boxing on TV

Speaking of sitcoms: I was thinking about stock sitcom plots the other day. (Actually I was thinking about the stock plots that either originated on The Dick Van Dyke Show or were, as TVTropes would say, codified there. Western dream sequences, pool-hustler episodes, and accidental-hypnosis episodes didn’t start with that show, but the sitcoms that followed sometimes seemed to be aping TDVDs with their versions of those stories.) And one thing I started thinking about was that while most standby plots never really go away (wedding after wedding after wedding…) there are some stock plots that are very big for years, even decades, and then vanish.