I think you probably would want to distinguish working class comedy from the
pastoral comedies like Andy Griffith.  Certainly middle class doesn't
describe families like The Real McCoys, but I'm not sure these rural shows
address the same set of issues that the working class shows do.  It seems to
me that the pastoral comedies get into rural/urban value conflicts more than
the class conflicts/problems we see in shows like Roseanne.  David Marc's
chapter on the comedy of Paul Henning is informative on this topic.
 
 
___________________________________________________________
James Peterson
University of Notre Dame
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