Worst sitcom you’ve ever seen

Hello Larry!

This one:

The new Night Court.

R2 I think there were some decent episodes even though I don’t like Charlie Sheen. Like 2 Broke Girls, it was so bad it was good.

The US remake of Kath & Kim starring Molly Shannon. AWFUL!

Harry & the Hendersons

[quote]I think there were some decent episodes even though I don’t like Charlie Sheen.

You thought wrong R4.

That '80s Show

Anything with a laugh track. If they have to show you what is funny, it clearly is not! Most recent examples is Shifting Gears and Poppa's House. Both, unwatatchable!

I tried to like 2 Broke Girls - but ugh.

R7, well, R4 thought so. - and those are his thoughts. That is his opinion.

Unless, you are bi-bolar and also R4.

Life with Lucy

Oh, Madeline

The Golden girls just flowed

Small Wonder

The Australian version of Kath and Kim.

[quote]Small Wonder

I'll see your Small Wonder and raise you Doghouse (a fetid thankfully brief "sitcom" the CBC thrust upon us circa 1990).

That 70s Show felt like watching paint dry.

Down To Earth

The (thankfully) one-shot redo of "Are You Being Served?" in 2016.

If we have to be talking American sitcoms, then the American version of AYBS, "Beane's of Boston", which thankfully remained an unsold pilot.

Despite having a decent comedic cast, it was painfully bad. British comedy just doesn't translate very well to American. I think "Steptoe and Son" becoming "Sanford and Son" was about as successful an important as I've seen.

I hate slob comedies about boring people. Breeders need to see themselves reflected in them: Cheers; Taxi; Roseanne; King Of Queens...

R20 Important=import

The post show spin off. After Mash. Golden Palace etc

Amanda’s by the Sea

George and Mandy's First Marriage

Happy's Place

Dear John was good. Great cast with chemistry. I find this episode *very* funny and Harry Groener gets to dance.

Too Close for Comfort

Step by Step

Family Matters

My Mother the Car

Out of the Blue (1979), starring Jimmy Brogan, as Heaven’s ugliest, most wardrobe-challenged, Nancy Kulp-haired angel; Dixie Carter; and a bunch of child actors who play siblings, but look completed unrelated (except those mushroom headed twins). Only 8 episodes of this sloppy flop aired, before it was put out of its misery.

R27 Step by Step and Family Matters had some great episodes in the early years before they fully jumped the shark with the Lily storyline and Steve Urkel being a menace 24/7, respectively.

R30 I probably saw them in their later years.

Big bang theory. No contest.

From the late 70s:

The Harvey Korman Show

The Betty White Show

It's About Time

That 90s Show

One of the Boys (1982 ) starring Mickey Rooney, Dana Carvey, & Nathan Lane as a sex-obsessed, straight frat boy...

Come Back, Mrs. Noah (1978) starring Mollie Sugden, of "Are You Being Served?" fame, plays a housewife who's accidently launched into outer space, hilarity does not ensue, mostly toilet humor, it was cancelled after one month.

[quote] I think "Steptoe and Son" becoming "Sanford and Son" was about as successful an important as I've seen.

What was more successful than All in the Family? (Based on Till Death Do Us Part)

Cavemen. With the Geico Cavemen.

I wish there was a live streaming channel devoted to 70s, 80s and 90s shitcoms. Also, Hanna-Barbera stuff.

Mid Century Modern

[quote]The Australian version of Kath and Kim.

Interesting. It's one of my favorites.

How I Met Your Mother. Anyone who saw the entire series will understand. "Burn it to the ground" seemed to be the motto of the show in the last season.

R2 that show was huge but it aged horribly. I didn't even like it at the time. I am not what some would call "PC" but that show was incredibly misogynistic. Every woman is either a psychotic whore, shrew or angel.

It’s All Relative. The son of Boston Irish bigots falls in love with the daughter of cartoonishly gay stereotypes.

