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.

The situation comedy format began in the late 1920s as 15-minute, usually daily, radio programs which featured the same characters and situations from episode to episode. One of the earliest successful sitcoms from this period was Amos and Andy. Like many radio programs of the period, Amos and Andy continued the American entertainment traditions of the minstel show and of Vaudeville.

Another successful radio sitcom was Fibber McGhee and Molly.

In the late 1940s, the sitcom was among the first formats adapted for the new medium of television. Many of the earliest sitcoms were direct adaptations of existing radio shows, such as Amos and Andy, or vehicles for existing radio stars such as Burns and Allen (The Burns and Allen Show) and film stars such as Abbott and Costello (The Abbott and Costello Show).

An early innovator in the history of sitcoms is Desi Arnaz who is credited with the first successful use of the three-camera shoot, where three cameras shoot the action on stage simultaneously and the best shots from each of the cameras are later edited together. I Love Lucy, the monstrously popular show that Arnaz and his wife created and starred in together, was also among the first to record all episodes on film, and he is thus also credited with foreseeing the viability of the rerun.

Eventually, sitcoms came began to divide themselves into two distinct groups: the domestic comedy, which focused on a family or a married couple in their home, and the workplace comedy, which focused on the employees at a workplace. The earliest domestic comedies include Burns and Allen, The Honeymooners, and Make Room for Daddy.

A few shows managed to feature both situations equally, such as the early 1960s The Dick Van Dyke Show.

By the mid-1960s, sitcom creators began adding more fantastical elements to sitcoms. Monsters and ghouls were featured as regular characters in The Addams Family', adapted from a series of cartoon drawings, and The Munsters. Genies and witches featured in I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched, respectively. Sherwood Schwartz, creator of I Dream of Jeannie also created the somewhat implausible Gilligan's Island.

Music become an important and popular sub-genre of sitcoms in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The Monkees, which played off of the success of The Beatles, and with The Partridge Family.

One notable sitcom from this period is Sherwood Schwartz's The Brady Bunch, perhaps the best-known domestic comedy is US television history.

In the early 1970s, sitcoms began to address controversial issues in a serious way. In the US Norman Lear is credited with this development through his sitcoms All in the Family, based on Johnny Speight's Till Death Us Do Part in the United Kingdom, and its spin-offs Maude), The Jeffersons, and Good Times in the U.S. Also in Britain was Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's Steptoe and Son, which also had a US remake in Sanford and Son.

During this time, Bob Newhart adapted his deadpan club act for television in sitcom format, which was at once a throwback to the early vaudevillian origins of sitcoms and a harbinger of the 1980s - 1990s stand-up comedian sitcom trend.

In the mid-1970s, John Marshall had several huge hits in the US with his trio of sitcoms Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Mork and Mindy.

Sex and titillation became a theme in the late 1970s with the UK sitcom Man About the House and its US remake Three's Company.

Stand-up comic Bill Cosby starred in the tremendously successful 1980s sitcom The Cosby Show, which was the earliest of the successful sitcoms built around a stand-up comic's stage persona. Comedienne Roseanne continued the trend in the late 1980s with her eponymous sitcom. More recently, Jerry Seinfeld (Seinfeld), Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond), and Garry Shandling (It's Garry Shandling's Show and Larry Sanders) have made the transition from the brick wall to the small screen with self-starring sitcoms.

Beginning in the mid-1990s several sitcoms have introduced ongoing story lines. Friends, the most popular U.S. sitcom of the 1990s-2000s, had an overall story arc similar to that of soap operas. In addition to using traditional sitcom stories, which were introduced and resolved in the same episode, the show normally had two or three ongoing stories taking place at any given point in the show's run. Friends also used other soap opera elements, such as regularly employing the device of an end-of-season cliffhanger and gradually developing the relationships of the characters over the course of the series.

Friends was not without precedent as a sitcom with continuing story lines. The Beverly Hillbillies, for example, frequently had continuing stories during its successful 1960s-1970s run, and One Day At A Time often featured ongoing issues and four-part episodes.

Traditionally, sitcom series featured individual episodes that were largely self-contained. The regular characters remained largely static, and events of the episode resolved themselves by the end. Events in previous episodes would rarely be mentioned in subsequent episodes. While school friends or beloved relatives might appear, often they would only be seen once in the series, and were rarely mentioned in subsequent episodes (apparent in The Brady Bunch and many other programs). This formula has been parodied many times by The Simpsons. Mr. Burns, despite repeated close interaction with his employee Homer Simpson, never recalls those incidents and does not remember who Homer is in subsequent episodes. The revelation of Seymour Skinner's true identity in "The Principal and the Pauper" parodies the habit of traditional sitcoms introducing a major upheaval in the story of one episode, and returning everything to how it was before by the episode's end.

The humor in sitcoms varies but is usually character-driven, which results in many running jokes during the series, such as Niles's devotion to Daphne in Frasier.

