Comedy-drama

Comedy-drama, occasionally known as dramedy (portmanteau of words drama and comedy), is a subgenre in contemporary forms of tragicomedy, especially in television, that combines elements of comedy and drama.

History

Early television

The advent of radio drama, cinema, and in particular television created greater pressure in marketing to clearly define a product as either comedy or drama. While in live theatre the difference became less and less significant, in mass media comedy and drama were clearly divided. Comedies were expected to keep a consistently light tone and not challenge the viewer by introducing more serious content.

By the early 1960s, television companies commonly presented half-hour-long "comedy" series or hour-long "dramas". Half-hour series were mostly restricted to situation comedy (sitcoms) or family comedy and were usually aired with either a live or overdubbed laugh track. One-hour dramas included such shows as police and detective series, westerns, science fiction, and serialized prime time soap operas.

Sharon Stone

Sharon Yvonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model.

Stone first came to attention for her role opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1990 sci-fi thriller Total Recall before achieving international recognition with her starring role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992) by Paul Verhoeven. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama for her performance as Ginger McKenna in the crime drama film Casino (1995), directed by Martin Scorsese. She received further acclaim and Golden Globe Award nominations for her roles in the 1998 drama The Mighty and the 1999 comedy The Muse. In 2004, Stone won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her performance in The Practice. She has also appeared in such movies as the crime drama Alpha Dog (2006), the drama Bobby (2006) and, most recently, a biographical drama film about a porn actress, Lovelace (2013).

Billy Connolly

William "Billy" Connolly, CBE (born 24 November 1942) is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname "The Big Yin" ("The Big One"). His first trade, in the early 1960s, was as a welder (specifically a boilermaker) in the Glasgow shipyards, but he gave it up towards the end of the decade to pursue a career as a folk singer in The Humblebums alongside friend Gerry Rafferty until 1971 and subsequently as a soloist. In the early 1970s, he made the transition from folk-singer with a comedic persona to fully-fledged comedian. Best known to many as a stand up comedian, he appears in several lists of the greatest comedians ever.

Connolly is also an actor and has appeared in such films as Water (1985); Indecent Proposal (1993); Pocahontas (1995); Muppet Treasure Island (1996); Mrs. Brown (1997); The Boondock Saints (1999); The Man Who Sued God (2001); The Last Samurai (2003); Timeline (2003); Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004); Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006); Open Season (2006); The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008); Open Season 2 (2008); Brave (2012); Quartet (2012) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). Connolly reprised his role as Noah "Il Duce" MacManus in The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009).