Fag jokes fell flat.

THE BEAR

Well-written and acted, great show, but it’s NOT a comedy!

According To Jim or Happily Ever After

Full House and Saved By The Bell sucked too - sorry millenials

The Bear is not a sitcom.

r45 Are you unwell? The title of this post is WORST and SITCOM.

You posted a show that is not a sitcom, and you call it a great show. What confused you? Where did you lose your way?

CHARLES IN CHARGE.

The Bear was recently and effortlessly mocked by It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Charlie got a white t-shirt and a blue apron, and became obsessive in his kitchen. Making everyone say "Yes, chef" and fixating on the most important meals of all time. And Dee just dismisses his bullshit with "It's just cooking food. Not that big a deal." And she has this baffled look in her eye, as if to ask "Who would ever get THIS stressed over cooking food for money?"

Short-lived sitcom, classic opening credits.

No way, OP. Dear John had a banger of a theme song.

Lotsa Luck

R18 found the stupidest take so far

Of the vintage ones, I'd say "Mork and Mindy". Though I'm sure it's Shakespeare compared to a lot of current sitcoms, the likes of what ends up on CBS in 2020's.

And Just Like That. Is it a sitcom?

Cody was cute tho

This one featuring Nathan Lane as an oversexed heterosexual. I wanted a wayback machine to Joan Plowright's picking up a pen to sign a co-star contract: : "No, honey! DON'T!"

R54 Why?

Too Many Cooks.

Disappointing series overall, though the opening credits are worth note.

R26 Directed by John Rich… A very well-regraded tv director; he goes back to The DvD Show, AITF and many more classics.

I know the family…lovely people.

regarded*

R58 Nathan later starred in a CBS sitcom about a gay congressman, and it only lasted two episodes. Charlie Lawrence.

Allen Gregory, with the voice of Jonah Hill. It featured sexually explicit fantasy scenes between a small child and his elderly school principal. It was...cartoon porn.

Three's Company

So many candidates.....

My Mother, the Car

Me and the Chimp

The Tammy Grimes Show

That awful show with Bonnie Franklin

The Paul Lynde Show

...and I'm just warming up

Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place. The title alone…I mean, really?

Out of this World, late 80s. About as awful as Small Wonder.

The Paul Lynde Show at least had some laughs.

Blansky’s Beauties with Nancy Walker and Caren Kaye. It was supposed to take place in the sixties but was soooo anachronistic. I still don’t understand why they thought this was a good idea. Everything about it was tacky and unfunny.

Any of those filler sitcoms in between Friends and Seinfeld in the 90s. They were all terrible and not memorable.

There were so many…they all flopped

Veronica's Closet was pretty bad

It was an era of ugly cars, big hair, and the acceleration of American decline, and The Wonder Years was the critical darling ffs.

Speaking of short-lived sitcoms with great theme songs..

and Small Wonder owns this category

[quote]Blansky’s Beauties with Nancy Walker and Caren Kaye. It was supposed to take place in the sixties but was soooo anachronistic. I still don’t understand why they thought this was a good idea. Everything about it was tacky and unfunny.

Caren Kaye was one of those people that they kept trying to make happen.

She had quite nice tits.

Speaking of nice tits, We Got It Made, presented for your consideration.

R77 Caren Kaye was in one of the most hilarious MTM episodes (she was the sportscaster who was against violent sports and reported on children's diving) and she stole The Betty White Show by being a younger version of Sue Ann.

R77, she really was! She needed to take a hint!

She's the Sheriff

2 Broke Girls

Bob <3 Abishola

Herman's Head

Many Happy Returns.

"Bette" (2000-1). So bad, the last two of 18 episodes not even broadcast, even though they were filmed.

Even Midler disowned it fifteen years after.

Primetime: Full House. Ugly child actors (especially those simian twins), annoying adults (especially Dave Coulier), and stupid twee storylines.

