The Broadcast Network TV Sitcom: 1949-2008

It's the job of network-TV executives to put a happy face on vexing situations, to - apologies to the 2008 Presidential campaign - put lipstick on a pig. So, when an executive breaks from the pack and sounds an alarm, you better pay attention.

This summer, Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly addressed the foundering fortunes of the sitcom: "I can't even go to the platitude of 'it's cyclical; it's going to come back.' My observation is, a lot of confidence has left the creative space on a day-to-day basis. I see really talented people coming in very skittish, not knowing what to pitch. I see executives trying to figure out, where is that nerve to hit. ... We've got to do anything to mix it up."

There have been a couple of really good sitcoms in recent years, and there are a couple of successful ones, but there hasn't been anything on the order of a great hit sitcom in years. I'm no doctor, but I have been monitoring the life-support systems quite some time now, and so I'm ready to call it: The mainstream, broadcast-network sitcom is dead. Break out the toe tags.

That doesn't mean the genre won't limp along, zombie-like, for years to come, that "Two and a Half Men" won't continue to be a success or that NBC will cease arguing that "The Office" and "30 Rock" hit the sweet spot of some desirable demographic. But, barring an act of genius or an influx (or complete absence) of audience good taste, network sitcoms will either attract cult audiences or continue to be utterly culturally irrelevant.

¿Quién es más divertido?

(Hint: It's not "According to Jim.")

And the reason is that thanks to our current cultural divide, we're divided largely along age lines as to what we think is funny. As Rob Roy Thomas, who has created comedies for both cable (Bravo's acclaimed "Significant Others") and broadcast (Fox's short-lived "Free Ride"), puts it, "Is it cool to go to your high school and say what you watch on a broadcast network?"

Well, no. No, it isn't. Cable comedies provide edgy, anarchic fare akin to their audience's sensibilities: Shows like FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (which returns Thursday for a fourth season) and Comedy Central's "The Sarah Silverman Program" and "South Park" offer up plots and punchlines that come from so far out in left field that Manny Ramirez wouldn't bother to try to run them down. They're dark and borderline crazy, but they actually do have something on their minds and are actually sane responses to a world seemingly gone insane.

("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" takes the p!ss out of old-school sitcoms like "Friends.")

And Adult Swim's surreal, primitively animated offerings were punchy, short YouTube films before YouTube even existed. Sites like YouTube and FunnyOrDie.com have emerged as younger viewers' comic meccas - jokes come immediately, without getting muddled in tedious storylines that today's short-attention-span lifestyle can do without.

Older viewers, brought up on the elegant precepts of decorum and narrative coherence, are well within their rights to watch these things and wonder, "What the hell ...?"

On the other hand, the situations in most network situation comedies today are beyond tired, and the punchlines are either hopelessly old-school or a queasy, usually only semi-smutty compromise that pleases neither the traditional sitcom fan nor the younger viewer. ("Family Guy" is about the only network show that draws young viewers, but then, it's basically a mash-up of YouTube shorts peripherally linked by a rambling, non-sequitur-cluttered storyline.)

Only four new sitcoms will premiere this fall. One, Fox's "Do Not Disturb," has already arrived DOA, with fewer than five million tuning into its premiere. NBC's "Kath & Kim" promos scarcely look promising. CBS's "Gary Unmarried" is something that could've aired at any point in the past 35 years, while its "Worst Week" can't figure out if it's a cartoon or a character comedy, so opts instead to wring humor from having its protagonist pee in a pot containing his prospective in-laws' celebratory goose, something that might happen if a couple of quarts of tequila were involved but, otherwise, just represents desperate cynicism or cynical desperation; they're so hard to differentiate. ABC didn't even bother to try to air a new sitcom this fall.

("Do Not Disturb's" Jerry O'Connell and Niecy Nash sassily debate who's playing the most clichéd character.)

So we have a comedy arms race that one side (the old guard) can't possibly win and that the other side (the young anarchists) aren't interested in winning so long as they can continue in their rude ways. No point in asking, "Can we all get along?" Because the answer is no. Each side will laugh at what they think is funny - and also at the opposing side in this humor-generation gap, secure in the knowledge that what the other thinks is funny is so obviously not.

What do you think? Can the sitcom be resurrected? Or will the obsession with demographics create a further rift in our senses of humor?