I hereby decree that, on this Thursday, 1 January 2004, lay claim to the establishment of Van's law of intellectual television. The law states:

"As the intellectual comedy in a television show (animated or live action) increases, the survivability of the show on network television decreases. However, the survivability in reruns on a secondary network greatly increases."

This notion of "intellectual comedy" is something I have been putting thought into for some time. Let us first look at the term intellectual comedy. I choose this term because there are, essentially, two types of comedies on the air.

The first type (Type A) of comedy is where the television show doesn't hide the joke. It may come in the form of slapstick, the delivery of someone lines or a situation in the background the viewer may see. Good examples of shows likes this are Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Everybody loves Raymond, and Seinfeld. All shows that are, and have been, considered successful. (Example of slapstick: A character hitting himself or walking into a wall, or a joke where the viewers can see the punch line before it is delivered by the actor)

The second type (Type B) is a blend of the traditional slapstick, much like that a viewer may see in a Type A show, and the delivery of jokes that make the viewer think. This is better known, in the real world, as a joke that takes a person some time to get. Great examples of shows like this are Futurama, Hidden Hills, Family Guy*, and Sports Night.

Now individuals will look at the second set of shows and say that they "failed", in comparison to the Type A comedies, because their writing was crude, the shows did not have a theme that progressed as the series progressed or the content was uninteresting. All of the above mentioned points of failure directly relate to the law intellectual television. All the shows mentioned above have a great, truly great, blend of excepted slapstick comedy and subtle, intellectual, comedy. Sometimes, the delivery is so good that the intellectual comedy is being delivered to the viewer as the slapstick comedy it taking place. The themes are subtle, such as a reoccurring phrase or situation throughout the series. Viewers do not pick up on the themes because they do not watch the show regularly enough to see it reoccur.

Why is it that the survivability of a show on network television decreases and the intellectual comedy increases? Simple, the vast majority of the viewing public on network television are looking to simple be entertained. They don't want to work to laugh, they just want to stare at the television and have their daily or weekly laughter beamed right to them. Quite frankly, there is nothing wrong with this. This is the same group of people who see movies the see things blow up and cars go fast, with no real or plausible story behind what they are watching.

"Intellectual comedy", however, can flourish. With the exception of Hidden Hills (because only 6 episodes aired on network television) the shows that were mentioned under the intellectual comedy segment have done very well in reruns as well in DVD sales. This can be due to a few factors, first the core set of fans run out and by the DVDs and will regularly watch the reruns. Second, the time at which the reruns play is often later at night, not directly competing with other shows of any significance. This means word of mouth will help the show. Third, the reruns are often played at a time which allows working professional the ability to sit down, relax, and actually watch the show without interruption.

The downfall to the intellectual shows is the cost to produce them. If a production company was specifically going to produce an intellectual comedy, knowing that the likelihood the show will do well in syndication or on DVD but not stellar on network TV, will they be able to turn a profit in the long term? This is what I have yet to be able to figure out.

* Note: While Family Guy can be said to be flat our crude, there can be made a very good argument for it being an intellectual comedy. However, the argument was not meant to be included in this writing.