Post by DanaShelbyChancey on Mar 14, 2021 23:18:16 GMT
13 Controversial TV Sitcoms:
01. IT'S YOUR MOVE (1984-1985) - This sitcom was doing okay until it changed its format for the final four episodes. NBC were receiving letters of complaint from parents saying their kids were copying the antics of the bratty Matthew character. Matthew wound up reforming for the final four episodes and the ratings fell and it was cancelled.
02. THE ROYAL BODYGUARD (Dec.2011– Jan 2012) - The series was heavily criticised by viewers and critics. A 71 year old David Jason was widely felt to be too old for the lead role. The prospect of seeing him 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. The plot’s entire premise was stupid and 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.
03. MARRIED WITH CHILDREN (1987-1997) - Dysfunctional families are a staple of television sitcoms. So Married… with Children was hardly revolutionary when it premiered on Fox in 1986. Over the years, however, the Bundy family wracked up its share of controversy due to the series’ sometimes overt sexual content.
04. BRIGHTON BELLES (1993/4) - A commercial and critical failure, being mauled by critics. It is included in a list of the twenty worst television series of all time. The US Golden Girls was already familiar to most British television watchers and people felt no reason to tune into a UK adaptation delivering the same lines. When an original piece is already nigh-on perfect, and has sated its public, why try to sell a replica? The Golden Girls was so globally popular and renowned that there's no way that a clone of it could do anything but pale in comparison.
05. SOAP (1977-1981) - A sitcom parodying daytime soap operas featuring storylines about alien abduction, demonic possession, extramarital affairs, a secret homosexual affair, an affair with a priest, an interracial couple, dementia, murder, attempted suicide, kidnapping, blackmail, unknown diseases, amnesia, cults, organized crime, a communist revolution, teacher-student relationships, a man who communicates mainly through his ventriloquist puppet and American TV's first recurring lesbian character. It was too much for some folks.
06. CAMPUS (Apr-May 2011) - When first broadcast many critics claimed it was too similar to Green Wing and that much of the humour was offensive. However, others praised the show's dark humour and surrealism. Campus was cancelled after one series due to poor TV ratings. Over the course of the first series (not including the pilot) the average ratings were 554,000 viewers per episode, or 2.99% of the total audience.
07. THE SECRET DIARY OF DESMOND PFEIFFER (1998) - A sitcom about the Abraham Lincoln administration and his butler, Desmond. Drew controversy before it even aired because of a rumor that the slated first episode made light of American slavery. That episode never aired and it had such bad ratings it barely lasted a month.
08. THE CROUCHES (2003-2005) - Not so much about controversy, more a show that was much ado about nothing. It was not well received by critics and only two series were made. Its ratings were moderate: it attracted an average of three million viewers.
09. WORK IT (2012-2013) - Two men get hired posing as women and must keep up the charade. Considered sexist, offensive, crude, horribly unfunny, stupid and awful, it was cancelled after two episodes.
10. TURN-ON (1969) As described by IMDb: "A multimedia presentation satirizing sex, politics, and everything else, splattered across the screen at blinding speed. One producer called it "A visual, comedic, sensory assault involving animation, videotape, stop-action film, electronic distortion, computer." It was inspired to piggyback on the success of Laugh-IN. The viewers were overcome by how offensive it was, and it was yanked after 1 episode.