Thursday, December 29, 2011

The Ten Most Bat-Shit-Crazy TV Sitcoms EVER

10.  "Dinosaurs"  (1991-1994)
Three years before his death, Jim Henson shopped his idea around of a standard sitcom about dinosaurs and how their toxic lifestyle threatens to end their society.  Most of the tv execs immediately called the police and the show's concept was shelved.  But after the unexpected success of The Simpsons, the powers at be had a change of heart and the show ended up lasting three seasons on ABC.   Ending with a surprisingly dark series finale, where the ice age hits and all the main characters presumably die.


9. "Get A Life"  (1990-1992)
One of the most polarizing shows in FOX's history, "Get A Life" lasted two whole seasons before being axed.  Which is remarkable, considering (according to Elliot) ALL of the execs at FOX hated it during it's initial run.  It's easy to see why;  Elliot plays a 30-year-old paperboy still living at home who's man-child antics lead him into surreal situations.  Sometimes even leading to his death, which included being crushed by a giant boulder, getting stabbed, shot, falling from an airplane, getting run over, choking on cereal, and just exploding, among others.


8.  "ALF"  (1986-1990)
ALF, short for Alien Life Form, was a big hit for NBC in the mid-to-late eighties.  Families, especially kids loved the premise of a friendly, wise-cracking extraterrestrial (operated and voiced by puppeteer, Paul Fusco) living with the average American/suburban family.  Here's some reflections on ALF, from it's cast:

"there was no joy on the set...it was a technical nightmare – extremely slow, hot and tedious... a 30-minute show took 20, 25 hours to shoot."

"some of [the crew] had difficult personalities. The whole thing was a big dysfunctional family."

"If ALF had gone one more year, everybody would have lost it."

"[I was] hugely eager to have ALF over with."

"It's astonishing that ALF really was wonderful and that word never got out what a mess our set really was."


7.  "Small Wonder"  (1985-1989)
Say you're an inventor/engineer and one day you figure out how to solve that pesky little problem of A.I. and decide to build your very own helper robot.  What design would you go with?  Nurse?  French Maid?  Well, if you're Ted Lawson (played by Dick Christie...yeah, Dick Christie), you model your new robo-slave after a little girl.  Perv.


6.  "Woops!"  (1992)
Just one year after the fall of the Soviet Union, FOX decided it was time to send-up all that Cold War nuclear holocaust paranoia with "Woops!", a post-apocalyptic sitcom.  Yes, a post-apocalyptic sitcom.  The show centered around six survivors living together in an abandoned farm house while trying to survive and re-establish civilization after some kids accidentally set off a nuke during a parade.  My first question: Why was there a truck carrying a nuclear weapon in a parade?  My second question:  You know what? Forget it.  There's too many questions.  We'll be here all day.


5.  "My Mother The Car"  (1965-1966)
I bet you can take a guess what this one is about.  One day, an attorney, played by Jerry Van Dyke (the second funniest-Van Dyke in history!), goes shopping for a station wagon but stumbles upon a broken-down 1928 Porter that happens to speak with a woman's voice.  Coincidentally, the car turns out to be the reincarnation of his dead mother and blah blah blah...


4.  "The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer"  (1998)
Here's an idea:  How about a sitcom set during the Civil War about an ex-slave who becomes Abraham Lincoln's valet and all the wacky shenanigans he gets into from the drunks and layabouts surrounding him?  I mean, come on!  Who could possibly find that offensive?  Well, the NAACP for one, who immediately boycotted the show, the network, and Paramount studios for producing it.  After airing only one episode (and ranking a solid 116th out of 125 television programs for that week) UPN quickly pulled it from it's line-up.


3.  "Out Of This World"  (1987-1991)
Evie, an only child living with her mother, turns thirteen and finds out her father is an alien from the planet Antareus who has passed onto her some of his super-alien powers.  She can not only stop time, but also has the power of gleep, which allows her to create objects with her mind.  Her parents met after her father Troy, a human-looking extra-terrestrial, crashed landed on earth and then "merged lifeforms" to create Evie.  She can communicate with her father (voiced by Burt Reynolds, who took his name off the show after the first season) via "the cube", a device the works as a telephone line to Antareus.  Did you get all that?  Neither did I.

2.  "Homeboys In Outer Space"  (1996-1997)
The plot:  Two "homeboys" (played by Morris Clay and another actor who goes by the name Flex) fly around the universe in a low rider-spaceship in the 23rd century.  I guess the thought here was to sort of make a cross between the shows Star Trek and The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air.  UPN was a new network at the time (and finally bit the dust in 2006) and was trying to capitalize on black audiences with shows like this and The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfieffer (see above).  It's safe to say they failed miserably.


1.  "Heil Honey, I'm Home!"  (1990)
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!?!