output for the last couple of decades. It's been full of those weak shows that are on about 9PM every night, which are just no good. Stuff like Cold Feet, but there's a huge slew of others.

Mr_Simnock

I don't mind comedy drama's. My favorite is Desperate Housewives, I always get at least two really big laughs an episode from that. Any other fans of that show or am I on my own?

Jemble Fred

There was nothing weak about Cold Feet, obviously, it was a massive hit. There were plenty of weak Cold Feet imitators, though.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Jemble Fred on September 19, 2011, 01:15:58 PM
There was nothing weak about Cold Feet, obviously, it was a massive hit.
Huh? What a bizarre sentence. I sometimes find it difficult to spot sarcasm in written form, though.

I have love for "Californication", which is kinda a half-hour drama which every now and then chucks in a proper comedy moment to go along with the occasional light bit of dialogue. It's awful, I know, on some level, but I can't help but watch it.

Jemble Fred

It was a massive hit, and also very good, then[nb]Alway spretty popular on CaB at the time, I recall, but the threads are long gone.[/nb]. No sarcasm needed. Any which way, not weak.

mycroft

To my mind the benchmark for the term "comedy-drama" would be Minder. Seems nowadays they just whack the term onto something that was commissioned as a comedy and features comedy actors but, once produced, isn't that funny.

In fact, didn't they even say Green Wing was a comedy-drama towards the end of its life?

Jemble Fred

Quote from: mycroft on September 19, 2011, 01:31:40 PM
In fact, didn't they even say Green Wing was a comedy-drama towards the end of its life?

Well that and Campus are probably the worst examples of the term in modern TV. Channel 4 could well be more to blame for the negative connotations of 'comedy drama' than ITV.

Utter Shit

I've never thought of the term as having any particularly negative connotations. Teachers is a notable example of a fantastic comedy with a dramatic element to it.

The line is somewhat blurred now anyway IMO - shows like The Office (both versions) and Outnumbered would be described as comedy despite being tonally similar to something like Teachers, whereas Scrubs probably relies MORE heavily on drama than most dramadies, although it moves into those areas far less subtley and so remains a comedy because it's 90% undiluted comedy and 10% undiluted drama, with little crossover.

Famous Mortimer

The USA Network seems to have the blueprint sorted for shows of this sort - "Monk", "Psych", "White Collar", "Burn Notice", and "Covert Affairs" (if that's on USA). None of them will burn a hole in our memories for all time, but they're all totally decent crime shows with a heavy comic element in them.

ThickAndCreamy

How would describe Louie then? It has a lot of drama and a lot of comedy.

If you become engrossed so much on genre classification it all eventually becomes meaningless. It's like with music, arguing between the differences of hardcore and punk, any sense of coherency disintegrates rather rapidly and it's mostly a debate that no one gains any sense of knowledge from.

I really can't see the point of arguing for or against the term, as honestly, why does it in any way matter? You can place almost any situation comedy within that term if you want to be pedantic, but it doesn't lessen or heighten the quality of that show in any way.

I accept the terms of the

There are plenty of things that are characterised by both comedy and drama, and comedy drama is a valid way to describe them. We shouldn't discount the term just because a lot of shit things can be described as comedy dramas.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

A comedy that sets out to have a narrative should still be a comedy.

A drama that intends to have bits people will find funny should call itself a drama.

A programme that sets as much focus on each should be a comedy drama and leave people feeling confused, alienated and disorientated on a simple issue of semantics and genre conventions.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Why, just the other day I used the term to describe that Up All Night and I definitely meant it as a bad thing.

On the other hand there is The Sopranos.

Quote from: ThickAndCreamy on September 19, 2011, 02:30:54 PM
You can place almost any situation comedy within that term if you want to be pedantic
True enough, but I wouldn't ever really think of something like Friends as a comedy drama, even though it contained plenty of soap opera elements.

A good drama should probably be able to make you laugh from time to time because, you know, sometimes life is funny.

momatt

The Trip (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon) was regarded as a comedy-drama wasn't it?
That was well-loved both by people here and in the real world.

Absorb the anus burn

'A Very Peculiar Practice' is essential. Works both as comedy and drama and stands up to repeated viewing.... How about 'If You See God Tell Him'? Not everybody's cup of tea (including Richard Briers) but great if you like your drama sick with a side order of silly.

thenoise

Jonathan Creek had a very good balance of comedy/drama elements, in my opinion.  It helped that the central plot was generally played straight, but with the comic subplots between Jonathan/Maddie and Adam Klaus (etc) alongside it.
Technically detective genre, but the endless sealed rooms wore thin after series 1.

So, yeah, can certainly be done well but my cynical mind thinks 'couldn't be bothered to write enough gags for a proper sitcom', perhaps unfairly.

Serge

I presume the Beiderbecke trilogy (and it's forerunner, 'Get Lost!') count as comedy drama. Good calls on 'Minder' and 'Auf Weidersehen Pet' above, too - would any of them have been referred to that way when first shown, though? I presume they would have been billed as simply 'drama' at the time.

Glebe

What I loved about Twin Peaks (and it also applies to a lot of David Lynch's movies) was that it didn't ask you to either laugh or take anything seriously. Some of the darker moments were actually hilarious and some of the 'comedy' moments were pretty disturbing.

