The 25 worst sitcoms ever (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

Agreeing with DaveF here: after all I Love Lucy is not exactly a modern sitcom—and Greg’s description, “people in outlandish situations doing and saying ridiculous things.” pretty much sums up Lucy, Ethel and the whole show.

 

[Malcolm R]

Um...isn't that the very definition of a "situation comedy" (i.e. sit-com)? People in ridiculous situations, doing and saying ridiculous things? "I Love Lucy" fits the definition perfectly: Lucy in the candy factory; Lucy stomping grapes; Lucy baking the humongous loaf of bread; etc., etc.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

"I'm proud to say that I have never seen a single episode of 'I Love Lucy' ever." -Jerry Seinfeld

And me as well, i've seen clips and it just doesn't look all that hilarious to me, certaintly not hilarious enough to be held in such high regard by so many. I see Julia Roberts laughing her ass off at it in Pretty Woman and I ask myself "What the hell is she laughing at?".

Just my opinion.

My fav old-school sitcom is The Honeymooners.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Is it really fair to judge a program you've never watched, except in snippets? You would probably not a get a fair feeling for what the show was like by watching just one either.

Growing up in the 50's, I Love Lucy was a part of my life. I got to know Lucy, Ricky, and the Mertzes. I can see a short clip, say of Lucy & Ethel on the candy assembly line, and I'm immediately into it. I think Lucy was a comic genus with a hell of a supporting cast. I Love Lucy was taking life and turning it into silly putty and stretching it out of proportion. You could see the remainders of reality, just barely, but that putty was very funny.

The Honeymooners was closer to reality. Ralph was basically a frustrated guy who wasn't going far in the world and we could identify with him. It was funny and touching. The latter is something that Lucy seldom went for. Not a criticism, so much as an observation. They were both great television.

All In The Family was grounded in a more controversial reality, bigotry. It was possible to sympathize to a degree with Archie because he wasn't evil, he didn't wish harm on anyone, he was a victim of his upbringing. In the episode where Sammy Davis appears (oh boy was that a great one, perhaps the best occurrence of a celebrity appearance in a series), Michael (aka, the meathead) was explaining to Sammy that Archie wasn't bad, he wouldn't light a cross on your lawn, or words to that effect. Sammy replies, "yeah, but if he ran across one he might toast a marshmallow on it." I might not have the quote exactly right. Fall off your chair funny.

Three very different series, but three great ones.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Well, here's my problem, i've seen the most famous clips, the candy line, the squashing grapes etc, clips that everyone swears is hilarious and I didn't find them funny at all. Now if I don't find clips that are the more legendary and supposedly funniest of the show funny than what hope do I have to find anything else on the show funny?

I'm just not a Lucille Ball and Ricky Ricardo fan, that's all.

Now All In the Family was freakin' hysterical lol!

 

[Jed M]

Its obvious to me that none of these writers saw "Emeril". I was positive that was going to be #1. I watched the first 10 minutes of the first show for the train wreck factor and it was so awful it wasn't even entertaining awful.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I thought my examples made it pretty clear. Would you *ever* have seen an employee taking a break under the balls in a ball pool on the Jeffersons/All in the Family/Good Times? I don't think you'd even see it on I Love Lucy. It's just pathetically stupid, and it's far from the only example of the idiocy of the modern sitcom. One of Bob Newhart's more recent shows had another extremely pathetic episode, which I will describe to try to make my point:

Bob has some young people over for dinner, including Lisa Kudrow. The first guests arrive, and someone is about to open the door when Kudrow says, "No, wait! In my family, we always herald the arrival of guests!" So, she starts imitating a trumpet: "Dooo DOO! Dooo DOOO! Announcing so-and-so!" She does this throughout the episode. Later, a lightbulb breaks into the salad, and she says, "Oh, we used to love eating lightbulb salad when I was growing up!" Just completely moronic bullshit like that, for the entire half hour. If you can't see a difference between that and what would go on on even Sanford and Son, I just don't know.

My sister saw an episode of Will and Grace, I think it was, where the woman was being pulled all over the house by a runaway vacuum cleaner. "Help! It's pulling me along!" Um, let go? That's the kind of idiocy I just will not tolerate. If that's funny to some people, I just don't get it. Wouldn't have happened even on What's Happening or the Brady Bunch or Diff'rent Strokes.

