List of sitcoms notable for negative reception

The following is a list of situation comedy series that have been ranked among some of the worst series in television history. With the possible exception of reality television, the sitcom genre constitutes the largest category of poorly received television shows, with a long list of flops.

Contents :

• Top
• 0–9
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z

A

• AfterMASH – AfterMASH premiered in the fall of 1983 in the same Monday night 9:00 P.M. EST time slot as its predecessor M*A*S*H. It finished 10th out of all network shows for the 1983-1984 season according to Nielsen Media Research television rating. For its second season CBS moved the show to Tuesday nights at 8:00 EST, opposite NBC's top ten hit The A-Team, and launched a marketing campaign featuring illustrations by Sanford Kossin of Maxwell Klinger in a nurse's uniform, shaving off Mr. T's signature mohawk, theorizing that AfterMASH would take a large portion of The A-Team's audience.^[1] The theory, however, was proven wrong. In fact, the exact opposite occurred, as AfterMASH's ratings plummeted to near the bottom of the television rankings and the show was canceled nine episodes into its second season, while The A-Team continued until 1987, with 98 episodes. In 2002, TV Guide listed the show as the seventh-worst TV series ever.^[2] Ironically, however, the series was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Direction In A Comedy Series for the episode "Fall Out". The would-be recipient was M*A*S*H writer Larry Gelbart.
• a.k.a. Pablo – This 1984 ABC sitcom was quite controversial because of its use of "Latin slang", and offended many of the Latin and Hispanic community. The show was canceled after six broadcasts. In 2002, TV Guide ranked the series number 45 on its 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time list.
• All That Glitters – All That Glitters debuted the week of April 18, 1977 on about 40 stations in late-night syndication. It was poorly critically received, with one reviewer going so far as to call the show's theme song "blasphemous" for suggesting that God was female and created Eve first.^[3] Time magazine sharply criticized the series, calling it "embarrassingly amateurish", with "flaccid" and "wearying" jokes, flat writing, "mediocre" acting and "aimless" direction. The Wall Street Journal concurred, saying that while the series' role-reversal premise may have been adequate for a play or film, it was too limiting to serve as the basis for a continuing series. These limitations showed up most clearly, the Journal says, in the lead performances. Although praising the performers themselves as talented, they are cited for being "unable to infuse much life into their roles".^[4] The Journal pegs the fundamental problem with All That Glitters as that "its characters are not people at all, merely composites of the least attractive characteristics of each sex. The satire focuses not on the way real, recognizable people behave, but on stereotypes and cliches about masculine and feminine attitudes. Even when stood on their heads, they still remain stereotypes and cliches."^[4] New Times Magazine was much more receptive to the series. Although labeling it "unquestionably the weirdest [show] that Norman Lear has ever produced",^[5] New Times found that the series was not "a satire of mannerisms but of attitudes".^[5] All That Glitters required that viewers watch closely to pick up on the subtleties and nuances, "not so much for what the show says, but for the way that it's said".^[5] All That Glitters, after initially capturing 20% of viewers in major markets in its opening weeks, had lost about half of that audience mid-way through its run.^[5] The series was cancelled after 13 weeks, last airing on July 15, 1977. Although the show was panned, it and Lear, along with Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, are credited with expanding the subject matter that television producers were able to explore with lessened fear of antagonizing sponsors or viewers.^[6] In the years since the series, it has garnered something of a positive reputation, with one critic listing it and other Lear efforts as "imaginative shows that contained some of the most striking satires of television and American society ever broadcast".^[7]
• Arli$$ – This sports-news-related series, which ran for seven seasons, is a prime example of how HBO differs from traditional networks due to its nature as a network its viewers specifically pay to be able to watch. Arliss was cited by so many viewers as the sole reason that they paid for the network that its relatively small fan base was able to keep the show on the air for a lengthy run.^[8] Entertainment Weekly consistently referred to it as one of the worst shows on television.^[9] Some felt that the show was subpar and that the show's frequent use of obscure sports references made the humor something only die-hard sports fans would understand. ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons repeatedly wrote about how awful he felt the show was, often holding it up as Exhibit A in what he saw as the terrible state of sports shows on TV. Simmons also noted that HBO was forced to reschedule the show because it wasn't able to hold enough viewers before Six Feet Under. Simmons' viewpoint notwithstanding, his employer acquired rights to air Arli$$ in reruns on ESPN Classic.

