So often in sitcoms, it’s like, ‘Oh, that husband of mine. He just screwed up again.’ They just have to tolerate each other. It’s not the most fun to play from my perspective. But by the same token, you can’t be like, ‘We’re just like Romeo and Juliet, always in love.’
I get one hour, really 25 minutes in a sermon on a weekend, to combat all the hours of the week that people are told you are what you have through billboards, commercials, and sitcoms, and so forth.
I sort of have open invitations from a lot of people to do TV. But it’s very hard for me to do roles in sitcoms and movies because I’m not a great actor, so if the material isn’t good, I’m in torment while I do it.
When you watch some old sitcoms, however charming they are, they have often lost speed over the years. The speed of ‘Fawlty Towers’ has lasted the distance.
I love doing sitcoms. I love doing comedy. I love the whole shooting match.
The success that I have in sitcoms comes from the fact that 60 percent of the writers are Jewish guys in their early to late 40s.
Being Orthodox Jewish is kind of like being raised on like network sitcoms.
Sitcoms are more like stage drama than anything else on film – more than a one-hour and certainly more than a movie. You get a script on Monday. You rehearse all week. And on Friday, you’re on.
‘The Simpsons’ basically – and ‘Futurama’ – are really smart shows. They’re kind of disguised as these goofy animated sitcoms, but the references within the shows, if you’re paying attention, are pretty smart and pretty sophisticated.
I was raised on the purest comedy there is: ‘I Love Lucy.’ I was raised watching ‘Three’s Company’ and sitcoms of the ’70s and ’80s.
I really hate sitcoms on television with canned laughter and stuff. What really makes me laugh is the real-life stuff. I’ve got a dry sense of humor.
I did a lot of sitcoms, and being funny isn’t about being beautiful. Usually, beautiful people aren’t the funny people.
Though the contemporary shows are good, I prefer sitcoms like my father’s.
I watch sitcoms like Seinfeld, and here’s a newsflash, but what a great show.
I think that the way forward now is more schemes and much more disabled people on TV: in sitcoms, in soaps. A disabled person reading the news would be the dream.
I will not be doing any more sitcoms, unless it’s my own or a movie or I’m directing.
Sitcoms are fun. The whole multi-cam genre is always a lot of fun. You throw a live audience in the mix, and it’s even better.
When I first started directing, I could have chosen a more lucrative path, with sitcoms and things like that. But I knew enough after the experiences I had in front of the camera that I was not going to do that, because I was just going to work on my own things or work with people I respected.
It’s something that’s almost taken for granted in sitcoms about white families. Like, ‘Oh, we’re going on a summer vacation!’ As if that’s something that everybody does.
There’s a real sense of camaraderie with sitcoms.
I can’t even look at daily comic strips. And I hate sitcoms because they don’t seem like real people to me: they’re props that often say horrible things to each other, which I don’t find funny. I have to feel like they’re real people.
Sitcoms are incredibly limiting. When you do a sitcom and it becomes a signature part for you, it’s harder to do something else; but if you do a drama, you can get lost in it and have a role to do other things.
There are only about three really, really good sitcoms on the air.
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