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Home , 30 Rock, All in the Family, Arrested Development, Death Has a Shadow, Happy Endings (season 3), Modern Family (season 1)

Introduction

Television has undergone dramatic changes over the past two decades. 1 Swept up in this change has been the situation comedy, a generic fxture of the small screen whose emergence at the tail end of the 1940s coincided with the invention of the television itself. 2 have come a long way since the days of (CBS, 1951-1957); in fact, postmodern experimentation has led to the development of new narrative languages of televisual comedy. 3 Tis essay will focus on contemporary sitcoms and their experimentations with traditional narration and temporality. Since nonlinearity and temporal distortion are two of the defning features of postmodern fction, these ‘postmodern’ sitcoms embrace the vaudeville aesthetic of anarchistic comedy, utilizing gags and talking head segments to transgress classical conventions of the traditional sitcom genre.4 Such experimentations – as exemplifed by , Scrubs, Development, , Te Ofce, and more – do not exist in a vacuum: As Melissa Ames argues, these temporal experimentations on TV may be “an aesthetic response to the cultural climate from which they derive.”5 I will argue that the postmodern sitcom’s digressive, distracted style – heavily indebted to the anarchistic comedy tradition – is a visual analogue of our nanosecond culture, representational of multitasking in particular and the Internet Age in general.

Narrative, Temporality, and the Conventions of Traditional Sitcoms

In order to analyze the temporal transgressions of contemporary sitcoms, one must frst direct attention to the norms and customs of traditional sitcoms. In his insightful book Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes, author Saul Austerlitz observes that the traditional sitcom is a genre characterized by a paradoxical desire to both overturn the established order and preserve a sense of equilibrium.6 Te traditional sitcom - and

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its prioritization of eternal repetition and sameness – did not begin in earnest until 1951, with and real-life husband Desi Arnaz’s frst foray into television: I Love Lucy. Lucy was the frst sitcom to be shot on flm before a , allowing Ball and Arnaz to perform for an energetic crowd while circumventing the technological setbacks of live broadcasts.7 Not wanting to fracture the studio audience’s experience by stopping to reset the camera, Arnaz conceived to shoot their show with three cameras simultaneously, and brought in cinematographer Karl Freund to design a lighting system that would allow long shots and close-ups to be shot in the same take.8 Tis even, fat lighting soon became one of the most immediately recognizable signatures of the traditional sitcom. By not having to change lighting or camera position, classical sitcoms were flmed scene by scene (instead of shot by shot) on a soundstage with infexible sets, as if the performance was taking place in a proscenium theatre. Positioned between a live studio audience and the constructed sets, the multiple cameras that surrounded – but did not cross over – this proscenium served to spatially “situate” the situation comedy’s action.9 Space is a core component of these classical sitcoms, and the scenes that unfold within them are confned to closed, recurring locations that act as the focal hub of all comic activity.10 Tis aesthetic repetitiveness and immutability was indicative of broader cultural phenomena. Emerging at the tail end of the 1940s, “the sitcom,” writes Austerlitz, “bore witness to the conformism borne of the horrors of the Second World War. A generation forged in the fre of the war sought placidity and sameness on the home front…[Television] would mirror America, not necessarily as it was, but as it should be: peaceable, middle class, eternally unchanging.” 11 From a storytelling standpoint, classical sitcoms i contain defned character groups, perpetual hijinks (“hilarity ensues”), and a linear narrative. A traditional element of fctional narration, linear progression “carries with it the implication of an arrow of time, pointing from the past to the future.”12 Linearity in narrative comes down to a “cause-and-efect” directionality to a story’s sequences and events. Te conventional sitcom narrative is no exception. Despite minimal academic literature on the precise construction of sitcom narration, one may ascertain the nature of

i Over sixty years since its inception, the classical sitcom aesthetic rages on as if still under the spell of the post-war