B

• Baby Bob – The series was panned by critics, but premiered to strong ratings and placed 15th in its first week, although ratings quickly declined.^[10][11] In 2002 (the same year it premiered), TV Guide ranked Baby Bob number 14 on its '50 Worst TV Shows of All Time' list.^[12]
• Baby Talk – A short-lived early 1990s American sitcom that featured a talking baby (voiced by Tony Danza). In 1991, Electronic Media Critics' Poll voted it as the worst series on television. When ABC renewed the show for a second season, lead actress Julia Duffy was released from her contract; she was replaced by Mary Page Keller. Scott Baio, who had watched the first season, agreed with some of the critics' views, but justified his joining the show by comparing it to Happy Days, of which he starred on as a teenager. "I did a show for 11 years (Happy Days) that never ever got a good review," said Baio. "So we hope you guys will love it, but we're just going to do the best we can, and it's what the people like that's going to stay on."^[13] The series was canceled in the spring of 1992.
• Big Day – Big Day was considered "One of the Worst TV comedies Ever Killed". Metacritic indicated that 40% of critics gave the show widely negative to poor reviews. In 2010, the show is topped as "One of the Worst TV Shows of the 2000s", according to Rolling Stone magazine.
• Big Top – Reception to the show was negative. In a review of the opening episode, Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph described it as "unfunny and outdated", saying that "the cast weren’t so much playing characters as reading aloud from a dog-eared joke book for half an hour."^[14] Tom Sutcliffe in The Independent said that it was "one of those programmes that get you wondering about the commissioning process."^[15] Sam Wollaston of The Guardian commented that the jokes were so obvious that he invented a game, whereby he would pause the show after the set up and ask his girlfriend to guess the punchline.^[16] The sitcom was named the worst new sitcom of 2009 by the visitors to the British Comedy Guide. Daily Mirror TV critic Jim Shelley included the series on his list of the Top 20 TV flops, describing it as "Mind-blowingly awful".^[17] The harsh criticism that the sitcom received, and the likelihood that it would be axed after one season, led to its being used as a cipher on Richard Bacon's BBC 6Music show during 2009-10. To circumvent instructions given to 6Music presenters that they should not discuss on-air the planned closure of the station, Bacon frequently voiced his strong objection to "the BBC's plans to cancel Big Top" and encouraged listeners to do the same.^[18]
• Bless This House – TV Guide ranked Bless This House number 48 on their 50 Worst Shows of All Time list in 2002.
• Bottle Boys – The series has acquired something of a reputation as one of the worst British sitcoms ever produced. Mark Lewisohn, writing in the Radio Times Guide to Comedy observes that "ITV sitcoms had often plumbed the depths, but this was the limit", and also notes that Bottle Boys was reputedly despised by comedy executives at ITV. Furthermore, he goes on to pick Bottle Boys as his "worst ever" British sitcom. Writer Vince Powell was no stranger to working on shows that attracted a bad press, however, having created two of the most controversial comedy shows of the 1970s - Love Thy Neighbour and Mind Your Language. The programme also made number 97 in Channel Four's 100 Greatest TV Moments from Hell list show, a retrospective of television's low points of the last fifty years.
• Brighton Belles – The 1993 British adaptation of the popular American series The Golden Girls was both a critical and popular failure in the UK, lasting only six episodes out of ten that were filmed. It is included in Jeff Evans's list of the twenty worst TV series of all time.
• Buddies – Comedians Dave Chappelle and Jim Breuer attracted the attention of TV network executives with their guest appearance in the March 14, 1995 episode of ABC's highly rated sitcom Home Improvement.^[19] The storyline had Chappelle and Breuer play a duo of friends who appear on Tool Time to ask Tim Taylor advice on their girlfriends. The characters' single outing on the episode proved so popular that ABC decided to give Chappelle and Breuer their own half-hour sitcom. After subsequent rehearsals, Jim Breuer was replaced with Christopher Gartin as Dave Chappelle's "buddy". The unique comic timing and chemistry that Chappelle had with Breuer, his real-life friend, was not present with Gartin, and Breuer's abrupt firing exacerbated ill will. This prevented Chappelle and Gartin from developing the rapport and comedic chemistry necessary for the characters' believability and likeability.^[20] Buddies premiered on Tuesday, March 5, 1996, garnering disappointing ratings. When a move to Wednesday night failed to improve its performance, Buddies was off the air on April 3 after a broadcast history of only five episodes out of the 13 that were produced.^[21] Dave Chappelle himself, was not proud of his involvement with Buddies in retrospect: "It was a bad show. It was bad. I mean when we were doing it, I could tell this was not gonna work."^[22] However, the full series was released on DVD in 2005 as a Best Buy exclusive.

C

• Cavemen – In terms of reception from the media the show was "critically savaged".^[23] The Chicago Tribune listed it as one of the 25 worst TV shows ever,^[24] and Adam Buckman of the New York Post declared the show "extinct on arrival."^[25] Ginia Bellafante of the New York Times wrote "I laughed. But I laughed through my pain. 'Cavemen,' set in some version of San Diego where people speak with Southern accents, doesn’t have moments as much as microseconds suspended from any attempt at narrative."^[26]
• Clerks – A pilot for a live-action TV series based on the 1994 Kevin Smith film was produced in 1995.^[27] It was produced by Touchstone Television. The pilot only referenced the character names and starred none of the cast from the original film, contained no foul language, and did not feature Silent Bob. The character of Jay was featured, prompting Smith to point out that he owned the character rights to both Jay and Silent Bob (for the purposes of featuring them in separate films). The producers' solution was to change the character's name to Ray. Kevin Smith was unaware of the production of the series until casting was underway. Smith had been in production with Mallrats at the time and attempted to become involved in the series but became disheartened quickly as an episode he had written for the series was shot down. He would later use the script for an episode of Clerks: The Animated Series.^[28] Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson both auditioned for the role of Dante Hicks (as Anderson's part of Randal Graves from the film had already been filled by future SNL performer Jim Breuer). After seeing the result, Smith said that it was terrible, and O'Halloran and Anderson said they were both glad they didn't get the part.^[28]
• Co-Ed Fever – Co-Ed Fever is an American sitcom that aired on CBS in 1979. The series attempted to capitalize on the success of the motion picture National Lampoon's Animal House. It was the third of three "frat house" comedy series to air in early 1979 (the others were NBC's Brothers and Sisters and ABC's Delta House, the latter of which was an authorized spin-off of Animal House). CBS cancelled Co-Ed Fever after only one episode, and all three series were off the air by the end of April 1979. The series was so low-rated it never made it to its regular time slot, Monday night, airing instead as a 'special preview' the night before.^[29][30] In 2002, Co-Ed Fever ranked number 32 on TV Guide's 50 Worst Shows of All Time list.^[31]
• Come Back Mrs. Noah – A BBC television sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1977 to 1978, joke banter was recycled from other series, and outrageously strange props were used. Come Back Mrs. Noah was not a success, with some regarding it as one of the worst British sitcoms ever made.^[32][33]
• Coming of Age - A BBC Three programme written by Tim Dawson (who had previously worked on the similar comedy Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps), Coming of Age revolved about the lives of six teenagers in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Coming of Age was criticised for excessive vulgarity and lack of humour. Writing about the first episode, The Daily Telegraph's Culture magazine was negative: "Crudeness abounds... but neither wit nor charm has tagged along for the ride.".^[34] Harry Venning in The Stage stated that most of the show's humour "was unremittingly dire" and stated " I sat through Coming Of Age with the will to live seeping from my every pore, leaving me drenched in a puddle of despair. Apparently writer Tim Dawson was 19 when he wrote it, which is about six years older than I would have guessed." ^[35] Meanwhile, The Scotsman said simply: "Coming of Age may be the worst BBC sitcom yet. It is supposedly aimed at teenagers, but I refuse to believe that even the easiest-to-please teenager is happy to accept something so horribly written, horribly acted and horribly vulgar in lieu of actual humour."^[36]
• Coupling – This American adaptation of a British sitcom of the same name drew objections over its extensive sexual content, prompting at least two stations (both owned by religious organizations) to not carry the show, and it was pulled from the NBC schedule within two months despite a barrage of publicity. It was also immediately panned as a poor imitation of the original UK series by viewers and critics. BBC America even ran commercials noting that they would play the original British versions on their station just after the American equivalent episodes on NBC aired, so that viewers could see instantly just how superior the original was. Miscasting and stilted delivery of a nearly identical script were believed to be the reasons for the failure though creator Steven Moffat claims the level of network interference was the sole reason. It ranked #7 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the Biggest Bombs of All Time.

