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Classic 80s sitcom threads - Who's The Boss, Growing Pains, Cosby Show, Cheers, Facts of Life, Night Court, etc
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IFC recently started rerunning Who's the Boss and I fell into a binge watch of it recently after work. I used to love the show growing up but it's badly aged watching as an adult.
Which got me thinking about old 80s sitcoms and their availability and revisiting them.
Night Court FINALLY got a full series DVD set (a big thing as the bulk of the show was only available as MOD release straight from Warner Brothers) and my local Wal Mart has it plus Growing Pains (which I really want to revisit since it's basically a stealth sort of prototype of Ferris Bueller's Day Off with Mike Seaver as an even more punchable Ferris and Carol as a more competent Jeanie).
I'm tempted to buy/watch Cosby Show too though it's first season is pretty crappy. Also, still wanting to find a machete order viewing list for Cheers that list all of the relevant Fraiser/Lilith episodes so I don't have to deal with having to watch the whole thing to get the relevant episodes before rewatching Fraiser as prep for the new Fraiser series coming out this month.
So I guess thread for talking about old 80s sitcoms and nostalgia shit involving them and which ones are actually available to get on DVD or are still MIA (like Who's the Boss)?
It’s funny you posted this thread on the same day I thought about Coach, the father on Just the Ten of Us, saying that chickpeas look like little butts. (They totally do.)
For some reason I'm thinking of the slightly shit '80s sitcoms, like Webster (which was a dollar store Diff'rent Strokes) and Small Wonder (which had all the classic sitcom tropes like the sickly sweet theme tune and overdone canned laughter).
Golden Girls for sure, they used to play episodes of it after I would watch the Frasier reruns that aired late in the evening. I also like Cheers a lot.
Also a soft spot for ALF, I had his sheets on my bed when I was a kid.
Been spending time rewatching an episode of Newhart, Bob Newhart's sitcom about an author of "do-it-yourself" books who owns an inn in a quaint Vermont town along with his wife and has to deal with the local eccentrics. After a shaky first season, it found it's footing, and one of my favorite characters from the show was the late Peter Scolari's hyperactive hyper-yuppie Michael, who manages the local TV station. In one episode he comes up with an idea for a sitcom pilot starring his wife and it's funny because it's not just a parody of hokey sitcom cliches, but those cliches being executed badly, in an almost cargo-cultist way by someone who has only a dim idea of how to put the elements together. That and Newhart, who works as a TV host at the station is roped into performing, gives a masterful performance in "bad acting", making it clear he wants nothing to do with this disaster.
"Cheer up twins. Remember...your mother's in a better place now."
"You mean the BOTTOM of Lake Titicaca?"
"No...on the shores of...(rolls eyes)...Lake Heaven...where no one ever gets tangled in fishing line."
I rewatched the first three seasons of Who's the Boss about a year ago. It doesn't really get "bad" until maybe the tail end of the third season. It is very, VERY 80s, though, and has Tony take over the household within five seconds of his arrival despite being the maid.
Are the Rebecca seasons of Cheers any good? I dipped out when Diane left.
I don't know why, but Israel had fuckton of sitcoms while I was growing up: Who's the Boss, Married with Children, Fresh Prince, Full House, Family Matters and probably others I can't remember. I think I liked Family Matters and Fresh Prince the most before growing up and appreciating Married with Children a lot more.
I rewatched Cheers and Cosby Show in 2020. Both hold up for the most part. Cosby Show takes a steep decline when Olivia shows up and like you said, season one is pretty bad. In between those two there are good episodes. Cheers always had hit or miss episodes, but I like it more when Rebecca finally becomes established as a character and I find myself skipping most of the first 5 seasons just so I don't have to watch Diane. I will always watch the Frasier or Woody centered episodes regardless of the season.
I rewatched the first three seasons of Who's the Boss about a year ago. It doesn't really get "bad" until maybe the tail end of the third season. It is very, VERY 80s, though, and has Tony take over the household within five seconds of his arrival despite being the maid.
Are the Rebecca seasons of Cheers any good? I dipped out when Diane left.
The only season of Who's the Boss I hated was the second to last season (season six IIRC); which was so bad that the following season (which ended up being the last one) had to go to plan omega and have Tony and Angela hook up to try and salvage the shit show that was previous season pretty much killing the show.
I kind of hated sitcoms as a kid, with the exceptions of ALF and Night Court. I thought the format was corny. But in recent years I sometimes tune into the 80s sitcoms on cable and find them comforting somehow now.
And then shitty Comcast took away my Antenna TV channel and replaced it with a 24/7 Jerry Springer channel. So I can't watch them anymore.
Obviously MWC but MWC was so ahead of its time, I don’t think you can really call it an “80’s sitcom”. It was really transcendental. I did a full rewatch recently and you could remake the show shot for shot in the early 2000s and even today and the humor would still hold up for the most part. The humor which was seen as fresh and new back then, is now normal. It really set the standard.
That being said, as a rabid consumer of 80’s media, I think Golden Girls is one of the better 80’s sitcom that kept its identity through the 90s.
For family sitcoms, I think growing pains (if you can ignore the Kirk Cameron meddling) is really representative of the vibes of the 80s.
I wasn’t a fan of Facts of Life or Family Ties but they deserve a mention.
I’ve been collecting Bluerays of classic 80’s shows (Magnum PI, Murder She Wrote, A Team, Knight Rider). I haven’t done sitcoms.
Would you include Moonlighting as a sitcom? Or no? I think today it would be considered a sitcom the way Arrested Development was considered a sitcom.