A common aspect of family sitcoms is that, at some point in their run, a baby is introduced into the family. Exceptions include all sitcoms starring Bob Newhart, who insisted that his sitcoms not have babies or children. The addition of a new baby to a sitcom family provides new story situations for the series as the family adjusts to a new member. The baby itself, however, provides only a limited range of stories, due to its limited mobility, mental development, and vocabulary. In addition, there are practical problems with working with a baby on-set. Thus, most sitcom kids are aged to four or five within two years of their birth (such as Andrew Keaton on Family Ties and Chrissy Seaver on Growing Pains), allowing the characters a wider range of story lines. Occasionally a sitcom would retain the same child without such age jumps (such as Erin Murphy as Tabitha Stevens on Bewitched and the Olsen twins as Michelle Tanner on Full House).

Most contemporary situation comedies are filmed with a multi-camera setup in front of a live studio audience and then edited for broadcast days or weeks later. This practice is used mainly for traditional domestic or workplace-based comedies and was used as early as 1951 for I Love Lucy. Several 1960s sitcoms, including The Munsters, The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched, used the single camera filming style, which was more practical given the visual effects used in these shows. Overall, the late 1960s was a period of greater production values for sitcoms, as shows such as Get Smart also used the single-camera filming style. This allowed for careful creation and sharp editing parodying action and fight sequences of spy genre films and TV shows, features which were not possible with the same finesse in a multi-camera production. In the 1970s, M*A*S*H also used the single-camera filming style, which was suited to the show's naturalistic and flowing style, and more practical given its multiple sets and location filming. In the 1980s, U.S. sitcoms used the multi-camera style. In the more recent British sitcom Green Wing, often scenes were shot using a single steadycam, and later were sped up or slowed down for comic effect.

Although many sitcoms still use laugh tracks, a recent trend to eliminate laugh tracks and studio audiences can be seen in newer series like My Name Is Earl, The Office, Arrested Development, and Scrubs. The producers of M*A*S*H did not want a laugh track on the show, arguing that the show did not need one, but CBS disagreed. CBS compromised by permitting the producers of the show to omit recorded laughter from scenes that took place in the operating room, if they wished. When it was shown in the United Kingdom, episodes were broadcast without the laugh track. Ross Bagdasarian also refused to use a laugh track in his production of The Alvin Show.

Sitcoms are based on such premises as the "fish out of water", the foil, the family sitcom, the young protagonist’s point of view, misunderstandings, and the parody of serious versions of their characters or genres.

Many sitcoms are based on the premise of a character being out of his or her element — i.e., a "fish out of water".

• On Gilligan's Island, the title character (the first mate on a cruise ship), his skipper, and their passengers become castaways on a desert isle. Having left civilization behind, these latter-day Robinson Crusoes must fend for themselves while seeking a means to effect their rescue.
• On Green Acres a lawyer and his Manhattan socialite wife abandon New York for a decrepit farm with poor soil and a ramshackle house. The lawyer, a hopeless sentimentalist, has always dreamed of having his own farm to till, plant, and harvest. However, he is out of his league; the well-meaning but bumbling agricultural agent is unable to help him; and the con artist who sold him the farm is unwilling to help him. He is on his own in an environment he does not understand and in which he cannot function well.
• The Beverly Hillbillies is a reversal of the same premise. Upon discovering oil on his land in Bug Tussle, Jed Clampett and his kin move from the hills of Tennessee to Beverly Hills, California, where they must cope with a way of life they’ve never known and are ill equipped to handle.
• On Bewitched, Samantha Stevens promises to forgo witchcraft and live according to the ways of the mortal world, which she chooses to inhabit because of her love for her mortal husband, Darrin.
• A similar premise is the basis for I Dream of Jeannie, in which a female genie serves as the faithful servant of her strait-laced, no-nonsense astronaut master, upon whom she has a romantic crush.
• On Mork and Mindy, the extraterrestrial Mork has a crush on Mindy and wants to fit into her world.
• My Three Sons involved a single father’s attempts to raise three sons without the aid of a wife and mother. Conversely, Full House involved a recently widowed father attempting to raise his three daughters with the help of his brother-in-law and best friend.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air features streetwise Will Smith landing at his aunt and uncle's mansion in Bel-Air. Instead of Will being uncomfortable and confused about the element of "preppiness" he is unfamiliar with, his "homeboy" nature allows him to continue the way he is without shame, as he considers the fancy people, including his cousin Carlton, people to insult and look down on, which in turn makes up a large part of the show's humor.
• Dead Like Me also uses this technique as the character of George Lass tries to get to grips with the afterlife while her fellow reapers are very familiar with the process and are comfortable.

Other sitcoms are based on foils. In fiction, a foil is a minor character whose traits are the opposite to those of the main character. I Married Joan and I Love Lucy are examples. In both series, a straightforward, down-to-earth, rational husband marries a flighty, zany, emotional woman given to hatching complex absurd schemes that invariably cause problems for their impatient but long suffering husbands (see also Dharma and Greg). The Honeymooners and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show were similar, pitting, in the first case, a scheming and often foolish husband against a rational wife and, in the latter, a daffy wife against calm, philosophical husband who used active eyebrows to comment on the nuttiness surrounding him.

