Casual
BARNES, FRED
Casual TELEVISION FOR WOMEN Guys don't watch sitcoms. They watch a lot of sports on TV, some news, and an occasional crime show. That's it. There's been an unheralded migration of men from...
...So I get a fairly good idea what Friends, say, is all about, namely three guys and three women who live in the same house somewhere, or maybe it's an apartment...
...Guys get this treatment in other sitcoms, too...
...His most conspicuous trait is his fear of his parents, who are constantly dropping by...
...So I was determined to watch and like Everybody Loves Raymond...
...Fortunately, there's plenty of sports on TV, most of it wonderfully produced...
...How can I be so sure of the mass flight from sitcoms...
...Which, for guys, is the viewing choice of either last resort or only resort...
...How do I know sitcoms are bad now if I never watch...
...Hollywood frowns on such sentiments, but she persists...
...My friend Juan Williams says watching a sitcom is "a challenge...
...And Seinfeld, I'm told, was an extremely funny show...
...Once guys did watch sitcoms...
...I still do...
...It doesn't do her career any good to be known as a serious foe of abortion...
...I was impressed...
...It's going off the air soon...
...Can you imagine them in the Army...
...I failed...
...Of course I can't prove it...
...How many times have you heard a guy say something like, "I missed Will and Grace last night, but at least I remembered to tape it...
...And in the late '60s and early '70s, my wife and I would watch The Dick Van Dyke Show and Mary Tyler Moore and The Bob Newhart Show...
...Best show on television...
...Whatever's going on, they usually haven't got a clue...
...Or "Let's make sure we're home in time to watch Friends...
...I thought they were funny...
...He's Raymond...
...It was supposed to attract guys...
...But Raymond doesn't see them that way...
...She was one of the speakers at a pro-life banquet in New Jersey...
...And sports...
...I know about this...
...These shows are for and about women...
...Well, there are the ratings of the top television shows...
...Friends is a good example of why guys don't watch sitcoms...
...So has every guy I know...
...And soon enough it was off the air...
...In truth, I watch snatches of sitcoms...
...Have you ever seen SportsCenter...
...Heaton is quite attractive and very courageous...
...I'm not counting The Simpsons because it's a cartoon...
...Since then, there have been few sitcoms worth watching...
...It's not only that guys would rather watch sports...
...What guy could blame him...
...If guys can't watch hit shows like Friends or Everybody Loves Raymond, then what can they watch...
...There's been an unheralded migration of men from sitcoms, the half-hour comedies about funny families or jobs that once dominated TV viewing...
...There's no real alternative for them...
...She also testified before Congress against cloning...
...Good question...
...Guys don't identify with this type of character...
...His father is a grump...
...Witty hosts, but no laugh track...
...Or "Man, that episode of That '70s Show last night was really great...
...I'm extrapolating from my own experience and the anecdotal evidence of most of the guys I'm acquainted with...
...For much of the show, he is oblivious to what's really going on...
...The answer to how often you've heard comments like these is never...
...Heaton is a fine actress, but the show is chiefly about the husband of the character she plays...
...With guys like them in Iraq, we'd have lost the war...
...I once appeared in a Murphy Brown episode, along with John McLaughlin and Eleanor Clift of The McLaughlin Group, and it was pretty funny, even witty...
...A few years ago, I met Patricia Heaton, the star of Everybody Loves Raymond, as successful a sitcom as there is these days...
...Sure, the women on Friends are good looking, but the guys on the show are wimps...
...The real test of guys and sitcoms came several years ago when a sitcom about a show just like SportsCenter went on the air...
...He'd rather avoid the agony of sitting through one...
...News, but only for short periods of time...
...In my case, I wasn't for even a fleeting moment tempted to watch...
...I've participated...
...But now, there's zilch...
...This is a popular show, especially at my house...
...His mother is a bozo...
...They're fully grown, but act like they're junior high girls...
...They are dopes, oafs, or weenies...
...But ask yourself this...
...FRED BARNES...
...I certainly did when I was growing up in the '50s and early '60s—I Love Lucy, to cite one...
...They're half or so of what they used to be for sitcoms, and I suspect the half that vamoosed is all male, both men and boys...
...There are women living in my home who turn these shows on, and, as I'm walking by, I'll pause a few minutes to watch...
Vol. 8 • May 2003 • No. 35