Syndicated: Small Wonder. Cheap-looking, like a cable access show shot in someone’s storage shed out back.

I vote for "My Three Sons."

The backstories of how hideous Fred MacMurray was and what the rest had to do to accommodate his almost never being on set are only part of it.

But I mention it only because it gives me a chance to mention smoking pot with Don Grady once, who was the best in the show.

[quote]I hate slob comedies about boring people. Breeders need to see themselves reflected in them: Cheers; Taxi; Roseanne; King Of Queens...

Yes, hon, Cheers and Taxi are two of the worst sitcoms ever.

R87 way too popular to put on this thread. The prompt is shitty shows, presumably short-lived.

R87 - details, please!

He knew just how to use that bong…

Wink, wink

Behold the horror that was Work It:

R87: The first few seasons of "My Three Sons" were pretty good. Then they brought in hackish writers and MacMurray spent more time literally phoning in scenes because of the shooting schedule. William Demerest was bad enough but that Dodie girl was the worst.

What about almost any early Fox sitcom like "Babes" which had Wendy Jo Sperber (RIP) as the thinnest of three fat sisters.

Ally McBeal

Joanie Loves Cackie

aka Pablo, with a young Paul Rodriguez. Only lasted one season.

R97 Fun fact: Arnaldo Santana, who played Rodriguez' fat brother, started out in gay porn under the name of "Malo," then played one of the victims of the killer in "Cruising." Then when he got fat, he played one of Pacino's stooges in "Scarface." He died at age 37 of AIDS.

[quote] Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place. The title alone…I mean, really?

And what's even worse of it, it's that somehow it became a star vehicle for the loathsome Ryan Reynolds.

2018 thread on Malo

Yum

Hard to believe it's the same guy.

R67 - Two Guys and a Girl was pretty good, especially after they retooled it.

According to Jim.

R98 IMDB has his death as "undisclosed" and his obituary doesn't mention a cause of death. In the 1980s, it was unusual for an obit not to mention a cause of death, unless, of course, it was the dreaded AIDS.

But based on his weight gain, it could have very well been a heart attack.

The Australian version of Kath and Kim is one of the funniest shows I ever watched.

For me it has to be 'Saved By The Bell'. Possibly the most worthless schlock ever put on TV. For years they were playing it on Sunday mornings on METV for hours. They finally took it off and replaced with something worth watching (Wild Kingdom). I always laughed when SBTB was about to come on and they said it was "educational and informative". It was if teaching kids how to lie, cheat, and steal their ways through school was educational and informative.

“Mama’s Family”.

“The Golden Palace”.

Love, Sidney.

First prime time show with a gay character, though they never say so.

Try Odd Man Out with John Inman…. Talk about dreck

Cop Rock

Laverne and Shirley

R75 I had no idea she had a show!

I had forgotten…

The Young Ones

Good Morning, Miss Bliss

Coupling, the US version of the UK Friends ripoff. One of the stars, Lindsay Price, was the Caren Kaye of the era. They tried making her happen in countless flop shows

It's A Living (the 80s sitcom about waitresses).

That’s an insult to Caren. She didn’t fuck her own brother.

Bite your tongue, r118! Best theme song and pivot turn in TV history!

Whitney.

That's So Raven

R119 That was her parents

[quote]And what's even worse of it, it's that somehow it became a star vehicle for the loathsome Ryan Reynolds.

And the other male co-star (Richard Ruccolo) became an OnlyFans porn star.

Interesting to note that aka Pablo was a Norman Lear co-creation. The other co-creator, Rick Mitz, wrote The Great TV Sitcom Book which I had as a kid. It was full of bitchy ramblings about how shitty most sitcoms were save for a few classics that still could have been better (presumably if Mitz had been involved.) His sparse imdb page is full of a number of forgotten flop sitcoms. Isn't it ironic...

R125 No, that's actually interesting--now I want to read that book. I love entertainment books from that era. Checking out his IMDB page right ow.

