The Mark of a Good Sitcom

I was doing my typical Saturday night activity of watching the Disney Channel when I was reminded of something that I had determined long ago: a good sitcom makes the half hour go by quickly. The sitcoms that led to the rediscovery of my tenet were Cory in the House and That's So Raven. It started with Cory in the House. I would watch seemingly 5 or so minutes at a time, get distracted by something, catch another 5 minutes, do something else...wow, is this show still on? Not that it was boring or anything, the episode just seemed lengthy. After it had ended, I felt as if I had devoted a lot of energy into watching that show--but not enough energy to keep me from watching more Disney Channel, of course. Next up was Raven. It was a good episode--the series finale, I think--but it wasn't one of those best-of or reflect-fondly-on-the-past episodes. In any case, it was over before I even realized that I had taken the time to start watching it, and watching it was effortless. Needless to say, That's So Raven is better than Cory in the House (that should be obvious to anyone even if they don't agree with my attestation of sitcom speediness).

• By the way, you can watch Raven and Cory episodes on disneychannel.com.
• Also, I've always felt that Family Guy episodes took a lot of time and energy to get through--becoming more depraved can be a chore sometimes, I suppose.
• Although in the case of Arrested Development, becoming more depraved is a speedy process.
• If I didn't have clocks to prove otherwise, I could swear The Office is only a 15 minute show, tops.