There was a golden age of comedy from the mid-2000s to the early 20 teens on network TV.

These were the sitcoms that didn't have laugh tracks that everybody knew and you could crack jokes with each other because you were all watching the same shows.

Four great, funny, smart sitcoms from that era, from the network.

So that means we can't counterrest the development because Fox, I think it's a, you know, it's different.

The four big network ones, what were they?

Got them?

Okay, number one, I'm stalling so you can think them through and you can get this right.

And then we can mentally high five over it.

Okay, but I'm done stalling. Number one, the office, two, 30 Rock, three, parks and

recreation, four, what do you have? I think it's community, right? I really like community,

wildly talented cast, great writing, goofy, believable, cartoonish exaggerations of characters

with traits that you've seen and that you've been around before and that's what made it so fun. It ribbed everything. It happened right before everything

got sanctimonious and you just couldn't joke about half of the things anymore. Everybody got

made fun of. Everybody got redemption arcss everybody got villain arcs it worked great for

the first three seasons and i'm reminded of that as i'm watching through it again right now

when i've got a few minutes to kill here and there and just pounding through an episode there's one

character in particular who i love her name is shirley bennett she's an african-american lady she's

a single mom she She's in community

college trying to make things work. And she's got this little circle of friends there in her

study group that's kind of become a family to her, which is a very endearing character build,

I should say. She's also a Christian. And she's a Christian who cherishes niceness, because a lot of

bad things have happened to her

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