Episode 3 - Odd Couples

Hello and welcome to the sitcom geeks, the podcast about all things sitcom, but mostly about creating and writing them. I'm James Carey and I'm Dave Cohen and the other voice you'll hear is our producer Katie Storri. Hello. Katie will be keeping us on the straight and narrow as we talk about sitcom mechanics.

In previous podcasts we've talked about asking what your sitcom is about and what it's really about. And also we've talked about larger than life characters and character two are essentially monsters. And whether they are a subset of larger life characters or not, I think they are not and Dave thinks they are. Which shows what do we know.

But today we're talking about odd couples and they've had some thoughts to kick us off on odd couples in sitcoms. Yeah well the odd couple of course there's a sitcom called The Odd Couple. It was actually a film and a musical film. Fantastic film.

Yeah brilliant. And by Neil Simon was a great brilliant comedy writer of the 20th century. And it was sort of Walter Mattau and Jack Lemon as two guys who were sharing a flat and who were the worst two guys to be together. You can imagine Jack Lemon was sort of very fustidious, probably a little bit OCD.

Cat the Flatberry Tidy, Walter Mattau was a slob. That's kind of about as much as you need to know really. And Bogos they were the first odd couple and they've been odd couples all throughout comedy and Laurel and Hardy. Probably one of the first ones on to be filmed I guess.

Before that I would cite Boswell and Dr Johnson in fact. James Boswell and Dr Johnson in the 18th century. Dr Johnson travelled around the country and Boswell, James Boswell, his faithful scribe. He's read down these straight man presumably.

Sort of yes but he kind of undercuts him a little bit as well from time to time. And then even Shakespeare has, he has odd couples certainly. He has for instance in Twelfth Night you've got Sir Toby Belch who is as the name suggests played by a big fat drunkard. And so Andrew Agyu Chikou is always sort of skinny, rake.

And these guys are always kind of up to all sorts of fun and games. So the odd couple it's a very old concept really. And in terms of the kind of sitcoms we're writing and we're trying to write and trying to go off the ground. There is basically two people who are stuck in a room together and they got nothing in common.

But how do you make that stretch over the years and years? How do you keep these people together? I guess that's what situation isn't it in the situation comedy. And it's a question of somebody's understanding thinking of subatomic particles and you have the strong force and the weak force or something.

But you need, you've got a force that's sort of pushing them together which has got to be greater than the force that's pushing them apart. And it should be clear to anyone listening to this podcast. I do not know what I'm talking about when it comes to subatomic physics. But in general you need a situation which is going to keep them together.

So the obvious one would be their part of the family. So you've got fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. Step to, Frazier, Abfab. You've also got the old couple brothers in Frazier as well.

We'll talk about them later. Delboy, Rodney of course. So yeah, the family is the obvious one. We are for the best of all this.

Stuck with our partners, families, children, whatever. Well, for the best of all, you're married. The couple that have made promises in public that they are obliged to keep. It didn't be a marriage that my wife had listened to this podcast because I didn't love her very much.

He said I'm convincing. Well, there has been an edit point my wife was too busy looking after the kids and doing three other things. The other ones to listen to a podcast about comedy. But yes, that's obviously, that's the family.

It's the one thing. There's one where people have drifted apart. A couple of friends or something. They stay together because it's kind of easier to not split up and people show it.

It's a good example of that. You don't really know how they became friends. But we've got this idea and we've seen them go through from I guess from late 20s to their late 30s. Or maybe a little bit older.

But that's a kind of age you can imagine. Maybe two people who were like good friends or students. And then maybe after they left college, they were still staying in the same flat. And it kind of...

It was more like to split up than it was to stay together. I'm making all this up. I'm making some eyes all that. I wonder if that, you're another category you've thought of is where they need each other.

Yeah. And I wonder if actually the two guys in Peep Show, whether they're the Jez and Mark, do actually need each other. You've got David Mitchell's character who just needs to calm down and chill out a bit. And Rob Webb's character who really needs someone to straighten them up.

