Name: History of the Sitcom
Uploaded: 2025-07-29T05:16:15.000Z
Description: Reminisce about the television you grew up watching and explore how sitcoms have helped generations of Americans navigate an ever-shifting cultural landscape.

Reminisce about the television you grew up watching and explore how sitcoms have helped generations of Americans navigate an ever-shifting cultural landscape.

WBD - CNN Originals

American sitcoms have evolved to reflect the changing face of the fundamental social "situation" -- family.

A Family Matter

By the 1990s, sitcoms about friendship became the vital force driving the genre -- and in many ways, pop culture. But earlier shows set the stage for this trend.

Just Friends

Sitcoms evolved in endlessly humorous ways as Americans' relationship with their jobs changed -- especially as women broke through countless workplace barriers.

Working for Laughs

Pioneering sitcom creators and stars have opened viewers' minds to the problems of racial injustice and representation -- but it has been a long, hard road.

Facing Race

The American Dream of social mobility is so often beyond reach that sitcoms have used humor to help audiences find laughter in the struggles of getting ahead.

Movin' on Up

Sitcom characters who are outsiders -- such as aliens, witches, nerds or teens -- have given viewers permission to laugh at their own foibles in relatable ways.

Freaks, Geeks and Outsiders

As antidotes to fear in a fast-changing world, what sitcoms offer an escape from -- and what visions they escape to -- reveal insights into the American psyche.

History of the Sitcom

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