Comedic Tropes in 1980s SItcoms, and in CPH's TARTUFFE!

Nell Carter in "Gimmee a Break!"

Gimme a Break, Tartuffe!

The trope of the wise-cracking servant character is theatre’s original scene-stealer—the character who shows up, fixes everyone else’s mess and still has time to deliver the best jokes.

Roman comedies by Plautus and Terence frequently featured a quick-thinking servant untangling a family member’s predicament or secretly arranging the meeting of young lovers Classic servants frequently mocked their employers with their quick wit and inventive excuses. This continued throughout the centuries, but with the works of Molière, we see the increased use of female servants, providing a dual subversion in skewering the upper class and patriarchal powers who imagined themselves superior to women.

Television happily picked up this tradition. The history of television is littered with quick-witted women employed as maids or servants. Before the 1980s, TV shows like Hazel focused on Shirley Booth’s titular character managing the household, though she mostly kept the peace rather than challenging authority or the perception that “father knows best.”

The 1970s introduced women characters who often lampooned the head of the household (like Florence from The Jeffersons) or simply provided one-liners (Alice from The Brady Bunch). These iconic characters maximized their screen time to become a critical part of the show.

The 1980s, however, finally made the wise-cracking female employee the focus, enabling them to be seen as part of the family (like Nell Carter in Gimme a Break! or Charlotte Rae in The Facts of Life); these characters weren’t just cracking jokes, they offered guidance, comfort, support, and occasionally better parenting than the parents.

Tartuffe’s Dorine feels born for Prime Time. She possesses wisdom and wit beyond that of the family patriarch, and her incisive comments and truth-telling contrasting Orgon’s ignorance would have fit right in with the Thursday night “Must See TV” in the 1980s!

by Jeffrey Ullom, Dramaturg, Tartuffe

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