NBC Sitcom which aired from 2011 to 2013. Whitney Cummings plays a character named Whitney Cummings (Whitney also created and helps executive produce the series, thus giving her two shows that launched in 2011-12). Her boyfriend Alex (Chris D'Elia) is her Straight Man. Their other friends are The Cutie Lily (Zoe Lister-Jones), her sensitive/suave boyfriend Neal (30 Rock's Maulik Pancholy), slutty Hard-Drinking Party Girl Roxanne (Rhea Seehorn), and Casanova Wannabe Mark (Dan O'Brien). Most of the characters have specific jobs, but this is the sort of show where it doesn't matter what they are.
This show provides examples of:
- Beta Couple: Lily and Neal.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: "Whitney is taped in front of a live Studio Audience — you heard me."
- Broken Bird: Whitney's backstory, essentially.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Alex is caught in the act by Whitney, who later rants about it to their friends. This causes a certain amount of friction between the couple.
- Christmas Episode
- Closet Key: Neal realizes he's bisexual after he breaks up with Lily and meets a cute guy at work.
- Deadpan Snarker: Whitney is the queen of this, and Alex comes in at a close second.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: This show has often been described as being the female version of Seinfeld.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Roxanne's Freudian Excuse/Back Story is that her husband cheated on her and they are now divorced.
- Engineered Public Confession: Whitney wants to prove Alex uses a condescending tone when he argues with her, so she gets Mark to set up a security camera in their apartment and tries to provoke Alex into using his condescending tone.
- Fingore: Alex tosses Whitney into bed, and she accidentally bounces off and hits the ground hard. They think she's okay...until they and the audience sees her ring finger bent sideways.
- "Friends" Rent Control: Lampshaded in the aforementioned episode with the camera in Whitney's apartment. As her friends watch on a monitor:Lily: I'm loving this show already. So real.
Neal: I'm not buying it. There's no way those two people could afford that apartment. - Hard-Drinking Party Girl/Really Gets Around: Put these tropes together to get Roxanne's entire personality.
- Idle Rich: Alex, sort of. He's very idle but that doesn't mean he isn't working. Also, he's got money but he's not as wealthy as Whitney initially thought.
- Imagine the Audience Naked: When Alex is going to be guest speaker at a university, Whitney tells him to do this. Then, realising the audience will be filled with attractive coeds, she adds "Except the women". She tells him to imagine them looking disappointed.
- Local Hangout: Low Bar
- Mars and Venus Gender Contrast
- Nice Guy: Alex.
- One-Hour Work Week: For a beat cop, Mark seems to have a lot of free time. Ends up buying their bar hangout at the end of the first season which helps avert this. Alex both averts this/plays this straight - he's a vague web entrepreneur so he's, in his words, 'always working' (thinking).
- Short-Runner: Only two seasons.
- Sit Comic
- Slap-Slap-Kiss: Mark tries to invoke this with Roxanne, because that's the kind of thing that happens in movies. It doesn't work.
- Women Are Wiser: Inverted. Alex is, for the most part, Whitney's Straight Man.
- Zany Scheme: Whitney often comes up with these. Alex is Genre Savvy enough to come up with Counter Zanys when they're targeted at him.
