The sitcom family living room

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I don't know if this is already well known, but I just realized how much the living rooms in almost every family sitcom I can think of resemble each other.

In these shows, right, most of the, er, action goes on in the living room, and they all seem to follow the same template. The couch, of course, is in the middle of the room; to the right ("stage left" I guess) is the door to outside; to the left is the door to the kitchen; behind the couch is the stairs to the second floor; and in the position of our window into their world, the "front" of the set, is where the TV family's television is kept. Is this just a reflection of a trend in real life house construction that I hadn't noticed?

This wouldn't be remarkable to me if I couldn't think of so many examples of the same setup in different TV shows just right off the top of my head, and I don't even watch much television, certainly not much of this genre anyway:

-The Cosby Show
-Dave's World
-Everybody Loves Raymond (and BOTH of two shows that I think are its spin-offs)
-Married, With Children
-in Roseanne the setup is exactly opposite, with the outside door on the left, kitchen on the right and the stairs slanting the other way.

I know there's more, too...

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 22 August 2002 07:48 (twenty-three years ago)

But these are just Amurican sitcoms. Is there an alternative template in the UK?

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 22 August 2002 07:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Stairs don't exist in British family sitcoms, unless someone is crying on them.

― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 22 August 2002 08:34 (twenty-three years ago)

I suspect the answer is simply that the US sitcoms are made on the cheap. In a lot of British sitcoms, there is actually quite a lot of location filming, e.g. Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, with Frank Spencer careering down the road on roller skates (which was filmed at my parents' local shopping centre incidentally, Edmonton Green in n. London), or Terry out electioneering in his car in Terry & June.

― MarkH, Thursday, 22 August 2002 08:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah! That's one of the weird things that I've noticed but never really been able to put my finger on. In British sitcoms people actually go outside, and it doesn't look all fake, like the Brady Bunch's back yard, or in front of the garage on That 70's Show. It's dealing with actual sunlight that makes the difference, I think.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 22 August 2002 08:49 (twenty-three years ago)

A programme that I absolutely adored was the Garry Shandling Show where he made fun of the American sitcom model to great effect, making no secret of the fact that it was just half a living room on a stage with the studio audience watching. I much preferred this show to Larry Sanders which followed. I think I was very much in the minority here.

― MarkH, Thursday, 22 August 2002 08:54 (twenty-three years ago)

in UK sitcoms people go outside but they never go upstairs!! what were we thinking!!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 22 August 2002 09:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Grace Under Fire has exactly the Roseanne model too - as does the British copy of Roseanne, Two Point Four Children.

The Garry Shandling Show was great, but Larry Sanders was even better for having three great star turns and far more sharpness and venom.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 22 August 2002 10:53 (twenty-three years ago)

ha!! MY TWO DADS broke the mould (in many other ways also)

i think We Got It Made was also avant-garde in this respect...

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 22 August 2002 11:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Two point four children was the British copy of Roseanne??? Blimey o'moses, that went a bit awry, didn't it? (They did have an upstairs, tho'). The most recent rash of British middle-class sitcoms (the one with Robert Lindsay, um, another one with that woman who used to be in the one about old people) have the same set, only bigger (especially the settees. Is big settees a marker of middles classness?). And no upstairs.

― Ellie (Ellie), Thursday, 22 August 2002 11:54 (twenty-three years ago)

British copy of Roseanne = the husband is fat.

― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 22 August 2002 11:57 (twenty-three years ago)

(fat and now dead)

Funniest copy was Rhona Cameron's exact rip of Seinfeld set, with translated details (a pc instead of a mac, etc).

by funniest of course, what i mean is, not actually funny. which wasn't nice as i've actually enjoyed Rhona's standup, and whichever of Mel/Sue it was. i forget.

Royle family should be mentioned, esp as geography of couch, telly, etc is crucial

― Alan (Alan), Thursday, 22 August 2002 11:58 (twenty-three years ago)

the one with Robert Lindsay

is a rip off of Butterflies in almost every respect (layabout kids, husband is a dentist, wife can't cook).

― MarkH, Thursday, 22 August 2002 12:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Butterflies had an upstairs.

Also Three's Company (US version of "Man About the House", so we were told) has no upstairs, although living room is two steps down from bedrooms -- but the best part was the kitchen, which was SLIGHTLY TO THE RIGHT OF THE VIEWER!!!