[EDIT]Admittedly it wasn't really a 'comedy' drama as such, but there was certainly a lot of humour in it.

vrailaine

Marion and Geoff, funny and tragic at the same time, great comedy drama!

Mark X

Quote from: mycroft on September 19, 2011, 01:31:40 PM
Seems nowadays they just whack the term onto something that was commissioned as a comedy and features comedy actors but, once produced, isn't that funny.

Hardwicke House?

It's a bit of a strange genre to pin down, for me. It's tempting to define it as "1hr+ long shows with funny bits but no studio audience", if you're taking shows like Minder or Auf Wiedersehen Pet as the benchmark. That'd mean you could include series one of Love Soup, but that means you could also (tentatively) include the likes of GBH, Life On Mars, Shameless or Boys From The Black Stuff*. If you're including US series, the likes of Gilmore Girls or Pushing Daisies certainly fit that template.

(*Oh, and Killer Net, though that wasn't meant to be funny.)

[edit]

Tangent alert - I wonder if many people got into Breaking Bad because they thought it was a comedy drama, albeit a dark one. The most commonly seen promotional image for season one was The Dad Off Malcolm In The Middle in his underpants pointing a gun at something next to a crashed Winnebago, after all.

Absorb the anus burn

Quote from: Serge on September 19, 2011, 05:15:54 PM
I presume the Beiderbecke trilogy (and it's forerunner, 'Get Lost!') count as comedy drama. Good calls on 'Minder' and 'Auf Weidersehen Pet' above, too - would any of them have been referred to that way when first shown, though? I presume they would have been billed as simply 'drama' at the time.

God, I love the Beiderbeck Trilogy. The oddball adventures of Jill and Trevor were don't miss television round our house in the 1980s. Even our next door neighbour was a 'Big Al' clone.... Male, Female, gay, straight (I've been all of these) and in all my guises I find Barbara Flynn's Jill to be the sexiest TV character ever.

Here's an obscure one. From 1979, I think (can't be arsed to imdb) "Murder At The Wedding". Does what it says on the tin really. Not spectacularly funny, but has some great comic set pieces including an old man getting so irate by an never ending Hokey Cokey that he fires a shotgun into the circle. Cyril Luckham has the gun. Janine Duvitzski cops off with Christopher Biggins (yeah, I know....) David Lodge puffs his pipe and gets his head staved in. Diane Fletcher gets em out for the lads... Lisa Goddard is randy. Alfred Lynch suicidal... I haven't seen it for years, but imagine it caused a ripple in Frinton in '79 with irate letters going to Points Of View.....

DEAR BBC!

Subtle Mocking

I've seen King of the Hill described as a 'dramedy'.

kngen

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on September 19, 2011, 04:02:36 PM
'A Very Peculiar Practice' is essential. Works both as comedy and drama and stands up to repeated viewing

That was the very first thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title, followed closely by How Do You Want Me? If you take these as exhibit A and exhibit B, comedy drama can only be regarded as "a good thing". I just wish commissioning editors would put aside their fear of scaring off core demographics and accept that. sometimes even the most casual viewer can be engaged by something that doesn't insult their intelligence.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Glebe on September 19, 2011, 05:19:59 PM
What I loved about Twin Peaks (and it also applies to a lot of David Lynch's movies) was that it didn't ask you to either laugh or take anything seriously. Some of the darker moments were actually hilarious and some of the 'comedy' moments were pretty disturbing.

[EDIT]Admittedly it wasn't really a 'comedy' drama as such, but there was certainly a lot of humour in it.

I completely agree with you there, Lynch is deliberately perverse at times, mixing comedy and horror from one scene to the next to beautiful effect. I think it's partially why FWWM was initially met with such disdain, as it's such a horribly bleak piece, and not what people were expecting at all.

QuoteI've seen King of the Hill described as a 'dramedy'.

That's just bizarre. I love the series to pieces (and am rewatching it at the moment) and whilst there are many touching and beautifully subtle moments in it, many of the episodes are straight out comedy. That said, last night I watched the episode where Hank starts breaking down in tears because his truck is slowly dying, and it's one of the most touching things I've seen in years.

Kishi the Bad Lampshade

Most comedy dramas you see now are just dramas, albeit usually quite weak ones. They'll have maybe three or four jokes in an hour, usually not massive gags either but just the characters being vaguely witty, which is just...people being people, so it still belongs in drama. I don't think having a few funny lines justifies calling something a comedy, it's not like 'drama' has to be a synonym for 'intensely serious throughout'. A lot of these things I think a term like 'light drama' maybe would be more accurate.

Serge

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on September 19, 2011, 09:21:23 PMGod, I love the Beiderbeck Trilogy. The oddball adventures of Jill and Trevor were don't miss television round our house in the 1980s. Even our next door neighbour was a 'Big Al' clone.... Male, Female, gay, straight (I've been all of these) and in all my guises I find Barbara Flynn's Jill to be the sexiest TV character ever.

I wouldn't disagree with you on that one, especially in the first series. But what an amazing show! Bolam and Flynn as the greatest 'crime'-solving couple ever, Dudley Sutton stealing practically every scene he's in, the eternal Big Al and Little Norm, and (in 'Affair', at least) the mighty Colin Blakely's barely concealed tether coming to it's end.

Not to mention running down the hill in slow motion.