Thursday, June 09, 2016

British vs. American Sitcom Writers

I feel like writers of British sitcoms are more celebrated than American writers. Maybe it’s because American sitcoms have always been 22+ episodes a season, they’ve had to have teams of writers thrown at them. British sitcoms, with their 6-7 episode series (seasons, to you American rubes), must more easily lend themselves to having a single writer commanding the entire thing. Everybody in England knows who Richard Curtis is, they all know Graham Linehan, they know Gervais/Merchant. Above all may be John Sullivan, who of course created and wrote every episode of Only Fools and Horses, but about a dozen more sitcoms as well along the way. Does anybody really know who wrote Friends? Or Frasier? And does anybody care?

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