Yeah. I was like so father and son. Kind of. They're sort of good for each other I suppose.

Yeah. They're really bad for each other, aren't they? Because honestly, in real life, if you knew even one of those guys, by now you'd be saying to them, come on, get a grip. You can't be a student forever.

But you can sort of see how the two of them together. Yeah. They're kind of... They're not really good for each other.

No. But like you say, it's too much effort. Yeah. It's comfortable to actually say, actually now I've got to break down.

Well I guess, and then when you say about unhappy marriages as well. Which are like, of convenience. And I think that's quite a good way. Again, it's too much effort to end it.

So they stay together. And the example you've got here is butterflies, which I think is a really good example of someone who's... Well I think, get the sense in that sometimes I've seen it. Her husband is relatively unaware of how badly things are going.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, butterflies is the sort of almost the kind of nice version of ever-decreasing circles. Which is a kind of darker version of that really, isn't it?

You really can see how A, how that couple is stuck together and B, how hard it would be for her to leave. And I suppose... The damage that she would do by leaving, she would go on on a conscience as well. Exactly.

Yeah. So you kind of like, you get those sort of slightly nice, tall middle-class way that you get that with butterflies. Yeah. You do get that almost a much darker way with ever-decreasing circles.

Which I think wasn't as big a hit or wasn't as hugely popular as butterflies was it? No, I don't think so. But it sort of aged pretty well after you go back and watch ever-preaching circles. We do love it.

We do love it. And it has got a derangement of its heart. Which is very brave actually from a private time BBC One show, which it was. Has a character as well, a beautifully observed character by Richard Breyers, who is two all in text purposes, who you would say now has Asperger's book.

Nobody knew what Asperger's was when that programme was being made. So there's a kind of sympathetic version of somebody on the autistic spectrum. Yeah. Yeah.

But I think that he was... I don't know. If you go back and look, I guess he would say that. But it's more that the character is just very positive and has a real strong sense of fairness.

And life seems easy for his nemesis, Paul. And that seems unfair. So there's an off-lock going on there. But there is a central relationship of convenience undoubtedly.

So that's a kind of example. That's quite a dark version of an odd couple, I suppose really. I mean, the other ways in which obvious ways that people are stuck with each other is work. And so, yes, Minister, is the one I think obviously is the great odd couple at work.

Yeah. Well, it's my favourite show of all time. So yeah, it's going to work for me. Yeah.

I have one. Yeah, you've got a completely different philosophical view of government from the two of them. The political will and the administrative won't. I think it was one of the jokes they used to one point.

The other great work place I know will make Katie happy to bring up is Jack Donnege and Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, which is sort of, I wonder if at the time they knew that that's what the show was. If you should what I mean. Katie, do you remember the early episodes very much? Yeah.

I'm just trying to think, do you think when they started it, they realised that the hot relationship was between Jack and Liz or whether it was? I think so, because I think in the first few episodes, they had real emphasis on the hierarchy in him storming in to take over the company and the locations that were tapped on her show and him being quite demanding and her trying to work it out. Yeah. So I think it kind of knew there was a potential there.

Yeah. But then it kind of really divided us into a friendship and a real, yeah, kind of. And yeah, it never became romantic at any point where he did it. It became, and because Jack always knew exactly who he was, there was never any chinking his armour really in some ways.

And so Liz was always sort of playing catch up to him and it was one of the great old couple relationships. The Republican and Democrat and all that kind of stuff. And I never said where she said she had to fly back to Chicago to vote. And he was, I remember him saying that, yes, because you're obviously convinced that that will make a difference.

You know, he's so patronising about being one of the ruling elite. And he's sort of new in your heart to parts that he was right. He's thinking, oh no, it really is one like that, isn't it? But I don't want to be that person.

So it was a great episode where he, they had to win her contract at work. So he's her boss, but he's also a friend. So she accepted the first offer. And I said, friend, he goes, no, no, no, no, he needs to negotiate.

