All right, I’ve discussed this before. Where would we all be without sitcoms in our lives? Those short half-hour programs give us the opportunity to just take a moment and rot our minds as we just relax from a hard day’s work. They are the perfect after school treat for the young el¬ementary child or essential awkward-family-visit conversation fillers. Sitcoms can be on in the background and no one even has to pay attention to them. This is, of course, only true when it’s not one of those sappy “to be contin¬ued…” episodes, which really piss me off because then I have to wait for the second part, which airs a week later and then provides the two minutes of “last time on…” as if I haven’t been waiting a whole freaking week to know what’s going to happen to what’s-his-face. But I digress.

To me, sitcoms are more than that. They are a chance for individu¬als (characters) to entertain the public with their crappy lives without making it seem like they have real problems. The truth is, they do have problems. But because it’s in a sitcom everyone is fine with it. We all have those moments where we must say, “someday we will look back on this and laugh.” Well, if you’re smart, you’ll stop crying about it and write that shit down, because someday the whole world will be laughing at your mistakes and you’ll be sitting on a huge pile of money in exchange. As an example, simply consider one of my favorite sitcoms and how it came to be.

In 1998, a marvelous show was broadcast on NBC about a New York City lawyer and his relationship with his Jewish interior designer best friend. The show gained critical success, earning 16 Emmy awards with 83 nominations in only an 8-year run on national television. Despite its controversial characters and subject mater, it was placed in the infamous NBC Must See TV top 20 lists as part of the Thursday night line-up.

Why is this a big deal? Well, if you haven’t already guessed it, the show is “Will and Grace:” a simple city story about a gay man and his neurotic female roommate. Wes alum David Kohan ’86, and his gay friend Max Mutchnick, developed the idea for this show in 1997 after examining the relationship between Mutchnick and his best friend, Janet. The show was successful and had a wonderful run (what else would we expect from a Wes alum?)
Now, this show is not one of my favorites because it was one of the first critically acclaimed shows to feature homosexuals as principle characters on the late night television line-up. I love this show because it’s real and fake all at the same time. You can somehow sense that these characters, unlike those on “Seinfeld,” actually exist in real life, but have exaggerated qualities on screen that initiate moments of comedy. We’ve got the gay Republican, Will, his crazy man-challenged, Grace, the flam¬boyant actor/queen, Jack, and, my personal fave, the aristocratic alcoholic, Karen. These characters truly allow us to enjoy each episode without having to wonder if these people could actually exist in real life. I know for a fact– they exist and they are out there.

I personally suggest you start your search for a Karen as soon as pos¬sible, because