Dr. Katz

I don’t even remember how it happened, but a few days ago the name just popped into my brain after years of being buried there, and I though “maybe I should see what this show is all about.”

I remembered it vaguely from when it used to air here back when I was young. It gave me the impression that the show was just a lot of talking with not much going on. And though that is basically what it is (even more than Seinfeld), what probably went over my head back then is the brilliant writing.

Dr Katz is not a typical sitcom. It was originally designed in a challenge to create animations around famous comedians’ material. So all of dr Katz’ patient are people like Dave Chapelle and Louis C.K. and ofcourse they bring their own material, but what I liked most were the conversations between Katz and his son Ben. They can be so trivial but the dynamic between the two is very good. My favourite exchange is when Katz is talking to Ben about genetics:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZpMJMcN1HA&start=66&end=144]

And the great thing is there is no laughtrack. And no music either (except during scene changes). It’s almost like a radio play actually, which makes it perfect to watch as you’re doing something else. You can listen to it and miss almost nothing. In fact, all this shows would need is better incidental music to indicate which location we are at and you could get through the whole thing without ever looking at the screen.

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