TELEVISION The day the network sitcom died

Sitcoms are moving to cable, where they're getting a needed face-lift.
By PAUL BROWNFIELD
LOS ANGELES TIMES
HOLLYWOOD -- Ray Romano is leaving, and Dave Chappelle is missing. This seems emblematic of where TV comedy is, circa 2005. On the broadcast networks, the sitcom is presumably dead or dying -- or, in the case of "Everybody Loves Raymond," which got a farewell dinner Monday night, the show officially going off the air after nine seasons, Romano among the last of the buttoned-down stand-ups to graduate from a decade in the clubs to stardom in a classic, old-school show.
If the future of TV comedy is on cable, where the point is to throw out the old template and introduce fresh faces and fresh ideas, what cable series can't seem to provide is the weekly companionship and stability that a show like "Everybody Loves Raymond" exuded.
Adding a twist
Unless, perhaps, you do "Everybody Loves Raymond" with cursing, which is how the Hollywood Reporter last week described "American Dream," a sitcom about middle-class parenting starring New York comedian Louis C.K.
The show, picked up for 12 episodes by HBO, is the network's mischievous answer to the question, "Is the sitcom over?"
Not if you can take the old box (multiple cameras, live studio audience, family situation) and fill it with mature subjects, not to mention swearing and nudity. Louis C.K., who formerly wrote for David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Chris Rock, might just be smart enough to do this right, not just for kicks. Louis C.K. had a similar-sounding concept that CBS passed on last year, and there's something kind of intriguingly passive-aggressive about HBO taking what feels tired and reintroducing it in adult form, in a show that looks like a sitcom but doesn't talk like one.
Meanwhile, over in the creatively compromised world, the broadcast networks stumble about in the dark, ordering comedies because they're proven business models while living in denial about how stale the genre looks and sounds.
Where's Chappelle?
Chappelle once tried to fit into a sitcom -- a couple of them, in fact -- before he decamped to cable and became a sensation with "Chappelle's Show" on Comedy Central. The sketch series, a cool evocation of Chappelle's club act, with musical guests, became a hit for the network after two seasons, whereupon Comedy Central, not exactly known for such largess, signed Chappelle to a two-year deal reportedly worth $35 million to $50 million. Ten new episodes of "Chappelle's Show" were supposed to debut May 31, but now Chappelle, who stars in and co-writes the show with Neal Brennan, is reportedly visiting friends in South Africa. Whatever the explanation for his disappearance turns out to be, Chappelle, 31, has always seemed to be knowing about the system.
Toning down
On cable, artists are freer to take creative chances but also freer to be who they are.
The volatility and surprise that Chappelle brought has been airbrushed out of the network sitcom game, where shows -- and their stars -- don't get on the air until executives are reasonably satisfied that the show -- and the star -- will be safe and well behaved enough for audiences and the Federal Communications Commission to feel comfortable with, which in turn reassures the bosses that the shows will be manageable to produce over the long haul.
The rub, of course, is that in working so hard to guarantee a long haul, the shows never get there. There have been exceptions over the years (Roseanne comes to mind, and Ellen DeGeneres, who decided, controversially, to come out as a lesbian midway through the run of her ABC series, alienating her network bosses). But the model nowadays is more like David Spade, ex of "Saturday Night Live" and the NBC sitcom "Just Shoot Me," who can be counted on to show up and be a Cliffs Notes version of David Spade wherever you put him.
Spade is currently waiting to see if ABC's "8 Simple Rules" will be picked up for another season.