10 Popular ’90s TV Shows That Were Actually Terrible
TMC
10:30 am Friday Jul 29, 2011 by Judy Berman
It’s official: over the past few years, nostalgia for the ’90s has
made its way from the streets of Williamsburg to TV-network
boardrooms. Last week, we previewed five minutes of MTV’s Beavis and
Butt-Head reboot, and its cult-favorite indie music show 120 Minutes
returns Saturday night on MTV2. Meanwhile, TeenNick’s widely
publicized, late-night The ’90s Are All That programming block debuted
Monday to big ratings. From Seinfeld to Roseanne, there was no
shortage of great TV in that decade. But, with the rise of great
original programming on cable and premium networks, along with smart
comedies like the ones that fill NBC’s Thursday-night line-up, we’re
pretty sure that television is actually better now. Don’t believe us?
With the help of our Flavorpill colleagues, we’ve put together a list
of ten shows that were popular in the ’90s but were actually terrible.
Add your suggestions in the comments.
Mad About You
Seinfeld was supposed to be the “show about nothing,” but somehow its
Must See TV neighbor managed to be about even less. The show followed
the lives of ultimate ’90s yuppie couple Jamie and Paul Buchman,
played by Helen Hunt (aka the poor man’s Jodie Foster) and Paul Reiser
(aka the man who coined the term “couplehood”). As far as we can
remember, they didn’t do much besides hang out in bed, roll their eyes
over their crazy family members, and look on helplessly as their
stupid dog, Murray, constantly ran into the wall. Mad About You ran
for seven seasons, with Hunt and Reiser each making $1 million per
episode by the final season.
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/2#post_body
Hey Dude
We can get on board with the revival of many classic Nickelodeon
shows. Clarissa Explains It All? Groundbreaking. Salute Your Shorts?
Hilarious. The Adventures of Pete & Pete? Visionary. But Hey Dude was
one of those shows where everyone is a stereotype (bad-boy Ted, rich-
girl Brad, sensitive Native American Danny) and all the drama arises
from the kids trying to have fun while avoiding the half-hearted wrath
of dude ranch proprietor Mr. Ernst. Considering that the cast and crew
cranked out five seasons between 1989 and 1991, it’s not surprising
the quality wasn’t so hot. But that hasn’t prevented nostalgia for the
show — the first season just came out on DVD.
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/3#post_body
Home Improvement
We knew Home Improvement was terrible while it was airing, but we kept
watching it anyway. Why? Three letters: JTT. By dangling a tween
dreamboat in front of impressionable elementary-school girls, ABC
managed to distract us from the fact that the entire show amounted to
little more than one of those “Men are like this, women are like that
jokes” that don’t flatter either gender. Still, Home Improvement was
wildly popular during its run, landing in the top ten for the first
six of its eight seasons and attracting nearly 20 million viewers a
week at its height.
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/4#post_body
Wings
Created by some of the folks who brought us Cheers, Wings was another
ensemble comedy about the lives and loves of adult characters.
Unfortunately, it only ended up proving that watching a TV show about
an airport is even more boring than actually have to navigate one in
real life. Somehow, the NBC series ran for eight seasons.
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/5#post_b
Dave’s World
As one of our co-workers noted, Dave’s World, which ran for four
seasons between 1993 and 1997, was basically Everybody Loves Raymond
version 1.0. Based on Dave Barry’s insufferably folksy, never funny
syndicated humor column for the Miami Herald, it starred Harry
Anderson as a newspaper writer and family man. His skirt-chasing
editor, Kenny, is supposed to serve as comic relief — but the only
thing that continues to make us laugh about the show are the terrible
hairstyles. Weren’t mullets over by the mid-’90s?
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/6#post_body
Coach
It may have been about a tough-minded football coach, but this ABC
series was no Friday Night Lights. The big joke for much of the show’s
run was that titular Coach Hayden Fox (Craig T. Nelson) couldn’t deal
with the burgeoning romantic life of his daughter, Kelly, a student at
the college where he worked. Another gag that got old quickly but
persisted throughout Coach‘s nine-season run: the endless goofiness of
Bill Fagerbakke’s Dauber Dybinski. Incredibly, Nelson won an Emmy in
1992 for his performance. These days, he’s keeping busy by appearing
on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show to rant about how he isn’t paying taxes
anymore. Watch a clip of the show in its heyday here.
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/7#post_body
Dharma and Greg
The limitations of this show were pretty clear from the get-go: Dharma
(Jenna Elfman) and Greg (Thomas Gibson) get married on their first
date. Of course, it turns out that they’re polar opposites — she’s a
ditzy hippie with no inhibitions, while he’s an uptight lawyer with
unlimited potential for embarrassment. For five seasons, four of which
saw the show attracting over 12 million viewers (to put that in
perspective, 30 Rock is lucky to get half that), the plot was pretty
much one variation on that theme after another. Meanwhile, Elfman
racked up three Emmy nominations for her performance as TV’s ultimate
Manic Pixie Dream Wife.
