Comedy-drama

Comedy-drama, or dramedy (a portmanteau of drama and comedy), is a genre of dramatic works (including film, television and theatre) in which plot elements are a combination of comedy and drama.[1][2] It is a subgenre of contemporary tragicomedy.[3][4] Comedy-drama is especially found in television programs and is considered a "hybrid genre".[5][6]

History

The advent of radio drama, cinema and in particular, television created greater pressure in marketing to clearly define a product as either comedy or drama. While in live theatre the difference became less and less significant, in mass media comedy and drama were clearly divided. Comedies were expected to keep a consistently light tone and not challenge the viewer by introducing more serious content.

By the early 1960s, television companies commonly presented half-hour-long "comedy" series or hour-long "dramas". Half-hour series were mostly restricted to situation comedy (sitcoms) or family comedy and were usually aired with either a live or overdubbed laugh track. One-hour dramas included such shows as police and detective series, westerns, science fiction and serialized prime time soap operas.

Comedy-drama series are often associated with the single-camera production format.

In the UK

In the United Kingdom, the format first appeared successfully in 1979 with the long-running series Minder, along with other comedy-dramas such as Jeeves and Wooster, Benidorm and After Life.

One of the first American television shows to successfully blend elements of comedy and drama together was Jackie Cooper's military-themed series, Hennesey. Although the show initially featured a laugh track, it also contains many elements of character drama that occurred amongst the re-occurring characters and the guest stars. The laugh track was not extensively used in each episode; by the third season, it was eliminated completely from the series.

While sitcoms would occasionally balance their humor with more dramatic and humanistic moments, these remained the exception to the rule as the 1960s progressed. Beginning around 1969 in the US, there was a brief spate of half-hour shows that purposely alternated between comedy and drama and aired without a laugh track, as well as some hour-long shows such as CHiPs in the late 1970s to early 1980s. These were known as "comedy-dramas".

An early (1969–1974) example of this genre was the award-winning Room 222, one of the first fully racially integrated television series. The episodes blended comedy with weighty subjects such as race relations, integrity, student smoking and mortality as well as topical issues such as the Vietnam War and the plight of returning war veterans.

The sitcom formula pioneered by Norman Lear in the 1970s in which a half-hour multi-camera situation comedy addressed serious issues in a dramatic format on videotape before a live studio audience is considered another type of comedy-drama hybrid. Examples of this genre include All in the Family and One Day at a Time.[7]

Another example was The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, which aired from 1987 to 1991.[8] The term "dramedy" was coined to describe the late 1980s wave of shows, including Hooperman,[9] Doogie Howser, M.D., and Frank's Place.[10]

These early shows influenced how general TV comedies and series (especially family themed sitcoms) were developed. They often included brief dramatic interludes and more serious subject matter. An example of a successful comedy-drama series that distinguished this genre in television was the series Moonlighting. It generated critical acclaim and was a highly rated series worldwide. Another example of a successful comedy-drama was the television series Eight Is Enough. The show was distinct, because it was not a comedy-drama in the traditional sense. It was an hour-long series that used a laugh track, which was very unusual, but is considered a comedy-drama for the fact that it alternated between drama and comedy.[11]

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See also

References
  1. "Dramedy". Cambridge Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  2. "Dramedy". Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  3. Joel D. Chaston (January 2001). "Baum, Bakhtin, and Broadway: A Centennial Look at the Carnival of Oz". The Lion and the Unicorn. 25 (1): 128–149. doi:10.1353/uni.2001.0002.
  4. J. L. Styan (1968). The Dark Comedy: The Development of Modern Comic Tragedy. Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 0-521-09529-8. Retrieved 2012-07-30. seriousness comedy.
  5. O'Donnell, Victoria (2017). "5. Television Genres". Television Criticism (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications. pp. 101–102. ISBN 978-1483377681. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  6. Kopcow, Chris (October 23, 2014). "Is the Future of Comedy the Comedy/Drama Hybrid?". Vulture. Retrieved 30 May 2018.
  7. O'Dell, Cary (October 25, 2013). "One Day at a Time". Encyclopedia of Television. Museum of Broadcast Communications. Retrieved December 10, 2017.
  8. Brinkmoeller, Tom (September 3, 2010). "Classic "Molly Dodd" Series Remains Locked Up, Awaiting 'Bail'". TV Worth Watching. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  9. Kelley, Bill (September 23, 1987). "The Best And The Brightest Abc's Hooperman – The Hands-down Winner Of The Best New Show Of The Year – Introduces A New Format, dramedy, While Slap Maxwell Reintroduces Dabney Coleman". Sun Sentinel. Retrieved September 24, 2017.
  10. Hill, Michael (August 6, 1989). "Bochco gives dramedy another go with 'Doogie Howser, M.D.'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  11. "Eight is Enough". Fifties Web. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
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