Having existed from the invention of the sitcom and having prominence in the 1980s, this premise involves the lives and situations of a family, usually taking place inside their house or residence. The standard formula for an episode of a family sitcom is:

• A family member (usually a child) creates conflict or otherwise gets him or her self into trouble, usually followed by some kind of misunderstanding or cover-up.
• The culprit is exposed or caught and confronted.
• This almost always results in a lesson being learned.

For examples, see The Brady Bunch, The War at Home, Leave it to Beaver, The Cosby Show, Full House, Family Ties, Growing Pains, Roseanne, Reba, and Family Matters. Of particular note is Home Improvement. In the series, the lead character, Tim "The Toolman" Taylor, the father, is usually the one learning the lesson, as opposed to one of the children. Since its popularity (as well as the popularity of The Simpsons), most family sitcoms have trended toward the father being the "troublemaker" of the house, reverting back to The Honeymooners formula. More recent examples include According to Jim, The King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond and Still Standing.

A fourth premise for sitcoms is that of telling the story from the youthful protagonist’s point of view (i. e., the use of an unreliable narrator). This is the theme of such sitcoms as Malcolm In The Middle, Blossom, Leave It To Beaver, and frequently The Brady Bunch. In these shows, the main characters are teens or pre-teens whose view of the world is often exasperating and endearing simultaneously. Trying to understand their world through inexperienced and naïve eyes, these characters often misunderstand the implications of incidents and actions. Often, they make a bad situation worse before their parents or another wise, understanding, and loving adult bails them out of their trouble. As a result, they become somewhat older and wiser.

Television sitcoms such as Batman and Get Smart are based on parodying other more serious versions of their characters or genres. Batman, starring Adam West, poked fun at the campy elements implicit in costumed crime fighters and over-the-top villains whose comic book punches are accompanied by onomatopoetic graphics (e.g., "pow", "bang") in dynamic and dazzling fonts. However, the parody was done so unobtrusively that the show could be watched as a straight action series if the viewer were so inclined. Likewise, Get Smart made fun of the action-adventure plots of secret agents like James Bond. In Britain, the sitcom 'Allo 'Allo! was a parody of war films and dramas set in World War II, such as Secret Army. The series Hogan's Heroes, set in a German POW camp, is another example.

Highly popular in the 1970's and again in the late 80's and early 90's, when newer networks such as UPN, Fox and the WB were still trying to establish themselves; this style is geared toward the African American viewer. The "Urban" comedy usually involves a cast almost completely comprised of African Americans and dealing with issues of their interest. Many of the same formulas are used as in any of the other styles, but there is usually a high sketch comedy influence and a lot of times involve many absurd gags not normally seen in modern American television. Another thing that sets an "urban" comedy apart from most other shows is their use of stars not only from a stand-up comedy background, but also from the world of music. (see: "Moesha", "Martin", "Good Times", "What's Happening", and "227")

Many sitcoms reuse a common mixture of character archetypes to achieve reliable comedic situations from week to week.

The most common archetype appearing in sitcoms is the naïf or fool. Typically, this character accepts events and statements at face value and often misunderstands situations in ways that create conflict in the plot. Characters in sitcom history that fit this description include Jack McFarland (Will and Grace), Homer Simpson (The Simpsons), Maynard G. Krebs (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis), Monroe Ficus (Too Close for Comfort), Chrissy Snow (Three's Company), Colonel Bellows (I Dream of Jeannie), Rose Nylund (The Golden Girls), "Coach" Ernie Pantusso and Woody Boyd (Cheers), Matthew Brock (Newsradio), Joey (Friends), Father Dougal (Father Ted), Linda (Becker), Maxwell Smart (Get Smart), Cosmo Kramer (Seinfeld), Kelso and Leo (That '70s Show), Arthur Carlson (WKRP in Cincinnati), Waldo Geraldo Faldo (Family Matters), Dauber Dybinski (Coach) and Kenneth Parcell (30 Rock).

In some series, the entire cast may take on this trait at one time or another; examples include the Bundy family of Married... with Children, The Griffins et al. of Family Guy, and the Tate/Campbell families of Soap.

Not commonly seen on US television before the appearance of The Bundys from "Married... with Children", this character was fairly common on British comedies from the '60s onward; these characters at times have traits of "The naive fool", and "The antagonist". They have (at least limited) awareness that his or her actions are in some way socially unacceptable, rude or just plain dumb. At times, this character plays pranks, makes inappropriate comments and generally makes life more difficult for the other characters. This character isn't quite an antagonist, however. They are usually accepted (and even loved) by the other characters despite their flaws. In some cases. they are the ones who end up saving the day with just the right advice or sacrifice. This type was popularized in the US by the series "Seinfeld", in which all of the characters are selfish and rude and don't care about how society views them, yet they are the protagonists of the show. An earlier antecedent was the Maynard G. Krebs beatnik character from "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". Other examples of this character include Dan Fielding of "Night Court", Basil Fawlty of "Fawlty Towers", Roseanne Connor of "Roseanne" and Peter Griffin of "Family Guy".