D

• Daddy's Girls – The series followed Dudley Walker (Dudley Moore), the owner of a New York fashion house who loses his wife and his business partner when, after a years-long secret affair, they run off together leaving him as the primary caretaker to his three daughters. The series is notable as the first in which a gay principal character was played by an openly gay actor.^[37] Harvey Fierstein played Dennis Sinclair, a high-strung designer at Walker's firm.^[38] Although Fierstein earned praise for his performance, Daddy's Girls was hated by critics. New York magazine called the series "Despised, reviled."^[39] Entertainment Weekly, somewhat prophetically, found Moore to be "wan and confused."^[40] The Dallas Morning News could only say that "Daddy's Girls isn't horrendously bad" but predicted that it would not last until Christmas. Indeed, the series was placed "on hiatus" after only three episodes aired and never returned. Moore would never return to television; he would later be diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, which Moore would later cite as the cause of his difficulties on the set of the show.
• Dads - This 2013 Fox multicamera sitcom from Seth MacFarlane received scathing reviews from critics, receiving a score of 15 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic and 0% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.^[41][42] The network used extracts of the negative reviews ("offensive", "reprehensible", "morally wrong") to promote the show.^[43] On May 7, 2014, Fox cancelled it after only one season.^[44]
• Das iTeam – Die Jungs mit der Maus – A German version of the British programme The IT Crowd was in production starting June 2007, starring Sky du Mont, Sebastian Münster, Stefan Puntigam and Britta Horn.^[45] Originally titled Das iTeam - Die Jungs mit der Maus (The iTeam - The Boys with the Mouse), the title was changed to Das iTeam - Die Jungs an der Maus (The iTeam - The Boys at the Mouse) at the last minute. The premiere episode was aired on 4 January 2008 on Sat.1. After the first episode was broadcast online, the adaptation received a mainly negative response from Internet forum users and blog writers. It was criticised for the quality of its translation and direction, and the poor performance of Stefan Puntigam as Gabriel (German version's name for Moss). The show was dropped by Sat.1 in January 2008 after the second episode due to low ratings.^[46]
• Days Like These - A British remake of the popular American sitcom, That '70s Show, using almost verbatim scripts with minor changes to cultural references and used many of the same names (Eric Forman, Kitty Forman), or slight alterations (Donna Palmer instead of Donna Pinciotti, Jackie Burget instead of Jackie Burkhart, etc.). Only 10 of the 13 produced episodes were aired. Five began broadcasts of That '70s Show after the failure of Days Like These and it was one of the first comedy shows imported onto the channel.
• Delilah – The series generally received poor reviews and negative audience reception. It was cancelled after a single 13-episode season in an era when Canadian content requirements made canceling Canadian programs after so few episodes a rarity.^[47] Delilah was one of several CBC flops during the early 1970s, including Corwin and McQueen, the product of inferior creativity.^[48] However, CBC's next sitcom, King of Kensington, fared much better and became a multi-year success.^[47] Toronto Star television critic Jim Bawden declared the series as the "Worst Canadian Sitcom", declaring the scriptwriting to be "appalling" and discovered an absence of laughter from the audience when he attended a taping of an episode.^[49]

E

• Emeril – Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse briefly starred in a self-titled TV sitcom on NBC during the 2001 fall season with Robert Urich (in what turned out to be his final TV series), but it was canceled after several episodes and widely panned by critics. The show 101 Biggest Celebrity Oops ranked the sitcom at #51.
• Emily's Reasons Why Not – The show drew fire from pro-abstinence groups for its inability to portray an abstinent person and relying on stereotypes of homosexuality to portray an intentional virgin. It was reported that ABC committed to the show before seeing a script. Despite heavy promotion by both Sony Pictures Television and ABC, the show was pulled after the first episode due to drawing only 6.2 million viewers. Production was stopped after filming six episodes. ABC was said to have spent millions on promotion, including airtime, billboards and radio ads, and considered Emily to be the 'linchpin' of the network's post-football Monday-night schedule. The promotion was so heavy and the cancellation so abrupt that some magazines found themselves carrying cover stories about a canceled show. After viewing it, ABC's entertainment president suggested that they considered the show lackluster and unlikely to improve.^[50][51] One television critic said there are "over a million 'reasons why not' for this sorry show." The New York Times attributed the cancellation in part to the extremely unappealing nature of the main character and the portrayal by Heather Graham.^[52]
• Extra! Extra! Read All About It! (also known as Extra! Extra!) – An Irish sitcom on RTÉ set in a newspaper office. It was poorly received, critics stating the scripts lacked any humour and that the direction was poor. Reviewing the programme for the Sunday Independent, writer Colm Tóibín called it "probably the worst programme RTÉ has ever shown".^[53] The Irish Times' Brendan Glacken was equally scathing: "Speaking of Extra! Extra!, as I am afraid we still must, even seasoned RTÉ observers seem unable to answer the question why a series so pathetically weak should have been allowed to reach the screen at all".^[54] Writing in the Connacht Sentinel, journalist Declan Tierney also gave the programme a harsh review: "to say that this is a pathetic attempt at comedy is being kind to "Extra! Extra! Read All About It!"" and stated "the only indication that it is a comedy comes from the canned laughter, which is over-done and often goes on for so long that it is impossible to hear the start of the next sentence".^[55] The Irish Independent later listed it as one of the worst Irish TV shows ever.^[56]

