Many writers, like the author of the goofy dog article I mentioned yesterday, try to hit that snarky, intelligent-next-door-neighbor-y, snide, clever tone that will have readers laughing out loud.
And some writers actually manage to do it. Check out this bit from Matt Feeney’s article “Beauty and the Beast: Why are fat sitcom husbands paired with great-looking wives?“:
It’s not that there aren’t handsome or sexually desirable men on sitcoms, but these men are typically marked as terminal bachelors, like Ted Danson on Cheers. To the extent they have anything to do with family life, they tend to skulk around its outer margins like coyotes. On Two and Half Men (CBS, Mondays, 9:30 p.m. ET), Charlie (Charlie Sheen) is handsome, successful, and wedded to promiscuous bachelorhood, but he gets to enjoy some nourishing familial scraps since his loser brother (Jon Cryer) and scampy nephew moved themselves into his pad. (In keeping with the Maxim ethos of these shows, the brother was abandoned by a woman who thinks she might be a lesbian. It would be emasculating for male viewers to see a man dumped for being completely undesirable, and, besides, lesbians are so hot.)
I may not agree with all of this guy’s points, but damn is he funny, and sharp as a tack.