The Love Boat was a very light feel good comedy that families watched Saturday nights but when you think about it the show was a total Boink-fest. Almost every body ended up in bed. Remember the John Ritter episode, Oh Dale, Oh Dale, Oh…Dale…!!!
An episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show had Buddy mysteriously disappearing regularly. It turned out that he was taking Bar Mitzvah lessons because he’d missed it as a kid and didn’t say anything so that the office jokers wouldn’t rag him. There’s no question that earlier in the episode the rest of the cast was worried that he was cheating on Pickles. Again, I don’t think they ever said the word, but no adult would have had any trouble figuring it out.
A lot of early sitcoms dealt at least tangentially with real issues, although they didn’t make a big deal of “controversy.” Let’s recap.
The Danny Thomas Show had a parent tell his kids their mother had died. Later episodes had him getting back into the dating pool, and eventually, his teenage daughter’s resentment over having a new woman in her father’s life.
The Dick Van Dyke Show had cast members worried that one of them was having an affair. Also, at one point in the show, Jerry admitted to Rob that he and Millie were seeing a marriage counselor.
Leave It to Beaver (of all shows!) had an episode with Beaver being duped into giving brandy to an alcoholic. Wally defended his brother by pointing out that his parents had danced around the issue so much that Beaver couldn’t possibly know what the man’s real problem was.
I Love Lucy not only didn’t make a big deal out of Lucy’s being married to a Hispanic (she even made fun of his accent at times) but worked Lucille Ball’s pregnancy into the script.
The Goldbergs, I Remember Mama, Life with Luigi, Amos and Andy (and I’m sure I’ve forgotten some) positively reveled in the characters’ ethnicity, while reinforcing the groups’ all-American aspirations.
Of course, anyone who’s ever watched The Honeymooners knows the undertone of Ralph’s dreams of escaping his working-class existence constantly being crushed.
Not technically a sitcom, but a kid’s show, look at this summary from a first season episode of The Adventures of Superman.
Pretty heavy stuff for a kid’s show.
There were a LOT of undertones in early sitcoms.