This character usually has either an elevated intellect, advanced age, or "outsider" experience. The sage frequently comments wryly on the situation into which the other characters have placed themselves and often suggests solutions to resolve the major plot conflict. The characters Wilson Wilson from Home Improvement and George Feeny from Boy Meets World are examples of the use of a sage.

The comic relief character usually exhibits eccentric personality traits and unusual reactions to commonplace situations and sometimes serves as the protagonist of the situation comedy series. This character's strange attitudes and reactions to events provide opportunities for absurd or unexpected humour. Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld is a textbook example of a comic relief character, as is Phoebe Buffay of Friends. In doofus guise, we find Ted Knight from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and from the original The Bob Newhart Show wacky neighbor Howard Borden. Also from Newhart, in a wonderful conceit, Bob's circle of unlikely patients, the most outstanding of which was the deadpan whackjob Elliot Carlin, served this function. On the American version of The Office, Michael is the main comic relief character. On The Golden Girls, Rose Nylund and Sophia Petrillo can be considered comic relief characters. The characters of Barbara Jean Hart and Van Montgomery on Reba could be considered comic relief characters.

Sometimes the spouse of the lead character, the straight man's main purpose is to react to the comic lead's shenanigans with an often sarcastic or deadpan response, often acting as a foil to the naif, the wacky neighbor, or the comic relief. Examples include Al Borland from Home Improvement, Marge Simpson from The Simpsons, Red Forman from "That '70s Show", Dr. Cox from Scrubs, Alice and Trixie from The Honeymooners Larry Appleton from Perfect Strangers, and Jim Halpert from the American version of The Office. Many times the straight man functions as the main character of the show, driving the plot by being the only seemingly sane person admist the chaos of the show. Examples of this type of character are Jerry Seinfeld from Seinfeld and Michael Bluth from Arrested Development.

This character, who will often embody qualities of the Naive Fool or Comic Relief, lives next door, across the hall, or in similar close proximity to the protagonist. This allows the character to pop into the plot whenever necessary and inject a slice of levity and/or oddness to the proceedings. Examples include Nudge from Hey Dad..! and Steve Urkel from Family Matters. The Wacky Neighbor may also be an element of the core cast, such as Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld, Bob Pinciotti from "That '70s Show", Howard Borden from The Bob Newhart Show, Ned Flanders from The Simpsons, Joey from Friends, and Wilson from Home Improvement, whose wisdom and insight often helped the Taylor family during the course of the series.

An offbeat example of the Wacky Neighbor is Ernest P. Worrell, originally from Hey Vern It's Ernest. In this show, the viewer assumes the first person perspective of the eponymous Vern, so that the protagonist is never seen and the wacky neighbor becomes the default focus of the show.

This archetypal character functions as a primary rival, competitor, or enemy of the series' principal character, the protagonist. On the sitcom All in the Family, Michael "Meathead" Stivic served as the primary antagonist to his father-in-law, Archie Bunker. On The Simpsons, Homer Simpson chooses (most of the time) to make an antagonist of his neighbor, Ned Flanders. Jerry Seinfeld's main antagonist on his self-titled sitcom was his postal worker neighbor Newman. In Yes Minister, Sir Humphrey Appleby constantly tried to foil the government policies of the minister of his department, Jim Hacker MP.

The ladies' man and the man eater are aggressively sexual characters whose primary humor derives from their sexual exploits. Depending upon the tenor of the series, and depending on if it's airing earlier or later on the schedule, the character's attitude can range from harmless flirtation to borderline hypersexuality. The characters Larry Dallas (Three's Company), Blanche Devereaux (The Golden Girls), Roz Doyle (Frasier), Will Smith (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), The Todd (Scrubs), Samantha Jones (Sex and the City), Karen Walker (Will and Grace), Jack MacFarland (Will and Grace), Joey (Friends), Sam Malone (Cheers), Glenn Quagmire (Family Guy), Dr. Guy Secretan (Green Wing), Venus Flytrap ("WKRP in Cincinatti"), Barney Stinson ("How I Met Your Mother"), Michael Kelso ("That '70s Show"), Laurie Forman ("That '70s Show"), Sandra Clark (227), Drake Parker (Drake and Josh) are examples of this character type.

Some sitcoms feature characters from other countries or specific regions of a country whose accents, speech patterns, mannerisms, and attitudes provide opportunities for conflict or comic relief. Examples include Latka Gravas (Taxi), Balki Bartokomous (Perfect Strangers), Carla Tortelli (Cheers), Thurston Howell III and Lovey Howell (Gilligan's Island), Apu (The Simpsons), Fez (That '70s Show), Otto and Gretchen Mannkusser (Malcolm in the Middle), Lola Hernandez (Hot Properties), and Joy Darville (My Name Is Earl). Sophia Petrillo (The Golden Girls) and Bender (Futurama) have distinct Sicilian and Brooklyn accents.

