Friends ruined TV.
Just to be clear, Mark Roberts, the creator and co-executive producer (along with Chuck Lorre) of the new heavyweight sitcom Mike and Molly, admired Friends, which aired from 1994 to 2004.
But Roberts is not a fan of the influence Friends had on TV comedy.
"In a way, Friends was one of the greatest comedies ever, but I think it ruined multi-camera (sitcoms), because everyone thought it had to be (six) beautiful people who were really funny," Roberts said. "And they were lucky, they found (six) really funny, beautiful people. But everybody's been trying to repeat that.
"That's why a lot of sitcoms have failed, a lot of shows that really are just attractive people being glib, which is not comedy. What ends up happening is you have shows where the characters have no real struggle, they have no real problems."
But the characters on Friends had no real problems, either.
"That's why everybody on Friends had to sleep with everybody, because there were no real struggles in their lives," Roberts said. "So they had to just create the struggles within them. And I'm a big fan of that show.
"But since Friends, comedies have taken the struggle out of people's lives. And once you take the tragedy out of people, there is nowhere for comedy to exist.
"Television became very unrealistic in a way."
Well, if Roberts is keen on making TV more realistic, at least physically, then he certainly is going straight for belly-laughs with Mike and Molly. It debuts Monday, Sept. 20 on CBS and A.
Mike and Molly is a romantic comedy set in Chicago about a police officer and a teacher -- played by Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy -- who hook up at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.
In a 2010 fall TV season adorned with so many new lawyer dramas that they all blend together, as well as a few more cookie-cutter ensemble comedies to drive Roberts insane, at least something like Mike and Molly stands out as different.
"A lot of television is test-marketing and previews, and you guys (TV critics) know all the stuff television shows have to go through to get on the air," Roberts said. "This pilot sort of slid by. It got through in an industry that is very much about attractive people being funny.
"I mean, look at some of the other shows. They've literally put some beautiful people in the leads of some pilots that have absolutely no comedic skills whatsoever, simply because they're good-looking people."
Lorre, of course, also is the mastermind behind The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, so Mike and Molly has a pedigree of success, obviously.
"Truthfully, Chuck Lorre is the only guy keeping flawed people on television and then finding the humour and the humanity in them, you know what I mean?" Roberts said of his Mike and Molly partner.
Going back to Roberts' eyebrow-raising "Friends ruined TV" theory, it's interesting to note that in the early 1990s, one of the most popular sitcoms on TV was Roseanne. Not coincidentally, Lorre worked on that show, too.
"And back in that time, (the weight of stars Roseanne Barr and John Goodman) didn't have to be the focus," Roberts protested. "The lead of every story wasn't, 'What's it like to be a fat woman on a TV show?' "
OK, on behalf of the media, we're going to have to take slight issue with that.
The lead characters in Mike and Molly meet at Overeaters Anonymous. And there are multiple weight jokes in the pilot.
So rather than just the bad old media getting it wrong again, the creators of Mike and Molly clearly aren't treating the main characters' weight as incidental. This show must be trying to say something about fatness or self-image or self-respect, right?
"Any standup who gets on stage, any person who does anything in comedy, knows the most important thing is, the audience needs to care about your characters," said Roberts, defending the plot setup. "And I think by seeing people who are struggling with something that's real and universal, it gives you an entry into their emotions and into their lives.
"It makes you love them, because they're trying to make themselves better. I think they're adorable. And they're falling in love. The O.A. meeting, to me, says that these are people who are aware they have a problem.
"I think, unfortunately, the landscape of television has become that, you have to explain why you're putting normal people back on TV."
Whether normal people want to see normal people back on TV is an open question.
There's a theory that suggests if viewers wanted to watch people like themselves, they'd simply turn off the TV and get depressed gazing at their own friends and families and neighbours.
But on the other hand, do comedies have to be pure escapism? They weren't always that way.
"I think people got into a mind-set where comedies needed to just cheer people up and take them to a place where everybody is happy," Roberts said.
Damn you, Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, Chandler, Monica and Joey.
If the creators of Mike and Molly have anything to say about it, the chubby will rise again.
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