The 25 worst sitcoms ever (1 Viewer)

The 25 Worst Sitcoms Ever | TV Crunch

Although most of these are on target, if they can't find anything worse than Perfect Strangers, Mr. Belvedere, and Mama's Family, they must not have watched very much TV. I would substitute:

The War at Home
Saved by the Bell
Life With Lucy
Joey
The Van Dyke Show
Mr. T and Tina
Blansky's Beauties
Just the Ten of Us
Flo
Joanie Loves Chachi
Me and Mrs. C
Nurses
Dave's World
The Hogan Family
Step by Step
Co-ed Fever
Unhappily Ever After
Bette
227
In the Beginning
Hello Larry
Down to Earth
The Geena Davis Show
Delta House
Punky Brewster
Suite Life of Zack and Cody
Who's the Boss?
9 to 5

Let the arguments begin...

How the hell is Perfect Strangers on that list?

At least they got #1 right.

I also like Just the Ten of Us, but yes Perfect Strangers doesn't deserve to be on that list.

Mama's Family is gold, this show has drawn in so many fans from being in syndication as long as it has. Thelma is one of funniest tv characters out there, she is popular because, she tells it like it really is.

There was one good thing about Delta House: a young Michelle Pfeiffer. I immediately knew that I wanted to look at her as often as possible.

I liked watching Geena Davis--probably because I like watching Geena Davis...

No "Family Guy"? Was animation eligible?

Wait - they missed Heil Honey, I'm Home!, the Nazi sitcom where Hitler and Eva Braun were living next door to Arny and Rosa Goldenstein? Amazing!

Not only is it completely offensive, it's utterly un-funny by the second minute of the episode!

How did we miss Charles in Charge?

BTW, we're only looking at stinkers that actually made it to air. If you want to plumb the depths of sitcom garbage, you need to check out the stuff that was buried after it was screened by the studio and never seen again.

I once participated in a market research thing where they wanted to test your reaction to commercials "in their natural environment". So they sent me a DVD with an unsold sitcom pilot and a bunch of "test" commercials that ran in the normal ad breaks. (Some were semi-animated storyboards with temp music tracks.) All I remember about the show was that it was about single fathers and starred the guy from My Two Dads (speaking of shows that should be on this list...) who wasn't Paul Reiser. That and how sheerly awful it was. You know how we sometimes say, "Even I could write better stuff than this?" Well, I was literally coming up with better jokes for most of the scenes in this show while I was watching it. It was beyond crap. It was so bad that it acheived a kind of granduer. It was like, the eidos of bad. The Platonic ideal of unfunny. It was enough to make me want to watch an episode of Cybil just to get the bad taste out of my mind.

Regards,

Joe

Was it Greg Evigan in B. J. and the Bear by chance?



Yeah, My Two Dads, which I watched when it first came out, made the list (no. 8).

BTW, LOL at your 'join date'!

Anyone remember a sitcom on TBS years ago about a little girl robot? I think it was called "Small Wonder." By far the #1 WORST sitcom of all time.

I would have to add the 1980s "Leave it to Beaver" revival series to that list as well.

Rob, you actually watched these shows? Except for a few I actually like, most of those...yeesh!

Possibly one of the lamest lists ever from a crappy gossip site. Nothing before 1979, most of the shows are just mediocre, a few are actually good.

Seriously, no list of the worst sitcoms without:

