The Most Hated Sitcoms In TV History
You can't please everyone, but the sitcoms on this list really had a lot of haters, including spinoffs centered around subpar characters to wild premises that would barely make a good one-liner, let alone a TV series. In the process, a lot of stars and otherwise talented writers and producers have gotten caught up in their quest for glory...and nearly had their careers ruined in the process.
AfterMASH
M*A*S*H was a beloved, long-running sitcom that transcended its genre to provide audiences with one of the most thoughtful and nuanced portrayals of the human experience and desire for connection that’s ever graced TV screens. Then there was AfterMASH, showing us the post-war experiences of Colonel Potter, Sergeant Klinger, and Father Mulcahy.
Despite the familiar characters, it just didn’t strike the right tone, and it was criticized for not just being a bad sitcom—but a terrible idea altogether.
Family Guy
Who else remembers when Family Guy—the well-written, clever, and biting cartoon sitcom—was canceled after three seasons? Fans flocked to DVDs and late-night reruns on Adult Swim, which proved its worth to Fox, who brought it back in 2004. It was the first revival of a canceled show based on DVD sales. Well, we all should’ve been careful what we wished for.
In the 19 seasons since, former fans—and current haters—have complained about unfunny jokes and formulaic storylines.
Dads
Fox has thrown a lot of money at Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane over the years—but the results have varied. People really hated his 2013 sitcom Dads, starring Martin Mull and Seth Green. Fox attempted to capitalize on this by including lines from bad reviews in their show promo, but it didn’t work.
Homeboys In Outer Space
It sounds like a show that might’ve been mentioned as a throwaway joke on 30 Rock, but Homeboys in Outer Space was all too real. The 1996-1997 UPN sitcom was set in the 23rd century and featured two Black astronauts who fly through space in their “Space Hoopty”. Somehow, it made it to 21 whole episodes.
Touchstone, Homeboys in Outer Space (1996-1997)
Mulaney
Back around the cusp of the 2000s and 2010s, John Mulaney had everything going for him. He was a staff writer on Saturday Night Live—but it was his two stand-up specials for Comedy Central, The Top Part and New In Town, which really drew the attention of comedy fans. Given the quality of those specials and his love for classic TV sitcoms, the anticipation around his own scripted show, Mulaney, was high—to say nothing of the all-star cast. And then it aired.
Instead of showcasing new jokes, the first episode felt like a rehash of material from New In Town. And the episodes that followed didn’t exactly land, either. Ultimately, it was canceled after one season.
Buddies
As Mulaney proved, even the most beloved stand-up comedians can find it hard to get a sitcom off the ground—and as Buddies proved, even pairing up can’t prevent a flop. In 1995, Dave Chapelle and Jim Breuer appeared on Home Improvement as guests on the in-series Tool Time show. The bit was such a hit it spurred demand for a show starring the pair, who were friends in real life.
Unfortunately, Breuer was replaced—and the chemistry just wasn’t there. It only aired for five episodes before it was yanked.
The Big Bang Theory
How does a show that ran for 12 seasons with millions of viewers end up on this list? Well, in the case of The Big Bang Theory, the vocal haters seemed to outnumber the actual fans—even if all the “Bazinga!” merch hoped to prove otherwise.
A possible cause? The show wasn’t actually that bad in early seasons, but the jokes quickly got driven into the ground, and the archetypes became stale real fast.
CBS, The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019)
1600 Pen
Perhaps hoping to follow in the wake of the runaway success of The West Wing, NBC launched a sitcom in 2012 about a dysfunctional family living in the White House. The critics absolutely eviscerated it and it was canceled after 13 episodes.
Why was it so bad? Here’s a hint: Co-created by and starring Josh Gad.
Clerks
The 1994 comedy movie Clerks was a runaway hit and a breakthrough for director and star Kevin Smith. Hoping to capitalize on that popularity, Touchstone Pictures rushed to put together a sitcom based on the film—but they missed on some key elements. Or, well, all key elements.
The resulting sitcom didn’t have any of the original film’s characters, had cleaned up the language and risqué content of the jokes, and didn’t even feature Smith’s signature character, Silent Bob. Unsurprising, it didn’t make it past the pilot stage.
Touchstone, Clerks: The Animated Series (200-2002)
Co-Ed Fever
Speaking of failed attempts to make a series out of iconic comedy films, Co-Ed Fever was CBS’s bid to replicate the success of National Lampoon’s Animal House. They weren’t the only ones, as NBC tried one called Brothers and Sisters, and ABC had its Delta House. However, Co-Ed Fever was the only one that got canceled after one episode.
That 80s Show
That 70s Show was a runaway hit—the kind that made TV execs wonder, “How can I profit off this instead of coming up with something new?” And thus, That 80s Show was born.