F

• Ferris Bueller – The show (based on the hit 1986 John Hughes film Ferris Bueller's Day Off starring Matthew Broderick) received mostly negative reviews from critics.^{[57][58][59][60]} John J. O'Connor of The New York Times wrote that the version of Bueller portrayed by the "smirking" Charlie Schlatter "is likely to leave most viewers reaching instinctively for their wallets."^[59] Some critics considered Ferris Bueller one of the worst shows of the year.^[61][62][63] The show also suffered from comparison to a show with a similar concept that debuted on Fox the same month, Parker Lewis Can't Lose.^[59][60][64] Parker Lewis proved to be more successful, lasting three seasons.
• The Flying Nun – Despite the show being unpopular with critics (in 2002, TV Guide included this show on its list of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time, ranking at #42), Marge Redmond was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series as Sister Jacqueline role during the 1967–68 season. She lost to Marion Lorne, who won posthumously for her role as "Aunt Clara" on Bewitched.^[65]

H

• Hank – The show has been critically panned, scoring a 36/100 in Metacritic.^[66] The Los Angeles Times has noted "There's nothing here you couldn't imagine from the premise, but there's also nothing wrong with what's here: Melinda McGraw is a good foil for Kelsey Grammer, and Grammer is good at what he does."^[67] The New York Post panned the show: "Hank is one of the worst new (or old) comedies of this or many other seasons".^[68] It was cancelled after five episodes.
• Hardwicke House – A 1987 Central (ITV) sitcom set in a comprehensive school that was pulled after just two episodes. The remaining five episodes have never been aired and the first two never repeated.
• The Hathaways – Later-day television critics Castleman and Podrazik (1982) have called The Hathaways "possibly the worst series ever to air on network TV", criticizing the production, scripts, acting, the "utterly degrading" premise, and the overall "total worthlessness" of the program.^[69]
• Heil Honey I'm Home! – This UK sitcom depicted fictionalised versions of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun living next to a stereotypical Jewish couple. The show was criticised for being unfunny and distasteful, and was cancelled after a single episode aired.^[70] One TV historian has described Heil Honey I'm Home! as "perhaps the world's most tasteless situation comedy".^[71]
• Hello, Larry – Hello, Larry had the misfortune of appearing on NBC at a time when that network was at its nadir in the ratings (despite its poor quality, it lasted two seasons and 35 episodes). The show was greeted by viewers who had high expectations based on McLean Stevenson's M*A*S*H association, but quickly gained an extremely bad reputation as a weakly written, unfunny sitcom, and it was not helped by frequent ridicule from Johnny Carson in his monologues on The Tonight Show. It was thereafter used as a frequent punchline whenever a reference to a bad decision by an actor to leave a successful TV show was needed. In one example, Arianna Huffington said that "John McCain's return to the Senate will be the chilliest reception for a war hero since McLean Stevenson tried to talk his way back onto M*A*S*H after Hello Larry tanked."^[72] TV Guide ranked the series number 12 on TV Guide's 50 Worst Shows of All Time list in 2002.
• The Help – The premiere of The Help was the most watched program in the Friday 9:30-10:00 time slot on The WB in the 2003-04 season.^[73] The premiere was more popular among women than men aged 12–34 (2.0/8 versus 1.3/5). Despite the premiere being the best performance in the time slot of the season on The WB the critics have nothing positive to say. Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times said the show "comes off like a school play, clumsily blocked, loudly acted and nearly shouted down by obligatory laughter and applause." Robert Bianco of USA Today pointed out that "this is the kind of show that opens with a doggie-doo joke and still finds a way to go downhill."^[74] Perhaps the most harsh was Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe: "The WB's claim that "The Help" is a "biting satire" is only half true. No, it's not a satire, but yes, it does indeed bite. And it will be biting the dust before long, unless it can find a new cast, new writers, new producers, a new set, and an entirely new premise."^[75] In her review of the 2003-04 season Kay McFadden, television critic for The Seattle Times, classified The Help as "Never should have aired".^[76]
• Hitz – Caryn James of The New York Times called the series "relentlessly unfunny".^[77] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly rated the series as one of the worst of the year.^[78]
• Holmes & Yo-Yo – The 1976 ABC series was panned by critics and hit #33 on TV Guide's list of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time. Many Nielsen viewers claimed they felt "uncomfortable" with the show's often racy humor, most especially episode seven, over 14 minutes of which was Yo-Yo verbalizing (in graphic detail) his desire for genitalia. Although the series lasted only 13 episodes (undaunted by the failure of the series, ABC green-lighted a similar concept the same season called Future Cop with Ernest Borgnine; it had the same success as Holmes & Yo-Yo), the influence of Holmes & Yo-Yo can be felt in other "robot cop" series and films that followed, most notably the RoboCop films and TV series, and the 1993 series, Mann & Machine which used the same premise as Holmes & Yo-Yo, only with a sexy female robot instead of the stout Yoyonovich.
• Homeboys in Outer Space – The series was panned by critics^[79][80] and was on TV Guide's List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time. Homeboys in Outer Space was cancelled in 1997 after 21 episodes.

J

• Joanie Loves Chachi – This spin-off of the popular series Happy Days was a romantic musical comedy that has been negatively received by critics since its 17-episode run ended in 1983. Originally rated highly, network research suggested it was not rated well because of its own merits but was instead being propped up by its lead-in. It ranked #17 on TV Guide's list of Biggest TV Blunders and is also featured on numerous other worst TV series lists.

