Noun

sitcoms

1. Plural form of sitcom.

A situation comedy, usually referred to as a sitcom, is a genre of comedy programs which originated in radio. Today, sitcoms are found almost exclusively on television as one of its dominant narrative forms. Sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a common environment such as a home or workplace and can include laugh tracks or studio audiences.

Characteristics

As opposed to stand up comedy a situation comedy has a storyline and ongoing characters in, essentially, a comedic drama.

The situation is usually that of a family, workplace, or a group of friends. The term situation comedy or sitcom was adopted to distinguish them from other comedy formats such as sketch comedy, or stand-up comedy. Often these other formats were presented within a variety format mixed with musical performances, as in vaudeville. The emerging mass medium of radio allowed audiences to return to programs over and over, which allowed programs to return to the same characters and situations each episode and expect audiences to be familiar with them. While the humor in sitcoms varies, it is usually character-driven, which may result in running gags during the series.

Often in a situation comedy television series the status quo is maintained from episode to episode; while within an episode there may be a distruption to the usual situation and the character interactions, this will usually be settled by the episode's end and the situation returned to how it was prior to the disruption. There are exceptions to this. Some shows feature story arcs across many episodes where the characters and situations change and evolve.