Talk:List of situation comedies

Please check out this WP page
Please make sure you see List of comedy television series before making too much effort here in this page. It seems to be a much more exhaustive list, but nowhere near the amount of participants, and organised as a simple list, not a table. The lists should probably be combined so we have only one relevant page listed. It's divided into Country of Origin, then an alphabetical list under each country. Anyway, please be aware it exists, as I reckon a lot of you aren't!! TheBustopher (talk) 16:03, 29 July 2012 (UTC)


 * @TheBustopher r 2600:1700:E380:98C0:3469:A557:6C7F:777 (talk) 00:13, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Scrubs doesn't seem to consider itself a sitcom
Have you ever seen that episode where they do a horrible parody of a typical laugh track sitcom, commenting not-too-subtly how Scrubs itself isn't a sitcom?

Piotr

They're not saying they're not a sitcom they're saying that they don't film infront of studio audiences that tell you when to laugh. It's still based around a situation the doctors et. are in and made it funny. 124.178.115.217 03:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Format for entries in this list
The code for the little flag of the country where the sitcom was produced looks like this: &#123;&#123;flag&#124;countrycode&#125;&#125;

For country codes, please use the standard codes listed here.

Here are some common codes for your copying-pasting convenience:

Reformatting discussion
I think this should be moved to a straight-alphabetical list, now that it's on its own page. This list could get quite huge and difficult to search, as this is "List of sitcoms" not "List of American sitcoms". -- Kickstart70 · Talk 16:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. Maybe we should make sure that the info "which decade" isn't deleted, by making sure the year info is on the article page of every linked entry? Peter S. 14:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * My suggestion: Title, Years (either in "1970-1982" or "1979,1981-1983" or "1979,1981,1983" formats), country code plus flag. Items like a list of stars or a description of the sitcom, etc. Belong on the sitcom page itself, not here. -- Kickstart70 &middot; Talk 21:05, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * But I want to see how many times the word "suburbs" appears. :-) SnappingTurtle 21:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You know what? I like the page just the way it is now ? Name and year, very simple. I think the page would just get way too cluttered with all that additional info when you consider 500+ entries. Peter S. 01:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I think at least we do need a country designation. This would help broaden the scope of this list into something much better. -- Kickstart70 &middot; Talk 02:03, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've taken the most conservative step. I've modified the 0-9 sitcoms, just adding country information. Let's format the rest of the list. We'll just leave out the country if it's unknown.

Then we'll just let it "simmer" for a while, seeing how we and others feel about it. (SnappingTurtle)


 * Great job! Looks great, thanks for your work! Peter S. 17:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for this page
I'm delighted that this list has been created. I think we can create something much more interesting than the sitcoms category. I'd like to propose a standard for how we format and populate this page. Rather than simply have a list of sitcom titles, the aggregation of certain information in this page could make for a fascinating data set that would be more informative than just having the same information scattered around in the individual pages about the sitcoms. By aggregating the information we facilitate comparing and finding patterns in the sitcom genre.

I propose formatting and populating the sitcom list as follows:

The description should be always be a single sentence describing the basic conceit of the show. It should avoid opinions. The flags may be difficult at first, but it will get easier as we acculate more flags. We could even make a master list for copying and pasting.

The beginning of the page should include a simple HTML comment stating that if you're thinking of editing this page, please be sure to read the guidelines in the discussion page.

Originally the list should be in alpha order by title. We can later work in some JavaScript to allow for sorting.

Opine.

SnappingTurtle 15:52, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Are there country flags of identical size for each country? I wonder if there is a simple templating that could apply here. The table format isn't hard or anything, but changes we make in future would be easier with a template. -- Kickstart70 &middot; Talk 16:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, there are quire a few templates for flags. A good choice would be this code: 🇺🇸 I don't know if there are flags for every country but I suspect there aren't many missing.

Does anybody know how to use Wiki table code to put &lt;col&gt; tags into the table? That way we could center the country and year columns without requiring editors to explicitly center each cell.

Not sure where to make my suggestion, so I'll do it here. I'm going thru the list, so far gone thru A-H and I've found a bunch of shows that should NOT be on this list: "Bonanza" & "Gunsmoke" are both Western dramas. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a fantasy drama, and "Hill Street Blues" is a cop drama. Although these shows may have had some comedic elements in them, they are ALL considered dramas and should be removed from this list. I'll keep an eye out for more. Raffy85 (talk) 06:35, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I found more dramas on the list: "Lou Grant", "Matlock", and "Once and Again". These should be removed along with "Bonanza", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Gunsmoke" and "Hill Street Blues". Raffy85 (talk) 08:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Why is "Monk", a detective series, on the list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.0.43.248 (talk) 01:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion by topic
Hello, I created the page from sitcoms. It's great to see the page getting so much interest :-) My feedback follows, feel free to add your comments into the sections... Peter S. 20:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

COL tags
_COL_ tags shouldn't be a problem, as there are methods of entering html code directly in wiki sourcetext. Let me search that. Peter S. 20:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

One long table?
As for the proposal, I suggest we break the table up for every letter of the alphabet to allow anchor-navigation ("jump straight to K"). Peter S. 20:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me.SnappingTurtle 20:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Country display
The flags are nice, but make problems with blind users (which still might enjoy sitcoms and especially radio sitcoms), so how about Country codes instead (or both flags and codes? By the way, that page has all those flags in one place :-) Peter S. 20:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Potential list fields
About the list, are there other fields that people might like to refer to frequently? Some suggestions, just add your own here:
 * country
 * start year
 * end year
 * number of years
 * description
 * typical lenght of one episode
 * total number of episodes
 * subtype (e.g. "family" (-sitcom), group-of-friends (-sitcom), dating (-sitcom) etc.)
 * tags (like subtype, but anything goes here. "alien" for ALF, "black and white" for Hi Honey, I'm Home!. Great for searching for similar concepts.
 * creator
 * star(s)
 * original network
 * description