K

• Kath & Kim (2008) – An American remake of the Australian series, the show has generated criticism from fans and television critics,^[81] especially in the casting,^[82] adjusting of the tone of the show^[83] and even the show's costume design,^[84] which has led to Selma Blair firing back over the claims that it ruins the creativity of the original.^[85] Early reviews of the pilot were poor, with the San Francisco Chronicle calling it "a contender for worst remake ever."^[86]

L

• Life With Lucy – Life with Lucy was Lucille Ball's final sitcom. The show ran on the ABC network from September to November 1986, and unlike Ball's previous hits on television, it was a critical failure. In order to get Ball to agree to a new series, ABC allowed her complete creative control, no requirement to make a pilot episode, and no requirement for testing before focus groups or other tryouts. As all of Ball's previous TV efforts had proven to be hugely successful, the network acquiesced to these demands, even though she was at the time 75 years old, her long-time co-star Gale Gordon was 80, and Vivian Vance, who had co-starred as Lucy's sidekick in all three of her previous sitcoms, had died six years prior. Fourteen episodes were written, thirteen filmed, but only eight actually aired. Life With Lucy's premiere episode on September 20 made the Nielsen's Top 25 (#23 for the week) for its week; however, subsequent episodes dropped steadily in viewership. It ranked only 73rd out of 79 shows for the season (the seventh-lowest-rated show on TV), with a 9.0/16 rating/share. The short-lived show was never syndicated, nor was it ever released on home video. Biographies of the actress reveal that she was reportedly devastated by the show's failure, and never again attempted another series or feature film; her subsequent interviews and other TV appearances were extremely infrequent. In 2002, TV Guide included this show on its List of the 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time, ranking at #26.

M

• Makin' It – In 2002, TV Guide ranked this disco-themed sitcom number 40 on its TV Guide's 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time list.^[31] It was as poorly received by viewers as it was by critics, lasting only 13 weeks on air; however, the show's theme song, sung by David Naughton (who also starred in the series), would become a top-10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 after the show's cancellation.
• Man Up! – The ABC series received negative reviews, based on Metacritic's overall index, which placed the series at 36 out of 100.^[87] The Hollywood Reporter's Tim Goodman noted that the actors are just saddled in this sitcom world of limited potential, adding "How long can they play this joke?" and concluded that "Isn’t it really time to let go of stereotypes and clichés and maybe write a sitcom that has more to joke about than one thing over and over again?"^[88] JAM! gave the series a "Thumbs Down," noting that "...if you're pining for the next great male sitcom, this isn't it."^[89] Variety's Brian Lowry noted that "...it'll take more than sociology to pump up this stale sitcom."^[90] The Oregonian's Kristi Turnquist called the show "Unfunny" in her short review.^[91] Fantriad's Matt Peterson found that among a mixed gender group of 25- to 34-year-olds, this show ranked among the top 5 of weekly watched television series. This group described this show as, "a fresh take on comedy" and "laugh out loud funny," during online polls and questionnaires. Among other shows listed highly with this group were Last Man Standing and Grimm.^[92]

• Me and the Chimp – This 1972 CBS show is considered by many to be one of the worst shows in the history of television (it came in at #46 on TV Guide's list of "The 50 Worst Shows Ever" from 2002); for many years it was a frequent punch line when comedians wished to reference bad TV shows.
• Melody Rules – Critically and commercially unsuccessful, this TV3 show has become part of the lexicon within the New Zealand television industry to describe an unsuccessful sitcom; for example: "That show will be the next Melody Rules." The series has been frequently labelled as "cringeworthy",^[93] and "atrocious"^[94] by The New Zealand Herald, one of New Zealand television's "disasters" by Scoop,^[95] and "awful" by the Waikato Times.^[96] Series co-stars Alan Brough^[97] and Belinda Todd^[93][98] both regret starring in the series; Todd described working on the series "[...] like Macbeth. I think that if you have to say [Melody Rules], you have to go around–you'd have to go outside and spin around because it's bad luck, don't you?" and labelled the series as "absolutely ghastly",^[98] while Brough described working on the series as "such a horrendous experience", adding "[...] I was so embarrassed by it, I had to go overseas."^[97] Both Brough and Todd claim the series was substantial in convincing them to leave New Zealand and move to Australia and the United States, respectively.^[93][97] The series has developed a cult status due to its poor quality.^[98]
• The Melting Pot - This ill-fated BBC sitcom was written by and starred Spike Milligan, who played the character of Mr. Van Gogh, one of two Asian illegal immigrants shown as landing on a beach in Britain, and making it to a district of London known as "the melting pot". It was supposed to be a series of six episodes, but was cancelled after the screening of the first episode and the remaining five have never been broadcast. It was considered by some to handle racial issues in an insensitive way.^[99]
• The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo – In 2002, the NBC series was ranked #36 on TV Guide's 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time.^[100]
• Mulaney - It has received extremely negative reviews from critics, with most reviews drawing unflattering comparisons to Seinfeld. On Rotten Tomatoes, the show holds a rating of 17% based on 42 reviews, with an average rating of 4.3/10. The site's consensus reads "John Mulaney, we know Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld was funny. Mulaney, you're no Seinfeld." On Metacritic, the show has a score of 38 out of 100 based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews."
• My Mother the Car - Critics and adult viewers generally panned the show, often savagely. In 2002, TV Guide proclaimed it to be the second-worst of all time, just behind The Jerry Springer Show.^[101] My Mother the Car belonged to the genre of TV sitcoms popular at the time that featured supernatural characters and cartoonish situations, such as Bewitched and My Favorite Martian, but it failed and for many years afterward was widely ridiculed as the quintessential "worst show of all time," though many competitors have vied for that title since then. It did not help that the highly respected Dick Van Dyke Show, starring My Mother the Car star Jerry Van Dyke's brother, was still on the air at the time on another network. Audience demographics was an emerging science in the mid-1960s. My Mother the Car was a hit with younger viewers, but no one at the time knew just how to exploit the youth market with a live-action sitcom.

