Video: Unhappy Days for the Sitcom

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No more. Today the genre is filled with impossibly precocious children, bubble-headed blonds and wisecracking oddballs who, all too often, work at wacky TV stations. Lest we forget, one of this season's protagonists was a talking chimpanzee (Mr. Smith). Yet the "human" characters were scarcely more believable. When eight-year-old Webster, played by pint-sized Emmanuel Lewis, was ordered by his adoptive father to go to his room, he replied with caustic resignation: "Right. I'm the kid." One had to be reminded.

Not that topicality has disappeared altogether from prime-time comedy. Such shows as Family Ties, Diff'rent Strokes and Gimme a Break still make occasional stabs at issues like drug abuse and teen-age sex. But Archie Bunker's righteous outrage has been replaced by Gary Coleman's jokebook, and the conflicts are resolved with a pat 1950s-style sentimentality that seems phonier than ever. Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver at least believed in their inspirational messages.

Even the few sitcoms written for adults seem to have burned themselves out. The ensemble shows that have tried to pick up where Mary Tyler Moore left off, from Taxi and Barney Miller to this season's Duck Factory and Night Court, have been marred by an overreliance on rat-a-tat gag lines and quirky characters assembled like the bomber crews in old World War II movies. A couple of outstanding performers (Shelley Long and Ted Danson on Cheers, for example) can bring the illusion of humanity and depth to these jerry-built structures. But one still senses an overheated air, the desperation of writers huffing and puffing to fill dead spaces with laughs.

Given the cyclical nature of television, it would be foolish to write the sitcom's obituary. A few shows have tried to revitalize the form this season, though with only mixed success. Buffalo Bill, starring Dabney Coleman as an egotistical TV talk-show host, provided a few weeks of inspired nastiness before it hit a dead end. The Four Seasons tried earnestly to deal with the problems of contemporary married couples but seemed oddly glum and enervated. Kate & Allie offers moments of wit and truth in its portrayal of two divorced mothers, but founders on Jane Curtin's strained and self-conscious acting.

On the other hand, the season's best new comedy came disguised in utterly conventional garb. Domestic Life, a CBS mid-season entry, starred Martin Mull as that most familiar of sitcom clichés, the harried husband and father of two. But the show (co-created by Steve Martin) managed the difficult feat of using the conventions and satirizing them at the same time. When Mull was forced to ask his son, a 12-year-old financial wizard, for a $4,000 loan to pay the mortgage, the deadpan role reversal was acidly on target. Dismayed son: "I just wish you'd asked my advice before agreeing to a balloon payment." Contrite father: "I would've, but you were seven." Domestic Life, alas, has not been renewed for the fall, but it proved that there may be life in the old form yet. —By Richard Zoglin