Call me basic, but “Friends” is one of my comfort TV shows. My parents were in their 20s as it aired — the same ages as the characters — and they tuned in to watch it every week. Being old enough to stay in the room whenever they were watching reruns was a rite of passage, and finally virtually binge-watching the entire series became a family bonding experience when I first went away to college.
Funnily enough, now that I am also around the same age as the characters and living with roommates for the first time, I’m more likely to put the show on as background noise than I am to be spending all my free time at a coffee house or going out on dates every other night. In fact, I’m doing this right now as I write this article. (Rachel is pregnant and Joey has a crush on her, in case you were wondering where I am in my “rewatch”). I hate my need to constantly have something playing, even if I’m not actively paying attention to it. Sometimes it’s TV, other times it’s a podcast. So when I discovered “Popcorn for Dinner: A Podcast Sitcom,” which promised to fulfill both of these roles at the same time, it was my duty to investigate.
“Popcorn for Dinner” is designed to be a sitcom you can “throw on in the background so you don’t feel so alone.” That’s not just me saying it — host and narrator Ciara Bravo (“Big Time Rush”) pitches it this way in the trailer episode. The show follows four friends in their 20s — Laura (Maddy Kelly, debut), Michael (Charlie Foster, debut), Ellie (Jillian Ebanks, “South Side”) and Austin (Ben Fawcett, debut) — as they “try to make it on their own, despite the fact that none of them know what that looks like … at all.” These voice actors come from backgrounds such as stand-up comedy and podcasting, and Kelly is also the show’s creator. At the time of writing, there are seven episodes available to stream, with new ones dropping every Tuesday.
Despite being a podcast, the show is very clearly trying to be a modern take on shows like “Friends,” describing itself to potential listeners as a ’90s TV sitcom — except it’s not set in the ’90s, and it’s not on TV. It has several key components of any older sitcom: episodes have running gags, like Michael’s “sexless streak” gradually increasing each time it’s mentioned; a change in scenery or the start of a commercial break is denoted by goofy music; a “will they/won’t they” romance à la Ross and Rachel and, of course, a laugh track. As the narrator, Bravo plays a crucial role in moving things along. She describes what the characters are doing when nobody is speaking, which also makes the show more accessible. She also contributes to the show’s self-awareness — a podcast sitcom is, admittedly, a strange idea, which her commentary frequently acknowledges. At the start of the third episode, she addresses listeners by saying, “many of you haven’t even decided if you like this show yet,” though its 4.6-star rating might suggest otherwise.
Content-wise, “Popcorn for Dinner” has its moments. Several lines have made me laugh out loud, like when one character is described as looking “like she’s read ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ one too many times,” or another character drinking wine and asking, “You got any communion wafers?” The gang’s apartment also has a balcony that is apparently only used “during special episodes,” yet another nod to “Friends” that made me chuckle. Other times, the show feels like it’s overcompensating; the delivery of lines can sound forced, and Austin, the “oddball” character, seems like he was ripped straight from a Disney Channel show. I can’t say whether I’m completely sold on the podcast-sitcom genre, but here I am, having listened to all the episodes and currently writing about it.
The show calls itself a “first of its kind” podcast, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this description isn’t technically true. For one thing, scripted podcasts, like “Welcome to Night Vale,” are nothing new and have been largely successful. To get more specific, scripted comedy podcasts have been around for a while, too. The closest thing I can compare “Popcorn for Dinner” to is radio shows in the 1940s, and even then, many of the popular programs at the time were comedies. The only notable difference is that the laugh track in those programs was real, whereas today’s audiences are reminded by the narrator with every episode that “‘Popcorn for Dinner’ was not recorded in front of a live studio audience.” This show might be a new idea to most of its listeners, but a more accurate description would be that it has reinvigorated a few elements from both sitcoms and radio programs and brought them to a growing form of media.
I’ve written before about my love for podcasts, and while I hope I’ve made my affinity for sitcoms clear by now, my knowledge of old-timey radio shows is limited to learning about fireside chats in high school and a scene from “Molly: An American Girl on the Home Front.” So where exactly does something like “Popcorn for Dinner” fall on the podcast/sitcom/radio show spectrum? Somewhere in the middle, I’d say. It’s not the first of its kind, and while the writing shows promise, the show still has to find its footing — not just in the sitcom realm but as a podcast, too. But it’s also just begun its run, and plenty of now-beloved shows got off to a rocky start. If you’re looking for a modern sitcom that rivals something like “Friends,” give “Popcorn for Dinner” a few seasons to catch up. If you genuinely just want some background noise, I’d recommend it. That’s what it was created for, anyway.
Daily Arts Writer Hannah Carapellotti can be reached at hmcarp@umich.edu.