Fields to choose
When we choose fields, we should consider that all info will be available on the article page of the sitcom anyway, so the fields should be relevant when comparing all those entries. I would suggest to take the following fields:
 * Name
 * Country
 * start year
 * number of years (which is much more valuable to compare stuff compared with end year, because popular series tend to go on longer etc.)
 * description
 * tags, maximum 3

Peter S. 20:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorting
Another question is sorting: Should The Aldrich Family be under "T"? Or "A" and displayed as "Aldrich Family, The"? Peter S. 20:09, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd say the last example you gave: "Aldrich Family", The. It always looks jolting to me when I see a list with a "The" out of alphabetic order.  I don't have strong feelings on it, though.  I definitely feel that titles starting with "The" or "A" should be sorted without regard to those leading words. SnappingTurtle 19:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion rule: all?
And a last thing: The imdb has 974 entries for Sitcom: [], sortable by Name, Date and Rating. Do we want to replicate that list? How about if we just add entries that already have a wikipedia article? Anyway, that's my 2 cents for now. :-) Peter S. 19:44, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd say let's take a laissez-faire policy on that: anybody add any legitimate entry to the list that they want, regardless of its inclusion in any other list. I personally will try to keep this list jived with Category:Sitcoms.SnappingTurtle 20:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

start year, end year, # of years, # of episodes

 * number of years (which is much more valuable to compare stuff compared with end year, because popular series tend to go on longer etc.)

This issue may be a can of worms. (Warning: some people might regard the following paragraphs as nitpicky. Oh well, I know that Kickstart, who has helped edit this page, also like nitpickiness.)

The problem I see with "number of years" is that it tempts readers to infer information that may not be valid. For example, Fawlty Towers started in 1975 and ended in 1979. However, it didn't "run" for four years: it had two individual short runs, one in 1975 and the other in 1979. It only had a total 12 episodes. Furthermore, different countries tend to produce different quantities of episodes per year, so a three year run in Britain might well be shorter than a one year run in the USA.

Then there is the issue of shows with very short runs. (A personal note: I don't know why, but I've always been fascinated with failed sitcoms, so the category of short run shows is dear to my heart.) Those shows will have confusing information about number of years. For example, Emily's Reasons Why Not ran for a single episode in 2006. How many years is that? Zero? The database programmer in me dislikes saying "zero years" for a show that did in fact run for a fractional but non-zero number of years. Furthermore, shows that run for a short amount of time might span January 1, so that might infer a run of "one year" for a show that only ran, say, two episodes.

Now, I do understand that "number of years" isn't meant to imply a high degree of precision, but I think it implies at least some precision where very, very little precision is warranted.

Now number of episodes may be a more valid measure of a show's run, but that has its own set of problems. First and most important, it's a very obscure piece of information, one I wouldn't trust without a citation. Second, it becomes increasingly inaccurate for shows that are still alive.

OK, so those are the problems, but I don't want mere obstacles to get in the way of such interesting information. So, here's what I propose. Let's go for "start year", "end year", and "number of episodes" with the following caveats:


 * Number of episodes must be cited. The citation should be for real, not just some fan page.
 * Series that are still in production should have "number of episodes" qualified with a date of when that count was true.
 * Series that are still in production should have "end year" as "SIP" (still in production). Is there a standard way to build acronyms into a specific page?

SnappingTurtle 20:24, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Regarding single-episode sitcoms...those would be 'pilots' and I don't know if they are worthy of inclusion here. But I'm a bit of a pedant :) An aside to that, anyone know what Tim Curry's rather sexually charged pilot was called? -- Kickstart70 &middot; Talk 17:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I would hate to see the single-episoders left off of the list. Bad tv fascinates me. Generally, I would say anything produced with the intention of making it into a sitcom, and which was broadcast at least once, should generally count as a sitcom.  As for Tim Curry, no idea.  I saw one episode of his sitcom with Annie Potts.  It was awful. And therefore fascinating. SnappingTurtle 18:04, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say ignore pilots altogether, but there are (literally) thousands of them in existence. They're probably worthy of their own list. -- Kickstart70 &middot; Talk 18:07, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

dash and mdash
While the mdash html entity is more correct, this is going to be a continual battle as people are well-used to using a simple'-' to show ranges. In the interest of not having to fix this all the time, how about we settle on the simplest user-friendly solution? ('-') -- Kickstart70 · Talk 21:55, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me SnappingTurtle 22:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Animated Sitcoms
A Whole Pile oF animated sitcoms weren't on theis list but family guy, the simpsons and american dad were so i added many others. 124.178.115.217 04:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed correction for "That's Hank"
Apologies for not being willing to make this change myself, but I believe the show listed as "That's Hank" should be simply "Hank." IMDB agrees with my recollection. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058811/combined (It was the theme song that ended with those words.) 76.117.49.56 (talk) 22:27, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry!
Have just added sitcom "Sorry!", but entry currently links to "sorry" disambiguation page, not the show page. Not sure how to fix this. Can anyone help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.103.247 (talk) 12:50, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Removal of flag icons and letter sections
I removed flag icons per MOS:NOFLAG.

I put the whole thing into one table. Having letter sections was helpful, but it stopped visitors from sorting by year and country, which is even more helpful.

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:15, 22 May 2015 (UTC)