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Or even just the third rung.
(From aWho to a Them, inWho?
Single camera, auteurish comedies emerged, some too depressing and jokeless to earn the title.
But still the comedian stood at the center.
Building the audience for a comedy is hard.
But self-insert comedies have an edge on the competition: Its based on existing IP.
The easiest way to secure a built-in audience for your show is to put a recognizable face front-and-center.
And if the show thinly fictionalizes their well-known material, even better.
For that reason, the format will never die.
What follows is an overlapping, messy taxonomy of the autobiographical comedy.
As one of the backbones of television, its a huge category of show.
But its important to document.
Weve broken down the self-insert comedy.
How real are they, really?
Whats in a name?Who Jackie?
All questions will be answered.
The Radio With Faces Era
Before the 70s and 80s, standup was very different.
There wasnt a presumption that the person standing up and telling the jokes was also writing every single one.
Standup came out of vaudeville, as did radio comedy and TV comedy came out of radio.
So its no wonder that many of the first sitcoms starred former radio and vaudeville stars.
Getting a sitcom became the reason to try stand-up, rather than any love for the art form itself.
Even after the bubble burst, there were still many sitcoms that had all the hallmarks of the style.
Three cameras, broad jokes, and an oddly generic sense of humor.
They become traditional sitcoms thathappento star someone whose real lifekind ofresembles the main character.
Sometimes, like withThe George Lopez Show,the standard-issue sitcom format was the point.
George Lopez was struggling in Hollywood finding material that wasnt insulting to Latine people.
And not even their full name.
First or last name only.
The show and the comics brand are one and the same.
Making it artsier, fartsier, and more melancholy.
Well, fuck that, becauseTituswas inching toward that zone in 2000.
It may betheeliminal self-insert comedy.
The show touched on mental illness, substance abuse, sexual abuse, and cycles of poverty.
While hardly Ingmar Bergman, it was still quite a stylistic deviation fromEverybody Loves Raymond& Co.
These shows are mostly single camera, filmic, even auteurish.
Magical realism, dream sequences, a Tarantino-esque use of popular music?
All are in play.
In contrast to many of the stand-up-boom shows, the indie-darling shows were often deeply personal.
Amy SchumersLife & Bethfocused on her very recent marriage.
AndOne Mississippitakes on Tig Notarosfalling out with Louis C.K.
(who had been an EP on the show) after the allegations against him came out.
Your job, your family, your inner struggles, your arrests: Where are they?
Many fake jobs are one step removed from their real job.
Ray Barone isnt a stand-up, hes a sportswriter.
Tig isnt a stand-up, shes a radio host.
Plus you’re able to always close a store you own for TV high jinks.
And then theres Bill Cosby, who gave himself the chilling-in-hindsight fake job of obstetrician.
Or you might set your showbeforeyou got into comedy.
(Or at least before you got good at it.
)Nora From Queensdetails Awkwafinas life before she adopted that moniker, and was just gigging through New York.
Or theresFlight of the Conchords,whichdepicted the band as not famous enough to merit the HBO show.
These shows can be about the come up, or they could be about being a regular working stiff.
What matters is that itsrelatableto all the little nobodies out there in TV land.
Some of them are animated, which makes it easier.
But some of the time they are fully grown?
You will probably see a lot of those famous friends, too.
What isCurb Your Enthusiasm, after all, if not an excuse for Larry David to employ his friends?
Its like a prestige-TV version ofGrown-Ups.
