The producers behind CBS’s new “ Young Sheldon ” spinoff “Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage” knew the show needed to immediately address the comedy elephant in the room: Unlike “Sheldon,” which was a single-camera half-hour, “Georgie and Mandy” is a multi-cam laffer shot in front of a live studio audience. That, of course, is also how “The Big Bang Theory” — the hit that spawned “Young Sheldon” — was taped. The multi-to-single-to-multi camera whiplash from “Big Bang” to “Sheldon” to “Georgie & Mandy” may be unprecedented in TV history.
Which is why the show has Georgie (Montana Jordan) alluding to it during the very first minutes of the premiere episode. “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” (which premieres Thursday night on CBS) takes place around 1995, which is why we see the cast watching “Frasier” in its opener. Georgie refers to that multi-cam sitcom as a “laughing show,” and compares it to that era’s most prominent single-cam half-hour, “The Wonder Years.
” As he points out, while you hear audience members laughing on shows like “Frasier,” you don’t on shows like “The Wonder Years.” So, “Is ‘The Wonder Years’ funny?” he asks. “We’ll never know.
” The question of “what’s a comedy” is a hot button topic these days, given the debate over “The Bear” and its Emmy campaign in the comedy competition. But executive producer Steve Holland told Variety that Georgie’s comments were rea.