56 CAMéRA StyLo sitcom narratives by simply watching them frsthand and observing their predictable, mechanistic narrative patterns. Unlike a flm, whose narrative governs its ultimate duration, a television sitcom dictates the amount of time in which a narrative can be told. Only having 22 minutes to tell their stories, sitcom storylines must be established quickly and explicitly through accelerated exposition.13 Narratives are usually broken down into multiple storylines, with each episode having an A-story (its main plot), as well as a B- and C-story which, despite their relegation to lesser screen time, function identically to the episode’s principal arc. A standardized episode in the traditional sitcom model operates according to a commitment to equilibrium, beginning in a state of stasis that is soon disrupted by the introduction of a problem – which is, by the end of the episode, resolved, thereby returning the comedic situation to stasis once again. Te reinstitution of equilibrium is driven by the medium’s devotion to episodic (as opposed to serial) narration and the maintenance of diegetic status quo.14 Comedic situations, of course, unfold not only through linear time, but through space, as well.15 As previously mentioned, traditional sitcom spaces are – by virtue of the spatial constraints of a multiple- camera setup and a proscenium-style stage – strictly organized, limiting the action of an episode’s narrative to enclosed, recurring locales.16 Tis space acts as a sort of “grid,” within which traditional sitcoms establish the topologies of their fctional worlds.17 Tese worlds are limited to a central locale (usually a couch or an apartment) as well as a handful of surrounding areas, which become the rote settings in which a show’s comedic scenarios may unfold.18 Whether it be the bar in (CBS, 1982-1993) or Central Perk in (NBC, 1994-2004), the linear narratives of traditional sitcoms are frmly entrenched within series- specifc diegetic space, and, with the exception of the occasional exterior shot, rarely stray beyond the rigidly constructed soundstage sets. Recent years, however, have seen the emergence of a new brand of sitcom. Tese new sitcoms are rooted within the televisual traditions of their ancestors and demonstrate a keen awareness of the classical conventions that begat them. Yet they exude stylistic profciency and narrative ambitiousness that far surpasses the humdrum aesthetics and simplistic storytelling of their humble progenitors. Having broken away from the multi-camera setup that dogged traditional sitcoms, these contemporary sitcoms stand as testament to a movement of postmodernity; free from soundstages and raucous laugh tracks, the sitcoms of the present day have

57 DANiEL KoNiKoFF been granted the liberty to dabble in spatio-temporal experimentation, shattering conventions of the classical school of situation comedy. Where there once stood linear narration now stands narratives rife with temporal disruption, a transition that has introduced a vast array of neologisms into the sitcom’s expressive vocabulary. Tese fresh additions to the burgeoning sitcom language have cropped up with the resurgence of single-camera comedies. Single- cam comedies overtook multi-cam comedies at the turn of the century, usurping the latter’s position as the reigning televisual format. Single- cam sitcoms ofer an abundance of freedom and creative opportunities; not restricted to a limited number of sets, these sitcoms are free to have scenes that take place on location.19 In doing so, they are deviating from the classical sitcom conception of comedic performance as a rehearsed theatrical event.20 Single-camera sitcoms also have more scenes than their multi-camera kin, and these scenes tend to be much shorter, making the story progress at a faster, more exciting pace.21 Te enhanced narrative speed of single-cam sitcoms fts well within the Internet Age from which these sitcoms arose. While it may appear counterintuitive to assert that the development of aesthetic televisual form corresponds to deeper historical context, Melissa Ames’ book Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twenty-First- Century Programming devotes an entire subsection of essays to this notion, examining “how the cultural climate impacts temporal manipulation on the small screen.”22 In this section, entitled “Historicizing the Moment,” Ames writes that Lost’s (ABC, 2004-2010) use of fashbacks and “fashsideways” formally parallels the post-9/11 longing to correct mistakes of the past.23 Similarly, 24 (Fox, 2001-2010, 2014) utilizes split- screens, and a ticking clock, to aesthetically represent “[our] culture’s ever-increasing tendency toward speed.”24 Te single-camera sitcom may be interpreted in similar fashion. Although the rise of the single-camera sitcom does not correspond with the invention of the Internet per se, its rise does correspond with the immersion of the Internet into the cultural status quo. In presenting their stories through increasingly complex temporal frames, contemporary sitcoms “refect on the ways in which our experience of time is being reconfgured by our engagement with new media technologies.”25 But what exactly are these temporal complexities that contem- porary single-camera sitcoms embrace? Tey are the “neologisms” men- tioned earlier: cutaway gags and their gag-infected cousin, the talking head

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segment. As new weapons in the contemporary sitcom’s comedic arsenal, cutaway gags and talking head segments function as temporal disruptors of linear sitcom space-time. Tese neologisms may not necessarily be mu- tually exclusive – not every show with cutaway gags feature talking head segments, and vice versa – but they are, nevertheless, formulaic devices that set contemporary sitcoms apart from their traditional counterparts. Contemporary sitcoms’ stories remain linear, and thus echo classical sit- coms’ three-act structure and “equilibrium-disequilibrium-equilibrium” plotting, but the narrative time over which these stories unfold is rife with temporal disruption. What is most compelling, however, is the deep-seated historical precedent to which these transgressive narrative tendencies may be aptly compared: that of anarchistic comedy. In his book What Made Pistachio Nuts?, Henry Jenkins discusses how early sound comedy, such as the flms of the Marx Brothers, represented an early attempt to integrate vaudevillian performers into classical cinema, absorbing an aesthetic tradition that did not ft comfortably within typical storytelling conventions.26 Te resulting comedy flms were “anarchistic,” not in the sense of political radicalism, but rather in the sense of “disordered” style. Anarchistic comedies subordinated traditional flm practice, moving from classical Hollywood cinema’s emphasis upon linearity and causality toward a fragmented, episodic narrative championing spectacle and isolated comedic performance.27 Te contemporary, single-camera sitcoms have embraced these disruptive traditions of anarchistic comedy, retroftting both gags and direct addresses – two stalwarts of vaudeville performance – for the modern day.

