CONVENTIONS OF TV COMEDY

The conventions and common features of a TV sketch show:

  • The show will usually be around 30 minutes long.
  • Each show's structure is almost identical to the rest.
  • Transgressive humour is heavily used like sexual innuendos and references. 
  • Canned laughter is used after the sketch has finished or the intended joke has been told or there is a live audience.  
  • Each show has a variety of drama sketches which include parodies and slapstick although that is less common nowadays.
  • Many of the sketches used catchphrases and repetition in make the joke funnier.

The conventions found in the sketch show, Walliams and friend:

  • Each episode of Walliams and friend is about half an hour long and has the same structure each time. For example,it always starts with the same scene, David Williams is sat in a black room saying one liners about the BBC.
  • Walliams and friend uses a lot of crude humour and language which are both examples of transgressive humour. One sketch in the show is about a man being called into his bosses' office because of his inappropriate behavior around the female members of staff; that sketch is filled will sexual innuendos and references. 
  • Also after each sketch canned laughter is used to reinforce the joke being made.
  • Characters in the sketches also are given catchphrases to repeat for example, in one sketch a character constantly repeats 'I'm better than you'.
  • The show is split into small sketches that are about 5 minutes long each and there are a mixture of parodies, character based sketches and trangressive humour. For example, the show would repeat a sketch format called 'middle class Jeremy Kyle' which was a parody of the actual Jeremy Kyle show.

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