fandomhigh | Birth of TV Comedy, Monday First Period

"And this week, we're starting with the actual comedy," Mitchell said, without really seguing much. "Not to disparage anyone's jokes, but I think some of you are dearly in need of some education."

He clapped his hands.

"Let's start at the beginning," he said. "Like most genres in television, the TV comedy was birthed from the radio tradition. In fact, in the old days, some sitcoms on TV ran concurrent with similar shows on the radio, such as Hancock's Half Hour. Sadly, a lot of these series have been lost, such as Pinwright's Progress, which was never recorded in a fashion it could be recovered in."

Mitchell had seen it. Not that he'd brag about it.

"So sadly, we have to look to the sixties for the real material. If you stay in Britain, at least. The 'sitcom', the situational comedy, was always the most prevalent kind of TV comedy. The other two options were stand-up and sketch comedy; the former involved a single person, sometimes two, talking to the audience. The second involved unrelated short bits of comedy, stuffed into a single show. Like ~~meta for~~ Monty Python, but we'll be getting to that next week. Sitcoms, on the other hand, had a consistent storyline set in a situational background. Like a family, or a business."

He pushed himself up out of his chair. "So much for the boring background," he said, "We're here to watch TV, right? Early fifties, and the sixties. We'll show some examples of British and American sitcoms and see about the differences."

Beat.

"And then I want you all to tell me which part of your life would work the best as a sitcom. Just for the fun of it."

[[ ~~wait for the~~ ocd up! ]]

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Jack almost looked insulted before he rationalized.

"Or else I like the beach, and I think I can manage to get sand out of a keyboard in exchange for an excuse to start Monday outside and not inside," he offered. "Why, what did she talk you into?"

Mitchell rolled his eyes. "Nothing. It's a figure of speech," he said. Sort of. Whatever. "But since she's honoured our agreement, I suppose our next class will be on the beach."

"Thank you," said Jack, and gave his teacher a slightly cynical look. "So why did you say men, plural, if you meant it only to apply to me?"

Because someone in this room had just spent most of a conversation hoping he wouldn't find his death at the hands of an angry 16-year-old blonde teenager. Which was fairly ignoble, if you were a vampire his age.

"I didn't want you to feel lonely."

Please, Kate wouldn't kill them. Not unless they asked her how she was doing once too often, but that was a fool's task if Jack had ever heard of one.

"I appreciate your concern for my feelings, then." Dryly.

"It's a service on the house," Mitchell said, dryly. "Someone's got to be concerned for someone's feelings in here."

"Which reminds me -- how are you doing?" Jack returned. He was joking, but there was some actual care under there. Somewhere. "I don't have any complaints, other than that your class meets too early in the day."

"Must be terrible, that one day out of the week you need to get up early." Seriously now, Mitchell. "Clearly there must be some kind of force-field keeping you from your bed afterwards."

He took a breath and dialed back the testy. "George is going through his usual thing and Annie's invisible again," he admitted. "The whole house is all..." A word for it. "...broody."

"I get up early two days a week." Someone had to open the law office on Thursdays, after all. But he backed down from the mock argument when he heard the real complaint.

"I'm sorry," he said, more quietly. "That can't be easy to come home to."

Mitchell shrugged one shoulder carefully. "It'll pass. Eventually."

But right now, his patience was a little short for teenage temper-tantrums. Sorry, Kate.

"We're still on the new moon, too," Jack fretted. "So eventually is ... eventual."

Mitchell snorted. "It's always the same cycle with George," he said. "He goes through a few days of sniffing people's clothes after the full moon, and then we're back to him refusing to acknowledge what he is, because he thinks as long as he ignores it it makes him normal."

"Because lying to himself will make it better?" Jack said. "I haven't been through it so I can't be sure, but that sounds like a horrendous idea for him."

"Welcome to the argument I've had a thousand times so far," Mitchell said, and glanced at the door. "And that I now seem to be having with Kate."

Which was doing magical things for his mood. Magical.

"I think it's just not worth asking her what's wrong," Jack said. "I keep doing it, but she gets that look and goes 'I'm fine' and -- I don't know why I keep bothering."

"Yeah, because if you hold out long enough, it stops being a problem," Mitchell snarked.

He might have been feeling a little morbid.

"And if you bang your head into a brick wall long enough, either your head will give way or the wall will." Jack shrugged. "I'm sorry you're surrounded by brick walls on both sides."

"No point in whining about it. That just adds to the problem."

Yes, because you weren't doing a brilliant job of sulking right now, Mitchell.

"Maybe we all just need to go out. Have some fun. Air it all out a bit."

A werewolf, a ghost, a vampire, and two recalcitrant teenagers in a pub. Smashing idea.

Yes, Jack could almost see the disaster coming. But it had the potential to be a very interesting mess, and he'd liked Annie.

"I'm in whenever the rest of you feel up to it," he said. He halfway wondered if adding Emma (and Bod, since Kate seemed to be more than friendly with him) to the little excursion would make things better or worse. Likely worse.

Likely complicated.

Mitchell would've started to develop a nice, normal hatred of all things complicated if he wasn't aware he was on top of the list, and in his finer, more hypocritical moments, he actually did flirt with the idea.

"Maybe I'll punt the idea over to Kate if she can find a hole in her busy flouncing schedule," he said, which was lucky more on the sardonic end and less on the whiny.

Birth of TV Comedy, Monday First Period

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