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24 hour diner followed a bunch of nobodies and a side character for 40 minutes. That is not in any formula that conventional shows would follow.

Supermancho 4y ago
> 24 hour diner followed a bunch of nobodies and a side character for 40 minutes. It's well very well-traveled ground. This formula isn't popular. The Walking Dead-themed shows are known for it.
- Gravityloss 4y ago
  Count of Monte Cristo sure did it...
eyelidlessness 4y ago
It’s a comedy trope. Seinfeld is probably most famous for the formula with back-references throughout the series. Arrested Development dabbled in it, and Community took it to the extreme of whole story arcs. Brooklyn 99 and New Girl revel in it. A less comedy-specific example, Buffy, created a role for the throw away character (Spike) because he was so well received, then went on to do several more episodes along a similar theme (Zeppo, the one about Jonathan being a superhero, the musical, come to mind). Movies are less susceptible to being described as formulaic, but an iconic movie, The Big Lebowski, could reasonably be summarized this way (albeit the series is serialized into one piece). Coffee and Cigarettes doesn’t satisfy the “nobodies” in the literal sense, but it’s almost entirely this formula. I’m just citing examples I can think of, I haven’t watched most of what people have watched. And I don’t mean in any way to dismiss the actual work, or the concept, or your finding novelty in it. It’s a really cool device for storytelling, but it’s definitely not a unique device.
- taeric 4y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. Most of the examples you used still centered on main characters for the series. They were often disjoint story lines. None of which is to say that this is unique. It just isn't what I would call formulaic.
- tptacek 4y ago
  It's not a comedy trope here (it also predates Seinfeld by several months). It's more a trope of the Sandman comic, of finding excuses to tell slightly-edge backstory narratives and doing little character studies, then knitting all the characters together to make something happen. Basically all of Sandman works that way.

Supermancho 4y ago

> 24 hour diner followed a bunch of nobodies and a side character for 40 minutes. It's well very well-traveled ground. This formula isn't popular. The Walking Dead-themed shows are known for it.

Gravityloss 4y ago
Count of Monte Cristo sure did it...

eyelidlessness 4y ago

It’s a comedy trope. Seinfeld is probably most famous for the formula with back-references throughout the series. Arrested Development dabbled in it, and Community took it to the extreme of whole story arcs. Brooklyn 99 and New Girl revel in it. A less comedy-specific example, Buffy, created a role for the throw away character (Spike) because he was so well received, then went on to do several more episodes along a similar theme (Zeppo, the one about Jonathan being a superhero, the musical, come to mind). Movies are less susceptible to being described as formulaic, but an iconic movie, The Big Lebowski, could reasonably be summarized this way (albeit the series is serialized into one piece). Coffee and Cigarettes doesn’t satisfy the “nobodies” in the literal sense, but it’s almost entirely this formula. I’m just citing examples I can think of, I haven’t watched most of what people have watched. And I don’t mean in any way to dismiss the actual work, or the concept, or your finding novelty in it. It’s a really cool device for storytelling, but it’s definitely not a unique device.

taeric 4y ago
I'm not sure I follow. Most of the examples you used still centered on main characters for the series. They were often disjoint story lines. None of which is to say that this is unique. It just isn't what I would call formulaic.
tptacek 4y ago
It's not a comedy trope here (it also predates Seinfeld by several months). It's more a trope of the Sandman comic, of finding excuses to tell slightly-edge backstory narratives and doing little character studies, then knitting all the characters together to make something happen. Basically all of Sandman works that way.