Other recurring archetypal characters that appear in sitcoms include:

• The meddling or nosy neighbor (The Ropers/Ralph Furley from Three's Company, Gladys Kravitz Bewitched, Marie Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond, The Ochmoneks from ALF)
• The wacky wife and her straight laced husband (I Love Lucy, Dharma & Greg, American Dad)
• The wisecracking curmudgeon (Archie Bunker from All in the Family, Lou Grant from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Frank Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond)
• The well meaning, but ill-fated, male blue-collar worker, usually married to a relatively better looking and smarter wife: (The Honeymooners, The Flintstones, The Life of Riley, The Simpsons, The King of Queens, Still Standing, Family Guy, According to Jim, Yes, Dear, Everybody Loves Raymond)
• The lovable loser (Cliff Clavin and Norm Peterson from Cheers, George Costanza from Seinfeld, Noel Shempsky from Frasier, Gunther from Friends, Spence Olchin from The King of Queens, Stan Zbornak from The Golden Girls, Toby Flenderson from the American version of The Office, Dr. Martin Dear from Green Wing, Victor Meldrew from One Foot in the Grave, Bill from "King of the Hill".)
• The acerbic servant (Geoffrey from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Florence Johnston from The Jeffersons, Benson from Soap, Rosario Salazar from Will & Grace, Niles from The Nanny, Berta from Two and a Half Men)
• The unseen character, often mentioned and sometimes heard, but never seen (Vera from Cheers, Maris from Frasier, Louis from Becker, Joan from Only Fools & Horses, Bob Saccamano and George Steinbrenner from Seinfeld, Morty Fine from The Nanny, Phil from The Golden Girls, Stanley from Will and Grace, the deformed Father Bigley from Father Ted, Lars from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Elizabeth Mainwaring from Dad's Army, Sir Roysten Merchant from Drop the Dead Donkey, Mr. Schotz from "Laverne & Shirley", Carlton the Doorman from "Rhoda" and presumably gay son Sheridan on Britain's Keeping Up Appearances.)
• The cutesy moppet (Michelle Elizabeth Tanner, played by the Olsen twins, from Full House, Rudy from The Cosby Show)
• The overprotective father (Paul Hennessy from 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, Dave Gold from The War at Home, Danny Tanner from Full House, Flex Washington from One On One, Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air)
• The meddling sibling (The Brady Bunch, Eight is Enough, Malcolm in the Middle, Twins, DJ from Full House)
• The anti-hero (Edmund Blackadder from Blackadder, Basil Fawlty from "Fawlty Towers", Bender Bending Rodríguez from Futurama, Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses)
• The sarcastic hero (Hawkeye Pierce from M*A*S*H, Chandler Bing from Friends)
• The Unnamed Character, where we do not know the proper name of a character, usually only a nickname or part of a name (Fez from "That 70's Show", Cosmo Kramer from "Seinfeld" (during the first few years of its run) The Professor, Gilligan and The Skipper from "Gilligan's Island" and Agent 99 from "Get Smart" The Janitor from "Scrubs")
• The sexually promiscuous best-friend, usually female (Roz from Frazier, Annie from Caroline in the City, Blanche from The Golden Girls, Jane from Coupling), but sometime male (Sam from Cheers, Joey from Friends, Patrick from Coupling)
• The cameo character provides the producers with an opportunity to attract viewers by featuring a famous personality on an episode or episodes of the show or to test out a new character.

The plot and situations for many sitcom episodes arise out of a character's lying to or otherwise deceiving the other characters. The most common comedic situations based on deception include:

• Attempts to hide egregious mistakes or acts of weakness.
• Attempts to protect friends and family members from bad news.
• Attempts to "correct" a mistake before others find out about it.
• Attempts to hide the breaking of pacts.
• Attempts to maintain an advantage based on deception.
• Attempts to dupe someone so as to achieve an advantage.
• Attempts to return stolen property before discovery of the theft.
• Attempts to replace destroyed property before discovery of destruction.
• Attempts to ignore certain characters.
• Attempts to recreate scenarios.
• Attempts to fix situations that end up making them worse.

The majority of sitcom episodes revolve around some form of the lying/deception premises listed above. Lesser-used sitcom plot formulas include:

• One or more characters going into a foreign environment only to return to "where they belong." Frequently, sitcom writers will use this plot formula to transplant the entire cast to some exotic location.
• A character choosing to make some fundamental change in their body, habits, job, or other component of their environment, only to return to "what feels normal."
• Characters entering contests or races.
• Characters being elevated to positions of responsibility they can't handle.
• Newcomers or strangers making one-time appearances that change the personal dynamics between the recurring characters.
• A special holiday episode, such as Christmas or Halloween.
• A character thinking another character is going to die and does anything to please him/her, while the other character takes advantage.
• Male and female characters exchanging their archetypal "men" and "women" roles to demonstrate the other gender "has it easier", only to find out they were more comfortable with their own.

One type of plot of particular note is the "very special episode". This episode of a comedy series goes outside of their standard comedy format and involves a controversial issue or either a birth, a death or an otherwise traumatic experience for one of the major characters. Examples include any episode of "Family Ties" involving the alcoholic Uncle Ned (played by Tom Hanks) and the episode of "Happy Days" where Richie almost dies after crashing Fonzie's bike. This is many times a sign of the series "Jumping the Shark". Two other shows that had frequent issues that were serious were "Roseanne" and " Maude". Maude had an abortion and was a feminist of the '70s. Roseanne had children getting married at young ages and deaths in the family. In one episode, Roseanne's father died and even though it was a serious situation, it was regarded by some to be one of the funniest moments on TV.

