This is the story of television’s first funny families and how they pioneered America’s most enduring form of entertainment, the sitcom, only to watch it slip through their fingers like sand.
The sitcom is a creation of spare parts salvaged from dying vaudeville and thriving radio welded together by performers who understood the power of physical shtick and the intimacy of invisible theatre.
For Crying Out Loud: How Louie Anderson’s televised therapy sessions created the saddest, funniest cartoon of the 1990s.
As streaming platforms flood the landscape with stand-up specials, John Mulaney’s specials demonstrate that comedy at its best only appears to be spontaneous.