Cutaway Gags and the Digression from Narrative Linearity

In anarchistic comedies, the causal logic that structured narratives was dismantled and replaced with narrative “disruptions” that, having no consequence to plot, served only as transitory gags.28 Gags are “sudden, atemporal bursts” of autonomous comic spectacle which impede narrative development, obfuscate the linearity of cause-efect relations, and introduce an alternative patterning of space that competes with our interest in plot progression.29 In other words, gags are digressions from the flm’s main story. Occasionally referred to as “inserts,” cutaway gags in contempo- rary sitcoms exude digressive tendencies, serving as short interludes from

59 DANiEL KoNiKoFF the chronologically unfolding narrative. Verbal digressions ofen instigate alternate scenarios, tangents, or inconsequential fashbacks employed for the sake of humour rather than plot development. While cutaway gags may seem comfortably at home within the single-camera setup and its quick-paced, myriad, and spatially diverse scenes, they in fact originate from an : Family Guy (Fox, 1999–present). Framed as a family sitcom akin to , Family Guy frequently discards plot development in favour of extended non-sequiturs in the form of cutaway gags. Tis is bound up with the inherent spectacle of animated comedies, which are unencumbered by the verisimilar constraints of live-action representation.30 Tey can therefore be narratively subversive, emitting what scholar Paul Wells identifes as “a particular form of anarchy.”31 Tis anarchy has run rampant throughout Family Guy’s thirteen-season run. While it would be difcult to discuss each gag in detail, for each of the series’ 258 episodes ii averages between seven to eight cutaway gags (Watson), we may turn our attention to a few examples, so as to highlight their capacity for the temporal disruption of linearly-progressing narratives. In the series premiere, ‘Death Has a Shadow,’ Meg Grifn, seated at the kitchen table and complaining about the thinness of her lips, asks her mother, Lois, for collagen injections. Lois pleasantly replies, “You know, most of the world’s problems stem from poor self image,” and the scene cuts to “Das Gym,” where a scrawny, weightlifing Adolf Hitler jealously grimaces at a muscular, attractive Orthodox Jewish man. Te scene cuts back to the kitchen, and the family’s conversation resumes. Less than one minute later, the episode devolves into a furry of cutaway gags, as Lois and Brian, the family’s anthropomorphic canine, try to dissuade Peter from drinking at a stag party he is to attend later that evening. “Alcohol always leads to trouble,” says Lois. “Remember that time you got drunk of the communion wine at church?” Te episode then cuts to a church scene. As a priest recounts the tale of Job, Peter gulps down the blood of Christ before exclaiming, “Man, that guy must have been drunk 24/7!” Once again, we return to the Grifn family kitchen. “And then there was that time at the ice cream store,” chides Lois. Cut to: Peter, in an ice cream store, collapsing on a table afer one lick from a cone of butter rum. Tese cutaways are, in simplest terms, narratively extraneous;

ii As of January 1st, 2016.

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they merely elaborate upon what has already been established in the sentence uttered prior to the cutaway, visually supplementing dialogue without ofering anything but the pleasure of spectacle itself. Just like the gags of anarchistic comedy, these cutaway vignettes are autonomous, self- contained units of comic spectacle with their own inverted logic and their own beginning, middle, and end.32 By virtue of their self-containment, these gags are ambiguously atemporal, occurring either in an imagined reality or in an unspecifc past. In some instances, the cutaway gag relies upon intertextual readings of pop culture, and requires previous audience knowledge of the parodied text in order to elicit a laugh. Take, for example, a Star Wars-based gag from the episode ‘Chick Cancer,’ in which Luke Skywalker embarrasses a fellow before the (HBO, 2000-2011) theme plays. Holistically speaking, cutaway gags disrupt and distract from the linear progression of narrative – a linearity that exists up until the gag begins, and resumes once the gag has ended. Te cutaway gags in Family Guy operate on a separate “meta-diegetic” level; that is, they do not exist within the space or temporality of an episode’s presently unfolding narrative. Rather, they exist either within the “unseen history” of the show itself (such as Peter’s inebriation at church), or as an implausible, standalone tangent whose humour is derived from its irrelevant absurdity, its parodic intertextual relationship to other media, or its “inversion of normal logic”.33 Liberated from the exigencies of live production, animation allows for a more adventurous shooting style than a traditional, multi- camera television format.34 Following in the footsteps of Family Guy, some live-action sitcoms adopted a single camera to embrace the faster pace and more visual form of storytelling of their animated predecessors, breaking free from the stylistic monotony of the theatrical, multi-cam sitcom. Some of the series that ensued – such as Scrubs (NBC/ABC, 2001-2010), (Fox, 2003-2006), and 30 Rock (NBC, 2006-2013) – are written to feel like “live-action cartoons” (Picone), energetically circumventing the boundaries that bog down multi-camera production. While Scrubs’ cartoony feel is not wholly reducible to its use of cutaway gags (for example, character movements are ofen supplemented by Looney Tunes-like sound efects), the gags are germane to the way in which the series is told. Narrated by John “JD” Dorian (Zach Braf), Scrubs makes frequent use of fantasies and daydreams. Tese surreal digressions begin with JD looking up and to the side, prompting a whirling tomahawk