But I said, boss, he's going, obviously just accept the first offer. So he's going to negotiate with himself. He owns that kind of, this, such a big, so those two parts of their relationship. Yeah.

The boss, but also he's the one's the best player this week. It is a great one couple thing. And you can run. He's spent a day on YouTube watching Jack and Liz Lennon.

I will do that because I haven't watched enough 30 Rock, obviously. I know I've already felt sadly left out about it. Sorry, Dave. No, no, I know.

Again, it's one of those shows that's on the list. Yeah. And maybe, maybe now I will definitely, I will watch that. And one of the things about, I wanted to say about odd couples as well is that it's not necessarily like the sitcom is about an odd couple.

Because you'll get even within any sitcoms, I think you will get, you know, there will be odd couples. There will be larger than life characters. I just wanted to ask James, really, for instance, on Blue Stone 4.2. There are a few little odd couple things.

Were they due to consciously create that person to be the opposite of that person? It sort of grew organically, I think. We knew that we had something with Nick and Mary, who were the sort of the original odd couple, because they weren't even a couple, even though they sorted both wanted to be. You know, Nick wanted to have sex with her.

She slightly wanted to have sex with him, but always had to put up her defenses for professional and theological reasons. So in one sense, that was the strong odd couple from the start. And then within the team, we sort of had a mixture of, right, so we just made sure that no one was too close. And actually, within Mack and Rocket, who very much almost comes at peace, the two characters who were the two armed escorts, within them, we've got Edinburgh and Glasgow.

So they're both Scots, so they're united for Scotland, but then they're enemies. When there's a Celtic hips game in one of the episodes, and they're always having competitions. And so they're very different. And that's kind of how we decided to work that.

So you're always looking just to set things against each other wherever possible, I think. But those were the ones that lead to mine, really. Yeah, that was good because that's, I didn't know that you had actually sort of put that in there from day one, really, the Glasgow Edinburgh thing. But as having seen the show develop, they have definitely developed that double act, how developers has become one of a number of very strong elements of the show.

Yeah, and I think it's interesting when little relationships do emerge, which in series two, we just found a tower block and Rocket together, which is always very funny, because Rocket was almost like the boy and tower block was almost like the reluctant older brother and all that kind of stuff. So these things do, once you discover that they're there, you do well to write to them and to make the most of them, definitely. Is that something you found while you were out there? Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah, and sometimes it's too late to do anything about it in the series you're currently filming, but you make a mental note to do more of it should you get to write more episodes of it. But I was interested by what you've been thinking about with regard to friends as having lots of odd couple relationships. I think that's a really good way of having a thing to just tell me about. Yeah, I mean, friends is, we think of friends as an ensemble show.

I remember you saying once that actually the friends was always going to be Joey and Monica, wasn't it? That's right. That's going to be the relationship. The hot couple.

The hot couple, and that was, as you say, I think it's probably the only couple that actually happened in the entire 250 episodes. I don't know. But there are definitely some very clear odd couples in there. And starting with Joey and Chandler being the obvious one.

Joey, he's good looking, easy going, always successful with women. Chandler, neurotic, middle class, great sense of humor, but can't get it on with women. And so these guys are sharing flat. And also, they're both sorts of slobs in their own way.

Joey really is a bit of a slob. Yeah. And, you know, Chandler likes things a little bit tidier. And then, yeah, so then actually the love interest that did actually happen in the end on didn't and then did Ross and Monica, of course.

Ross and Rachel. I mean, Ross and Rachel, sorry, Ross and Rachel. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of set up in the opening minute of the first pilot really, of the pilot.

So there is, there they are. She arrives in a wedding dress and he sees him, falls in love, and everybody sees that happen. But there again, there he is. He's this sort of drawn Jewish neurotic, middle class intellectual.

And she's bright and breezy, flighty, beautiful, everything. And she's quite a lovely, is that odd coupleness, which they sort of most play both ways over the course of the... That's right. Yeah.

And then Ross and Monica, which is a brother and sister, and then there you see the two neuros. The new rosis, the Jewish neurosis explored. Splitting two. And even within that, what seems like a very sort of a single kind of idea of Jewish New York.

