Teen sitcom
A teen situation comedy, or teen sitcom, is a subgenre of comedic television program targeted towards young people. In general, these types of programs focus primarily on characters between 10 and 18 years of age and routinely feature characters involved in humorous situations, and often focus on the characters' family and social lives. The primary plot of each episode often involves the protagonist the program centers on, while secondary plotlines often focus on the character parents, siblings or friends, although the secondary characters may sometimes also or instead be involved in the episode's main plot.
The most common episodic plot lines used in teen sitcoms involve the protagonist dealing with family and friends, ending up in a complicated situation that the characters must solve by episode's end, getting into moral conflicts with their parents, friends, relatives, or siblings, and coming-of-age situations ; however, more dramatic and shocking plot elements or ones which center on undesirable may be featured as well, in what are sometimes called "very special episodes".
Although adolescents are the main audience focus for these programs, these programs are also popular with young adults as well as preteens. Older adults may enjoy them for nostalgic purposes. Like teen dramas, this genre was also generally non-existent during the first 30 years of television.
History
1940s–1980s
When sitcoms reached their peak in the 1950s and 1960s, these programs were supposed to be family-oriented. Sitcoms of the 1950s and 1960s such as Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Donna Reed Show were popular with teenagers, along with the entire family. The teen movie genre was popular during the 1960s and led the way towards the teen sitcom genre.The earliest ancestor of the teen sitcom was Meet Corliss Archer, a TV adaptation of a popular radio show about a teenage girl which aired briefly in syndication in 1954. The first teen sitcom on a major network was The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, a 1959–1963 CBS sitcom based on collegiate short stories by humorist Max Shulman. Dobie Gillis followed the adventures of a teenage boy and his friends through high school, the military, and college, and was the first American network television program to feature teenagers as its lead characters.
In the mid-1960s, the creation of sitcoms such as The Monkees and Gidget were primarily targeted towards teenage audiences. The 1969–1974 ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch was popular with younger audiences, especially pre-teens and younger teenagers, as was its competitor The Partridge Family, which premiered in 1970. These shows are similar to the "tween" orientated shows that have aired in more recent years such as Hannah Montana. The 1970s also featured teen sitcoms such as What's Happening!!, Happy Days and Welcome Back, Kotter.
During the 1980s, television series such as The Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, Square Pegs, Family Ties, The Hogan Family, Who's the Boss?, Growing Pains, The New Leave It to Beaver, ALF, My Two Dads, and Good Morning, Miss Bliss were extremely popular especially among the younger demographic.
1990s onward
Teen-oriented sitcoms have become more popular since the 1990s; during that decade, these types of programs gradually became fairly common on both broadcast and cable networks. Although pertinent social issues relating to the demographic were featured in earlier series, Blossom regularly focused on such issues, with episodes dealing with subject matter such as drug use, guns and teen sex.ABC
Several sitcoms aired on ABC during the early and mid-1990s were aimed primarily at teenage audiences as well as families; most of them aired as part of TGIF, the network's popular Friday night comedy block that originally ran from 1989 to 2000. Such examples include Step by Step, Boy Meets World and Family Matters.Other short-lived series that featured teenage protagonists included Sister, Sister.
Though TGIF was originally geared towards families, the success of Sabrina, The Teenage Witch and Boy Meets World which had its teenage cast become teen idols and the transfer of its more successful sitcoms like Step by Step and Family Matters to CBS in 1997, led to the block's shift towards teen-oriented sitcoms that fall. In order to capitalize on the success of Sabrina, TGIF introduced two new fantasy comedies : Teen Angel and You Wish. However, neither managed to find an audience and were cancelled after only a season.
Another attempt at a teenage demographic came with the 1999 sitcom Odd Man Out which heavily promoted its teenage lead star Erik Von Detten who was already popular with the teenage female audience from his previous roles in Disney media such as So Weird and Brink! and the Universal film Leave It to Beaver. However like Teen Angel, it failed to reach its intended audience and was cancelled after one season. Detten would later star in another short-lived TGIF sitcom, Complete Savages which consisted of a predominantly teenage male cast with a dysfunctional sibling dynamic a la Malcolm in the Middle.