61 DANiEL KoNiKoFF sound and a rapid cut that is, essentially, a fash of white light. Tese audio- visual cues also mark the end of a given fantasy. Just like the gags of anarchistic comedy, these imaginative cutaways involve a substantial degree of surprise.35 Te absurd gags to which we bear witness are imaginings occurring entirely within JD’s head: unobservable to his fellow coworkers, JD’s fantasies play out within the show’s typical hospital environment, but feature the doctors, surgeons, and nurses with which he works as active characters within his daydreams. Scrubs’ cutaway gags experiment with traditional narrational temporality in compelling ways, puncturing the linear progression of the story by having JD’s fantasies bleed into the diegesis itself. In the season one episode ‘My Super Ego,’ JD and Elliot (Sarah Chalke), standing in the intensive care unit, talk about Nick (), a new doctor of startling politeness. “Tis morning, I wanted to kill the guy,” says JD in voiceover, referring to the gentlemanly doctor, “but the truth is, he’s so nice, he probably would have helped me do it.” Te scene fash cuts to a nondescript hospital room, showing JD with his hands gripped around Nick’s throat. Nick shouts words of encouragement, all the while issuing minor corrections: “Come on JD, you’re not putting enough pressure on the windpipe,” he barks, and adds, readjusting the grasp around his neck, “come on, you can do it.” Another fash cut brings the fantasy to its conclusion, resituating us – along with a pensive-looking JD – back within the intensive care unit. Tese cutaways have little function except to serve as absurdist exclamation points to JD’s inner monologue. Linearly progressing narrative time – and the space in which it progresses – is frequently undermined by JD’s fantasies. In these instances, JD’s interior subjectivity is given visual priority over the diegetic “here-and-now,” taking spectators out of the unfolding scene and in to JD’s own distracted stream of consciousness. While no other series since Scrubs has stitched a daydreamer into its narrative to validate the surreal appearance of cutaway gags, these constant asides have nevertheless become an essential component of the contemporary, live-action sitcom’s vocabulary. Just as creative – if not slightly more adventurous – as Scrubs with its use of cutaways was Arrested Development, which would slot in occasional bursts of disconnected imagery as fashbacks or non-sequiturs, ofen only loosely connected to the ostensible plot. Te series’ pilot is teeming with such digressions; when Gob Bluth () – the eldest son of unlawful real estate mogul and Bluth family patriarch George Sr. (Jefrey Tambor) – mentions that he is a

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member of the Alliance of Magicians, the scene cuts away to a picture of this outlandishly costumed group of illusionists, with Gob holding a sign reading “We Demand to Be Taken Seriously.” Later, from the couch of the Bluth Model Home, Gob informs his brother Michael () that he cannot fnd work as a magician; afer accidentally revealing the secret behind a trick, he has been “blackballed from some of the smaller venues.” Te episode then cuts to Gob at a child’s birthday party, where an “Alliance-certifed” performer – a prepubescent magician who calls Gob a “traitor” – has replaced him. Tese gags disrupt the immediate spatial temporality of an unfolding scene, and serve as narrative digressions that elicit an immediate afective response, a visceral shock.36 Proof of their narrative insignifcance and extraneousness to the plot is highlighted best in Arrested Development’s Season 1 fnale, “Let ‘Em Eat Cake.” Afer Kitty, the Bluth Company’s scheming secretary, claims that George Sr. “promised [her] the company,” the scene cuts to a blank “Footage Not Found” title card, before returning to the chronologically unfolding narrative. In this example, Arrested Development’s cutaways – as well as all cutaways in general – are, in absentia, revealed to be what Seymour Chapman calls temps mort: a moment that “takes time” but does not “make time,” a moment that has no function whatsoever in furthering the plot.37 Trough their wholehearted embracement of cutaway gags’ “take time/make time” ethos, a bulk of contemporary sitcoms have come to embrace what is essentially a 21st-century update of the anarchistic comedy aesthetic. In its use of cutaway gags, 30 Rock paratextually elaborates upon the anarchistic roots of contemporary sitcoms by virtue of the authorial presence of , the series’ creator. Just as anarchistic comedies were constructed as vehicles for comic stars to demonstrate their full range of abilities, so too was 30 Rock, which functioned as a vehicle for Fey, former of the famed series (NBC, 1975–present).38 Given Fey’s history, 30 Rock’s digressive cutaway gags read like shrunken SNL-style sketches, “built for entertainment purposes only.”39 Each sketch-like cutaway refexively reminds viewers of the active creative hand behind each episode. Like the comedians of anarchistic comedy, Fey “interferes with the ostensible fction,” using these digressive “sketches” to transform the narrative spaces – usually a drab writers’ room, or ’s () lavish ofce – into impromptu stages for clowning.40 30 Rock borrows its cutaway technique from Scrubs; characters