You still have this kind of neurosis of OCD kind of proportions. And then Ross's particular version of it, his inability to communicate. And that seems to have... Chippshie Hodge stopped communicating, I guess that's probably what we know that odd couple works.

And I suppose, Chandler and Monica are the only other main one I can think of, whether they do actually get together in the end, I mean, that's kind of... There's not quite enough differences there. And that doesn't feel to me as strong as some of the other odd couples. Yeah.

Although what was good about that when they did that... So I think Chandler's really interesting character to make is he... Everyone liked... He was everyone's favourite character at the start because his funny characteristic was that he was funny.

So he's the sort of guy that comes up with lines that Harvard educated his comedy writer comes out with. And so what you know, what's not to like. But actually, he uses comedy as a defense mechanism because he's emotionally stunted. And the thing that I think is, well, he's always at his funniest is when he's being a coward.

So he is a real coward and Monica is not a coward. Monica is very competitive and will step forward in any debate or discussion. And Chandler will take a step back. So actually, I think that was a really good comedy pairing.

And they were good for each other in that sense. And it was 10 years, I guess, they all grew up. They all grew up and changed and moderated their behaviour and realised that really creeping, slow character development that you want to try and slow down as much as possible. One thing, I just want to pick you up on, I think you mentioned there are some couples who need each other.

And even in a sitcom that's not necessarily an odd couple sitcom, we don't think about black had a bold relationship is crucial to that. You really can't see what, I mean, Baldrick is, he's kind of a difficult person to have around for black hadders. But he does actually have his uses, doesn't he? Yes, he does.

I guess he has the innocence, especially in the fourth series where Baldrick is approaching everything as if, hang on, this whole wall is a terrible idea, isn't it? And he has a little bit of the what we thought about him. But also, I think black had a in series two, three and four needs to feel superior. Because he is a character who likes to express himself in superiority over other people and Baldrick is very easy to be superior over.

As an extent to which he's almost like Black hadders like the villain and this is a henchman that he's always cruel to, to make him feel better. But we going back to I think maybe our first or second podcast, Black hadders is a voice of reason in a mad world, isn't he? You sort of understand why black hadders is so sort of loom disbearing, disbearing in some sense, detachable around him because we think this whole wall around him is preposterous. Yeah.

So I think that's good. You've got another example as well which I think is really good which is Dougal and Father Ted. Yeah, I guess Father Ted is about Father Ted. He's the main character.

And yeah, Dougal is one of the great sitcom characters of all times. And I suppose there's an element of a kind of, I just sort of think of him, he's just a child, isn't he? He's a kid. He's like, he's an eight year old.

Absolutely. Ted is almost like his dad. But that's a kind of, I mean they are stuck together whether they like it or not. I guess they're confined.

That's the classic sort of confined signal. They can't get away from each other. But Dougal has his uses, isn't he? For Ted.

Yes, he does. I'm just wondering, I don't know Father Ted as well as I know lots of other series. So I've seen most of them once at various different points. But in general, I think if we can broaden it out a little bit too, are how we now apply lots of this to our own writing and our own situation, commonly writing and creation.

And I guess it's always worth thinking about how each relationship within your show is either an odd couple or could be. And worth thinking, how do these characters rub each other up the wrong way? How do they instinctively oppose each other? Or how do they even help each other that help in the wrong way?

I think that's, so Father Dougal isn't an antagonistic character at all. He's always up. He's always positive. But he's sort of the wrong positive.

But he's at the time, isn't he? In the same way that Baldrick, all of Percy is, or the Percy type character in Black Cat or Unrelied. Odd couples, a subset of odd couples would probably be unreliable allies with friends like these who need enemies kind of thing. It's interesting as well because when we've talked about Frasier before, I know you, I think Frasier very much like some step-to-and-son, I think of Frasier and his dad.

But you've also pointed out how important the brothers' relation is. I think it is about the brothers. My guess is they meant it to be about Father and Son. And it ended up being about brothers.