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 22 August 2002 12:18 (twenty-three years ago)

how handy: no more bananapeel shenanigans for me, i can toss my trash into THEIR house

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 22 August 2002 12:25 (twenty-three years ago)

What I want to know is why in American sitcoms they have glass in their cupboard doors and brown fridges. I've never seen a brown fridge in real life, why do they have them in sitcoms? (Married, with Children and at least one other show, maybe Family Ties)

― toraneko (toraneko), Thursday, 22 August 2002 12:27 (twenty-three years ago)

CHEERS = PHIL's (from Murphy Brown)

― ddd (ddd), Thursday, 22 August 2002 14:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Brown fridges = the lingering influence of the seventies.

I would like to think that given the construction of these living rooms, the 'fourth wall' is in fact either a massive aquarium filled with fish or one hell of a bookcase.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 22 August 2002 14:30 (twenty-three years ago)

We had a brown fridge in the seventies. Well, brown except for the bits where I had damaged the paint with my Matchbox cars.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 22 August 2002 14:46 (twenty-three years ago)

on growing pains the living room door was in the MIDDLE.

― Josh (Josh), Thursday, 22 August 2002 23:40 (twenty-three years ago)

my two dads so rules this thread

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 22 August 2002 23:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Why is this a mystery?

Lazy/cheap cinematography + lack of a desire for close-ups (because we want to sponge vicariously from these sitcom characters rather than have them thrust in our faces as real people) + glorification of the American suburban dream (because we don't want to admit that teenagers prefer to isolate themselves in their rooms as alienated psychopaths) + live studio audiences to provide 'authenticity' + all the families are large to symbolise the general fecundity of market capitalism + kitchens are dirty and bedrooms are sex dens = sitcom living rooms are the quintessential spatiality of pap.

Yet another reason why I don't own a TV...

― debaser, Friday, 23 August 2002 00:18 (twenty-three years ago)

debaser proves by spatial fecundity that my two dads refers to marx AND engels

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 23 August 2002 00:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually, if I got to choose the lead characters they'd be Gramsci AND Polanyi, but - there you have it - I'm just a soft cock revisionist Marxist, what would I know?

Ok - yes. My meta-theory for American TV sets doesn't quite incorporate the small detail of sitcoms which are not based on mum, dad + 9 kids. However, those examples are the exception that proves the rule, don't you think? After all, what is the standard basis for the plot in those exceptions? Striving for normality/legitimacy. How to replace mom when you have two dads.

And - yes. I came from a perfectly dysfunctional, 1-parent household and I'm bitter and twisted....

― debaser, Friday, 23 August 2002 00:36 (twenty-three years ago)

tv is great what are you on

― Josh (Josh), Friday, 23 August 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

in UK sitcoms people go outside but they never go upstairs!!

They go upstairs but are not generally seen in transit, at least not actually on the stairs - they are seen on 'landings' and in upstairs rooms eg 'Rising Damp' and 'Fawlty Towers' and probably dozens of others.

― David (David), Friday, 23 August 2002 01:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Cheap cinematography = effect of filming long uninturrupted takes/saving film/aura of naturalism. Glorification of the American Dream = hah! (except maybe Phenom and that didn't last long) cf. how shows get sooo many laughs from moody teenagers (except those AIMED at teens which get laffs at staid adults). Live studio audiences provide the opposite of "authenticity" -- i.e. self-awareness, as do laff tracks as a distancing effect to further generalize/socialize morality play aspects. Families are NOT that large, but only enuf to keep a set of interesting characters in play (& most sitcoms aren't family sitcoms anyway but about work or groups of 20somethings or &c.)

And kitchens/dining rooms are spatialized plenty in Friends to Everybody Loves Raymond (where the couch is played directly as the place to watch the boob-tube from like Married With Children lite).

And besides, interaction TENDS to happen in the living room. That's what its there for -- and interaction in bedrooms happens, for good reason, usually in a bed. Which does get pictured plenty in sitcoms.

And family sitcoms themselves in classiXor form are the exception rather than the rule and the only one I can think of lately per debaser's form is The Cosby Show which of course must be judged on completely different terms of race/class interplay.

Also, A)

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 23 August 2002 04:03 (twenty-three years ago)

six years pass...

http://6.media.tumblr.com/IwM8PIQ02ktykdvsHsOvlTieo1_r2_500.png

― •--• --- --- •--• (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:48 (sixteen years ago)

I would really like to see some very creative person produce a series of paintings or drawings depicting the fourth wall of these sitcom sets.

I'm sure you'd see a television in each of them, but also maybe windows to the yard, a fireplace, a desk, bookcases, etc.

― •--• --- --- •--• (Pleasant Plains), Thursday, 19 March 2009 15:51 (sixteen years ago)

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