Primetime consists primarily of a slew of negative messages fired rapidly at the uninformed viewer. Without a proper knowledge of these implicit messages, the average television viewer will see nothing but the cheesy explicit morals intentionally added by the networks in order to raise public approval. A careful analysis of three episodes selected randomly from the sea of sitcoms on public television can clearly expose the implied statements beneath the laughtracks. In the following essay, I will pull apart Dharma and Greg, "Kitty Dearest", Sabrina the Teenage Witch, "You Can't Twin", and Frasier, "Bla-Z-Boy" and explain how each of them follows a precise pattern of deception. First, a brief overview of the vast majority of sitcoms reveals a great tendency towards high socio-economic standing--an awfully strong message to send to children growing up in less wealthy families. Next, laughtrack positioning will lead us to the primary source of comedy in all there episodes: socially awkward situations. Is this innocent scripting, or is it teaching the more impressionable members of our society that human emotion is a laughing matter? Still on the subject of negative messages for youth, we come across rampant lying which does not result in any sort of drastic social recoil as would normally be expected in real life. Finally we reach a bleak conclusion to each of the three shows: After twenty-five minutes of lying, emotional abuse, and unrealistic upper-class adventures, the families and friends make up and all is well again. However detrimental it may seem, Americas favorite source of entertainment relies on misrepresentation and dark moral lessons to draw in its blinded audience.

One would think that the economic status of sitcom familes does not influence the popularity of their shows, but strangely, it apparently does. All three sitcoms in question portray families of above-average wealth. Dharma and Greg both live together in a very well furnished apartment, presumably located in a major metropolitan area. They dine in expensive restaurants, and do so frequently. The thirty-minute episode spans several days, and yet we never see any of the main characters at work or on their way to it. The viewer is given the impression that Dharma and Greg are living off of interest or possibly one of Greg's near-aristocracy parents. Similarly, Sabrina the Teenage Witch lives together with her two aunts in large two-story home in the suburbs. The community is definitely large, and yet the neighborhood is clearly safe enough to leave the front door unlocked. Sabrina and her friends enjoy ample free time and have yet to wear the same outfit twice. Just like Dharma and Greg, Sabrina and her aunts are never caught thinking about work or finances. The Frasier episode is set in quite possibly the most expensive setting of all three. Frasier lives together with his father in a luxurious apartment featuring a breathtaking view of the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. The apartment is equipped with decadent furnishings, a spacious kitchen, dining area, and living room. In an identical fashion to Dharma and Greg and Sabrina, Frasier and his family worry only about their social adventures. Money is clearly shown to not be an object when soiled wall-to-wall carpeting is casually replaced, and a reclining chair is reconstructed for several thousand dollars. Such demographic misrepresentation is not only found in these three examples: they only illustrate "a trend toward uppter-middle-class jobs and lifestyles ... on American television today. TV families tend to be more professional, more successful, and richer than the average real-life family." (Kottak, 161) Due to the volume in which this message is sent out to television viewers, it instills in people "a grossly distorted picture of the real world that [heavy watchers] tend to accept more readily than reality itself." (Waters, 167) In addition to this severe demographic misrepresentation, our three sitcoms also mislead us in other ways.

All three shows rely primarily on socially awkward situations for their punchlines. Just as the unquestioned wealth of the three families, humor derived from others' anxiety is also a very negative example to set. Greg from Dharma and Greg carries out a bitter feud with his mother throughout the entire show. It becomes Dharma's task to patch up the seemingly terminal grudge between Greg and his mother. In several scenes, markedly the most amusing ones, Dharma tricks Greg into the same room as his mother in order to initiate a "peace negotiation". The majority of these attempts fail, and the ominous laughtrack starts up after some smart remarks are made. Have we just been told that Dharma's sincere attempts at reuniting her partner and his mother are funny? Frasier undergoes a nearly identical pattern when he begins a feud with his father a brief four minutes into the show. The two characters become annoyed with each other, and eventually develop a paranoia that the other is attempting to do harm to his belongings. The peak of the episode occurs when Frasier's brother Niles brings the two together in a coffee house in order to negotiate a resolution. In the same way that Dharma failed, Niles also succeeds only in worsening the situation. Both father and son storm out of the coffee house shouting back insults at eachother and Niles. Once again, the laughtrack informs us that a faltering family is an amusing punchline. Similarly riddled with anxious moments, Sabrina initially finds herself face to face with her former boyfriend's new girlfriend. An awkward conversation ensues, filled to the ears with comedic remarks. Next, the plot takes a tangent when Sabrina's "evil twin sister" takes her place in the "mortal realm" and wreaks social havoc with Sabrina's friends. At the end of the episode, the real Sabrina returns to a crowd of disgruntled friends who have been cheated on, lied to, and heavily insulted. The laughtrack rages as Sabrina attempts to patch up all the damage done to the emotions of her friends. In the end, not only Sabrina, but also Greg and Frasier have all made up with their social adversaries and returned to a relaxed state of being. This belittlement of human emotion is one of the worst demonstrations which could possibly shown to a young audience. Monaco believes that as viewers it is simply our duty to "sift through information and opinion, deciding what is importatnat and what is not" (179), but I strongly disagree. The reach of public television does not discriminate. For many children, "the tube has been as much a fixture in their homes as mom or dad." (Kottak 158) These viewers cannot be expected to understand why it is O.K. to laugh at Sabrina's social disaster but not those of their own friends.

Such messages as these promote a total lack of emotional support to others as well as a flawed sense of average financial status. Take a moment to imagine a world in which arguments between friends and family are considered comical. Family support would crumble, and friendships would be based on lies and paranoia. In reality, Greg's argument with his mother would have been severely taxing on his emotions. It is a lie to show a character in such a situation enduring an unexpected multi-day freeze-out with his/her parent without any signs of regret. In real life, Frasier and his father could not statistically afford their flawless dream-apartment high up in the Seattle skyline. A single person supporting his father could not ordinarily afford to purchase a custom reclining chair with a four-figure price tag, and a massive recarpeting would have evoked more than a few annoyed expressions. Finally, to say that Sabrina was able to revert her furious pack of friends in a mere ten minutes is absurd to say the least. All these warps of reality come together every night to be fed out through thousands of TV broadcasting dishes, each headed to millions of homes. In each of those homes, every night, a person is being lied to; they are being told of a world fundamentally different from that in which they live. Bit by bit, each sitcom is contributing to another viewers' false perception of life.