5 Forgotten '80s Sitcoms That Still Hold Up Today

ABC

The 1980s were stacked with classic sitcoms. "Cheers," "Taxi," "The Golden Girls" and so many more had us pinned to our couches during primetime. Of course, there was also formulaic garbage like "Who's the Boss," "Full House" and "Growing Pains." This is always the state of play in television. But the quality-to-trash ratio was pretty favorable throughout the entire decade.

Nevertheless, there were many terrific '80s sitcoms that got axed before they had a chance to flourish. In most cases, they were flouting formula, which meant viewers had to adjust to different comedic rhythms. Audiences proved malleable with variety shows like "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," and "Saturday Night Live," but the sitcom structure was sacrosanct: set-up and punchline all the way to a tidy finale in 30 minutes. Every minor crisis got resolved with a closing laugh (unless it was "a very special episode"). Deviating too far from the norm was typically fatal.

The '80s sitcom graveyard is littered with coulda-been classics, most notably "Police Squad!," which died a quick death after six episodes, but later spawned the wildly successful "Naked Gun" franchise. Alas, there are others that were so unsuccessful and/or controversial that they're only streamable on YouTube via old VHS rips (if they're streamable at all). Here are five '80s sitcoms that undeservedly got a quick hook.

CBS

Martin Mull was a brilliant comedic performer whose television career got off to a promising start in the 1970s. He was a scream as the detestable Garth Gimble on Norman Lear's "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," which earned him a spinoff as his character's brother Barth Gimble on the influential talk show spoof "Fernwood 2 Night." The show was something of a lark, but got a second season as "America 2 Night." After that, it seemed to be only a matter of time before he got another network show.

It took six years after the end of "America 2 Night," but that opportunity finally arrived in 1984 with "Domestic Life." The show had a seemingly can't-miss pedigree with Steve Martin as a co-creator, but CBS lost confidence in it quickly when it got off to a rocky ratings start as a mid-season replacement. Mull starred as Martin Crane, a Seattle TV news commentator who — along with his wife, rebellious 15-year-old daughter, and business-whiz 10-year-old son — encounters a variety of stock sitcom complications. 

"Domestic Life" wasn't a parody per se, but, for 10 whole episodes, it was a hilarious vehicle for Mull's droll sensibility. Robert Ridgely was a delight as pompous anchorman Cliff Hamilton, and the series upended expectations at every turn. One of the best episodes found Mull scrambling to come up with $4,000 due for a balloon payment on his house, and being forced to ask his investor son for a loan. Mull plays the scene with an uproarious mix of flattery and outright shame. "Domestic Life" should've run for many seasons, but, despite critical acclaim, the ratings were never there.

CBS

When I watched the premiere of "Frank's Place" on CBS in 1987, I was simultaneously grateful that such an idiosyncratic sitcom could exist on network television and saddened that it was almost certainly destined for an early cancellation. The show reunited "WKRP in Cincinnati" creator Hugh Wilson with Tim Reid, who played DJ Venus Flytrap on the hit series, and was blessed with a nifty premise. Reid stars as Frank Parrish, a Boston college professor who's inherited a New Orleans restaurant. Frank wants to sell the restaurant, but is forced to stay on when one of the eatery's waitresses puts a voodoo curse on him. How will this erudite New Englander adjust to life in the Big Easy? On one level, this is basic fish-out-of-water stuff, but it goes places racially and culturally that no series dared to explore during that era.

Wilson adopted a single camera approach, and eschewed a laugh track. The latter threw a lot of viewers at the time, but, judging from solid Nielsen ratings over summer reruns, people were getting used to this approach. That's probably because the show was dripping with New Orleans atmosphere; it was every bit as lively and enchanting and delicious (oh, the food porn) as the city itself. Why was it canceled? According to Walter Kronkite, the legendary CBS newsman (who was a huge fan of the show), then-CBS CEO Laurence Tisch took offense to an episode that was critical of junk bonds (a major source of Tisch's wealth). 

Why isn't this beloved series available via streaming or physical media? Much like "WKRP in Cincinnati," the music licensing is crazy expensive, and soundalike zydeco would rob the show of its soul. So the blurry VHS rips on YouTube are, sadly, the best we're going to get.