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/8#post_body
Clueless
This is not about Clueless the movie, which was wonderful. It’s about
the film’s writer/director, Amy Heckerling, having the nerve to make a
TV spin-off that didn’t star Alicia Silverstone. Poor Rachel Blanchard
tried her best, but there was never a chance that she’d match up to
the girl who made Cher Horowitz a household name. It’s true that the
supporting cast was largely the same as it had been in the film, but
they were also so old by the time the TV series went off the air that
they were pretty unbelievable as high schoolers — Stacey Dash, who
played Dionne, was 33.
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/9#post_body
Kenan and Kel
Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell were the breakout stars of All That,
Nickelodeon’s tween version of Saturday Night Live. They were great
improv comics (Thompson has since gone on to SNL), especially for such
young actors, creating memorable characters like the Good Burger guys
(who got their own disappointing movie in 1997) and Thompson’s Ishboo.
Unfortunately, their talents weren’t best suited to the sitcom format;
Kenan and Kel cast the guys as scheming high-school friends,
eliminating the possibility for wackier characters and the kinds of
over-the-top humor they both excelled at. Still, it ran for four
seasons from 1996-2000, lived on in re-runs for years, and is now back
on TeenNick as part of The ’90s Are All That.
http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible/10#post_body
Friends
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Friends was not a good
show — or, at the very least, it had no business running for ten
seasons. It all seemed harmless and zeitgeisty enough at first. Who
didn’t want to root for six young adults seeking love and success in
the big city? Who didn’t feel like it captured something about the way
our best buddies become our surrogate family in those fun, crazy,
often frustrating few years after college? But then it went on for too
long, exhausting its one-note characters with repetitive plot lines.
Case in point: All but one season ended with a Ross-and-Rachel
cliffhanger. Regardless, Friends was among the top five shows on TV
for all but its first season, and the actors were each taking in a
million dollars an episode by the time it wrapped. (If you still
aren’t convinced that Friends nostalgia is a bad idea, it may be time
to revisit “Smelly Cat.”)
David Johnston
> http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terrible
>
> 10:30 am Friday Jul 29, 2011 by Judy Berman
>
> made its way from the streets of Williamsburg to TV-network
> Butt-Head reboot, and its cult-favorite indie music show 120 Minutes
> publicized, late-night The �90s Are All That programming block debuted
> Monday to big ratings. From Seinfeld to Roseanne, there was no
> shortage of great TV in that decade. But, with the rise of great
> original programming on cable and premium networks, along with smart
> pretty sure that television is actually better now. Don�t believe us?
> With the help of our Flavorpill colleagues, we�ve put together a list
> of ten shows that were popular in the �90s but were actually terrible.
> Add your suggestions in the comments.
>
It could be synopsised with two words. "Sitcoms suck".
Ian J. Ball
David Johnston <Da...@block.net> wrote:
> On 7/29/2011 7:26 PM, TMC wrote:
> > http://flavorwire.com/197921/10-popular-90s-tv-shows-that-were-actually-terr
> > ible
> >
> > 10:30 am Friday Jul 29, 2011 by Judy Berman
> >
> > It�ｿｽs official: over the past few years, nostalgia for the �ｿｽ90s has
> > made its way from the streets of Williamsburg to TV-network
> > boardrooms. Last week, we previewed five minutes of MTV�ｿｽs Beavis and
> > Butt-Head reboot, and its cult-favorite indie music show 120 Minutes
> > returns Saturday night on MTV2. Meanwhile, TeenNick�ｿｽs widely
> > publicized, late-night The �ｿｽ90s Are All That programming block debuted
> > Monday to big ratings. From Seinfeld to Roseanne, there was no
> > shortage of great TV in that decade. But, with the rise of great
> > original programming on cable and premium networks, along with smart
> > comedies like the ones that fill NBC�ｿｽs Thursday-night line-up, we�ｿｽre
> > pretty sure that television is actually better now. Don�ｿｽt believe us?
> > With the help of our Flavorpill colleagues, we�ｿｽve put together a list
> > of ten shows that were popular in the �ｿｽ90s but were actually terrible.
> > Add your suggestions in the comments.
> >
>
> It could be synopsised with two words. "Sitcoms suck".
Well, the fact that they were *wrong* in this review certainly didn't
help - for instance, "Wings" (esp. the first few seasons) didn't belong
on this list at all.
--
"Am I a bird? No, I'm a bat. I'm Batman. Or am I? Yes, I am Batman."
- Abed as "Batman" on "Halloween", "Community", 10/29/09