Forgotten Sitcoms

[Rothman]

There were no funny jokes on Step by Step.  It was horrible.

[roadman65]

It's a matter of opinion what is good and bad in anything.

[Rothman]

It's a matter of opinion what is good and bad in anything.

Sure.  There are those that have the opinion that Step by Step was not horrible and they are wrong.

[roadman65]

It's a matter of opinion what is good and bad in anything.

Sure.  There are those that have the opinion that Step by Step was not horrible and they are wrong.

So it was wrong. I'm sure you can find people out there who thought Seinfeld was horrible despite being popular in the ratings.

[NWI_Irish96]

It's a matter of opinion what is good and bad in anything.

Sure.  There are those that have the opinion that Step by Step was not horrible and they are wrong.

So it was wrong. I'm sure you can find people out there who thought Seinfeld was horrible despite being popular in the ratings.

I wouldn't call it horrible, but I tried watching it a few times and just couldn't get into it.

[Kniwt]

Two come to mind that I didn't see here in a quick scan:

"A Year at the Top" (1977), starring Paul Shaffer and Greg Evigan as musicians who sold their soul to the devil (in "Bwah-ZAY," Idaho!) for success. No episodes are circulating afaik, only this brief promo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0mOhnLXvlQ

Somewhat more easily available but never reaired is The Powers That Be (1992-1993), an uneven political comedy (hilarious at times, offensive at others) including John Forsyth and a young David Hyde Pierce.  An episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shpKqvX9raw

Edit to add: Oh, one more! "On the Air" (1992), created post-Twin Peaks by Mark Frost and David Lynch. Also walks a fine line between funny and offensive. Episode 3:

[roadman65]

What about the one where Brian Keith and Cloris Leachman starred together in a sitcom where they played heads of a household that aired for a couple episodes on NBCi in either the late eighties or early nineties.

Then Joes World on NBC in the early eighties that featured Chris Knight from the Brady Bunch as a supporting actor.

Joe and Sons in the mid seventies.  Richard Costalano from The Godfather and co starred Jerry Stiller and Florence Stanley about a middle aged man raising three teenage boys alone in a NY suburb.

Hello Larry starring McClean Stevenson as a divorced dad raising two teenage daughters while working as a pre Rush Limbaugh Talk Radio host at a Portland radio station.

[triplemultiplex]

I thought that was Six Flags Magic Mountain with Lake Michigan superimposed onto the parking lot?

Might very well be. I'm pulling from my own memory about some trivia tidbit I heard as a kid, so I can't speak to its fidelity.  And I don't care enough to look it up.

[XamotCGC]

What about Charles in Charge? 

[Rothman]

What about Charles in Charge?

That was extraordinarily popular, so definitely not forgotten.

[michravera]

I remember a short lived two season sitcom, called Carter Country. It starred Victor French, Kene Holiday, and Richard Paul.  It was a parody on the movie In The Heat of the Night before Dean Hargrove created the one hour weekly drama ten years later.

It took place in a fictional Georgia town called Clinton Corners with Victor French playing Chief Roy Mobey, Chief of Police of the Town with a small force for a small rural community with Kene Holiday playing Sergeant Curtis Baker, a well educated officer forced to be hired by the town, to help improve the department in many ways, and Richard Paul playing Mayor Teddy Burnside, the quirky town mayor.  Also included was a great array of supporting characters, all creating a great chemistry to create comic antics.

It was forgotten as no company ever printed DVDs for it and most of all no one this day and age talks too much about.

Any others you missed and would like to share.

"Dusty's Trail" - made with much of the "Gilligan's Island" cast
"It's About Time" - made with much of the "Car 54" cast.

[golden eagle]

Anybody remember Women In Prison? It was among the earliest shows on Fox.

[JayhawkCO]

Anybody remember Women In Prison? It was among the earliest shows on Fox.

Oldest show I remember on Fox is the Tracey Ullman show where the Simpsons got their start. From Googling, it looks like Married... With Children started sooner, but I don't think I watched it then.

[Big John]

The working title for "Married... With Children" was "Not the Cosbys".

[SectorZ]

The working title for "Married... With Children" was "Not the Cosbys".

Who knew that 35 years later the show that started out cleaner would end up far dirtier.

[golden eagle]

Anybody remember Women In Prison? It was among the earliest shows on Fox.

Oldest show I remember on Fox is the Tracey Ullman show where the Simpsons got their start. From Googling, it looks like Married... With Children started sooner, but I don't think I watched it then.

The very first show on Fox was the Late Show, which was hosted by Joan Rivers. It premiered in 1986. MWC and the Tracey Ullman Show were the first shows that aired on the launch of their primetime programs.

[roadman65]

Oh yeah and Joan eventually got fired and replaced later by Arsenio Hall.