Landmarks in the life cycle of a typical sitcom include:

• Development
• Pilot episode
• Popularity or semi-popularity
• "Jumping the shark", i.e., an illogical plot twist usually symptomatic of a decline in the show's quality
• Cancellation
• Reruns in syndication
• Reunion Show
• DVD Box-set Release

Most American sitcoms are half-hour shows in which the story is written to run a total of 22 minutes in length, leaving 8 minutes for commercials. Sitcoms made outside the US may run somewhat longer. American sitcoms are often characterised by long season runs of 20 or more episodes, whereas the British sitcom is traditionally comprised of distinct series of six episodes each. American sitcoms often have large teams of young script writers from top universities firing gags into the script and round-table sessions, while most British sitcoms are written by one or two people.

Australia has not had a significant number of long running sitcoms. Most successful sitcoms on Australian TV are British or American. Many of the shows described under the British and U.S. sections of this article are or have been extremely popular in Australia. British sitcoms, many from the BBC, are a staple on the government broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and traditionally many have also been shown by the Seven Network. American sitcoms dominate the comedy line-up of the three commercial networks.

While there has been a significant number of Australian sitcoms throughout the history of Australian television, they have most commonly run for just a single season - usually 13 half-hour episodes. Many successful Australian sitcoms have been somewhat similar in style to UK comedies, and several closely followed the premise of earlier UK programs.

An early successful situation comedy was My Name's McGooley, What's Yours? (1967) about a working-class Sydney family. Other popular sitcoms of this general period included The Group, and Our Man in Canberra.

In the first half of the 1970s it was the popular soap operas Number 96 and The Box that provided the main forum for Australian-grown sitcom style comedy. These shows combined melodrama and sex with large amounts of comedy. In 1976 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced a sex-comedy television sitcom Alvin Purple, based on the hit feature film of the same name. Like the films that preceded it, the series of Alvin Purple featured Graeme Blundell in the title role.

By the late 1970s Australian versions of popular UK comedies were produced using key personnel from the original series working in Australia. These productions retained the title and key cast members of the original programs and operated within the same story world of the original even down to explaining how the characters came to leave their original UK locale and be temporarily resident of Australia. These comedies, Are You Being Served, Doctor in the House (as Doctor Down Under) and Father, Dear Father (as 'Father, Dear Father in Australia), transplanted key original cast members to Australia to situations markedly similar to those of the original series. During this same general period, one of the UK producers of these shows also launched The Tea Ladies in Australia. Also during the late 1970s Crawford Productions, best known for their successful police drama series, also created situation comedy series. These include The Bluestone Boys (1976) on Network Ten, and Bobby Dazzler (1977) on the Seven Network.

The late-1970s sketch comedy series The Naked Vicar Show spawned successful a sitcom spin off, Kingswood Country, in 1980. This series was immensely popular, running four years. Its situation was somewhat similar to the British comedy Til Death Us Do Part and its American cousin All in the Family.

In the early 1980s there were few Australian sitcoms, with soap operas being the more common genre produced in Australia. During this period however the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced Mother and Son, which emerged as an enduring audience favourite. In the late 1980s and early 1990s several new Australian sitcoms achieved significant success including Hey Dad...!, Acropolis Now, All Together Now which all had relatively long runs. The Adventures of Lano and Woodley ran for two seasons, in 1997 and 1999, on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Other programs such as Hampton Court and My Two Wives were only moderate successes, lasting just one season. This period also saw many short-lived failures such as Late for School and Bingles.

In 2002 the successful sitcom Kath and Kim began its hit run.

See also: Canadian humour

Canadian sitcoms have generally fared poorly with both critics and audiences. One notorious example is The Trouble with Tracy, regarded by many Canadians as one of the worst TV shows ever made. Other Canadian sitcoms have included Snow Job, Check it Out!, Mosquito Lake and Not My Department all of which were mocked as being particularly unfunny. There have rarely been more than one or two Canadian sitcoms airing at any given time, although this has changed in recent years with the growth of original programming on cable television.

The few successful Canadian sitcoms have included: La famille Plouffe and its English version, The Plouffe Family; King of Kensington, Hangin' In, Puppets Who Kill, Made in Canada, Trailer Park Boys, and Corner Gas.

Canadian TV networks have had much more success with sketch comedy shows and quirky dramedies. And teen dramas (e.g., the shows The Kids of Degrassi Street, Degrassi Junior High and its successor, Degrassi: The Next Generation) occasionally use sitcom-like subplots for comic relief.

One of Canada's most enduring comedic television series, The Red Green Show, was essentially a cross between a sitcom and a sketch series. Each episode unfolded through short comedic sketches rather than a conventional sitcom plot, but unlike a true sketch series the sketches always drew from a single set of characters and always fit within the shows main premise, and no actor played more than one role.

Notable Quebec sitcoms in recent years have included La Petite Vie, Catherine and Les Bougon.

