I guess it's partly that it takes a long time to make an animated episode, and it gives them more time to work on the new episodes if they have a cushion of two or three already-completed episodes that are going to start the new season.

In theory the Herb-returns episode could be considered part of the fourth season because it wasn't shown until the end of August. (Depending on how you want to phrase it, it was a Fox experiment with showing original episodes before the official season began, or an easy way to burn off the least good of the three…

Stewart and Colbert may not change that much (you can't in that format) but the news does. People tune in to hear their take on the day's headlines.

Yeah, Lewis's solo movies with Tashlin are awkward because Lewis was producing them, so there's a tension between what Lewis wants and what Tashlin wants. I don't think Lewis was very interested in making movies about pop culture or sex, which are Tashlin's two favorite things. Lewis had better results directing…

"What's the difference? I mean, really? When I'm watching a comedy, the absolute last thing that I think about is how many cameras they're using."

Hm. I always thought it was more the other way — certainly recently we often see writers going from hacky multi-camera shows to acclaimed single-camera shows. Like "Raising Hope" sometimes uses the same kinds of jokes and plots the creator used on "Yes, Dear," but somehow it comes off better.

They also mention offhand, as we might have expected, that Ryne Sandberg was their first choice for second baseman.

"That Girl" had some good episodes in the years Danny Arnold ran it; the jury episode was from his seasons. But it was not a great series, and the writers sometimes seemed to be recycling stuff they'd done before (or in the case of James L. Brooks, rehearsing for stuff they'd do better).

Paul Simms actually addresses that on the commentary for "Jail," where he says that he absolutely would never have done it any other way than multi-camera and that after doing LARRY SANDERS he wanted to do something different. (Josh Lieb goes even farther and says he dislikes single-camera sitcoms, finding them not…

There's really nothing wrong with the talking-head documentary format, and as the creator of P&R mentioned, it helps make the single-camera format less alienating (which is why no other single-camera shows have hit it as big as "The Office" and "Modern Family"). Sure, it can be a crutch, but any device can be.

"Single camera is easier than multi-camera? I doubt that very much."

The other thing that holds back cable comedy is the same thing that holds back sitcoms in Canada - inability to afford the big writing staffs. Not that every comedy needs a big writing staff, but the modern model for the way sitcoms are written sort of demands a lot of writers to keep the jokes flowing. Cable sitcoms…

Basically as Jay S. says it was "The Office" that really changed things - maybe "My Name is Earl" too, but that show collapsed pretty quickly. "The Office" became successful and stayed that way, and also showed that while a single-camera comedy couldn't get the biggest overall audiences, it could do great with young…

The go-to joke about bad sitcoms is one that is a) bad and b) has a premise so ridiculous it sounds like a parody. It used to be "My Mother The Car"; for the generation that came of age in the '80s it's "Small Wonder." The other cheesy syndicated sitcoms of the '80s, like "Charles In Charge" and "Out of This World,"…

Everyone believes the form they're working on is the hardest. Movie-style comedy producers like Harmon feel their job is harder, multi-cam producers point out their job is harder because they have fewer sets and have to get their jokes past an audience; mock-documentary producers point out that their job is tougher…

I suspect it was as much about needing someone famous as it was needing a replacement for Bill. Even with Hartman they barely got renewed for season 5 as it was, so they probably needed a well-known actor to add to a lot of relative unknowns (at the time).

In a certain sense weren't we all home schooled? We teach ourselves the law, but the teachers train our… wait, that's another series.

Poignancy of Ambition
What's a bit poignant about an episode like this, in an unintentionally meta sort of way, is it's one of those episodes where you feel like you're seeing a hint of TV writers' true ambitions. Many TV writers have dreams of getting into some other medium — usually movies today, often theatre in…

I once interviewed the creator of the "Mr. Belvedere" show and he said that most of their Very Special Episodes (except the AIDS one, which he did because he genuinely wanted to call attention to the issue) were done because they were cynically trying to get on the cover of TV Guide. It didn't work.

The one show that did something different, as I recall, was "Growing Pains" (which was in many ways a better show than Family Ties even though the cast wasn't nearly as good). The writers introduced a new boyfriend for Carol, played by Matthew Perry, and she dated him for a couple more episodes — and THEN they killed…