The new mood of TV comedy; 'Scrubs' and 'Mac' join 'Malcolm' in laugh-track-free world

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - In a dilapidated former hospital on a busy commercial strip, the only harbinger of change one might expect to see is a wrecking ball. The toilets are broken, the elevator is barely serviceable, and air conditioning has to be pumped in through enormous, snake-like tubes. Yet on this Tuesday afternoon, the waiting room is swarming with people in medical scrubs. A few people in street clothing are sitting in chairs, nursing their wounds. Or rather, pretending to. They are extras, not patients. And those are fake doctors and nurses and that equipment they're standing next to isn't medical, it's video. Though this building might not pass a health inspection, it serves as the set of "Scrubs," NBC's new hospital comedy. And while no one's offering to paint the peeling walls, something is indeed changing here and elsewhere - nothing less than the tried-and-true American sitcom. Across the San Fernando Valley, in a well-manicured suburb, they're filming another new comedy, "The Bernie Mac Show," which premieres at 8 tonight on Fox (Channel 4). It stars the comedian Bernie Mac and is based on his routine - popularized in the "Original Kings of Comedy" movie last year - about his real-life experience raising the three children of his drug-addicted sister. Though "Scrubs" and "Bernie Mac" are miles apart, and not just geographically, they have some important things in common, not the least of which is this: They couldn't have gotten on network TV two years ago. Neither show uses a laugh track or depends on formulaic set-ups for jokes. They aim for something moodier, less predictable and, hopefully, more entertaining than everyday sitcoms. When the producers of ABC's "Sports Night" tried this in 1998, network executives insisted that canned laughs be added so viewers would know the show was a comedy. Then along came "Malcolm in the Middle." Like its brainy young namesake, "Malcolm" marched to a different drum. It was filmed like a movie, with no studio audience. Episodes were edited for speed, so they moved like television commercials. Though "Malcolm" was in some ways only the latest step in an evolutionary progression - building upon "The Simpsons," "Seinfeld" and "Ally McBeal" - the show's success touched a creative nerve in the TV industry. "Malcolm" seemed to break all the rules, yet it became a huge hit, especially among the younger viewers most cherished by advertisers. And that created an opening for Bill Lawrence, the high-energy comedy writer and producer whose last hit, "Spin City," was the ensemble comedy to end all ensemble comedies. With its 11 cast members and mile-a-minute jokes, "Spin City" was nearly as dizzying to watch as it was to follow on ABC's schedule (the network has moved it around several times). Lawrence was interested in doing a comedy about hospital life. Several of his high school and college buddies had become doctors, and they all had their share of stories, funny and not so funny. "The thing about medical sitcoms," Lawrence said during a break on the "Scrubs" set, "is that not many have been made, and even fewer worked. When it was done as a traditional sitcom, it just looked like people playing doctors." The exception, of course, was "M*A*S*H," one of the medium's most humanistic, widely watched and least-imitated shows. If Lawrence could persuade a network to let him update "M*A*S*H" and tailor it to MTV viewing tastes, he thought he might have a hit. So far younger viewers have flocked to "Scrubs," and NBC is rewarding the show with a special Thursday airing this week at 7:30, between "Friends" and "Will and Grace." In many ways "Scrubs" is like a live-action cartoon, with outsized characters, physical comedy and wisecracks that move along at a Simpsonesque clip. Then there are the "dream sequences" in which, for instance, the interns suddenly turn into Batman and Robin or compete on the game show "Family Feud." Yet at the end of each episode, the pace slows down dramatically and viewers are left with a serious message - not, as "M*A*S*H" often insisted, about the senselessness of war, but the brevity of life or the limits of medical science. "My whole idea for this show was an unbelievably quick roller-coaster ride, hopefully ending up with more depth than just jokes," Lawrence said. That's also what Larry Wilmore had in mind when he dreamed up "The Bernie Mac Show." Wilmore had created Eddie Murphy's fast-paced animated comedy "The PJ's," but by last year he had wearied of the sitcom format. He noticed that reality shows like "Survivor" seemed to be connecting with viewers in ways that sitcoms didn't. "There's a rawness to reality shows," Wilmore said. "People like them because they're unpredictable. There isn't much plot to them, but you're into the characters." When Wilmore saw Bernie Mac prowling the stage on "Original Kings of Comedy" and talking with amazing frankness about the "tough love" he applied to his sister's children, he knew he'd found a character as raw and real as any on television. Fox immediately expressed interest in Wilmore's idea. But as he sat down to write the pilot episode, he found himself shifting into traditional sitcom-writing mode. He spent a month tearing up draft after draft. He would write a joke, look at it and think: People are gonna see this coming a mile away. "I didn't want to just set up punch lines," he said. "On top of that, being a black writer, I wanted to write something with a fresh perspective that was rewarding." His breakthrough finally came, he said, when he "just wrote the scenes with the Bernie Mac character and no jokes." The show is still mighty hilarious (see accompanying review). Even if these unconventional tactics pay off and "Bernie Mac" and "Scrubs" join "Malcolm" in the pantheon of hit shows, producers of traditional comedies say it's unlikely they'll follow suit. "The most important part of our show is Ted Danson," said Dave Hackel, creator and executive producer of "Becker," one of TV's top-rated comedies in which Danson, almost incidentally, plays a doctor. (It airs at 8:30 Mondays on CBS, Channel 5.) Hackel, a 20-year veteran of TV comedy, says nontraditional shows are "refreshing" and a welcome change of pace. But they're probably better suited to a younger audience - and anyway, all the video tricks in the world aren't a substitute for acting talent and good writing. And even if a show has all that, it still needs a little luck to break through the clutter and click with viewers. "If anybody knew what made a successful comedy," Hackel said, "I'd have 20 of them on the air." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. @ART CAPTION:Five-year-old Bryanna (Dee Dee Davis, far left) receives comedian Bernie Mac's (left) special form of "tough love" on the new comedy "The Bernie Mac Show," airing 8 tonight on Fox (Channel 4). @ART CREDIT:RICHARD FOREMAN/Fox @ART CAPTION:Below from left: Donald Faison, Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke learn how to be doctors the hard way on "Scrubs" (airing 7:30 Thursday on Channel 41). @ART CREDIT:NBC @ART CAPTION:"Malcolm in the Middle" redefined the network sitcom. It airs 7:30 p.m. Sundays on Fox (Channel 4). @ART CREDIT:Fox @ART CAPTION:Ted Danson @ART:Photos (5, color and b/w)