In 1976, Albert Brooks made a short film for Saturday Night Live parodying NBC’s new line-up of shows. One imaginary show was ‘The Three of Us,’ a sit-com about a threesome living together. Two years later, ABC came up with ‘Three’s Company.’ There’s a theory about CGI animation called The Uncanny Valley that hypothesizes that if a representation of a human is not particularly realistic, it can be perceived as a funny parody, but if the representation looks and acts almost, but not perfectly like actual human beings, it causes revulsion.
I think this theory also helps explains why Albert Brooks’ satire of popular culture isn’t more popular.
Any way, there is now a play, 3C, which recognizes, like Albert Brooks before it, that the subject of Three’s Company, and the show itself, is worthy of parody. However the owners of the copyright in Three’s Company don’t see it that way, and hilarity ensues. And without seeing the play, who’s to say otherwise.