Though it included some very funny people—we’re looking at you, future It’s Always Sunny stars Glenn Howerton and Brittany Daniel—it just wasn’t as funny or charming as its predecessor, and it was canceled after one season.
Daddy’s Girls
This 1994 CBS sitcom starring Dudley Moore had a remarkable first—it was the first series to have a gay principal character played by an openly gay actor, with Harvey Fierstein playing one of Moore’s character’s employees. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the only thing the show, about a newly single father of three girls, had going for it. Sadly, critics targeted Moore’s acting, and the show was canceled after three episodes.
Later, Moore revealed he’d been suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, which would have affected his performance.
2 Broke Girls
In the wake of hits like Arrested Development and The Office, which exemplified absurdist humor and cringe comedy, respectively, people didn’t really know what to do when 2 Broke Girls came out. It hewed closer to a classic sitcom format, which for some, was a breath of fresh air—but in other ways, it hewed a little too close to some old-fashioned ideas.
Namely, it was criticized for the prevalence of racial stereotypes and sleazy double entendres it used instead of actual jokes.
CBS, 2 Broke Girls (2011-2017)
Delilah
Few Americans know it, but our neighbors to the north in Canada are required by law to have a certain percentage of homegrown content on their screens—and when the regulations concerning this came into effect, TV stations scrambled to get something, anything Canadian on the air. As a result, the Canadian Broadcasting Company created their first prime-time sitcom, Delilah.
It was so poorly received that it was canceled after one season—a rare occurrence in that era, considering the regulations.
Kath & Kim
Networks have made it a habit to adapt shows popular outside the US for a US audience—and for every success, there’s probably five failures. Kath & Kim is a prime example of this phenomenon. In the wake of the success of the US The Office, NBC decided to adapt the beloved Australian show of the same name.
They banked on the casting of Molly Shannon and Selma Blair in the title roles, but the show crashed and burned. Despite the talent involved, fans of the OG criticized the casting and the change in tone.
Emily’s Reasons Why Not
In 2006, ABC knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had their next hit on their hands. They’d bought the rights to the hit 2004 novel Emily’s Reasons Why Not and had enlisted starlet Heather Graham to play the lead in the TV adaptation. They spent millions on ads. And then, after the first episode aired, they canceled it.
The show felt like a watered-down ripoff of Sex & The City, and the reviews and lack of viewers reflected it.
ABC, Emily's Reasons Why Not (2006)
New Monkees
In the desperate search for a concept that would work in the mid-80s, TV execs looked to the past for inspiration. With fanfare over the 20th anniversary of the hit show The Monkees, they came up with the idea to put together a new band and put them on TV. So this one was not only a sitcom failure, but a musical one as well.
Friends
Yes, it’s one of the most successful, iconic, and long-running sitcoms of all time. And in the 1990s, it was inescapable—which was part of the problem. When it was on, Friends launched what felt like thousands of imitators (most of which failed). And once it was done, no one wanted to watch a show with the same format, essentially changing the face of sitcoms forever.
It was basically chic in those last few seasons and following the finale to hate on Friends—but as the years go on, the cynicism surrounding that era has started to finally fade.
The Flying Nun
Now considered a running joke about 60s sitcoms with bizarre premises, this sitcom starring Sally Field most certainly did not leave her telling the critics, “You like me…you really like me!” Despite being panned in reviews, it stayed on the air for three seasons.
ABC, The Flying Nun (1967-1970)
We Are Men
The brains of network executives—will they ever cease to amaze? The premise of 2013’s We Are Men was alarmingly simple: Sex & The City for men. As you can imagine, it was an abject failure and an embarrassment for everyone involved, yet the executive who greenlit it probably still got a Christmas bonus more than your salary that year.
Fred: The Show
The only sitcom premise more doomed for failure than one based on a film? How about one based on a YouTube skit? Fred: The Show aired in 2012 and was based on the wildly popular Fred Figglehorn character created by Lucas Cruikshank. The success did not translate to network TV and the show has one of the lowest IMDB ratings out there.
Nickelodeon, Fred: The Show (2012)
Cavemen
Unfortunately for those poor souls involved who just wanted to make a paycheck, Cavemen was doomed from the start. No one had any interest in watching a sitcom based off of a series of insurance commercials, and whoever it was at ABC that thought otherwise that should probably have examined for signs of psychopathy.
It did provide an early role for Big Mouth-star Nick Kroll, at least!
Baby Bob
Cavemen is probably the most infamous series to borrow its characters from a series of commercials—but before Cavemen, there was Baby Bob, based on ads for FreeInternet.com, an early internet provider. It was about a talking baby, but what’s even more surprising was its absolutely stacked cast. It starred Joely Fisher, Adam Arkin, Holland Taylor, and Elliott Gould.
