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A teen situation comedy, or teen sitcom, is a subgenre of comedic television program targeted towards young people. In general, these types of programs focus primarily on characte…
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A teen situation comedy, or teen sitcom, is a subgenre of comedic television program targeted towards young people (tweens, teenagers and, to a lesser extent, young adults). In general, these types of programs focus primarily on characters between 10 and 18 years of age and routinely feature characters involved in humorous situations (either realistic or fantasy in style, depending on the program…
A teen situation comedy, or teen sitcom, is a subgenre of comedic television program targeted towards young people (tweens, teenagers and, to a lesser extent, young adults). In general, these types of programs focus primarily on characters between 10 and 18 years of age and routinely feature characters involved in humorous situations (either realistic or fantasy in style, depending on the program's plotline), and often focus on the characters' family and social lives. The primary plot of each episode often involves the protagonist(s) the program centers on, while secondary plotlines often focus on the character(s') parents, siblings (those not among the leads, if any) or friends, although the secondary characters may sometimes also or instead be involved in the episode's main plot.
The most common episodic plot lines used in teen sitcoms involve the protagonist(s) dealing with family and friends, ending up in a complicated situation (such as the protagonist's parents not allowing them to try out for a school sports team because of their gender) that the characters must solve by episode's end, getting into moral conflicts with their parents, friends, relatives, or siblings, and coming-of-age situations (such as a first date or learning how to drive); however, more dramatic and shocking plot elements or ones which center on undesirable (such as bullying, anxiety, peer pressure, police brutality, excessive force, underage alcoholism, and possibly even substance abuse) may be featured as well, in what are sometimes called "very special episodes".
Although adolescents are the main audience focus for these programs, these programs are also popular with young adults as well as preteens. Older adults may enjoy them for nostalgic purposes. Like teen dramas, this genre was also generally non-existent during the first 30 years of television.
When sitcoms reached their peak in the 1950s and 1960s, these programs were supposed to be family-oriented. Sitcoms of the 1950s and 1960s such as Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Donna Reed Show were popular with teenagers, along with the entire family. The teen movie genre was popular during the 1960s and led the way towards the teen sitcom genre.
The earliest ancestor of the teen sitcom was Meet Corliss Archer, a TV adaptation of a popular radio show about a teenage girl which aired briefly in syndication in 1954. The first teen sitcom on a major network was The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, a 1959–1963 CBS sitcom based on collegiate short stories by humorist Max Shulman. Dobie Gillis followed the adventures of a teenage boy and his friends through high school, the military, and college, and was the first American network television program to feature teenagers (played by Dwayne Hickman and Bob Denver, actors in their twenties at the time) as its lead characters.
In the mid-1960s, the creation of sitcoms such as The Monkees and Gidget were primarily targeted towards teenage audiences. The 1969–1974 ABC sitcom The Brady Bunch was popular with younger audiences, especially pre-teens and younger teenagers, as was its competitor The Partridge Family, which premiered in 1970. These shows are similar to the "tween" orientated shows that have aired in more recent years such as Hannah Montana. The 1970s also featured teen sitcoms such as What's Happening!!, Happy Days and Welcome Back, Kotter.
During the 1980s, television series such as The Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, Square Pegs, Family Ties, The Hogan Family, Who's the Boss?, Growing Pains, The New Leave It to Beaver, ALF, My Two Dads, and Good Morning, Miss Bliss (later known as Saved by the Bell) were extremely popular especially among the younger demographic.
Teen-oriented sitcoms have become more popular since the 1990s; during that decade, these types of programs gradually became fairly common on both broadcast and cable networks. Although pertinent social issues relating to the demographic were featured in earlier series, Blossom regularly focused on such issues, with episodes dealing with subject matter such as drug use, guns and teen sex.
Several sitcoms aired on ABC during the early and mid-1990s were aimed primarily at teenage audiences as well as families; most of them aired as part of TGIF, the network's popular Friday night comedy block that originally ran from 1989 to 2000. Such examples include Step by Step (which focused on a blended family and regularly focused on the exploits of the six younger characters), Boy Meets World (similar in format to The Wonder Years, which ended before Boy Meets World debuted in 1993, both of which focused on a boy dealing with the challenges that come with growing into adolescence) and Family Matters (which originated as a family sitcom spun off from the family-friendly though adult-centered Perfect Strangers, but soon shifted more of its focus towards its teenage characters due to the popularity of the character of nerdy high school (and later, college) student Steve Urkel).
Other short-lived series that featured teenage protagonists included Sister, Sister (which aired during the 1994–1995 season but was cancelled and promptly moved to The WB and Clueless (aired on ABC during the 1996–1997 season and later moved to UPN; based on the hit 1995 comedy film starring teen idol Alicia Silverstone).
One of the TGIF's biggest hits was Sabrina, the Teenage Witch which debuted in 1996. It starred Melissa Joan Hart whom was previously known to young audiences in the hit Nickelodeon teen sitcom Clarissa Explains It All which aired from 1991 to 1994. Sabrina was based on a popular Archie Comics character that was featured in an animated series from the early 1970s and a 1996 TV movie of the same name that aired on Showtime. The franchise focused on the adventures of the eponymous main character who tries to live a normal life as a teenager and later young adult while dealing with being a half-witch/half-mortal; Sabrina ran for f
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