N

• Not My Department - The series premiered on October 2, 1987 on CBC Television's owned-and-operated stations,^[102] although some private affiliates aired it in an alternate time slot or failed to carry it at all.^[103] Its debut episode attracted 743,000 viewers,^[104] but critical reviews were highly unfavourable and the show almost immediately dropped fully a third of its initial audience, with just 498,000 viewers in the second week.^[105] The CBC cancelled the series on November 14, 1987, after just six episodes had aired.^[106]

O

• Off Centre – While it aired, the show was controversial for its raunchy content, as topics addressed included threesomes, circumcision, pornography, and masturbation. On March 4, 2002, as the show faced pressure from watchdog groups such as the Parents Television Council (which voted Off Centre the second worst show for family viewing in 2002), The New York Post printed a memo from the WB's Standards and Practices Department to the creators of the show that stated: "It is essential to reduce and/or modify the significant number of uses of 'penis,' 'testicles,' 'foreskin' as well as euphemisms for the same, such as 'your thingie,'" the memo says in part. It also orders the exclusion of such references as "covered wagon", "unit", "turtleneck", "little fella", "anteater", "diddy", "cloaking device" and "my pig is still snuggly, wrapped in his doughy blanket." The episode which dealt with circumcision, "The Unkindest Cut", also came under fire due to its treatment of the character Euan, who is uncircumcised. As well as the treatment of uncircumcised men in general.
• On the Buses - The ITV comedy about bus drivers received numerous negative reviews on transmission, and is often cited by British TV historians as one of the weakest of British sitcoms.^[107] In its section on situation comedies, The Guinness Book of Classic British TV describes On the Buses as ITV's "longest running and most self-consciously unfunny series".^[107] Victor Lewis-Smith would later criticise the then-head of LWT, Frank Muir, for commissioning what Lewis-Smith called "the wretched On the Buses".^[108] Journalist Max Davidson, discussing 1970s British comedy, listed On the Buses as one of the "unfunny sitcoms of the time".^[109] The Guardian's David Stubbs has referred to On the Buses as "a byword for 70s sitcom mediocrity".^[110]
• One of the Boys – TV Guide named it one of the worst on "The 50 Worst Shows Ever" in 2002, ranking at #24. In an article about 1980s sitcoms, the AV Club described One of the Boys as a "truly atrocious waste of talent".^[111]
• Out of This World - A syndicated TV sitcom about a young girl who discovers she is half-alien, Out of This World received strongly negative reviews. The book Television Without Pity contained a review of Out of this World that described the show as "quite possibly the worst sitcom ever made-it's a complete failure on every level". The review went on to disparage the show's scripts, acting and production, and unfavourably compared Out of this World to Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.^[112] The Splitsider website included Out of this World on a list of "Terrible Syndicated Sitcoms of the Late 1980s", along with Small Wonder, She's the Sheriff, Mama's Family and the 1987 adaptation of You Can't Take It with You. It also described Out of This World as "perhaps the worst sitcom ever, or at least the most '80s sitcom ever".^[113]

P

• The Paul Reiser Show – This 2011 NBC single camera sitcom featuring former Mad About You star Paul Reiser was "critically panned," had the lowest-rated in-season premiere for a comedy series in the network's history, and was canceled after two episodes.^[114] Metacritic reported a rating of only 38 out of 100.^[115] Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave the show a D+, writing that it was best summarized by the word "complacent" and that "everything about it feels off-putting and weird." He compared it unfavorably to Curb Your Enthusiasm, calling it a "weird copycat" that "takes most of the trappings of Curb but misses almost all of the soul."^[116]
• Public Morals – The original pilot episode of Public Morals was scrapped because critics and some CBS affiliates believed the language was too vulgar. However, the episode that did air was also poorly received. Critics argued that the characters were one-dimensional and that some of the humor involved racial stereotypes.^[117][118]

R

• Rango – TV Guide ranked the series number 47 on its TV Guide's 50 Worst Shows of All Time List in 2002.
• The Ropers – The show was ranked number two on Time magazine's "Top 10 Worst TV Spin-Offs".^[119] It also ranked #49 on TV Guide's list of the "The 50 Worst Shows Ever" in 2002.
• The Royal Bodyguard – Just hours after its broadcast, the first episode was heavily criticised by fans of David Jason and viewers alike. Jim Shelley wrote "The Royal Bodyguard was, the BBC trumpeted, Sir David Jason’s first Beeb comedy since Only Fools & Horses finished in 2002 - that was nine years ago. This fact alone should have alerted all involved to the fatal flaw at the heart of this debacle – namely that it was relying on the viewer’s fondness for Del Boy. It was a classic example of blind faith in the production’s star name. The prospect of seeing the 71-year-old star playing a former guardsman who had seen action in Northern Ireland and had now been appointed to the presumably prestigious position of royal bodyguard after saving the Queen’s life stretched this fondness to breaking point. After about two minutes. Never mind that the plot’s entire premise was stupid – that he was the incompetent former head of security at Buckingham Palace car park. The standard of the comedy was excruciating. It was blatantly designed to cash in on the appeal of characters like Inspector Clouseau and Johnny English. But the idea that Jason could play a clown as well as Peter Sellers or Rowan Atkinson was the only funny thing about it."^[120] Several of Jason's fans also took to Twitter to comment on the show: one claimed it to be "a very poor imitation of Johnny English".^[121]

