Written by Chloe Jarvis
Ever wondered when the “golden era” of comedy TV started? No? Well, I’ve spent way too much time thinking about it, so humor me, will ya? I think it was the 90s: 90s comedies literally shaped our culture as we know it – with shows like Seinfeld, Friends, and Frasier all airing. If you need proof of the impact these shows had, both Seinfeld and Friends were nominated for over 60 Emmy’s during their runs, and Fraiser was nominated for 108. To put that into perspective, you’d have to eat over 13 entire pizzas by yourself to have a slice for every Frasier nomination—that’s 30k calories worth of Frasier.
Enough about pizza, though: we’re talking about TV here. The golden era of comedy TV continued into the 2000s & 2010s, with shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, 30 Rock – the list goes on and on my dudes. But something has been nagging at me for the past few months: I think the golden era of comedy TV is dead, and I don’t just mean declining here, I mean like, trampled by a horse kind of dead. I mean, name your 3 favorite comedy shows from the past 5 years. I’ll wait.
Maybe you thought of shows like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or The Good Place, but those both ended 3 and 4 years ago (respectively), so they’re barely making it into the qualifiers here. It seems that, so far, all the big shows of the 2020s have been dramas: from You to Squid Games to Kobra Kai. Comedy is being overlooked these days, and I think that’s really sad. Because dramatic shows can be great, don’t get me wrong, but comedies are the kinds of shows that bring people together—they provide a sort of comfort that drama shows can’t; an escape from the seriousness of life.
But hey, I’m just a random college student: what do you think? Is the age of comedy really dead, or are there great shows that I’m missing out on?
