The late 80’s and the 90’s were the golden era for the multi-camera sitcom. Shows like Married with Children, Roseanne, and The Cosby Show dominated the airwaves. They often included a live studio audience or a laugh track to help viewers at home know when it was time to laugh. The pinnacle of this format came with “the show about nothing”, Larry David’s wildly successful Seinfeld. Multi-camera sitcoms may still dominate ratings (The Big Bang Theory, Two and A Half Men, Oops I Pooped in A Bag, How I Met Your Mother) but critics and creatives soon began adopting the single-camera format for their shows post millennium. Some notable single-camera 22-minute comedies of the past decade are Arrested Development, The Office, 30 Rock, and Community. But now this format is growing a bit stagnant for comedians to truly flex their comedy muscles. Thanks largely to the widespread availability of the internet on a plethora of devices and risky networks like Adult Swim comedians have been given a new format to make us laugh: the 12-minute episode. Most of the shows that are using this format can be viewed online or on Adult Swim and they allow for comedians to have truly absurd characters and plot lines without worrying about building larger story arcs to entice a wider audience. It seems like if you are a part of the “new generation” of comedy you should have your own 12-minute show. Here are just a couple of my favorite 12-minute comedies.
Tim and Eric Awesome Show
This isn’t the first show to adopt the 12-minute format but it’s certainly the one that popularized it. If you haven’t seen Awesome Show then you are missing out on the most absurd sketch show ever conceived. Sometimes it’s hilarious; other times it’s just down right disturbing.
NTSF:SD:SUV
Created by Paul Scheer of The League, NTSF:SD:SUV is a parody of CSI: Miami and all of the other spin-offs that show has. It’s full of cliches and bad acting.
Burning Love
A parody of The Bachelor, Burning Love was created by comedy veteran Ken Marino for Yahoo.com. The show received such positive reviews that it garnered an Emmy nomination and second season starring Paul Scheer’s wife and fellow NTSF cast member June Diane Raphael.
Children’s Hospital
Burning Love lost the Emmy to this parody of hospital dramas created by Rob Corddry. The Adult Swim show just wrapped up their fourth season and are slated for a fifth .
Delocated
A reality show about a guy who is in the witness protection program. Totally absurd, the show called it quits in 2012.
