How to Write a Popular Sitcom

You’re sitting at home, watching some awful half-hour comedy show, thinking that anyone in the world could write it. As it turns out, you’re right--anyone in the world can write it. There are some unspoken rules about how to make a successful sitcom, and the list below will get you moving in the right direction.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Pick a pair of mismatched lovers. The longest-running and most fertile staple of the sitcom is the couple that defies explanation. Sometimes it’s a marriage of convenience for a green card, sometimes it’s an alien and a make-up salesperson. Spend a few minutes figuring out 2 different people who couldn’t be more awkward when put together, and put them together.
2. Have them live next to a crazy neighbor. Because sitcom writers have a hard time making things interesting, they make a shortcut to cheap laughs by creating a wacky neighbor. He’s a mad scientist or a cave tour guide, or some job that no one seems to have in the real world. He will wander into the couple’s house at random times to say stupid things and break up a monotonous scene. He’s the secret weapon to be used in fixing the boring stuff.
3. Make sure there's lots of misunderstandings. The bread and butter of the sitcom is the absolute inability of people to meaningfully communicate with each other. If people spoke to each other in a way that made sense, you could never have a love letter which everyone thinks is from a different person, or have people who don’t like each other on a series of crazy dates. Good communication skills will always ruin a great comic set-up, like someone thinking someone else is a communist when in fact they are a community planner.
4. Set the action in 3 rooms. All major stories in a sitcom can be arranged in a kitchen, living room and very big workplace lobby. This is the way that you make a sitcom affordable for the investors and comfortable for the audience. Give them exactly what they expect and don’t spend too much money on it.
5. Don't change the characters too much. The enemy of the sitcom is the emotional journey. Audiences come back every week because they can shut off their brain and know that none of the people they have become comfortable with is any different this week than they were last week. Tell stories of mistaken identity and wacky job ventures, but make sure you can always hit the reset button at the end of the episode so you can start all over again on the next episode.