Emmy-award winning sitcom writer Ken Levine links to an article from TV Crunch on his blog, and it’s yet another worst TV shows list – only this time it is sitcoms post-1980 and it lists losers such as Webster, Mr. Belvedere, Charles in Charge, and others, ranked from #25 to #1.
The problem I have with these lists is, ranking these shows are somewhat useless given someone’s personal taste is always different from somebody else’s. Was It’s a Living really worse than We Got It Made? (who can tell the difference, anyway…)
Ironically – of all the programs on the entire list – only two shows are in The T Dog Media Blog TV Hall of Shame – We Got It Made and Cavemen – though this list gives me a whole new bunch of nominees (how could I forget Homeboys In Outer Space?) But originally, I wrote the list in response to the Chicago Tribune’s list of 25 Worst TV Shows Ever which came out last October, featuring programs that appear on almost every worst TV show list. I rewrote the post a few months ago to make it more fun and more theater-of-the-mind like.
The TV Crunch list is quite predictable, as some of those shows actually did well in the ratings – not exactly what you call flops. The reason Charles in Charge and Small Wonder aren’t on my list because they were actually successful for the stations that ran them. Family Matters was a successful show as well, lasting nine seasons. If it was that bad, it wouldn’t have lasted past 1991. To make the Hall of Shame, you must have a stigma of failure attached, though I grant waivers from time to time. This explains why Drew Carey, Hour Magazine, and According to Jim is on the list.
But then again, who needs TV Crunch’s list when abominations like Celebrity Circus continue to pop up? (It’s not a sitcom, but it mght as well be one.)
My guess is some pop-culture expert from Gen Y looked at Total Television and Tim Brooks’ Prime-Time Directory books and came up with this list, without watching these shows. And so you have a bunch of 1980’s and 1990’s sitcoms that Gen X made popular (or not), with a few shows from the last decade or so thrown in. How creative.
Obviously, they omitted Life With Lucy and Chicken Soup for some reason. But Harry and the Hendersons made the list? I forgot that show was even on the air! (And as you know, anything with the Henderson name in it is pure gold…)
If you want a real list of TV abominations, visit The TDog Media Blog TV Hall of Shame, where you don’t just see inane sitcoms – you’ll see inane talk shows, reality shows, dramas, etc. and its written by someone who actually watched the material at least once and regretted it.