I think that's where the show ended up. But they don't have the work and they weren't fine, it wasn't that. Because as you watch episode after episode, the most interesting front-and-center storyline is normally the competitiveness of the brothers, isn't it? Yeah, yes.

That and also I think just how Frasier's, I always think of the flat in Frasier as being the star, almost the star of a show, many stars. But the fact that you have this absolutely perfect place and this horrible chair that's plopped in the middle, which just totally symbolizes how, what is stopping Frasier. The one thing that's stopping Frasier being the person he wants to be is his dad and that chair. That's how he sees it as much as it being true.

But that for me is what I see when I've been there. I think they've set that up really well. So, which is why I think that's what they thought the show was about. And I think it became about the competitiveness of the brothers.

Sometimes it's what an actor brings, isn't it? I know people who say that David, Mike Pius, who is one of the great American actors and definitely he just brought some of the extra. I mean, my family is an example of a show in this country where the character, the son character suddenly took off in a way that nobody had really thought was going to happen. Chris Marshall is funny.

He just is funny. And he was what really made that show be more beyond being over. Here's a funny family sitcom with this amazing character that has just brought a whole new audience to see it. He added millions to the audience really just by his presence really.

And that's... He was a magic dust for me really. So, shows do develop that way. I just wanted to say that odd couple just before we conclude on what we talked about so far.

This is something I do. I know this is a bit embarrassing now, but I don't know what you do, James, but I don't know what you're going to do. I'm starting to write a new idea. I'm trying to think of what all the relationships are.

I try and think of as many possible permutations of relationships within, if you've got, say, five people. So, I sort of draw a circle with the five names on and I just draw two arrows between every single one. So, this is a horrible thing. But somewhere on this thing, I can see I've got my name and character, but I'm also seeing how that character is reacting to character number four, but also character four.

How does character four react to number two? So, I find it helpful to just when you're building a sitcom on the early stages to have something that you know, well, that's going to be the thing every week that's going to be what makes those two characters funny. It may only be like one comic thing, but it will be mentioned three times in the episode. There are three different ways of being funny about that.

And I think that's a good thing to do and I've done that. And what you learn from it is sometimes you realise that one character really isn't pulling their weight and that they don't actually have the effect on the other characters that you would like, in which case you probably need to get rid of them, stick a rocket up them somehow, change their gender, give them a different role, work out a way of, you know, just shifting it round a bit because although you're writing 28 minutes of British comedy, which is obviously certainly longer than the Americans, it just appears that there's not ever time to waste scenes, waste lines, waste moments. Every single character needs to be there for a reason. So, every single scene has to have characters in it that are trying to get in each other's way, either intentionally or not.

So, characters that don't create conflict, generally are baggage. Unless you've got a hilarious next door neighbour who comes in, does some jokes and goes away again. And even they are usually game changes in some way or another. Then think a little diagram like that is a really helpful thing because you suddenly see which part of your show is probably a week.

I mean some people can do this sort of stuff in their head and they just have a sense for it. Well done you. I don't, I have to write it down. So, that's a good thing to do.

Okay, so just to conclude then really, I guess we'll talk about the different types of odd couple when you're writing odd couple characters, make sure they are together for a reason and again something I said sometimes when you're watching two people having an argument who don't have to be together, just to stop being friends. Okay. And now leave the show. So, if you're going to have an odd couple people who are stuck together, they need to be stuck together for a reason whether they're a part of a family or they have to work together or they need each other or they're just people who have kind of stayed together because it's harder for them to split up.

So, that's a good for a central relationship. And then the other thing we, I guess we've looked at is how within the show you have these little odd couples as well. And so, I think that's a really helpful thing to be thinking of how you can just give yourself the best chance because actually, you, despite all of your best intentions, you never quite know what the show is going to be and you never quite know where the show is going to end up. Because I've said, I think Frazier is about the brothers but they didn't think that at the time.

