September 12, 2012

Are Reality Shows The New Sitcoms?

Remember the times when television was easy?

A rerun of The Cosby Show, a new episode of Moesha and, if you weren’t too sleepy, you’d catch the soul sessions of Midnight Love. (Well, ML wasn’t a sitcom but it was close to our hearts.)

Well – wake up! It’s a brand new decade and television is vicious, backstabbing and ruthless. And that’s just the good stuff, according to the new generation.

What happened to the safe, moral-driven sitcom? It’s just not cool anymore. With real life being more prevalent than ever, American viewers have expressed by viewership that they’d rather watch a reality show with real characters who are going through a lot of scripted drama.

And to add insult to injury, most reality shows are developed to create a platform for reemerging actors, singers and catapult nobodies into somebodies. It’s a scheme for quick fame verses an attempt to bring valuable entertainment into the homes of
millions of Americans.

Will reality replace the beloved sitcom? We don’t see it happening but it’s not too far off from the looks of the TV Guide. If networks can beef up our interest levels with both entertaining and relevant sitcoms while providing the newer reality, both may have a place in our living rooms – equally.

Now to pose the core question: Are reality shows the new sitcom? Um…doubtful. Although they’ve taken over our evening screens, they serve their amusement purposes but there are many sitcoms holding down the fort. Among them are the Emmy winning shows Modern Family, Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, 30 Rock and For Better or Worse.

For your pleasure, we at SFPL have listed the top running Black sitcoms of all time:

1. Tyler Perry’s House of Payne (254 episodes)

2. The Jeffersons (253 episodes)

3. Family Matters (215 episodes)

4. The Cosby Show (201 episodes)

5. Diff’rent Strokes (189 episodes)

6. Girlfriends (172 episodes)

7. Benson (158 episodes)

8. Webster (150 episodes)

-Stay Fly!

[Written By, Fly Guy,  Joshua King]

Share This

---

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•