Young Sheldon is torturous

R126 The credits are indeed sparse.

You young whippersnappers won't remember "My Mother The Car" starring Jerry Fan Dyke. He had this old car that was possessed by his dear late mother. And the damned car spoke to him.

R89, he was appearing in a road show and I knew a lot of the locals in it. Nice guy, hot, straight, secure. It was before he married his second wife. He just loved the Mary Jane. He had nothing bad to say about anything or anyone, except that it was hard to get good work after the show. He had great legs. We went swimming stoned at his hotel pool and laughed our heads off. He stayed with the boys. I figured he already was engaged and kept it safe, but the men there were all gay.

Gimme a Break

What's Happenin'.

Saved by Dee's wisecracks.

Spencer, with Chad Lowe. I guess it wasn't THE worst. Since he was pretty good. But it wasn't good.

Spencer...

Was Chad For Hire?

The pic at OP’s link looks like a group of random Jews pulled off the street.

There’s Mulva, in the Dear John cast!

Just the Ten of Us

Now that I really think of it, Shasta McNasty might be the worst sitcom of all time for real.

Mad About You.

From the obvious stunt casting of relatives (which TV legends could they get to play the in laws or aunts and uncles this week) to naming the poor kid Mabel.

And let's face it, Helen Hunt is not a barrel of laughs.

The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer

Homeboys In Outer Space

Joanie Loves Chachi

R107 Chalk me up as another Saved By the Bell hater. There was another show that was so bad…a New Kids on the Block fake called The Guys Next Door. One of my friends had their posters.

Martin Short had the very short lived The Martin Short Show in 1994. While it had some very funny people on it, the show itself was a pile of crap. I love Andrea Martin but she was too good for it. Jan Hooks was Short’s wife and seemed to be miscast and manic.

After three episodes aired, NBC pulled the plug. Short and Hooks came back to do a comedy special in 1995 that didn’t have the domestic storyline and it was very good.

Count me as another one who hates the Dear John theme song. Could never reach for the remote control fast enough when it began

Almost all of them. Sitcoms are situational comedies. But all American sitcoms are maudlin dramas, with some exceptions like Seinfeld. So they are not sitcoms, but serial dramas.

Heil Honey I'm Home

The Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason scared the shit out of me.

Homeboys in Outer Space

The Little Rascals. Alfalfa's hair really bothered me. I think the kids were good but I found the show unsettling. It seemed old when I was very young.

The Ropers

Carter Country

Women of the House, the Designing Women spinoff. It had one of DL villain Patty Heaton's earlier sitcom appearances.

Turnabout with John Schuck and Sharon Gless. They’re married but one morning they wake up and they’re inhabiting each others’ bodies. 1979.

I remember watching Veronica’s Closet and Suddenly Susan as a kid and thought they were okay. Were they really that bad?

How very dare you, R109?

Caroline in the City.

R154 Love those two in separate roles, but that premise just sounds fucking bizarre.

R155 They were not as bad as other NBC sitcoms in the 90s, but most of them only survived because they basked under the tentpole of Seinfeld or Frasier. Those two mega-hits (and Friends, to a lesser extent) dragged a dozen mediocre sitcoms into the top ten just by virtue of being broadcast on the same night.

Saved by the Bell was dreck, but it did give us hot young Zack and Slater--jerk off fodder for many of us gaylings in the 90s.

Saved by the Bell and Full House were terrible sitcoms for adults but absolutely amazing for kids at the time.

“Suddenly Susan”

R122 You sonvabitch!

Home Improvement

Bette Midler's sitcom was atrocious. I watched the first two episodes and then I had to give up.

[quote]Women of the House, the Designing Women spinoff. It had one of DL villain Patty Heaton's earlier sitcom appearances.

There were two or three attempts at making Delta Burke a star of her own sitcom after Designing Women and they all flopped.

That sad thing with Our Faye and Robert Urich.