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commonly look up and to the side of the frame, cuing a bright fash of light and a whirling sound efect that signals the separation between 30 Rock’s narrative and its frequent interludes of anarchistic weirdness. Tina Fey’s equally anarchistic new series, Unbreakable (Netfix, 2015–present), abandons this stylistic editing, launching into cutaway gags in much the same way Arrested Development did: with a simple smash cut. Despite this diference, both 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt infuse their cutaway gags with a similar sort of oddness. For example, 30 Rock has the beneft of (), whose personal instability and unpredictability fuels 30 Rock’s zaniest moments. Tracy’s disastrous appearance as a “stabbing robot” on Late Night With O’Brien (‘Tracy Does Conan’), his resisted arrest in the Chuck E. Cheese ball pit (‘Believe in the Stars’), and his performance of the novelty hit “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” (‘Jack Gets in the Game’) make him the source of some of the show’s funniest – and most absurd – cutaways. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, about a girl who is freed from a doomsday cult afer spending ffeen years in an underground bunker, ofen uses this bunker as the setting for its cutaway gags, experimenting with temporality by disturbing the presently unfolding narrative space-time with furtive fashbacks of Kimmy’s bizarre underground hijinks.

Highly Distracted, Highly Confessional: Cutaways and Talking Heads in the Internet Age

It is quite ftting that Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, in all its digressive glory, premiered on the online streaming service Netfix. Today’s temporally experimental sitcoms have become an accepted counterpart to our Internet culture, in which digressive Googling, compulsive link-clicking, and distracted multitasking have become not only a mode of practice but a startling way of life. Tis reconfguration of human experience through engagement with new technology is discussed in Michael Harris’ book, Te End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection. Harris writes that the Internet Age – which began in earnest in 1999 with the dot-com boom – is characterized by “distraction addiction.” Tis addiction, typifed by a desire to abolish boredom, achieve instant gratifcation, and end “absence,” has made Internet multitasking responsible for 29% of all media exposure in teenagers.41 Furthermore, the rise of Google (launched in 1998), Wikipedia (launched in 2001), and smartphones has stitched

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“ultimate searchability” into the fabric of society, granting instant access to staggering amounts of knowledge and solidifying both speed and volume as Internet norms.42 With the world at their fngertips, people of the Internet Age are growing more distracted; attention spans have shortened, and as a result, irrational unproductivity has fourished.43 Tus, contemporary sitcoms’ use of cutaway gags is a formal parallel of the “continuous partial attention” that characterizes the Internet Age.44 Embracing both speed and volume through their sheer abundance and rapid-fre delivery, these gags testify that the sitcoms in which they occur are as distracted as we are, as devoted to multitasking as we are,iii and as liable to drif into unproductivity as we are. Also indicative of the Internet Age, writes Harris, is our desire to live out our emotional lives through technologies. “Our brains,” he writes, “are imbued with the compulsion to socialize, connect whenever possible, and technologies allow us these connections – it provides comfort, an opportunity to confess things, and [acts as] a mediator for chaotic elements in our lives.”45 Documenting personal information about oneself through technology has become ubiquitous; Internet platforms such as YouTube and “encourage broadcasting yourself and sharing aspects of your life to people beyond your face-to-face .”46 Take, for example, fash card confessionals, “a popular genre of video in which the creator…confesses private trauma through a series of fash cards bearing Sharpie text.”47 Tis tendency towards confession has found as its aesthetic analogue the talking head segments of most mockumentary-style sitcoms. Mills identifes this televisual style as “comedy verité,” honing in on certain contemporary sitcoms’ ability to challenge conventional generic form and adopt formal characteristics of other distinct genres – specifcally, documentaries and .48 Many contemporary sitcoms, such as Curb Your Enthusiasm and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (NBC, 2013–present) have conformed to the observational mode of cinema verité, by aping the documentary aesthetic primarily through handheld cinematography.49 But it was ’ Te Ofce (BBC, 2001-2003) that most holistically adopted the form, portraying the fctional documentary crew as a diegetic presence within the show’s world. Tis allowed characters – such as David

iii Rapidly diverting attention from the linear narrative to a cutaway gag, then back to the narrative once again, like excess footnotes that disrupt the linear progression of an essay’s argument.

