----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Matt proposes that comedy is better on television, using Roseanne, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, etc. to illustrate his point. What you are talking about, Matt, is a sub-genre of comedy which Hollywood script readers refer to (a bit snobbishly) as "LCD" (lowest common denominator). Whether an LCD is succesful in film is a function of so many different factors it's very difficult to make broad generalizations as to why they often fail. For example, I read a script by Larry David (Seinfeld) when I was working out there which was quite funny but (in the early drafts I saw at least) a bit episodic. Maybe that will change in rewrites but that depends not just on Larry David's abilities, but how he is able to work with the demands of development executives and the studio. I also worked on a comedy which bombed horribly AND was in fact a bad film which I would say failed because no strong vision ("producorial," directorial, etc.) drove the project. The point is that in developing an LCD comedy for features you basically have one shot to create a good team of creative people -- writer, director, producer-development -- over a longer period of time than with television in which you get a few chances over a shorter period of time. Not my cup of tea, but I would be hard-pressed to say that the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams did such a bad job with Airplane! and the Naked Gun series.