Family Sit-Coms, Then and Now

     With the bizarre exit of Charlie Sheen from its cast, the television show, Two and a Half Men, has been in the news a lot lately. The show revolves around the antics of a wealthy bachelor whose life is filled with precarious relationships that rarely last more than two nights. His glaringly staid brother, who is going through a divorce, comes to live with him. The brother's obnoxious son visits on week-ends as stipulated by his overbearing and demanding ex-wife. Meanwhile, at the house now shared by the brothers, scantily clad and extremely dumb young girls romp. The staid soon to be divorced brother can only simultaneously gaze in horror at the lifestyle his brother lives and wistfully covet it.

      It got me thinking about sit-coms, in particular family oriented sit-coms and how they've changed. Back when I was a kid a television family was always a husband and wife, two or more children and a dog who wandered in and out of the house. Dad went off to a never quite specified job wearing a suit and tie, returned later, removed his suit jacket and donned a cardigan. He would then sit in his chair and read the paper. The camera would then cut to Mom who is in the kitchen (a very clean and unused kitchen I might add) cutting a cucumber. She is wearing a dress, pearls and high heels. The kids are in their tidy rooms. The fun begins. Leaving her kitchen to join Dad in the living room Mom sits on the arm of Dad's chair and relays, much to the delight of the audience if the laugh track is any gauge, what Kathy, or the Beaver, or Dennis, or any of the other sit-com kids has done. Using modest amounts of female trickery she gets Dad to understand the kids weren't really trying to be bad, they just made an error in judgement. Dad sets aside the paper, makes sure his tie is straight and calls the kids downstairs. Sitting them down he solemnly, and in a wonderfully worded non-lecture, lets them know the error of their ways. When finished he tousles their heads one by one.

      One child, speaking for them all, apologizes. “Gee willikers, Dad. Golly, we sure didn't mean to upset Mr. Wilson. Gosh, I see now how wrong it was. Thanks, Dad.” Lesson learned, they all smile and wander into the dining room to eat the elaborate dinner that was prepared from one cucumber.

      A far cry from the kid on Two and a Half Men drinking under age, vomiting into a toilet while Uncle Charlie sits on the side of the tub, drink in hand, smoking a cigar. There is no carefully worded caution, there is no subdued apology from the kid with promises to never do it again. It ends with Uncle Charlie, the kid's Dad and the kid sitting on Charlie's deck, observing the Pacific Ocean. No lesson learned.

      Is this perhaps a little more realistic than the sit-coms of old? Or are they both far-fetched and over the top caricatures depicting the times? Did any of us actually know a family like the Andersons, the Cleavers or the Stone family of The Donna Reed Show.

Who of us danced down the stairs in our ballet slippers and full skirts to announce to the living room in general we had a date. Did any one have a smart alecky friend like Eddie Haskell? “Good evening Mrs. Cleaver. That's a fine dress you're wearing today.” 
      I for one not only wanted to meet the Andersons, I wanted to be an Anderson. I wanted to be their youngest child, Kathy, who was affectionately called "Kitten" by her adoring Dad who never really ever raised his voice no matter what she may have done. Of course, Kitten never did anything serious, she never drank under age or threw tantrums or

didn't come home in time for dinner. Kitten's indiscretions tended more to be along the line of borrowing her sister's sweater without permission or breaking an ornament while throwing a pillow in the house and hiding the pieces from her parents. The only resemblance between Kitten and me was we both wore our hair in ponytails and wore dresses with Peter Pan Collars. But for me, a young girl growing up in Montreal without an older sister whose sweaters I could borrow without permission, that was enough.

      Based very loosely on current trends and morals, sit-coms take what we see around us and exaggerate them for laughs and ratings. Families like the Cleavers evolved into families like the ones on My Three Sons and The Brady Bunch, one parent or blended families. One parent families being held together by a hard working father, widowed of course, and a gruff but loving uncle who cooked and cleaned and ironed. This morphed into the blended family like The Brady Bunch, widow and widower get together and their kids learn to live under one roof with very little bickering or dissention other than minor squabbles that are quickly remedied by Mom and/or Dad.  Again,  acknowledging that not all families are the same. All In The Family was a new kind of family and perhaps a more realistic depiction of how people

lived when it first aired. Dad worked in a factory, didn't wear a cardigan, hung out at a bar and Mom didn't wear a string of pearls as she chopped her cucumber. There was only one child, not a precocious child but a grown woman who worked to support her student husband. Now that's a family that we can probably all relate to!

      So, does Two and a Half Men depict our society today? What about Modern Family? In todays society there are same-sex couples who live in harmony and with the acceptance of their families. Modern Family portrays Mitchell and Cameron as a couple who encounter the same problems that all couples have and doesn't get bogged down with serious problems they may encounter because they are gay. 

In some ways I'm supposing both Two and a Half Men and Modern Family have a grain of reality of how family life is today. I'm also supposing that as long as they get laughs and ratings the networks will evolve family based sit-coms in whatever manner they choose. Who knows, we may once again see Moms chopping cucumbers while wearing dresses and high heels but I somehow doubt it.