Music in Comedy Television

The study of television and music has expanded greatly in recent years, yet to date no book has focused on the genre of comedy television as it relates to music. Music in Comedy Television: Notes on Laughs fills that gap, breaking new critical ground. With contributions from an array of established and emerging scholars representing a range of disciplines, the twelve essays included cover a wide variety of topics and television shows, spanning nearly fifty years across network, cable, and online structures and capturing the latest research in this growing area of study. From Sesame Street to Saturday Night Live, from Monty Python to Flight of the Conchords, this book offers the perfect introduction for students and scholars in music and media studies seeking to understand the role of music in comedy onscreen and how it relates to the wider culture.

Liz Giuffre is Lecturer in Communications at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Philip Hayward holds adjunct professor positions at Southern Cross University and University of Technology Sydney, Australia.

Introduction: Music in Comedy Television (Liz Giuffre) 1. Sesame Street as a Musical Comedy-Variety Show (Kathryn A. Ostrofsky) 2. And Now for Something Completely Different (Sounding): Monty Python's Musical Circus (Liz Giuffre and Demetrius Romeo) 3. That Junky Funky Folk Vibe: Quincy Jones's Title Theme for Sanford and Son (Amedeo D'Adamo) 4. Once in a Lifetime: Music, Parody, and Comical Incongruity in The Young Ones (Phillip Hayward and Matt Hill) 5. The Mockumentary Sitcom: The Discomfort of Fake Realism (Carlo Nardi) 6. "Must Hear TV": Scrubs and the Pop Soundtrack (Alexander Koch) 7. Music in Comedy Television from the Composer's Perspective: Getting "the Answers You're Not Looking for" in an Interview with David Schwartz (Liz Giuffre) 8. "I Told You I Was Freaky": Gender, Genre, and Parody in the Songs of Flight of the Conchords (Kirsten Zemke) 9. The Lonely Island's "SNL Digital Short" as Music Video Parody: Building on Saturday Night Live's Legacy (Penny Spirou) 10. Sketching Out Portlandia's Musical Layers (Emma Driver and Sarah Attfield) 11. Inverting Expectations: Mozart in the Jungle and Humor with Classical Musicians (Stan Beeler) 12. Pure and Simple: Music as a Personal and Comedic Resource in Car Share (Brett Mills and Mark Rimmer) Afterword (Toby Miller)