Probably based on those names alone, it made it to a second season before finally being yanked off the air.
Baby Talk
Baby Bob wasn’t the only talking baby sitcom to disgrace America’s TV screens. In the 90s, ABC gave the premise a shot and had the baby voiced by then-sitcom sensation Tony Danza. No one wanted to act on it, with one main cast member leaving after the first season, and even fewer people wanted to watch it.
The Office
When it first came on the air, the US version of The Office felt fresh, ground-breaking, and above all, hilarious. Then we got the DVDs, and Netflix got the streaming rights, and the memes populated the internet, and of course, the merch. It was the era of “Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica,” and the appreciation for The Office hit a tipping point.
It was oversaturated and inescapable. And that’s when former fans joined the leagues of the haters. It’s hard to enjoy something when you’ve heard every joke driven into the ground—and those later seasons with James Spader and the cameraman drama didn’t help much.
Bottle Boys
Most comedy fans will tell you that British sitcoms outdo their American counterparts any day. But they can’t all be The Office UK or Absolutely Fabulous. The ITV series Bottle Boys is generally regarded as the worst British sitcom of all time. The series followed the lascivious adventures of a randy milk man named Steve. Yup, sounds pretty bad.
Ferris Bueller
We could fill a whole list of times that network TV tried to adapt a beloved film and failed horribly—but instead, we’ll just make an example out of Ferris Bueller, which attempted to capitalize on the popularity of the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Whoever thought that that lightning in a bottle could be captured without the charm of its original cast was misguided, to say the least.
Attempting to replace the unforgettable Matthew Broderick with the smarmy Charlie Schlatter was the first of many mistakes.
NBC, Ferris Bueller (1990-1991)
Hank
After the success of Frasier, Kelsey Grammer starred in a veritable hat trick of stinkers. First was the failed US adaptation of the British The Sketch Show, and then the Fox sitcom Back To You, both of which were quickly canceled. His third try was ABC’s Hank, which only made it to five episodes. The premise sounds like something ripped out of a Hallmark Christmas movie—a Wall Street exec who moves back to his small hometown.
As Grammer himself put it, "Honestly, it just wasn't very funny”.
The Paul Reiser Show
It can be hard for a former sitcom star to find his niche, and many come crawling back to the genre after the memories of their previous time on network TV fade. In 2011, Paul Reiser returned to NBC with his namesake sitcom, but it didn’t quite work out as planned. Critics called it a warmed-over imitation of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and it was canceled after two episodes.
NBC, The Paul Reiser Show (2011)
The Trouble With Larry
After the success of Perfect Strangers, Bronson Pinchot returned to TV screens as the titular Larry—with a premise that sounds like a joke on The Simpsons. At the start of the show, his character has just found his way home after being carried away by baboons while on his honeymoon.
Critics didn’t just hate the show—they actively wondered if the execs who’d put it on TV were suffering from a mental break or carbon monoxide poisoning.
CBS, The Trouble with Larry (1993)
One Of The Boys
Imagine a show that featured comedy greats from multiple generations, including Mickey Rooney, Scatman Crothers, Nathan Lane, and Dana Carvey. What could go wrong? Well, everything. This 1982 NBC sitcom was universally hated and derided for wasting the talents of its stars.
My Mother The Car
If you’re of a certain age, there are a lot of things you might have internalized from watching The Simpsons, only to realize those jokes were referencing real life. And for many of us, it was how we learned about the absurd existence of My Mother The Car. “The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase” features a parody of that sitcom, where the ghost of Abe Simpson inhabits the Love Tester machine at Moe’s.
In My Mother The Car, Jerry Van Dyke buys a used car which is the vessel for the spirit of his deceased mother. In case that wasn’t clear from the title. The show ran on NBC for one season in the mid 1960s.
NBC, My Mother the Car (1965-1966)
Hello, Larry
When McLean Stevenson left M*A*S*H after the third season, many had high hopes for his next project. Unfortunately, his starring vehicle Hello, Larry didn’t quite match up to the success of his last project. In the series, Stevenson played a radio host raising two teen daughters. Not only was the show ridiculed, but so was Stevenson’s choice to leave a beloved sitcom to strike out on his own.
The Tammy Grimes Show
In the 60s, The Tammy Grimes Show got attention for all the wrong reasons. When it didn’t quite perform up to network standards, it was canceled after four episodes. Of course, that’s par for the course now, but at the time, it was nearly unheard of to cancel a show before the end of its first season.
ABC, The Tammy Grimes Show (1966)
The Help
The Help was a relative hit for the struggling WB when it first aired—but it quickly shed viewers until it was canceled after seven episodes. The show centered around a young woman who takes over her mother’s job as the “help” for a rich family, and featured a young Megan Fox—but ultimately, critics hated everything about it, from the cast to the writing to the premise.