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Brent, the ofce manager played by Gervais himself – to directly address the camera in interview-style talking head segments. Te talking head segment soon became one of Britain’s fnest comedic exports; the U.S. remake of Te Ofce (NBC, 2005-2013) brought this narrational technique across the pond, at which point it metastasized, inciting an international mockumentary renaissance as evidenced by Te Comeback (HBO, 2005, 2014), (NBC, 2009-2015), (ABC, 2009–present), Family Tree (HBO, 2013), and Chris Lilley’s many sitcoms. Tese shows’ devotion to cinema verité operates upon a spectrum (for example, Te Ofce and Te Comeback make the camera crew visible, while Modern Family and Parks and Recreation do not), but they all share a commonality in the talking head segment. Talking heads characterize these sitcoms as anarchistic, prioritizing the Internet Age’s fascination with confession through the evocation of the vaudeville tradition of the direct address.50 While the direct address was vital to vaudeville performance, its shoehorning into classical narration was more disruptive than seamless, as evinced by early sound comedy.51 Te same goes for contemporary sitcoms, as the mockumentary style, “a veneer of aesthetic daring over a base coat of old-school sitcom conservatism,” uses talking head segments to puncture linear diegetic temporality. Indeed, these segments have more bearing on narrative and characterization, but like cutaways, function simultaneously as digressive gags.52 Shot in close-up, talking head sequences feature characters – isolated from the rest of the sitcom group – talking directly at the camera, commenting on previous narrative actions or introducing new ones.53 Despite referencing other events that either immediately precede or follow them, these interview sequences are particularly atemporal: their precise temporal placement within the narrative fow is irrelevant, they occur in a diegetic space distinct from that of the principal story, and they do not resolve exactly when in relation to the unfolding narrative such interviews were flmed.54 While the interview technique allows for more narrative exposition and character revelation, talking head segments provide more opportunities for narrative disengagement, fracturing seamless linearity with verbal gags delivered through temporally ambiguous scenes of direct testimony. Tis disruption is achieved through contrast; like gags, these segments direct the spotlight on themselves.55 Instead of cuing audiences in on the ensuing digression with a fash of white light or a whirling

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sound efect, mockumentary sitcoms balance out the jittery handheld camerawork that captures the unfolding narrative with immobile, static compositions of individual characters’ direct testimony to the camera. Like gags in anarchistic comedies, there is, to an extent, no “fxed separation between narrative space and performance space.”56 While the talking head segments occur either before or afer the events unfolding within the episode’s arc, the characters flm their “confessions” from within the diegesis itself, albeit in a segregated space away from the narrative action. In Te Ofce, Michael Scott’s () talking head segments occur from the comfort of his own desk, while in Modern Family, each character grouping – the Dunphys, the Pritchetts, and the Pritchett-Tuckers – delivers direct testimony from the couch in their respective homes, thus blurring the lines between narrative and performance space. From these autonomous locales, characters dispense verbal bursts of comic spectacle, embracing the direct audience interaction that characterized vaudeville’s performer-patron intimacy.57 Tis link is perhaps most apparent with David Brent and Michael Scott, who regard themselves as more than just managers of a paper company, but as ofce entertainers. Like the direct address, the self-consciousness of their talking head segments call attention to their chronic eforts to amuse and their interminable yearning for crowd approval.58 While these segments may carry bits of narratively relevant info, and become devices for characterization, they do so at high cost to narrative economy, for they are far more suited to making a pause or digression in the ongoing fow of a story.59 Take, for example, a scene from ‘Soulmates,’ a third-season episode of Parks and Recreation. In this scene, Parks ofcial Leslie Knope () ofers to take her co-worker, Tom Haverford (), out to lunch. Tom asks her if he can have “apps’n’zerts,” at which point the scene cuts away from their workspace and to a talking head segment featuring Tom in a separate ofce:

‘Zerts’ are what I call desserts [he says to the camera]. ‘Trée-trées’ are entrées. I call sandwiches ‘sammies,’ ‘sandoozles,’ or ‘Adam Sandlers.’ Air conditioners are ‘cool blasterz’ with a ‘z’ — I don’t know where that came from. I call cakes ‘big ol’ cookies.’ I call noodles ‘long-ass rice.’ Fried chicken is ‘fry-fry chicky-chick.’ Chicken parm is ‘chicky-chicky-parm-parm.’ Chicken cacciatore? ‘Chicky-catch.’ I call eggs ‘pre-birds,’ or ‘future birds.’ Root beer is ‘super water.’ Tortillas are ‘bean blankets.’ And I call forks [he says,

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pausing for dramatic efect before delivering the punch line] ‘food rakes.’