Over time, the Big Three television networks began shifting away from family-oriented comedies toward comedy series focused on adults, teen sitcoms for the most part began to shift more towards broadcast networks intentionally aimed at younger audiences than the Big Three and cable television.
NBC
In 1989, the sitcom Saved by the Bell premiered on NBC. The series quickly became a fan favorite and one of the most highly rated and popular teen shows of all time. Saved by the Bell had its main characters go through typical teen issues and the drama of high school, though the series was comical and the issues were often resolved before the end of the episode. Notably, Saved by the Bell featured teenage archetypes and stereotypes. Saved by the Bell kept its Saturday morning slot until 1993, when it ended after four seasons and Jessie Spano.Saved by the Bell spawned a short-lived spin-off Saved by the Bell: The College Years, which aired in primetime and only lasted one season; another spin-off, Saved by the Bell: The New Class, lasted for seven years. The series was responsible for the creation of NBC's TNBC Saturday morning block, which was targeted towards teenagers. The block also featured comedies such as California Dreams, Hang Time, City Guys and One World. The vast majority of the series on the TNBC block were executive produced by Peter Engel.
Fox, The WB and UPN
, The WB and UPN were each launched with target audiences aimed at teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 34. Fox aired teen dramas such as Beverly Hills, 90210 and Party of Five and sitcoms such as That '70s Show, Malcolm in the Middle, Married... with Children and Parker Lewis Can't Lose.That '70s Show was a hit with both teenage and adult audiences, and focused on the lives of six teenage friends living in Wisconsin between 1976 and 1979; despite the short time period it was set in, the sitcom aired for eight years on Fox due to the use of a floating timeline. While Malcolm in the Middle was targeted towards an adult demographic, it featured a predominantly adolescent-to-young adult male cast which led to its popularity with younger viewers and launched the career of teen idol Frankie Muniz.
The WB and UPN were popular destinations for teen sitcoms. The WB's earliest comedies with teens as the central characters included Sister, Sister and her mother Lisa moving in the house belonging to Tamera Campbell and her father Ray ) and Unhappily Ever After and her less-than-bright brother Ryan ).
In 2002, What I Like About You debuted on The WB – centering on spontaneous, wild 16-year-old Holly Tyler, who convinces her father – who accepts a job position in Japan – to let her live with her neurotic, uptight older sister Valerie. In general, The WB put much of its programming focus during the network's 11-year existence on teen-oriented series, which alongside comedy series had also included dramas such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and One Tree Hill.
UPN's sitcoms largely were aimed at African-American audiences; such programs aimed at teens included Moesha, which focused on African-American teenager Moesha Mitchell and her family and friends. The 2001–06 sitcom One on One, centered on Breanna Barnes, who convinces her mother to let her live with her father Flex Washington, a former basketball star who became a father to Breanna at age 18. Both The WB and UPN were shut down in September 2006, and were replaced by The CW. The CW dropped sitcoms from its schedule in 2009, to focus more on its drama and reality series.
MTV
The creation of MTV in 1981 had gathered a majority of the teenage audience with the airing of back-to-back music videos. Over time, MTV gradually shifted into its current format as a lifestyle and pop culture channel that airs a limited amount of music videos, mostly during the late night and early morning hours, instead focusing on reality shows, soap operas, sports, documentaries and music-related programs.MTV aired series targeted towards teenagers such as TRL, a daily music countdown show; Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, a reality show focused around a group or rich teenagers living in California; and the latter's spinoff The Hills, which centered on former Laguna Beach cast member Lauren Conrad and her internship at Teen Vogue. During the 1990s, MTV aired the controversial animated series Beavis and Butt-Head, which focused on the antics of two idiotic teenage slackers and their unsuccessful attempts at getting girls, though they often displayed gross, violent and crude behavior; a spinoff about one of the lead characters' former classmates, Daria, premiered in 1997 and focused around a cynical, sarcastic, intelligent yet monotone teenage girl and her stereotype-infested high school. In 2010, MTV premiered its first live action teen sitcom The Hard Times of RJ Berger, which became an instant hit although it would be canceled after two seasons. Awkward, which debuted in 2011, was another hit for the network and focuses on a teenage girl who tries to navigate through adolescence after the circumstances of a bathroom accident after reading an anonymous letter written about her, result in her notoriety once her high school classmates believe she attempted suicide.