The Tortellis
Cheers is one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time, and launched another of the most beloved sitcoms, Frasier, as a spin-off. But before that show’s success, there was Cheers’ other spin-off, The Tortellis. The characters were familiar to fans—Carla’s ex-husband, the sleazy Nick Tortelli, played by Dan Hedaya, and his new wife, Loretta, played by Jean Kasem.
When these characters made their occasional appearances on Cheers, it was a delight. But left to their own devices…it wasn’t the same. They couldn’t carry the show on their own and it was canceled in 1987.
The Ropers
In another edition of “spinoffs no one asked for,” The Ropers followed the landlords from Three’s Company home, to disappointing results. It only lasted for one season.
Saved By The Bell: The New Class
High school-set TV shows have an inevitable expiration date—and when graduation looms, show creators are often faced with a conundrum. Follow them to college, like Beverly Hills, 90210, or sprinkle in new cast members, like Degrassi: The Next Generation? Well, Saved by the Bell tried to split the difference.
There was Saved by the Bell: The College Years, and then The New Class. Neither did well, but people really hated The New Class, which recycled plot lines from the OG series and couldn’t keep cast members. Despite this, it ran for a whopping seven seasons.
NBC, Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1993-2000)
All That Glitters
In the sitcom world, Norman Lear is a veritable legend. Lear was the creator of classics like All in the Family, Maude, Sanford and Son, and The Jeffersons. But everybody makes mistakes…even Norman Lear. Lear’s parody of soap operas, All That Glitters, came out in 1977, and had a fun twist—a gender-flip role reversal where women held all the power.
Well, people hated it, lambasting it for relying on tired stereotypes and having a premise that couldn’t hold up a whole series.
Tandem, All That Glitters (1977)
She’s The Sheriff
If there’s a sitcom Hall of Fame, Suzanne Somers definitely has her portrait there, after starring roles in Three’s Company and Step by Step. But in between those two, she had a forgotten flop: She’s the Sheriff, where she played, you guessed it, a sheriff.
Lorimar, She's the Sheriff (1987-1989)
Out Of This World
From the very beginning, Out of This World had two strikes against it. It aired at 7:30pm and rotated with other shows in an experiment meant to lure viewers from the game shows that normally aired at that time. Also, it was about a teen girl who discovered she’s half-alien. Unsurprisingly, neither of these gambles paid off.
MCA, Out of This World (1987-1991)
Small Wonder
Similar to the cockamamie premise of other syndicated 80s failure Out of This World, Small Wonder centered on a teen girl who was actually a robot. Add in a low budget, and it was basically destined to fail.
Metromedia, Small Wonder (1985-1989)
Hitz
In another case of the wave of “network tries to make stand-up comedian into a sitcom star” that followed the success of Seinfeld, the Diceman, AKA Andrew Dice Clay, starred in not one but two failed sitcoms in the early 90s. The First, Bless This House, aired on CBS, while the second, the record-industry set Hitz, aired on UPN.
Public Morals
We’ve seen remakes, adaptations, and spinoffs all bite it on this list—but how about a comedy from NYPD Blue creator Stephen Bochco which also borrowed a character from the hit drama? Public Morals was a sitcom about an NYC vice squad, and it bombed from the very beginning. Luckily, they let Bill Brochtrup’s character John Irvin return to NYPD Blue after it went off the air.
Rob/Real Rob
Rob Schneider might have had a couple funny moments at some point in the 1990s, but by the 2010s, he wasn’t beating the “riding on Adam Sandler’s coattails” allegations. There were two attempts to bring his unfunny face to screens that decade. First, CBS’s Rob in 2012, and later, Netflix’s Real Rob in 2015. Both were brutal in completely different ways.
We Got It Made
Yet another attempt by NBC to start prime time at 7:30pm, this doomed to fail sitcom was about a maid who worked for two bachelors. It managed to last two seasons, but has been mostly forgotten since.
NBC, We Got It Made (1983-1988)
Work It
What kind of show gets canceled after only two episodes? Work It, that’s what kind of show. The 2012 ABC show is described as a “cross-dressing sitcom”. What exactly does that mean? Well, its plot centers around two men who must dress as women in order to “get ahead” during difficult financial times.
Yeah, the reception was so bad that it was nearly immediately yanked. And perhaps the most confusing part? It wasn't even the worst show on ABC that year.
Man Up!
Work It was a mid-season replacement that found its time slot in the wake of the cancellation of Man Up!, another ABC sitcom which was laden with stereotypes and clichés about so-called “tough guys” and masculinity. One critic for TV Guide even called it “An insult to all genders".
