One of the most innovative comedic programs to air on television, Monty Python's Flying Circus was a mix of the carnivalesque and the critical. The show has become famous for eschewing many of the conventions of situation comedy, the fully formed and coherent script, narrative closure, predictable characters, and the decorum associated with presentation. Its curious transatlantic popularity defied the assumption that comedy is regional and exclusive, and the show's cult status still lives on in the United States and United Kingdom through reruns, videos, DVDs, and continual reappearances...

Perry Mason was one of the most successful television programs from the 1950s and remains one of the most influential crime melodramas from any period. The show's influence goes far beyond its nine-year tenure (1957-66), the millions of dollars it generated for its creators and for CBS, and the definitive identification it provided its star, Raymond Burr. Perry Mason has become a true piece of Americana, evolving through a formulaic approach that law professors continue to use today as a teaching tool.

In his examination of Perry Mason, author Thomas Leitch looks at why this series has...

The classic situation comedy Bewitched chronicled the everyday lives of Samantha, a witch, and Darrin Stephens, her mortal husband, dramatizing the often-humorous troubles caused by their "mixed marriage." For much of its eight-year run, Bewitched enjoyed strong popularity because of its broad appeal. A parade of magical characters, animals, special effects, and gimmickry used to portray witchcraft ensured that the series appealed strongly to children, while its domestic tensions, feminist undertones, and hints at gay and lesbian subculture grabbed the attention of adult viewers. Bewitched...

With its bold depiction of four female friends navigating the pitfalls of Manhattan's dating scene, Sex and the City, which aired on HBO from 1998 to 2004, was a unique television drama that evolved into a ubiquitous and widely debated cultural phenomenon. Deborah Jermyn's Sex and the City investigates the program's critical and popular success as well as its lasting cultural impact. To give readers a complete picture of Sex and the City, Jermyn draws on close textual analysis of selected episodes, existing critical work on the program, testimonies from its stars and producers, and...

Few American television series are as deeply entrenched in twentieth-century popular culture as M*A*S*H, a Korean War medical comedy characterized by its dark tone and finesse in tackling serious social and political issues. By the end of its run, M*A*S*H had been a mainstream hit for several seasons and won fourteen Emmys, leading it to be called "the most popular pre-Seinfeld series in television history." In this comprehensive study of M*A*S*H, David Scott Diffrient analyzes the series' contextual issues-such as its creation, reception, and circulation-as well as textual issues like its...

Following the phenomenal success of the first three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the WB Network, writers and producers Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt moved their character Angel to his own spin-off series in 1999. While Angel, which followed its namesake vampire with a soul who had become Buffy's tragic love interest, never quite matched the popularity of Buffy, the spin-off was notable for being specifically aimed at adult audiences and acquiring an intensely loyal following. In this in-depth study of Angel, Stacey Abbott demonstrates that producers of the show used the...

The Honeymooners chronicles the lives of New York City bus driver Ralph Kramden and his wife, Alice, as they search for domestic happiness inside a confining Brooklyn apartment. As a stand-alone television program, it ran for just thirty-nine weeks from 1955 to 1956, but its characters appeared in long-running sketches on Calvalcade of Stars and The Jackie Gleason Show and the program has lived on for generations in reruns and home video releases. David Sterritt investigates The Honeymooners as an enduring and valuable index of societal norms and televisual tastes in the 1950s-a project...

Hogan's Heroes originally aired between 1965 and 1971 on CBS, corresponding to the most uncertain years of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. In an era when attitudes about the military, patriotism, and authority were undergoing a sea change, Hogan's Heroes did not offer direct commentary on the conflict, but instead explored incompetent military leaders, draft dodging, and perpetual war in an absurd storyline about Allied saboteurs inside a World War II German prisoner of war camp. In Hogan's Heroes, author Robert Shandley argues that the series reveals much about the parameters of...

Television's longest-running chase story, The Fugitive was a dramatically charged show that followed Dr. Richard Kimble on his quest to prove his innocence and find his wife's one-armed killer. A product of veteran television producer-writer Roy Huggins (Maverick, The Rockford Files) and Quinn Martin, a newcomer producer, the series aired for four seasons between 1963 and 1967 on the ABC network. In The Fugitive, author David P. Pierson examines the creation of the series and its dominant social discourses and themes, along with the industry producers, writers, and actors who made it one...

Gilligan's Island, created by Sherwood Schwartz, aired for three seasons between 1964 and 1967 on the CBS network. While the series was typically dismissed for its episodic inanity, author Walter Metz argues that this characteristic is precisely the source of the show's innovation as it produces a vibrant critique of dominant American values. In this analysis of Gilligan's Island, Metz reveals the inner workings of American television and society through an intensive look at the popular sitcom.

In twenty-one short sections, Metz investigates many aspects of Gilligan's Island: the...