A show I liked (and, it's on a lot of 25 Worst lists) was Family Matters, until it got idiotic. Reasonably grounded for most the run, but then Urkel takes off and gets stupider and stupider until there's an episode where he and Carl are shrunk down and sleeping on a piece of bread with cheese for a blanket. Pure crap.

And, yeah, I mentioned that Lucy got up to some incredibly dumb stuff, but not dumb like the examples above.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I get what your saying, Greg, but when it comes to sitcoms I can excuse even the most moronic of situations and dialogue if the show makes me laugh.

But I do understand some having a problem with some of the goings on on some sitcoms and shows in general.

It's also funny that you mention What's Happening!! because I got the entire series box for my birthday Tuesday (nice box BTW, don't see what all the negative fuss was about) and i'm watching them now, I just watched the one where Rerun illegally records the Doobie Brothers concert at their school.

I was listening to the songs they were singing and all of them were already established hits that already appeared on the groups albums so the tape that Rerun was making would have been useless on the street, no one would buy if they could get the real album already lol.

Dumb stuff like that happens on all sitcoms, really, which is why i'm usually not bothered by them.

 

[Steve Berger]

"I Love Lucy" was on while I was growing up and I saw most of them and hated almost every one. (you didn't always get a viewing choice in single TV households) I have very little tolerence for stupid people. Ignorance, I can understand (being a lack of knowledge) but stupidity (refusal to learn or lack of common sense) drives me nuts.

There is a big difference between satire (All In The Family) and slapstick (Lucy). Even the Three Stooges had more social commentary than Lucy.

I do agree with the number two choice of "Homeboys In Outer Space". I think Doohan (of Star Trek fame) had a role as a bar patron always complaining about his captain. I only saw a couple so I'm not sure about that.

 

[Lucia Duran]

Perfect Strangers was such a fun show to watch. I seriously do not understand why it is on that list. The two main actors had some of the best chemistry I have ever seen. My daughters and I love watching it together and we laugh all the way through every episode. One of my favorite shows.

 

[MatthewA]

Context is very much the key to what can make or break a comedic situation. The situation in the What's Happening episode you described would seem unbelievable in real life, but in the context of the episode, it works. While in real life, few people would buy an audio cassette muffled by a trenchcoat of songs that have been out for awhile (although bootlegs of Grateful Dead concerts have been sold for years, and are still being sold), these were depicted as being live performances (even though they are studio recordings to cut costs). No one watched the show to get an insight as to how concerts were bootlegged. And part of the humor comes from what a crude recording workflow it is anyway. Of course if you saw the ending, it was all moot anyway.

However, I've been rewatching a lot of "classic" Simpsons and I cannot believe some of the holes in the writing (not related to the malleable continuity). There are minor things in otherwise good episodes that are worse than those Brady Bunch episodes that inspired Robert Reed's multi-page memos. I watched "Homer the Vigilante" from season 5, and what didn't occur to me in 1994 is that after Bart laments the loss of his stamp collection and the rest of his family laughs at him, how did Nelson hear it and call him up to say "Haw haw"? In either real life or the context of the show, it does not work. The ending situation, however, does work, because of the context of the series. It wouldn't work on King of the Hill, however, because that show is far more grounded in reality. And if they had tried some of the crap that the Simpsons have tried to pull lately (most of which does not work because of the context) they would be off the air before the theme song was over. Today the show has no context at all. Even some of the more bizarre late 1990s material seemed to try something different within the context.

I have also come to despise that show's smug attitude towards other TV and media and their attitude that if we point out our flaws and make fun of other shows that do it it's better than correcting them, not just now but throughout their run. The Simpsons is one of the most smug shows ever created. The unbearably self-conscious dialogue intended mainly to point out clumsy or awkward technique when other shows do it rings even falser than the shows they attack, mainly because they do it themselves. They see the irony, but they don't care. It is not funny and is often painful to watch.

Unfortunately, you cannot judge the intelligence of characters on TV series by the barometer of your own intelligence, which is not distributed evenly or proportionately among the world's population.

