Comedy-drama, also called dramedy or serial comedy, is a style of television, theatre and film in which there is an equal or nearly equal balance of humor and serious content. Film examples include movies like Terms of Endearment (1983), My Girl (1991), and the Ron Howard movie Parenthood (1989). Traditional western theatre, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was divided into comedy and tragedy.

A tragedy typically ended with the death or destruction of a fictional or historical hero, whereas a comedy focused on the lives of middle to lower class characters and ended with their success. The term "drama" was used to describe all the action of a play. Beginning in the 19th century, authors such as Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw and Henrik Ibsen blurred the line between comedy and drama.

The advent of radio drama, cinema, and particularly 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, especially, were expected to maintain a consistently light tone and not challenge the viewer by introducing more serious content.

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