Friends (for once I agree with the Chinese government when they banned it from their country)
Full House (most TGIF shows were not very good. This one was horrifying, and all family sitcoms have suffered via association with it)
Saved by the Bell (the death of Saturday morning)
Malcolm in the Middle (they said it was going to save the sitcom. They're deader now than they were in 2000)
That's So Raven (they stole the idea from a short-lived Sally Field show called "The Girl With Something Extra" and got away with it; all Eisner Channel sitcoms basically apply)
Step By Step (Patrick Duffy's penance for the "Dream Season" of Dallas)
Who's The Boss? (worst cast ever except for the brilliant Katherine Helmond, who should have won an Emmy for "Soap")
Growing Pains (go back to your bananas, Kirk Cameron; and go back to writing other shows' theme songs, Alan Thicke)
American Dad! (so bad it's taking Family Guy down with it)
Wings (the Cheers creators were one-hit wonders IMO)
Will & Grace (they can't show Amos 'n' Andy anymore but they can show this?)
You Again? (John Stamos strikes again)
Joanie Loves Chachi (that makes one of us)
Two and a Half Men (aka Two Men and Charlie Sheen)
Monty (so many straw man arguments I'm surprised Ray Bolger's estate wasn't involved )
Sister Sister (also one of the most annoying theme songs in creation)
The Trouble With Tracy (your tax dollars at work, Canada)
anything UPN ever aired (with the exception of Everybody Hates Chris, which is not bad)
all the sequels to The Brady Bunch

lacks credibility in my eyes. Yes, I saw these shows and I hate their guts. Quite frankly, I would include 99% of all post-Seinfeld (which I consider not a bad show but a grossly overpraised one) sitcoms on such a list. Keep in mind I never actually saw My Mother The Car, It's About Time, Me and the Chimp, The Hathaways, Makin' It, Hail to the Chief, nor most failed sitcoms from the 1950s which are probably gone forever.

And if you were to consider the current incarnation of The Simpsons as a separate series from its 1990s glory days, it would be in the bottom 10, possibly the bottom 5. In fact, I think that how bad a formerly good (or even great) show got later on is a more interesting discussion.

I'd love to get ahold of some of the early Fox sitcoms to see how bad they were. Did anyone, anyone at all, watch them?

Yes, that's the no. 1 item on the list (Small Wonder).

I agree. There are few who could hold a candle to Mrs Vickie Lawrence. She, Harvey Korman [RIP], and the great Carol Burnett are among the best comedians ever to grace the screen.

I also wonder what might have happened if certain shows were given a little longer to find their way. Remember how bad Seinfeld was the first season? Their ratings sucked and they were almost canceled.

John

Well the list is just their opinion, just as my list was my opinion. If they had done a little more research the list would probably be a lot different.

I agree Mama's Family does not belong on the list. I also thought The Nanny was one of the few 1990s sitcoms I found funny. A lot of people find her voice annoying, but that alone is not grounds to dismiss an entire series. I also agree that few shows hit their stride in their first season, which is probably the one thing affecting DVD sales.

A "worst" sitcoms list has to begin and end with "According to Jim," period.

I also like "Mama's Family" and "The Nanny." Fran Drescher's voice may have been annoying, but much of the supporting cast (not including the children) were hysterical.

The truly sad thing is, if his brother hadn't died, that weak show might be called "According to John".

Don't forget "The Munsters Today." I just watched the first episode on Hulu and it's hilarious in its sheer awfulness. A reasonably good cast seems ill-at-ease trying to impersonate the original actors and deal with the routine scripts and first-run syndication production values. But the capper: their version of the theme song which has LYRICS that are sung so badly I was guffawing in disbelief. But this got three seasons whereas the original got two. TV works in mysterious ways. I don't remember this, and I remember watching the original in reruns on TBS around the same time.

The 80's was really a horrible time for sitcoms but there are way too many on that list. Where's the 70's representation? Anyone remember "Sugar Time"? Holy crap....how horrible was that mess of a sitcom. I think the only reason it lasted 1 season was because Barbi Benton was in it along with 2 other babes.

Not a chance. John would never have sunk to that level. He was a natural. Jim should find something behind the camera to do. He's an embarrasment to his brothers legacy.

John

That list was pretty good about finding some quick-death awful sitcoms, but there were still too many really popular ones. Fox has had a run of candidates in recent years, foremost among them "The Pitts" and "The Winner." Both make "War at Home" and "According to Jim" look like Shakespeare.