NBC

Three years before they brought the mean-spirited "Married... with Children" to the upstart Fox network, Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye caused a caustic stir with the blithely nasty "It's Your Move." The show starred Jason Bateman as a conscienceless teenager who scams everyone in his orbit, but takes particular pleasure in torturing his neighbor (David Garrison), a struggling writer who commits the cardinal sin of dating Bateman's mother. The two quickly engage in a tit-for-tat battle intended to discredit each other, but, until the series veered away from this format, their petty battles always ended in a stalemate.

Bateman landed this leading role on the strength of his smarmy work as Ricky Schroeder's friend on the NBC sitcom "Silver Spoons." He's matched every step of the way by Garrison, who toes the line between decency and sheer malevolence. There wasn't a nastier sitcom on network television at the time, and that, in part, proved to be its undoing. NBC found itself inundated with letters from concerned parents, who were alarmed to see their children mimicking Bateman's corrupt/criminal behavior. Pair this with the show trying to compete in the same timeslot as ABC's popular nighttime soap "Dynasty," and NBC opted to cut bait. 

In the end, it worked out for everyone: Bateman smoothly segued from slappable kid to flustered adult (shining in "Arrested Development"), while Garrison turned into a confidante for Ed O'Neil's Al Bundy on "Married... with Children." But "It's Your Move" was a sharp (perhaps unintentional) satire of the greed-driven Reagan era. The characters on this show are either naive dopes or venal predators.

ABC

For five weeks in the spring of 1982, ABC burned off episodes of a sitcom that must've melted the brains of people who stumbled across it in a crowded time slot. Created in part by Michael Jacobs, a sitcom machine who would reach high highs with "Dinosaurs" and deep lows with "Boy Meets World," "No Soap, Radio" aimed to turn an inside-baseball comedy non-sequitur (on par with "The Aristocrats") into a successful sitcom. Had it debuted on HBO, it might've become a sustainable critical sensation. As a network series, it was dead on arrival.

The very loose premise of the show revolved around Steve Guttenberg as a manager of a failing Atlantic City hotel. These segments present the series as a slamming-door farce a la "Fawlty Towers," but it detours into absurd bits that, like its title, have nothing to do with whatever threadbare narrative it's trying to advance. People have compared the show to "Monty Python's Flying Circus," but it's clearly inspired by "Kentucky Fried Movie." The intermittent news breaks are straight out of the chaotic David Zucker-Jim Abrahams-Jerry Zucker classic. I'd love to talk to the creators of this show, because I simply don't understand how it was greenlit in 1982. "No Soap, Radio" is a shotgun spray of silliness. As a late-night show, devoid of the Guttenberg anchor and with a better recurring cast, it could've been a sensation. Instead, it's a fun little show that couldn't.

ABC

When Clint Eastwood's "Dirty Harry" film series sunk to a vile level of self-parody with the putrid "Sudden Impact," the conditions were perfect for a straight-up, ZAZ-type spoof of the star's judge-jury-executioner shenanigans. Comedy wunderkind Alan Spencer, who broke into the industry at the age of 15 as a joke writer, delivered the goofy goods in 1986 with the splendidly silly "Sledge Hammer!" The series starred David Rasche (Karl Muller from "Succession") as a trigger-happy San Francisco cop who's carrying on a near-relationship with his .44 Magnum. He sleeps with the gun (which rests on a satin pillow"), showers with it, and talks to it. Unlike Dirty Harry, Sledge Hammer is generally an affable guy, who, despite his extrajudicial bent, is liked by his partner Detective Dori Doreau (Anne-Marie Martin). He drives his supervisor Captain Trunk (Harrison Page) nuts, but typically gets the job done — albeit messily at times.

"Sledge Hammer" received mostly positive reviews and initially posted solid ratings. This changed when ABC began moving it around the schedule. When the show's numbers plummeted, ABC placed "Sledge Hammer!" squarely on the chopping block. Knowing they were doomed, Spencer and his writers ended the series finale with Hammer botching the disarming of a nuclear warhead, thus leading to the destruction of San Francisco. Amusingly, this episode did surprisingly well in the ratings, so ABC greenlit a second season (set five years in the past). The network promptly did "Sledge Hammer!" dirty by pitting it against "The Cosby Show." This was the end, but unlike the other shows on this list, you can currently stream "Sledge Hammer!" on Prime Video (it also received a physical media release). It's still a riot 40 years later.