See also: ru:Ситком, ru:Ситуационная комедия, Russian humour

Sitcoms have appeared in Russia beginning in the second half of the 1990s, for example, My Beautiful Nanny (adaptation of American sitcom The Nanny).

New Zealand began producing television programs later than many other developed countries. Due to New Zealand's small population, the two main New Zealand networks will rarely fund more than one or two sitcoms each year. This low output means there is less chance of a successful sitcom being produced to offset the failures.

Early sitcoms included Joe & Koro and Buck House. Later there was The Billy T James Show subsequently rerun in early 2004 as part of the first year's offering on Maori Television. The team of David McPhail and Jon Gadsby produced and/or starred in quite a number of sitcoms such as Letter to Blanchy with help from writer A K Grant.

The most popular and successful New Zealand produced sitcom to date has been Roger Hall's Gliding On, based on his hit stage play Glide Time. Another Hall play, Conjugal Rites was also made into a sitcom but by Granada in Britain.

In 1994, Melody Rules was produced and screened. Critically and commercially unsuccessful, it has become part of the lexicon within the television industry to describe an unsuccessful sitcom, for example, that show will be the next "Melody Rules". Another sitcom to have its roots in a stage play was Serial Killers (2003), about the scriptwriters of a medical soap opera.

Many British and American sitcoms are and have been popular in New Zealand, including many of those aforementioned in this article.

The United Kingdom has produced a wealth of sitcoms, many of which have been exported to other nations or adapted for other countries. Classic British sitcoms include

• Hancock's Half Hour
• Only Fools and Horses
• Porridge
• Fawlty Towers
• Dad's Army
• Blackadder
• Are You Being Served?
• One Foot in the Grave
• Open All Hours
• The Young Ones.

More recent successes have included My Family, Father Ted (set in Ireland), The Vicar of Dibley, Green Wing, The Royle Family, Spaced, Absolutely Fabulous, The Office and Keeping Up Appearances.

The British sitcom tends to rely less on quick-fire jokes and quirky characters, and focuses more on plots, the analysis of the British individual, and exaggerated caricatures of everyday stereotypes. There is also a tendency towards black humour; Porridge, for example, is set in a prison, and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin involves a man who twice fakes suicide to escape his humdrum life. Steptoe and Son can be heart-breaking as the ambitions of Harold are quashed by his needy, manipulative father. Three of the four series of Blackadder end with the deaths of most of the characters. One Foot in the Grave also regularly featured dark humour hidden beneath its seemingly innocent suburban exterior.

A frequent theme in British sitcoms is that of people trapped in an unpleasant situation or, more often, in a dysfunctional relationship. Shows such as Steptoe and Son (son unable to escape controlling father), Sorry (son unable to escape controlling mother), Gimme Gimme Gimme (two flatmates unable to escape each other) and Fawlty Towers (man unable to escape his emasculating wife) play on this. Where a sitcom of this type definitely ends, it is with an act of escape (Timothy literally flies away in Sorry, and Tom gets his dream job in Gimme Gimme Gimme).

The sitcom format has been hugely successful for the BBC with ITV having less success. Almost all successful classic British sitcoms first aired on BBC One; ITV have not had many successful sitcoms since the 1980s. BBC Two , BBC Three, BBC Four and Channel 4 have begun to have more success with comedy in recent years with BBC One having less success. American sitcoms in the UK tend to be aired on Channel 4, BBC Two, Sky One with the American network ABC's channel ABC1 airing sitcoms shown on ABC in the United States.

Many British sitcoms are re-made for American audiences. For example, Till Death Us Do Part became All in the Family; Man About the House became Three's Company; and, the immensely popular Steptoe and Son became Sanford and Son. The Office was also remade for an American audience using the same title. Political sitcom The Thick of It is currently going an American adaption, also under the same name. However, most British sitcoms usually fare better in their original forms. Re-makes of Red Dwarf, Men Behaving Badly, Coupling, and One Foot in the Grave (Cosby) fell victim to adaptations that largely removed the essence of the comedy and did not stand the test of time.

Possibly the best example of this was Fawlty Towers, in which there were three attempts to Americanize the show. The first attempt was a proposed series titled Chateau Snavely in 1978 but a pilot was never produced. The second attempt at Americanising Fawlty Towers was Amanda's, where the character of Basil became a woman played by Beatrice Arthur. This eliminated the roles of the hen-pecked lead and the dragon-like wife. Amanda's was picked up by ABC in 1983 but never attracted an audience and was cancelled soon after. The final attempt to remake Fawlty Towers was Payne, in which John Larroquette played the title role. It was seen on CBS in 1999, but like Amanda's it was soon dropped by the network.

The UK is home to the world's longest running sitcom, Last of the Summer Wine. The show's pilot was broadcast in early 1973 with the first series starting that autumn. The series continues to this day with the show's 28th series, coming soon in Spring 2007.