Te scene cuts back to Leslie and Tom’s conversation, and Leslie confrms that Tom may, indeed, “get as many ‘Zerts’ as [he] wants.” Tom agrees to lunch, adding, “Let’s hop in my Gogomobile,” at which point we rapidly cut back to a talking head segment, where Tom slyly looks at the camera and says “Car.” It is this interplay between the diegesis and the talking head segments that render mockumentary sitcoms’ experimentation with linear narrative temporality particularly compelling. Te ambiguous future and past from which these segments emerge “form a covalent bond with the present,” so that the temporality of the contemporary mockumentary sitcom as such “becomes non-directional, non-linear, and non-singular.”60 Talking head segments ultimately deviate from chronological time, prioritizing atomistic verbal humour that operates as insular comedic confessions over the sequential directionality of narrative events. Te temporal back-and-forth, however, does not stop there, as Te Ofce and Modern Family’s talking head segments are ofentimes interwoven with cutaway gags themselves. Te pilot of Modern Family contains a prime example of this temporal pliability; in a talking head segment that exists outside the principally progressing narrative, Phil Dunphy () expatiates to the camera that he is the “cool dad.” Te sequence, however, is most assuredly a gag; Phil garbles text message abbreviations, confdently stating that “WTF” stands for “Why Te Face?” At sequence’s end, Phil corroborates his “coolness” by adding that he “knows all the dances to High School Musical.” Te scene cuts away to another temporally nondescript vignette, in which Phil butchers the choreography to “We’re All In Tis Together.” Tis sequence epitomizes the disruptive potential of talking heads and cutaways; these two atemporal gags – one verbal, one visual – destabilize the episode’s diegetic chronology, perforating the narrative’s linearity with furtive comic bursts.

Conclusion: Towards a Taxonomy of the Postmodern Sitcom

As demonstrated by the above example from Modern Family, cutaway gags have grown endemic across contemporary single-camera sitcoms, so much so that they have even permeated the aesthetic confnes

68 CAMéRA StyLo of “comedy verité.” But the contemporary sitcom form is fexible, and, as such, rigid classifcation is ofen elusive. Curb Your Enthusiasm, originally conceived as a mockumentary, returned as a comedy series produced with the same visual style but without the conceit of a documentary team recording it and without the talking head interviews of the pilot. 61 Similarly, (HBO, 2012–present) and Brooklyn Nine-Nine are flmed with the same jumpy handheld cinematography indicative of mockumentary-style sitcoms, and neither use talking head segments, but the latter makes frequent use of cutaway gags which, among other things, spotlight police station hijinks and pre-diegetic fashbacks. Whether it is cutaway gags or talking head segments, though, constant asides are now recognized as essential neologisms within the contemporary sitcom vocabulary. Accounting for all the series that employ them is overwhelming; iv for temporal digression is so pervasive that it has become virtually inextricable from the single-camera sitcom as such. Aligned with postmodern culture’s tradition for narrative subversion, the contemporary sitcom is thus inherently anarchistic. Free from the aesthetic limitations of traditional sitcom conventionality, these present-day single- cam sitcoms have become as reliant on autonomous, gag-based, visual and verbal spectacle as any of the Marx Brothers’ earliest sound comedies. And in a highly technologized world in which multitasking, distractions, and online confessionals have become normalized operations of the modern mind, contemporary sitcoms – digressions and all – have taken on a new signifcance as a formalistic, aesthetic analogue to the cultural climate that brought them forth. Sitcoms are, at their core, about equilibrium; but as long as contemporary sitcoms continue to parallel the Internet Age’s fascination with confession and diversionary distraction, and continue to valorize “taking time” just as much as “making time,” the postmodern sitcom will also remain a paragon of disequilibrium, a secluded televisual niche in which anarchy reigns.62

iv (ABC, 2011-2013) and (2011–present), for example, also make occasional use of cutaway gags).

