The world is my oyster Why Should I Care

Why Should I Care?

Most of the time when this phrase is said, people know they are quoting Shakespeare (or someone famous), so why should we care about it then? Did we already mention that Merry Wives is the great, great grandfather of the modern TV sitcom?

So, how did our favorite poet come up with the idea for this play about 450 years before the invention of reality TV? Word on the street is that, after seeing Henry IV, Part I, Queen Elizabeth ordered Shakespeare to give one of the characters (that would be Falstaff) his own spin-off. According to a popular theater tradition dating all the way back to the early 1700s, Elizabeth I gave Shakespeare only 14 days to whip up a little something for the stage that showed Falstaff "in love."

And this is what he delivered. But Shakespeare didn't just write about a disgraced, booze-loving knight in love. He did much more than that. With this play he coined a new phrase and helped develop the idea for our modern day spin-off on TV. It's quips like this that make the comedy into a faced-paced sitcom-like production anyway.

In other words, next time you're watching you're favorite sitcom on TV, you have Shakespeare to thank for it. He might not have written the episode you're watching, but he did create the whole idea of a spin-off. And he practically invented the quick-witted character who always has a response, and always gets the last word. Pistol here might be all talk, but Shakespeare was not.