Mary Kay and Johnny was followed by The Goldbergs which first aired on January 17, 1949. Probably the most well-known and successful early television sitcom was I Love Lucy starring the real-life couple of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, which was groundbreaking for many reasons including the shooting of episodes on film thereby inventing reruns. The Simpsons is another very successful sitcom, which has become the longest running such program in the United States (it was first broadcast in 1989 and episodes are still being made today). The show is unusual in that it is animated. The longest running live-action sitcom in America was The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which ran from 1952 to 1966 on ABC. Other very successful sitcoms to air on United States major networks include That '70s Show, All in the Family, The Cosby Show, Home Improvement, Friends, Seinfeld,The King of Queens, Will & Grace, Everybody Loves Raymond, Roseanne, Married... with Children, Full House, Happy Days, Cheers, Frasier, The Facts of Life and M*A*S*H.

In 2005, Bravo aired a reality show, called Situation: Comedy, produced by Sean Hayes. Out of 10,000 scripts, NBC President, Kevin Reily, chose two pilots: Mark Treitel and Shoe Schuster's The Sperm Donor and Stephen's Life, with the latter ultimately winning the reality series.

British television station Channel 4 held a poll to decide which is the best sitcom of all time entitled The Ultimate Sitcom on 2 January 2006.^[1] Although several public polls have been held, this poll was voted for people in the industry, such as actors, writers, directors and producers, and included sitcoms from both the UK and the US. The top twenty sitcoms according to the poll were:^[2]

1. Frasier (US 1993-2004)
2. Fawlty Towers (UK 1975&1979)
3. Seinfeld (US 1989-1998)
4. Porridge (UK 1974-1977)
5. The Larry Sanders Show (US 1992-1998)
6. The Phil Silvers Show (US 1955-1959)
7. Dad's Army (UK 1968-1977)
8. Blackadder (UK 1983-1989)
9. Spaced (UK 1999-2001)
10. The Office (UK TV series) (UK 2001-2003)
11. Father Ted (UK 1995-1998)
12. Cheers (US 1982-1993)
13. I'm Alan Partridge (UK 1997-2002)
14. Yes Minister (UK 1980-1988)
15. Curb Your Enthusiasm (US 2000-Present)
16. The Good Life (UK 1975-1978)
17. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (UK 1976-1979)
18. Hancock's Half Hour (UK 1954-1959 on radio, 1956-1961 on television)
19. Rising Damp (UK 1974-1978)
20. The Young Ones (UK 1982-1984)

Notable exceptions in this list are Only Fools And Horses (winner of the BBCs best british sitcom award) and Friends (the most popular worldwide sitcom of the late 90s early 2000s)

As with previous generations, there are many changes that are being made to the style and content of the modern sitcom, these are a few examples.

Since the existence of Friends, many situation comedies have started using a similar formula; a group of young urbanites and their relationships with each other, almost always with a continuing story arc usually involving on and off again romances between the lead characters (See: Coupling, The Class, How I Met Your Mother).

Another popular modern style of sitcom is filmed without a live studio audience or laugh track, using multiple locations. The idea is to avoid the limitations that a stage and the tight shooting schedule of a standard sitcom provide and to make a more theatrical or realistic style. In addition, producers and writers of such shows believe that eliminating the laugh track allows more time for dialogue (and subsequently, jokes), while simultaneously refusing to "dumb down" the audience by cueing them on when to laugh (See: Arrested Development, Scrubs, My Name is Earl The Office, Andy Barker P.I., Green Wing).

There have been a large number of situation comedies in recent years geared toward a preteen and teenage audience. Highly successful series on Disney Channel, such as "Hannah Montana" , "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and "That's So Raven" have been seen as a reflection of the modern buying power of this group. The style of these shows usually has a lower budget than the usual big network series and the usual plot involves teen issues such as "sibling rivalry", school issues and dating. Similar to the "Family Sitcom", but the lead is always a child who is strong and independent, or a group or children/teens. These shows evolved from early shows on Nickelodeon, such as "Clarissa Explains it All" as well as Saturday morning series such as "Saved by the Bell" and the syndicated program "Kids Incorporated".

• Someone travels back in time but usually wakes up to find it was a dream.
• A school play is to be done (eg. Romeo and Juliet) and a problem occurs for the kissing scene.
• Parents go on a trip and children throw a house-party.
• Someone finds themself either locked in a room because of a jammed door, a locked in a cabin because of a snow storm. Two enemies may even become friends temporarily.
  • Clerks - "The Clipshow Wherein Dante and Randal are Locked in the Freezer and Remember Some of the Great Moments in Their Lives"
  • Red Dwarf - Marooned.
• The Clipshow. Characters relive moments from their lives (The series).
  • Clerks - "The Clipshow Wherein Dante and Randal are Locked in the Freezer and Remember Some of the Great Moments in Their Lives"
  • The Golden Girls - Many episodes from The Golden Girls involve a clipshow.
• A romantically inept character gets help from a more experienced one, usually ending with a re-enactment of the balcony scene from Cyrano de Bergerac.
• Plans for a dinner party/major event fall apart leading to last minute improvisations.

• List of sitcoms
• Laugh track
• List of comedies

• Situation Comedy Bibliography (via UC Berkeley) — mostly USA programmes.

• IMDB Comedy
• Sitcoms Online
• British Sitcom Guide
• French Sitcom Guide