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1 Timotheus Vermeulen and James Whitfeld, “Arrested developments: Towards an aesthetic of the contemporary US sitcom,” in Television Aesthetics and Style, eds. Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock (: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 103-111. 2 Saul Austerlitz, Sitcom: A History in 24 Episodes from I Love Lucy to Community, (: Chicago Review Press, 2013), 8. 3 Antonio Savorelli, Beyond Sitcom: New Directions in American , (Jeferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.), 33. 4 Melissa Ames, “Introduction: Television Studies in the Twenty -First Century,” in Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twenty- First-Century Programming, ed. Melissa Ames, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 7. 5 Ibidem, 9. 6 Ibidem, 7. 7 Austerlitz, 17. 8 Ibidem, 18. 9 Sergio Dias Branco, “Situating comedy: Inhabitation and duration in clas- sical American sitcoms,” in Television Aesthetics and Style, eds. Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock, (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 94. 10 Savorelli, 23. 11 Ibidem, 8). 12 Ames, “Introduction,” 10. 13 Nick Redfern, “How do television narratives work?,” Research Into Film, 26 February 2009. 14 Alex Clayton, “Why comedy is at home on television,” in Television Aesthetics and Style, eds. Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock. (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 85. 15 Colin Irvine, “Why 30 Rock Rocks and Te Ofce Needs Some Work: Te Role of Time/Space in Contemporary TV Sitcoms,” in Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twenty-First-Century Programming, ed. Melissa Ames, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 221. 16 Savorelli, 24. 17 Savorelli, 28. 18 Dias Branco, 97. 19 Martie Cook, Write to TV: Out of Your Head and Onto the Screen, (Massachusetts: Focal Press, 2014), 37.

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20 James Walters, “Better or diferently: Style and repetition in Te Trip,” in Television Aesthetics and Style, eds. Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock, (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 113. 21 Cook, 37. 22 Ibidem, 10. 23 Melissa Ames, “Te Fear of the Future and the Pain of the Past: Te Quest to Cheat Time in Heroes, FlashForward, and Fringe,” in Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twenty-First-Century Programming, ed. Melissa Ames. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 126. 24 Norman M. Gendelman, “Zero-Degree Seriality: Television Narrative in the Post-Network Era,” in Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twenty-First-Century Programming, ed. Melissa Ames, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 78. 25 Aris Mousoutzanis, “Temporality and Trauma in American Sci-Fi Tele- vision,” in Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twen- ty-First-Century Programming, ed. Melissa Ames, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 106. 26 Ibidem, 5. 27 Henry Jenkins, What Made Pistachio Nuts?: Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 24. 28 Ibidem, 193. 29 Ibidem, 102. 30 Holly Randell-Moon and Arthur J. Randell, “Te man from ISIS: Archer and the animated aesthetics of adult cartoons,” in Television Aesthetics and Style, eds. Jason Jacobs and Steven Peacock, (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013), 137. 31 Ibidem, 139. 32 Jenkins, 102, 105. 33 Donald Crafon, “Pie and Chase: Gag, Spectacle and Narrative,” in Classical Hollywood Comedy, eds. Kristine Brunovska Karnick and Henry Jenkins, (New York: Routledge, 1995), 113. 34 Randell-Moon and Randell, 142. 35 Steve Neale, and Frank Krutnik, “Gags, Jokes, Wisecracks, and Comic Events,” in Popular Film and Television Comedy, (London: Routledge, 1990), 52. 36 Jenkins, 283. 37 Gry C. Rustad, and Timotheus Vermeulen, “Did You Get Pears?: Temporality and Temps Mortality in Te Wire, , and Arrested Development,” in Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twenty-First-Century

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Programming, ed. Melissa Ames, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 159. 38 Jenkins, 144. 39 Ibidem, 32. 40 Ibidem, 146. 41 Michael Harris, Te End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection, (Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014), 28, 40. 42 Ibidem, 80, 86. 43 Ibidem, 128. 44 Ibidem, 10. 45 Ibidem, 54. 46 Ibidem, 69 47 Ibidem, 213. 48 Ibidem, 68. 49 Ethan Tompson, “Comedy Verité? Te Observational Documentary Meets the Televisual Sitcom,” Te Velvet Light Trap 60.1 (2007): 65. 50 Jenkins, 32. 51 Ibidem, 33. 52 Austerlitz, 352. 53 Savorelli, 67. 54 Ibidem, 71. 55 Jenkins, 106. 56 Ibidem, 146. 57 Jenkins 73). 58 Ibidem, 32. 59 Jenkins, 101. 60 Michael Fuchs, “Play It Again, Sam…and Dean: Temporality and Meta- Textuality in Supernatural,” in Time in Television Narrative: Exploring Temporality in Twenty-First Century Programming, ed. Melissa Ames, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 82. 61 Tompson, 68. 62 Rustad and Vermeulen, 159.

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