TCF 553-001 Seminar in Telecommunication
Humor in American Television
Spring 2014
http://goo.gl/MQBd0c

This is an addendum to the full syllabus. The instructor stipulates that a student's receipt of this addendum shall act as a contract between the instructor and the student. Receipt of this addendum presupposes that a student has read and understands the policies contained here and in the full online syllabus: http://goo.gl/EVyMNZ. Please contact the instructor if you have any questions about these policies.

Grades and other course materials are posted on Blackboard Learn.

THIS OUTLINE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGES ANNOUNCED IN CLASS
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Date	Topic/Screening	Readings
1/14	Introduction to Course TV Comedy's Antecedents: Radio Comedies Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (Kempner, 2009)
1/21	Conventions of the Genre South Park (1997-) online Frasier (1993–2004) The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-71) Theories of Humor Videos Liberty (1929) Hulu online The Finishing Touch (1928) Recommended: Amos 'n' Andy (radio, 1928-43; TV, 1951-53) The Goldbergs (radio, 1929-46; TV, 1949-56)	Dalton & Linder, Part 1 (15-46); Feuer (138-160); Bull (47-79)
1/28	Snowpocalypse!
2/4	Theories of Humor Reframing the Family Videos The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952–66) Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) The Andy Griffith Show (1960–68) The Osbournes (2002–2005)	Mills, "Introduction" (1-24); Palmer (19-58); IEP, "Humor" (1-10) Recommended: Carey (vii-xxviii)
	Reframing the Family Gender Represented Videos I Love Lucy (1951-57) Our Miss Brooks (radio, 1948-57; TV, 1952-56) Sex and the City (1998-2004) Roseanne (1988–97)	Dalton & Linder, Part 2 (49-84); Haralovich (61-83)
2/18	Gender Represented Race and Ethnicity Videos Amos 'n' Andy (radio, 1928-43; TV, 1951-53) For Your Love (1998-2002) Julia (1968-71) Girlfriends (2000-08)	Student-led discussion (Brad): Dalton & Linder, Part 3 (87-122); Rowe (408-419)
2/25	Race and Ethnicity Work and Social Class Videos The Doris Day Show (1968-73) The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66) The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77)	Student-led discussion (Rebecca): Dalton & Linder, Part 4 (125-162); Smith-Shomade (24-68)
3/4	Work and Social Class Implications of Ideology Videos Ally McBeal (1997-2002) Sex and the City (1998-2004) Cheers (1982-93) The Simpsons (1989-)	Student-led discussion (Brittany): Dalton & Linder, Part 6 (205-238)
3/11	Implications of Ideology The Televisual Comedy and Comedy Vérité Videos The Office (UK, 2001-03; US, 2005-13) Modern Family (2009-) The Honeymooners The New Adventures of Old Christine Scrubs (2001-10) Paper proposal due	Student-led discussion (Emma): Dalton & Linder, Part 7 (241-271); Lotz (88-117)
3/18	The Televisual Comedy Comedy Vérité: The Faux Documentary Sketch Comedy and Satire Videos The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (1996– ) Between Two Ferns (2008-) The Colbert Report (2005-) Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner (2006) In Living Color (1990–1994) Saturday Night Live Digital Shorts (2005-)	Mills, "Comedy Vérité" (63-78); Thompson (63-72); Butler (173-222)
3/24-28	Spring Break
4/1	Sketch Comedy and Satire Intextuality and Genre Mixing Videos The Simpsons (1989-) Soap (1977-81) Seinfeld (1989–1998) Proposed Bibliography Due Peer Discussion of Proposals & Bibliographies	Morreale (104-123); Gray, Jones, Thompson (3-35); Gurney (254-273)
4/8	Intertextuality and Genre Mixing	Gray (1-40); Dunne (49-57); Mittell (153-195)
4/15	Two Student Conference-style Presentations (with video) Emma, "Diverse Representation and Visible Contradiction" (Two Broke Girls) Brittany, "Breaking the Fourth Wall & Parasocial Interaction" (The Bernie Mac Show)
4/22	Two Student Conference-style Presentations (with video) Rebecca, "Hey, Y'All" (King of the Hill) Brad, "Postmodernism in Community" (Community)
4/28, Mon.	Research Paper due, 11:59 p.m., via Blackboard/TurnItIn
5/1, Thurs.	Final Exam, 8:00-10:30 a.m.

