How ‘Very Special Episodes’ Paved the Way for Today’s Dramatic Comedy

There’s a lot of debate these days about what happened to the comedy category at the Primetime Emmys, and the question surrounding whether shows like “The Bear,” “Barry” and “Palm Royale” should be classified as such.

Does it even matter anymore? That genie has been out of the bottle for a long time: “Ally McBeal,” which won the outstanding comedy Emmy in 1999, was an hour-long series with plenty of comedic elements. But I never thought of it as a comedy (especially in 1999, when comedy still pretty much meant a multi-camera sitcom). The first season of “Desperate Housewives” was nominated for a comedy Emmy, but was most certainly more of a campy drama.

If “Barry” was a comedy, so was “Better Call Saul” — and maybe in hindsight, could have scored a few Emmys in those categories. Among comedy Emmy winners over the last decade, most of the winners combined plenty of drama with their comedy: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Fleabag,” even “Ted Lasso.” Now, as “The Bear” is poised to potentially become the most-honored “comedy” in Emmy history, well, I’m not sure what that means — other than as a half-hour series that does contain some laughs, it’s the show’s prerogative to choose which category it wants to compete in.

The best comedies always contain a healthy dose of tragedy, after all. If you consumed a lot of sitcoms in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s like I did, you of course remember the “very special episode.” It would usually come late in a TV season, when the producers decided to tackle a hot button subject or put their characters through the emotional wringer.

Norman Lear sitcoms, of course, did this regularly, especially on “All in the Family” and its spinoffs. That was particularly true on episodes like “Edith’s 50th Birthday,” which discussed sexual violence and rape, while “Edith’s Crisis of Faith” took on violence against the LGBTQ community while “Cousin Liz” took on gay rights.

Those episodes ran during Season 8 of “All in the Family,” and all three were nominated in 1978 for an outstanding comedy writing Emmy — with “Cousin Liz” winning the award. The fourth show nominated in the category that year was “Fallen Idol,” a dramatic Season 6 “MAS*H” episode in which Radar is injured and Hawkeye takes the blame.

I mean, those are arguably heavier subjects than most of what we saw in Season 2 of “The Bear.” A transgender character was killed in “Edith’s Crisis of Faith,” after all. I’d be curious what people thought at that 1978 Emmys ceremony, and if there was any debate over how dark the comedy writing field had become that year.

That was all a little bit before my time. By the early 1980s, the “very special episode” had become a bit of a cliché. Promos would signal that a “very special” installment was coming when the announcer would lower their voice, and sad music would play as we learned that this was the week that Gordon Jump was showing up on “Diff’rent Strokes” as a child molester.

But there were also still moments of sitcoms succeeding in trying something dramatically different. You can’t be a Gen X-er like me and not remember the groundbreaking “A, My Name is Alex” episode of “Family Ties.” That hour-long episode, partly shot like a stage play, pulled back on the laughs as Alex P. Keaton dealt with survivor’s remorse after the death of a friend. The episode won the comedy writing Emmy in 1987, despite its dramatic tone.

Shows like “Golden Girls” and “Roseanne” also would occasionally go to the “very special” well, but by the early 1990s it became more of a domain for shows geared toward young viewers: “Full House,” “Boy Meets World,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and, of course, Jessie becoming addicted to “caffeine pills” on “Saved By the Bell.”

They all meant well. But the rise of irony and cynicism in the 1990s pretty much wiped out the practice of “very special episodes” as we knew it. Eventually, as storytelling became more sophisticated thanks to the rise of cable TV, the spirit of Norman Lear brought back the idea that comedies can also tackle challenging subjects, feature complicated characters and sometimes go to darker places than most dramas will. As long as we’re honoring good TV, I suppose we can live with the murky nature of what’s a comedy or a drama.