I wouldn't even call Lucy Ricardo or Bart Simpson "stupid." Lucy comes up with elaborate, bizarre schemes that require at least some form of intelligence. The writers there made sure there was at least a believable setup that worked in the context of the series. Bart Simpson is smart enough to come up with some elaborate pranks; he is merely apathetic to a formal education, not as stupid as his father. Lisa Simpson is my least favorite character on that show, however, because she seems too much like a vessel for the writers' political beliefs (I could go on about that aspect of the otherwise fine Norman Lear sitcoms but it is against HTF policy to talk politics). Other child characters on that show (or other shows) are more believable, regardless of their exaggerated behavior, because they seem more natural within the context of the series. She might be more believable if she were a teenager.


Maybe if he had he would have learned something about comic timing. He was the least talented cast member of his own ensemble. Lucille Ball at her worst was funnier than Jerry Seinfeld at his best.

I don't like NewsRadio either, but not because of the ball pit situation, which I didn't see. I saw it in Israel 10 years ago and I found it lackluster and unfunny, and I wouldn't have watched it were it not inbetween two shows I wanted to see. I also have a problem with the very thought of Andy Dick. But that ball pit situation doesn't sound so unbelievable, considering that the restaurant is a kiddie place with a ball pit (places like that are common). I don't like modern sitcoms because most of the actors couldn't carry a funny line if their lives depended on it, and the writing is so indifferent.

I cringe when people complain about "setup/response" dialogue because it's not how people actually talk. I respond to that with:

A. The way people really talk is not interesting or funny enough to work on TV (or movies, or theater). Even so, all conversation involves, to some extent, a setup and a response.

B. Have you met my family?

"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." —E.B. White

 

[Brett_M]

I remembered 2 more crappy sit-coms from the early 80s:

At Ease -- with Jimmy Walker as a soldier. Lame.

The New Odd Couple -- with Ron Glass as the Felix character. "Pigs sweat. Horses sweat. Men perspire. Women feel the heat." Hardy har har.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I think that's what it comes down to. For every single entertainer, there is a part of the audience to whom he/she does not appeal. Sometimes there's near universal appeal, but it can never be complete.

 

[Josh Dial]

Personally, I find that one's suspension of disbelief needs to be a LOT higher when viewing comedy (past or present) that drama/action. It seems people are a lot quicker to cut some slack for comedies these days, and quick to pass judgement on "unrealistic" dramas, or scenes in dramas. Apparently Jack and the the Lost castaways need to be asking about The Others every-single-second of the show, but it's alright for Urkel to build a robot

 

[DaveF]

Your examples indicated that you don't like unrealistic comedy. I didn't know if it was only the truly absurdist comedy, or anything not absolutely true to life.

It's not "wrong" to dislike some branch of comedy. But it's curious to me, since for me you're ruling out a broad and very fun aspect of comedy.

As for the guy taking a break in a ball-play area: I can see how that would be funny. Irony, exaggeration, and unrealistic situations can make for great comedy. For me.

But the perception of what's unrealistic is very subjective. I find the notion of an employee taking a break in a pool of plastic balls at Chuck E Cheese quite plausible in a comedic sense. However, I find The Office completely divorced from reality. It's so out there, the characters so asinine, so awkward, I can't stomach it. Yet friends who love it tell me these are real people and they've worked in environments like that.

 

[Greg_S_H]

I liked Alf alright, so I guess you could say it's just the absurd that I hate. Breaking the rules of the show's established universe, perhaps. Since I did like I Love Lucy, I suppose it's a fine line for me. The moderns just seem to cross it more often than not.

 

[andrew markworthy]

I don't think any of the shows listed were ever shown on UK television (or if they were it was at something like 3.00 a.m. when let's face it, if you're watching TV at that hour, you'll watch anything). I thought we got enough garbage from you guys to fill Brit primetime [Dallas, Man From Atlantis et al] but I now realise what a lucky escape we've had.

I used to watch I Love Lucy and I loved it. But I was three at the time. By the age of four I found it rather juvenile.

 

[Nick Martin]

Number 14 on the list:

"Shasta McNasty"


Umm...yeah, I tuned in to watch that crappy mccrapster show.

It was crude and dumber than hell but that's why I liked it. I was sorry to see it go.

 

[Steve Berger]

Dan O'Bannon (writer of Alien and DarkStar) probably put it best. Everybody is afraid of the same things but no two people laugh at exactly the same things. Both of those movies had a similar premise but he was frustrated that so many viewers didn't realise that Dark Star was a comedy. He later incorporated parts of it into Alien. (per commentaries on the movies)

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

Fox is actually planning to resurrect The Pitts as a cartoon.