Dramedy

Dramedy is a neologism formed from a combination of the words drama and comedy, to describe a new genre of film and television in which the lines between these very different genres were blurred.

Although the first true dramedy on American television was M*A*S*H, the term "dramedy" was not invented until a few years after that series had ended its run. The term first came into vogue in the mid-1980s to describe a new wave of similarly genre-blurring series such as Moonlighting, The Wonder Years and Hooperman.

A dramedy may be either an hour-long dramatic series with very strong comedic elements, such as Moonlighting, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Ally McBeal, or a half-hour sitcom with more subtle humour, shot on film instead of tape, and without the usual laugh track, such as M*A*S*H, Hooperman or The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.

However, hour-long comedic dramas have usually proven more successful in the ratings than half-hour dramatic comedies.

See also: List of dramedies.

This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.