Readings

Mary M. Dalton, Laura R. Linder, The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005). SUNY Website.

Available through the Phifer Hall Reading Room and on Blackboard Learn:

In alphabetical order, not the order in which they are assigned.

1. Sheldon Bull, "Structuring Your Story," in Elephant Bucks: An Inside Guide to Writing for TV Sitcoms (Michael Wiese Productions, 2007), 47-79.
2. Recommended, not required: Richard Butsch, "Five Decades and Three Hundred Sitcoms About Class and Gender," in Gary R. Edgerton, Brian Geoffrey Rose, eds., Thinking Outside the Box: A Contemporary Television Genre Reader (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2005), 111-135.
3. Jeremy G. Butler, "Televisuality and the Resurrection of the Sitcom in the 2000s," in Television Style (NY: Routledge, 2010), 173-222.
4. John Carey, "Introduction," in Sigmund Freud,The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious, translated by Joyce Crick (New York: Penguin Classics, 2002), vii-xxviii. Freud's original was first published in 1905 as Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten.
5. Michael Dunne, "Seinfeld as Intertextual Comedy," in Seinfeld, Master of Its Domain, edited by David Lavery and Sara Lewis Dunne (New York: Continuum, 2006), 49-57.
6. Jane Feuer, "Genre Study and Television," in Robert C. Allen, Channels of Discourse, Reassembled (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 138-160.
7. Jonathan Gray, "Reading through Intertextuality," in Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality (NY: Routledge, 2006), 1-40.
8. Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson, "The State of Satire, the Satire of State," in Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era (NYU Press, 2009), 3-35.
9. David Gurney, "Sketches Gone Viral: From Watercooler Talk to Participatory Comedy," in Saturday Night Live & American TV, edited by Nick Marx, Matt Sienkiewicz, and Ron Becker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 254-273.
10. Mary Beth Haralovich, "Sitcoms and Suburbs: Positioning the 1950s Homemaker," Quarterly Review of Film & Video, 11, no. 1 (May 1989), 61-83.
11. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "The Bakhtin Circle," http://www.iep.utm.edu/bakhtin/.
12. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Humor," http://www.iep.utm.edu/humor/.
13. Amanda D. Lotz, "Sex, Careers, and Mr. Right in Comedic Dramas: The 'New' New Woman of Ally McBeal and Sex in the City," in Redesigning Women: Television After the Network Era, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 88-117.
14. Brett Mills, "Comedy Vérité: Contemporary Sitcom Form," Screen 45, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 63-78.
15. Brett Mills, "Introduction," Television Sitcom (London: British Film Institute, 2005), 1-24.
16. Brett Mills, "Sitcom and Performance," Television Sitcom (London: British Film Institute, 2005), 67-99.
17. Jason Mittell, "Making Fun of Genres—The Politics of Parody and Genre Mixing in Soap and The Simpsons," in Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture (NY: Routledge, 2004), 153-195.
18. Joanne Morreale, "Jon Stewart and The Daily Show: I Thought You Were Going to be Funny!," in Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson, eds., Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era (NYU Press, 2009), 104-123.
19. Jerry Palmer, The Logic of the Absurd: On Film and Television Comedy (London: BFI, 1987).
20. Kathleen K. Rowe, "Roseanne: Unruly Woman as Domestic Goddess," Screen 31, no. 4 (1990): 408-419.
21. Beretta E. Smith-Shomade, "Laughing Out Loud: Negras Negotiating Situation Comedy," in Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 24-68.
22. Ethan Thompson, "Comedy Vérité? The Observational Documentary Meets the Televisual Sitcom", The Velvet Light Trap 60 (2007) 63-72.

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