Another one was with Alison or Alice Laplaca about a real estate office antics. I forget the name of it, but it introduced a young Ellen Degeneres to the world at the time. She played the receptionist in the series, whom if I remember was full of wise cracks.

[SectorZ]

Oh yeah and Joan eventually got fired and replaced later by Arsenio Hall.

Another one was with Alison or Alice Laplaca about a real estate office antics. I forget the name of it, but it introduced a young Ellen Degeneres to the world at the time. She played the receptionist in the series, whom if I remember was full of wise cracks.

Open House

Degeneres' character was an occasional trope of a few 90's sitcom characters, a gay actor/actress (who had not yet announced it to the world) that played a character that was a horndog for the opposite sex (like Dan Butler in Frasier).

[roadman65]

Oh yeah and Joan eventually got fired and replaced later by Arsenio Hall.

Another one was with Alison or Alice Laplaca about a real estate office antics. I forget the name of it, but it introduced a young Ellen Degeneres to the world at the time. She played the receptionist in the series, whom if I remember was full of wise cracks.

Open House

Degeneres' character was an occasional trope of a few 90's sitcom characters, a gay actor/actress (who had not yet announced it to the world) that played a character that was a horndog for the opposite sex (like Dan Butler in Frasier).

I think the show might of had a name change too. And yes Ellen was new to the scene and yes she was more attractive to men at that time and was nothing like she is now post out of the closet. She was even attractive then and knew how to play the part well of a straight gal in that particular series.

[Life in Paradise]

Oh yeah and Joan eventually got fired and replaced later by Arsenio Hall.

Another one was with Alison or Alice Laplaca about a real estate office antics. I forget the name of it, but it introduced a young Ellen Degeneres to the world at the time. She played the receptionist in the series, whom if I remember was full of wise cracks.

Open House

Degeneres' character was an occasional trope of a few 90's sitcom characters, a gay actor/actress (who had not yet announced it to the world) that played a character that was a horndog for the opposite sex (like Dan Butler in Frasier).

I think the show might of had a name change too. And yes Ellen was new to the scene and yes she was more attractive to men at that time and was nothing like she is now post out of the closet. She was even attractive then and knew how to play the part well of a straight gal in that particular series.

The original show was called "Duet" and ran for two and a half seasons.  The first season was fairly good, the second season went down in quality before it improved for the third and final year.  At the end of that year, the husband part of Duet was split off and LaPlaca and Mary Page Keller's character switched from secondary/primary positions.  They also dropped Chris Lemmon (who was LaPlaca's husband on the show) half way through the season.  I haven't seen either show anywhere since except for a short time being replayed on Lifetime.

[Life in Paradise]

I remember a short lived two season sitcom, called Carter Country. It starred Victor French, Kene Holiday, and Richard Paul.  It was a parody on the movie In The Heat of the Night before Dean Hargrove created the one hour weekly drama ten years later.

It took place in a fictional Georgia town called Clinton Corners with Victor French playing Chief Roy Mobey, Chief of Police of the Town with a small force for a small rural community with Kene Holiday playing Sergeant Curtis Baker, a well educated officer forced to be hired by the town, to help improve the department in many ways, and Richard Paul playing Mayor Teddy Burnside, the quirky town mayor.  Also included was a great array of supporting characters, all creating a great chemistry to create comic antics.

It was forgotten as no company ever printed DVDs for it and most of all no one this day and age talks too much about.

Any others you missed and would like to share.

"Dusty's Trail" - made with much of the "Gilligan's Island" cast
"It's About Time" - made with much of the "Car 54" cast.

Looking at those two shows, I only see one actor on each that was on the original's cast.

[golden eagle]

Any fans of the Fox 90s show Parker Lewis Can't Lose?

[triplemultiplex]

Something that really exemplifies how many TV shows fail is a gag at the start of the 4th season of Family Guy where Peter lists nearly 30 shows that came and went on the Fox Network in the the two years and three months since the end of its third season.  That's like 20 shows per year for just one channel.  Even if other networks only have like 10 or 12 failed shows a year, that's still a LOT of forgotten TV shows.  (And a few that are extremely memorable for a handful of hardcore fans.)

Incidentally, several shows that came up in this thread made the list Peter Griffin rattles off.

The funniest is when a network makes a huge push to promote a new show because they're airing the Super Bowl and then that show turns out to be a total dud.  I vaguely remember one like that some ten years ago where NBC kept plugging some awful-looking show with one of those douchebags from Friends and a monkey.  Yeah that's right, a goddamn monkey.  Unsurprisingly, that show died a quick and merciful death.

[XamotCGC]

Blansky's Beauties and Out of the Blue.   They were  Happy Days spin-off's.


There's also Angie.

[roadman65]

Joanie Loves Chachi was another failed Happy Days Spin Off.