S

• Saint George - Saint George is George Lopez's first starring role in a scripted series since his ABC show George Lopez. Upon airing, however, the show was met with very negative reception, citing the show's thin characters and "bad potty-humor jokes".^[122] The show was cancelled after one season.
• Saved by the Bell: The New Class – Saved by the Bell: The New Class is a spin-off of the Saved by the Bell series which ran from September 11, 1993 to January 8, 2000. The series lasted for seven seasons on NBC as a part of the network's TNBC Saturday morning line-up. It was the fourth incarnation of the franchise.^[123] The show had the same concept as the original series but featured a new group of students now roaming the halls of the fictional Bayside High School. Mr. Belding, played by Dennis Haskins, remained as the school's principal. Many of the stories were recycled plots of its parent series. The first season cast included Robert Sutherland Telfer, Jonathan Angel, Isaac Lidsky, Natalia Cigliuti, Bianca Lawson, and Bonnie Russavage. Unlike the original series, which featured very few major cast changes throughout its run, The New Class regularly changed its core cast with Mr. Belding (and, beginning in the second season, original cast member Dustin Diamond reprising his role as Screech Powers) being the only constant factor.^[124] The series was universally panned^[125][126] by critics and most fans of the original series and is one of the worst reviewed teen shows, but had a positive reception to new fans of the franchise. Unlike the other entries in the Saved by the Bell franchise (which included Good Morning, Miss Bliss, the flagship series, and The College Years in one syndication package), The New Class has never been rerun since its end in 2000; this despite it having a longer run under that name than the other three shows combined.
• The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer – The UPN sitcom, which satirized the Lincoln Administration (including Abraham Lincoln himself) from the perspective of one of Lincoln's servants, gathered controversy before it even aired, mainly due to its take on African slavery. It lasted four episodes and is listed at #5 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the Biggest Bombs of All Time.
• Shasta McNasty – Although this 2000 UPN offering premiered with less-than-favorable reviews from critics,^[127] it was nominated for a People's Choice Award for best new comedy.^[128]
• She's the Sheriff – In 2002, She's the Sheriff starring Suzanne Somers was ranked #44 on TV Guide's 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time.^[100] She's the Sheriff was also included on the Splitsider website's list of "Terrible Syndicated Sitcoms of the Late 1980s".^[113]
• Sir Yellow – A little-remembered pseudo-medieval comedy, it was axed after just one series following bad reviews. In 2003 the TV critic Mark Lewisohn named it as the worst British sitcom of all time in The Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy.^[129]
• Small Wonder – In 2002, Robert Bianco, TV critic for USA Today, listed it as a contender for one of the worst TV shows of all time,^[130] and according to the BBC, it "is widely considered one of the worst low-budget sitcoms of all time."^[131] In the audio commentary for the South Park episode "Simpsons Already Did It", co-creator Matt Stone lamented that "for some reason, people lump South Park and The Simpsons and any animated program together... which is unfortunate that we have to be compared to one of the best shows on television ever and one of the most popular shows on television ever, we never get compared to Sister, Sister or Small Wonder."

T

• The Tammy Grimes Show – In 1966, Tammy Grimes starred in her own ABC television series, in which she played a modern-day heiress who loved to spend money. Receiving "unfavorable critical reaction and poor ratings", it ran for only a month, although an additional six episodes had already been made.^[132] At the time, cancelling a scripted show before a season was complete was unusual, and after only four episodes almost unprecedented; The Tammy Grimes Show was one of the shortest-lived series of its era.
• That's Life – Rick Lyman of The New York Times called the series "an affable car wreck of a sitcom".^[133] Ray Richmond of Variety said that it is "an uncomfortably crude" series that "looks to be a jarringly insular, Hollywood vision of how the gentiles must live".^[134] In response to the Easter episode, which aired on April 7, 1998, the series was denounced by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights as "the most anti-Catholic television show ever".^[135] (This series is not to be confused with a dramedy also entitled That's Life that began two years later and was critically, if not commercially, successful.)
• Tripper's Day – Tripper's Day is a British television sitcom produced by Thames Television for ITV. The plot involved Leonard Rossiter as Norman Tripper, a Northern manager assigned to a London supermarket with a problematic staff. The programme is largely remembered for the negative critical reviews it received, and for the fact that it was Rossiter's final television work, the actor dying between the broadcast of the second and third episodes. It was later adapted in Canada as Check It Out!.
• The Trouble with Larry – Larry (Bronson Pinchot) returns home a decade after he was dragged off by baboons on his honeymoon, in this 1993 sitcom also starring a pre-Friends Courteney Cox. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly called the show "not just not-funny, but actively depressing".^[136] Hal Boedeker, writing for the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain, opined that "the moronic sitcom was beyond bad, a disaster that raises doubts about the judgement of CBS executives."^[137] David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun called the show juvenile, and wondered "How did this sitcom (using the word in its most expansive sense) ever make it on the CBS fall schedule?"^[138] Frazier Moore of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote that "The Trouble with Larry is a sitcom so feeble yet brazen in its humormongering that it nearly takes the viewer's breath away." ^[139] The Orlando Sentinel's Greg Dawson praised the show's "first-rate" cast, but attacked the pilot's "dead-in-the-water writing" and "nonstop witlesscisms", and called the finished product "sophomoric dreck ... which tests the self-control of anyone with an IQ over 50 and a sledgehammer or handgun in the house."^[140] CBS tried premiering the series a few weeks in advance of the 1993 TV season in order to give the show a ratings boost. After blistering reviews and three weeks of bad ratings, The Trouble with Larry was canceled before the official TV season of which it was to be a part of had even begun.^[141]