Yeah. I could be wrong. But shows just take on a lot of characters, take on life of their own. And in a sense, if they do that, you really are off to the races, I think.

Yeah. Shall we quick chance about some comments on? My news, a few weeks ago, I was ordered by you to get Netflix. Wasn't that big of both of you?

Well, that by Katie probably. Happy suggesting. That's okay. So, I've got Netflix.

I have a cake back for that. Yeah. And I kind of quite, it's still need a bit of help to know what to watch. We've sat through, have some cards which are completely relevant to this particular podcast.

I think that's what you do when you get Netflix. It's like when you join Twitter, you follow Stephen from. Yeah, to start those are all, yeah. You've got to watch Netflix.

Which has a card. Yeah. But it's interesting because it picked up on a few of the Americans, sitcoms that lots of people always rave about like community and the community, we never remember the title. We've watched a few episodes of those.

I know that's kind of one to get back to them. But the problem is there is so much stuff that unless the thing grabs you in the first five minutes, you kind of almost think, I'm still like that with community. I've probably watched two or three episodes. And I admire it, but it hasn't pulled me in.

And I live in a world where I haven't watched every episode of Modern Family. So to me, to watch community doesn't make any sense at all. About seven episodes of Modern Family and my Sky Plus box. And also the Goldbergs, which I've also been really enjoying.

And I watch Brooklyn Nine Nine every week. So that's kind of enough to keep you going. The one hot tip for Netflix, which I would give you, a show that I've never seen, but I constantly refer to is it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Go to your single looks.

I haven't seen one clip from it, which was the Dayman song, which made me how laughing. So I need to watch it again. Okay. And the reason I've heard it's so good because I recently did a blog post the other day about escalating your sitcom to making it as bad for the characters as it could possibly be.

The received wisdom is that it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Just escalates episodes really quickly. And it really gets big, fast. Right.

That sounds like something to learn from. But I need to get hold of, I think I'm going to buy an iTunes or something when I eventually caught up with Modern Family, the Goldboges Brooklyn. No, no. Yeah.

Yeah. That's our homework. That's our homework. That's our homework.

Next time. And that is our podcast. Don't tick if you have any questions or comments or ideas or topics you would like us to discuss. Then you can drop us an email at sitcomgeeks at gmail.com.

Is that correct? Yeah. Sitcomgeeks. Yeah.

So that's a good answer. That's a good answer. That's a good answer. Money the water there.

So I would say drop us an email. Sitcomgeeks at gmail.com. Oh, okay. So now we know where the ad is until we all figure it out.

For more sitcom talks from me, look at my blog, which is sitcomgeek.com.com or just Google sitcomgeek and it comes out top at the moment. You can find me on Twitter at sitcomgeek. You can find me on Twitter at sitcomgeek. For more practical advice on making a living comedy, you really should buy Dave Cowen's excellent book, which I have read.

Thanks James. I've read it and I've very much enjoyed it and I recommend it. What is it called and how do people get hold of it? It's called How to be Adveragedly Successful.

Well, that is an inspiring title. It's available on all computers and the places where you get these things from. You just sort of put that in your computer. It has the adversity, it has the comedy Google that and we think we'll do it with inverted commas around it.

Yeah. And it'll come up and I'm at to co-in Dave on Twitter. I do an occasional blog like James's, but not as often. Probably more often.

I'm very, I blow hot and cold on it. Dave Cowen.org I think is my website these days. And the show has been produced by Katie Stormy who has a podcast of her own, Tell us about it, Katie. It's a comedy podcast about the royal family.

So we're the only one around. The only podcast you've selling by? Talking All Fing Royal. Yeah, we've got one of public involved Mona Kiss and you and unashamed Mona Kiss who loves Kate Middleton.

Yeah. The Princess. Yeah, it's very balanced. I've got friends who listen to it who hate the royals and they say it's the funny one.

So it's good. I've heard it and I enjoy it. So thank you Katie. Thank you, Dave.

Thank you rush for all the media for hosting the recording of this podcast. Until next time. Bye bye.