THE SITUATION OF COMEDY

Now playing in the BELTWAY TRAFFIC JAM.

If even Bill Simmons is talking about the last ‘Friends,’ I figure I can weigh in too. Simmons has this to say about the show:

People were calling “Friends” the “last great sitcom” this week, begging an obvious follow-up question: “Friends” was a great sitcom?

Really? For a TV show to be great, don’t women and men have to watch it? I don’t know any guys who watch “Friends.” (Hey, they might be out there, I just haven’t met them.) Thinking about a guy watching “Friends” always makes me think of that Seinfeld episode when George gets back with Susan, then realizes he can’t get out, and the show ends with them watching “Mad About You” together as she looks happy and he looks like he might throw up at any second.

It wasn’t always that way. The first season of “Friends” was the closest anyone ever came to capturing Generation X on TV. The characters discussed misunderstandings from “Three’s Company,” made jokes about “Joanie Loves Chachi,” even hummed the theme from “The Odd Couple.” They were constantly fending off nitpicking parents and nosy neighbors. They busted each other’s chops, made constant wisecracks, ripped each other’s latest boyfriends and girlfriends. Some of them had a little money, others were pretty much broke, and there was always tension between the haves and the have-nots. And they were always happiest just sitting around and doing nothing.

Heck, this was what my life was like! Maybe I wasn’t dancing in a water fountain or having a kid with my lesbian ex-wife; but for the most part, this was me. We all had friends like Chandler and Joey, guys who roomed together for too long and almost started to take on couple tendencies (in a funny way). We all knew an over-sensitive guy like Ross, or a ditz like Phoebe. We all knew two smoking-hot chicks who didn’t have boyfriends and laughed at everyone else’s jokes.

(Okay, maybe that was a stretch.)

It’s become something of a dreadful guy meme to hate ‘Friends.’ Not that the feelings aren’t genuine, for the reasons Simmons cites, but still, it’s hardly original. And there are those who complain that the New York of ‘Friends’ was a little too white and a little too affordable.

Well, every great sitcom could be improved somehow.

I’m going to leave aside Simmons’ advocacy of ‘The OC’ for one simple reason: “HIS FATHER IS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY!” If you remember that phrase, you know why I’m never watching another drama on Fox. But he does raise the question of where ‘Friends’ belongs in the pantheon of sitcoms. Was it really one of the best ever, or was it simply a show which resonated with its audience’s lives? Let’s investigate . . .
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