Situating the Comedy: Celebrating 50 Years of American Television Situation Comedy, 1947-1997 Conference

I'm standing with Mr. Jamie Farr in the photo above. That was 23 years ago today. Mr. Farr, a Toledo, Ohio, native and popularly known as "Klinger" in the CBS TV sitcom series M*A*S*H, was the Keynote Speaker at the conference I organized with Dr. Alison M. Scott and Dr. Christopher Geist, at Bowling Green State University, September 26-27, 1997. “Situating the Comedy” explored, defined, and documented the role, significance, and impact of television situation comedies in American culture over a fifty-year period, in particular 1947 to 1997, and highlighted the contexts of situation comedy production as well as how the societal issues of race and ethnicity, age, and gender were reflected and projected in television situation comedies. The conference was sponsored by the Department of Popular Culture, the Bowling Green Center for Popular Culture Studies, and the Popular Culture Library.