Hulu quietly added the entire run of Happy Endings to its library last week. Happy Endings, if you are sadly unaware, was a hilarious, weird, well-crafted little gem of a sitcom that aired on ABC from 2011 to 2013. It was never a substantial ratings hit, hence its too-short three-season run, and its previous unavailability on streaming platforms combined with its somewhat generic "friends living together in a big city" premise (that the show quickly rose above) kept it from being a cult hit along the likes of Arrested Development or Parks and Recreation. But at the time, it was one of the funniest shows on television, a proud member of what we may eventually know as the "last golden age" of sitcoms on television. This was a time around the late 2000s/early 2010s, from about 2008 to 2013, where there was a sudden uptick in quality of network television sitcoms, heralded by the much-cherished block of NBC Thursday sitcoms at the time (30 Rock, The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Community). These shows, heavily influenced by the adoration of shows like Arrested Development as well as animated sitcoms like The Simpsons and Futurama, managed to bring TV comedy to a new level. As The Office took its British counterpart's dry wit and realism and mixed it with big swings of emotion, 30 Rock set the joke-per-minute ratio to astonishing heights all while serving as a cutting satire of the entertainment industry. And then came Parks and Recreation, daring to have a big heart and a sunny worldview in an era where most sitcoms were downbeat and cynical, as Community tore apart the sitcom structure and re-examined it on a weekly basis. These were unique, strange, big swing shows that could only survive as long as they did on a network failing as hard as fourth-place NBC was at the time. And they went onto influence shows like Happy Endings, Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23, and New Girl, which helped round out an era where network comedy felt more daring and alive than either.
That era died a fairly fast death, though, as network TV ratings plummeted and streaming services heralded in a brand new world. NBC phased out its much beloved but low-rated and aging comedies for generic procedurals with half the creativity but double the ratings. Happy Endings and Don't Trust the B were cancelled, and while New Girl holds up a fort of generally strong comedies over on FOX and ABC has assembled a line-up of surprisingly strong family comedy, the sparkle and wit once found on network TV not so long ago now mostly exists on cable and streaming comedies like Broad City, You're the Worst, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Bojack Horseman, places where these niche shows can conform to their own rules and structure without having to worry about appealing to a broad audience. It's great! I love it! I really do!
But as someone coming of age just as the NBC Thursday night line-up became the most exciting collection of comedy on television, I can't help but feel nostalgia for the old line-up. It's ridiculous to get nostalgic for a time that is barely even gone, but as I've been navigating this post-grad world as someone who wants to do fucking comedy for a living, the era has been on my mind a lot lately. I remember five years ago when every Thursday I would tuck myself into bed and watch the entire NBC Thursday line-up (taking a snack break during Perfect Couples), forgetting about whatever my anxious 17-year-old brain was fretting about at the moment and immersing myself in weird, rough-around-the-edge worlds like Pawnee and Greendale, where I felt I belonged. I remember nights where my friends would ask me to hang out and I would tell them I was "hanging out with my other friends" - yes, I was referring to TV characters. (I was not the coolest high schooler.) I remember realizing how happy these shows made me, how great it felt to just sit back and laugh all night, and I remember how it finally gave me a sense of purpose and direction in life. These were the shows that led to me writing my own comedy and finding my own voice. These were the shows that led to me majoring in motherfucking television, of all things. (Okay, it was communications with a focus in television, but ya know, still.) And weirdly, marathoning Happy Endings this weekend brought a lot of those feelings back. I guess it's because I've never stopped endlessly watching shows like Community, Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock - they've become regular "leave them on repeat endlessly" shows for me - but Happy Endings was almost like a re-discovery, and it brought me back to being barely graduated from high school, believing that a career in comedy was the most exciting direction I could go in.
Now, I have graduated college with my useless degree. Comedy is slowly becoming something resembling a job to me (though not one that pays), as I attempt to navigate my way through the New York improv scene and learn just how the fuck to actually do what I want to do. It's not exactly the fun comfort zone it was when I was a teenager, although it's still something that guides my everyday life and overall being. But watching Happy Endings reminded me of a time when it was, which reminds me of why I am, like an idiot, attempting to do this whole comedy thing anyway. It made me realize just how much joy it brings me at its root. It made me remember how great that feeling of watching someone take the thing you feel so passionately about - the thing that gives your awkward, strange, generally useless self meaning - and do something great with it is. And that's a nice, necessary reminder sometimes.
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