I’m in television sitcom recovery. I’ve been hurt deeply, emotionally scarred by heartless producers who cancelled my favorite shows without popular permission, insensitive to my basic need for superficial reality and vicarious exploits. Don’t they know I’m still attached?
My childhood was traumatized when the Honeymooners ended. I never really got over the war ending and Hogan’s Heroes escaping. I’ve never been the same since Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore split the sheets. I’ve lived in suspended animation the last thirty years waiting for another Samantha to Bewitch the world. I’ve searched my suburb high and low and The Adam’s Family and The Munsters are not to be found. Part of me died when The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction ran their course. How could anyone grow tired of Jethro and Granny?
The Clampett Clan was part of my not-so-right rite of passage through adolescence. I spent my teenage years searching for a reasonable facsimile of Elly May.
I never missed a single episode of All In The Family. Archie Bunker was like a dad to me (actually, he was saner than my own). “Meathead” taught me about love and war. Edith did more for women’s rights than Gloria Steinem and Gurley Brown.
I was emotionally shipwrecked when Gilligan and Ginger swam to safety. I wanted them left on the island.
How could Happy Days ever end?
How could the urban planners allow Mayberry to be swallowed by the suburbs?
Why did the Partridge’s and the Brady’s have to grow up? I haven’t.
I still Dream of Jeannie and Leave It To Beaver. I still Love Lucy. I’m still planning on moving on up with The Jefferson’s. I grow nostalgic longing for the Good Times with J.J. and Thelma. The older I get, the more I remind me of Maxwell Smart and Fred Sanford.
Television, at times, mimics reality. Some situations are simply comedic.
But not only comedic. They can also be instructional, therapeutic and personal.
I learned as much about grace from Andy Griffith and Bill Cosby as I did at seminary. The Dukes of Hazard had some quirks and wore their shorts too short, but they prized family. How would I know who and where I would be without Jesus if the Simpson’s and the Seinfeld’s weren’t around once a week to remind me? How can we take ourselves too seriously with Tool Time Tim exposing our foibles? Sometimes we need a good fixin’ of sitcom to help us process reality.
Perhaps the key to a good series is creating characters that resemble us. Good scripts are really about me. Good characters live in my world – both reality and fantasy. Good drama understands and highlights my emotional struggles. A good sitcom happens at my address.
That’s why we take it personal when a series gets cancelled without our permission. We may still need them.
Recently our pop culture took a blow when Friends turned out the lights. Personally, I am glad to see them go, but I know lots of friends who grieve its departure. It’s tough to lose an old friend, especially when Frazier took down his shingle at the same time. Where will we find counsel now?
I would guess that all of us still linger in the memories of our favorite sitcom, staying up past bedtime, surfing the cable, hoping for one more episode of Cheers.
How could you not miss Cheers? It was closer to life than reality.
I knew everyone of the characters that dropped by the bar. They were my neighbors, my friends, my brethren. They were believably human: fragile, insecure, pretentious, vulnerable, needy, naughty, common, special, wise, foolish, disgusting, and wonderful. Just like us, or in the words of Archie Bunker, “I resemble that!”
We need Cheers because everybody wants to get away to a place “where everybody knows your name, and they are glad you came.”
Making our way in the world today takes everything we got. Taking a break from all our worries sure would help a lot. We want to go somewhere where people are just the same, where everybody sees that our troubles are just the same.
We long for a place where someone knows and someone cares.
Church could be such a place. Just imagine: church – the ultimate reality sitcom.
It could happen, if we didn’t take ourselves so seriously.
As near as I can tell, the only thing that prevents church from being the place that everyone wants to frequent is us – our pride, our pretense, our hypocrisy, our attitudes, our lack of Christian character, and our often humorless frown.
Our mission might be better served if we lighten up a little. Maybe we ought to consider moving from somber hour to happy hour. Maybe we could better minister to our hurting, searching, lonely neighbors if we ditched the furrowed brow look and tried something a little friendlier.
Apparently, unchurched folks stay that way because it’s easier than trying to break into church. Understand that humans hate and fear rejection. They are afraid they won’t or can’t match up with our presentation. They are not sure we really want them or that we will really accept them as they are. They fear we are so serious about who we let in the club that we may not cut them enough slack to clear waivers. What if we take them as seriously as we take ourselves?
People want cheers, not jeers. They want to be with folks who won’t judge them or refuse them service. They want to hang around folks who won’t take them too seriously. They want to be part of a script that recognizes the comedy of the situation. They don’t need another sad soap opera.
Living counter-culture by grace and faith in a fallen world is the ultimate sitcom, and way too serious to undertake without a sense of humor. Not a single one of us, no matter how somber or serious, can earn God’s favor or make Him love us more. Funny thing is we often cancel the grace without His permission.