If the characters don’t click, there’s nothing to fall back on. And some are just about a bunch of people you’d like to hang out with. Some are based around a set-up like a workplace others have long-running plot lines that keep things moving forward. But that doesn’t mean all sitcoms are equally focused on characters. If you don’t want to spend time with them, that’s it, show’s over. At their heart, they’re both hangout sitcoms ![]() They might often take on regular sitcom plots (they even tackle one of New Girl’s standards, the prank war), but they always put a unique spin on things Brad’s heart-warming bonding with his straight-laced dad (Damon Wayans) wouldn’t be the same without a fireworks frenzy. The plots alone are great – sure, why not have an episode where two of the characters start chugging cough mixture as a way to straighten out their lives – but when you combine it with a lot of jokes (we’re talking Brooklyn Nine-Nine levels of joke after joke after joke) and a cast of very funny people, and you’ve got about as sure-fire guaranteed laughs as you’re going to get. You’d think this would go without saying, but Happy Endings is one seriously funny show. The supporting cast is consistently great too, from Rob Corddry as a car salesman (and briefly Jane’s boss) known as the Car Czar (he knows what cars are) to Megan Mullally as Dana Hartz, Penny’s lounge singer mum (they were in a double act called Two Hartz Beat as One). ![]() The gang has their own in-jokes, like the wall of abuse known as a “pile-on” or the mockery that Penny’s season one catchphrase “amaahhzing” gets in season two. Happy Endings had half the episodes, but went at it twice as hard. Over seven seasons New Girl became known for a string of running gags, recurring characters and character quirks that turned a show set in a loft into an entire comedy world. The best sitcoms create their own reality. Everyone sucks at business: their bad ideas include Dave’s food truck “Steak Me Home Tonight”, Max and Brad’s short-lived bar mitzvah MC business, Boyz II Menorah, or Brad’s equally short-lived limo company (the limo explodes). ![]() Alex takes comedy dumb to new heights (Wikipedia is not an infection you get from swimming). Penny can only speak (fluent) Italian when she’s drunk. Sometimes the weirdness can be something small, like Dave’s love of V-neck T-shirts. Especially as the show itself makes fun of the superficial similarities in the season two episode The St Valentine’s Day Maxssacre. So if you’re thinking Happy Endings is just an updated version of Friends, you’re in for a bit of a surprise. New Girllooks like a show about a bunch of attractive people leading cool lives… and then you actually watch an episode and realise these people are kind of nuts (in a good way).
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