• The Trouble With Tracy – This Canadian sitcom was hastily assembled in 1970 to comply with upcoming Canadian content requirements and suffered from an extremely limited budget for both time and money. 130 episodes of the series were produced, requiring scripts to be recycled from 1940s radio dramas, line screw-ups to be kept in the finished product due to time and money constraints, and virtually the entire series shot from one small living-room set. As a result of the shoddy end product, the series is often considered one of the worst of all time.^[142]
• Tyler Perry's House of Payne – The national premiere received 5.9 million viewers on June 2007—at the time, basic cable’s biggest sitcom audience ever. The show remained basic cable’s top-rated first run sitcom until TBS’s August 2008 premiere of sister series Meet the Browns. For the first quarter of 2011, House of Payne and Meet the Browns ranked among television’s five highest-rated primetime sitcoms with African-American adults aged 18–34 and 18–49.^[143] However, the program has received mostly negative reviews. Paul Katz of Entertainment Weekly wrote the program had a "bleak premise" and referred to the laugh track as "grating." He also wrote that "(Tyler) Perry should unleash Madea on the Payne household. They could use the laugh."^[144] Movie Web wrote: "I try not to be cynical about TV shows, particularly sitcoms. I know how hard it is to try to write a funny, relevant and interesting television show. I also know that it takes a perfect storm of talent, writing and zeitgeist to capture these elements for an audience. Sadly, Tyler Perry's House of Payne fails to do so."^[145] Ginia Bellefante of The New York Times commented on the sitcom's "narrative aimlessness and languorous pacing," and criticized what she saw as unexplained turns towards topicality. Bellefante did note that House of Payne had "the effect of affirming the progressiveness of a show like Norman Lear’s Good Times."^[146] Variety's Phil Gallo wrote: "In the first episode, House of Payne rolls through a collection of stereotypes and characters familiar to TV auds. ...It's old-fashioned in structure, sets and characters. Despite having his name in the title, Payne is straitjacketed into a straight-man role; the saving grace is the grumpy father figure Chester as Davis huffs and puffs his way through the unnatural dialogue. As the mother Ella, Cassi Davis is all exaggeration—from the bug eyes to the girth—and she isn't given the material to make her character either outrageously humorous or poignantly comforting. She doesn't seem particularly real."^[147] Tom Shales of the Washington Post said: "Three generations of an African American family share—sometimes—what looks like an enormous house in the Atlanta suburbs, and things sort of happen to them. Some things happen repeatedly, such as the patriarch of the family telling everybody to 'get out' or 'go home,' apparently desiring the company of none of them. ...At times one wishes that, yes, House were Payne-less. ...(T)he program has a long way to go before jelling as a believable unit. ...(T)he acting styles conflict or seem barely to exist." Shales also criticized the program for some of the subject matter, such as Janine's crack addiction, stating that "It's commendable to try to introduce serious and topical material in sitcoms, but the way it's done here is awkward and cringe-inducing."^[148] The Internet Movie Database has an average rating of 3.1 out of 10 stars.^[149] Common Sense Media has an average rating of 2 out of 5 stars.^[150]

U

• The Ugliest Girl in Town – In 2002, TV Guide ranked the series number 18 on its '50 Worst TV Shows of All Time' list.^[12]
• Unhappily Ever After – In 2002, the series was ranked #30 on TV Guide's 50 Worst TV Shows of All Time.^[100]

W

• The War at Home – This 2005-07 Fox show set on Long Island was originally panned by critics, scoring a 28/100 on Metacritic, but received critical acclaim during its second season for its handling of Kenny (Rami Malek)'s "coming out" story arc, including a Humanitas Prize nomination for Lotterstein, as well as a GLAAD Award nomination for "Outstanding Comedy Series".^{[151][152][153][154][155]}
• We Are Men - This show had been promoted for over two years as Tony Shalhoub's return to television. However, reviews were bad enough that Metacritic had an aggregate rating of 33/100; similarly Rotten Tomatoes currently has a rating of 4% for the program.^[156] Melissa Maers of Entertainment Weekly said that the show was "The male version of Sex and the City with more shirtless scenes (courtesy of Jerry O'Connell) and way less wit",^[157] while The Hollywood Reporter was much more harsh, saying “‘We Are Men’ is about four single guys you wouldn't ever want to be around or be related to in any way … [it] made me feel stupid almost immediately and then bitter that I'd wasted the time.”^[158] The show failed to catch an audience and actually adversely affected other programming, especially the program 2 Broke Girls. The show got the lowest rating of any premiere on CBS and was axed after just two episodes.^[159]
• We Got It Made – When it first premiered, it appeared We Got It Made would be successful, winning its time slot early in the run.^[160] But before long, negative reviews from both critics and the general viewing public eroded its viewership. NBC moved the series from its original Thursday night berth to Saturdays in January 1984. The change in its night and time did little in keeping the series on the air; in March 1984, We Got It Made was canceled. We Got It Made was revived in first-run syndication for the 1987-1988 season as part of NBC's "Prime Time Begins at 7:30" campaign, in which the network's owned-and-operated stations would run first-run sitcoms in the 7:30-8 pm time slot to counterprogram competing stations' game shows, sitcom reruns and other offerings. However, the series was picked up by non-NBC stations as well. As they had with the NBC version, critics lambasted the series, and We Got It Made lasted only one season in syndication.^[160] The series' final original episode was released on March 30, 1988, with reruns airing until the week of September 3, 1988 in most markets.
• Work It – The 2012 ABC cross-dressing sitcom was panned by critics, receiving a Metacritic rating of 19.^[161] The show was cancelled after two episodes.^[162] Matt Fowler of IGN gave the pilot 0/10, IGN's first zero rating since 2005.^[163] Todd VanDerWerff of The AV Club gave the pilot an F, calling the show "fascinatingly awful, in that way where you wonder how the hell something like this got on TV in the year 2012".^[164] Linda Holmes of NPR called Work It "pointlessly crass, utterly cliched, sexist toward both men and women, and hopelessly, painfully unfunny from wire to wire".^[165] James Poniewozik of Time described Work It as "the kind of bad dumb show you will use in years to come as a benchmark for other bad sitcoms".^[166]
• The Wright Way - A 2013 BBC TV sitcom by Ben Elton, the first episode received negative reviews from critics.^{[167][168][169][170][171][172][173][174]} The second episode was heavily criticised by Tom Phillips in the New Statesman.^[175] Adam Postans in The Mirror called it 'the worst sitcom ever'.^[176]

Y

• Yus, My Dear - The series, which gained modest ratings,^[177] has the reputation of being one of the worst ever sitcoms.^[178]

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External links

• TV's 10 most maligned sitcoms
• The 25 Least Funny Sitcoms Of All Time