Yes, that wacky Faye Dunaway in a sitcom, what could go wrong?!

Fucking hell, there was a "Coupling" U.S. version?

One Day at a Time

Two and a Half Men

Three's Company

Mad About You

The Facts of Life

Welcome Back Kotter

Laverne & Shirley

Fresh Prince...

Will & Grace

The Nanny

R140, it was so acclaimed back then and it has not held up at all.

R167, you have terrible taste.

I hated Mad About You during its original run. Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt are two of the most annoying people who ever stepped in front of a camera. I still can't believe she won an Oscar.

Home Improvement was pretty bad. I wouldn't say it's the worst overall, but it's probably the worst sitcom to be a big hit

I loathed Tim Allen.

R172 I still do.

After MASH.

There’s Company wasn’t the worst thing ever but the theme song from the pilot episode makes me want to kick myself in the balls.

Enjoy.

The US Coupling was horrible. The original, Brit version was well acted which made the predictable plot lines work.

The Munsters re-boot (with John Shuck) was pretty terrible, too.

Joanie Loves Chachi

[quote]the theme song from the pilot episode makes me want to kick myself in the balls

Pics please.

Herman’s Head.

The Famous Teddy Z, which had all this incredible hype, but turned out to be a disaster. Starring Jon Cryer and Alex Rocco.

The Brady Brides

"Go To Helen Waite" starring Helen Lawson

Full House for sure. Unwatchable.

My Mother, the Car - such a dumb preimise

She's the Sheriff, with Suzanne Somers

Til Death - Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher as a married couple

Baby Bob - "comedy" where a couple find that their 6 month all baby can talk. Okay!

Almost every 70's - 80's Brit sitcom shown on streaming channels. They are absymal

Carter Country

Emily's Reasons Why Not

Yes, Dear.

Yes, Dear was the first or second attempt to make the putrid Anthony Clark a sitcom star, the other one was Boston Common. He has a reputation as a total asshole.

I remember The Cavanaughs being terrible. Lucille Ball ‘s last sitcom was putrid.

The Montefuscos

ALF.

While I wouldn't say I was a fan of Just Shoot Me, I'd occasionally tune in to watch Wendy Malick.

Wendy Malick was the best thing about Just Shoot Me.

“Kirstie” was lame.

If the topic was good sitcoms, Just Shoot Me is the first thing that would come to mind. Love Wendy Malick in anything r192 r193.

I think it's actually harder to choose the worst sitcom because there's so much absolute crap in that genre. Most of it is designed to be as lowbrow and inoffensive as possible.

Switcheroo!

[quote]Lucille Ball ‘s last sitcom was putrid.

We had a big Life With Lucy thread here a while back and we all pretty much agreed about how sad and embarrassing it was. Watching clips of the show on Youtube, you just cringe for Lucy. It was so completely horrendous.

Caroline in the City was ridiculous when the tried to convince that the Malcolm Gets character and Caroline were having an affair with each other. The guy was such a queen the flames could be seen from outer space. He had a hot body though, and I remember him getting shirtless a lot. I guess they were trying to save a flailing show.

I watched one episode of Two Broke Girls. There wasn't one funny line but the laugh track ran continuously. That was the worst in recent memory. The rest has been erased.

Not to mention Eric Lutes's huge bulge

Caroline and the City was high art compared with The Single Guy.

Caroline and my TITTY

Eric Lutes's huge bulge doesn't get mentioned enough

R199, and you just know Kat Dennings hated every moment of being on that show (minus the paycheck). I don't know a single person who watched it during its OG run it lasted somehow. Its success boggles my mind.

[quote]Caroline and the City was high art compared with The Single Guy.

Every one of these entries is a Shakespearean masterpiece compared to "Small Wonder."

Many years ago someone posted some very sexy photos of Lutes wearing nothing but a white towel. They supposedly knew him very well.

I'm with you R156. I adored Love, Sidney.