Hot L Baltimore, When Things Were Rotten, Get a Life, I remember all of those and agree, they did not get the respect they deserved. However, I would also add Sledge Hammer to that list. Then again, I kind of liked **Mr. Belvedere ** so what the hell do I know ?
**WKRP ** gets my vote. I read the same thing about the music copyrights, so it’s not being aired anymore.
“As God is my witness I thought turkey’s could fly.”
The best reaction shots of any actor, ever.
Wings was great.
What about Max Headroom. I loved that show.
Although many great shows are listed here (WKRP, Green Acres, Max Headroom, etc.) I have to weigh in with my $.02:
Best show (of any genre) ever on TV: Barney Miller
Most under-appreciated sitcom: Parker Lewis Can’t Lose
IMO Barney, WKRP and many others can’t compete as a response to the OP… they enjoyed many seasons on the air and many more in syndication. PLCL was only on for a couple of years, had almost no audience, and hasn’t been seen by anyone in years, either in syndication or on a DVD release. And it was damn funny.
Unfortunately, no. Not yet. Keep your fingers crossed, tho. Studios have finally figured out that the public will pay to watch their favorite shows from yesteryear, and DVD sales of past TV hits is now a huge percentage of total DVD sales.
Syncronize swatches!
I’d definitely buy Parker Louis and Police Squad on DVD.
Yep, that’s what I was going to say. Absolutely hilarious.
I think it’s coming out on DVD pretty soon.
Wings and WKRP are at the top of my list. Count me as one of those people who absolutely* loathes*** Malcolm**. And FYI, **Police Squad! ** was never cancelled. They only made 6 episodes because it was designed as a limited-run series. There were never supposed to be any more than 6.
WKRP was quite popular at the time – I don’t think we can call it underrated.
I’ll throw in another vote for Wings, which was a pretty damn funny show.
Men Behaving Badly (US Version). Ron Eldard, Rob Schneider, Justin Bateman…
I thought it was extremely funny. Of course, if you hate Rob Schneider, you probably wouldn’t like it. 
The first two seasons of NewsRadio are out on DVD and have been for some time now.
For myself, I’ll say Nikki Cox vehicle Unhappily Ever After, at least in the last season or two. Very funny, absurd humor. I saw a few episodes from the first season later on and they didn’t have the same style at all and were generally unfunny.
–Cliffy
Darn you, Cliffy! I was just about to add Unhappily Ever After!
The show was originally supposed to be about the mother, as a counterpart to the father being the center of Married with Children. When she and everybody else finally realized that nobody tuned in to see her and everybody wanted to see more of Nikki Cox (in several senses) she stalked off the show in a huff and the show improved tremendously. The writing turned into solid satire and Nikki Cox could outact the panties off the bimbos they threw up against her as foils. Even if it does mean you have to live with the thought of Bobcat Goldthwait taking off her panties after they hooked up for real as a result fo the show. (The Bobcat was the voice of the stuffed bunny the father had converations with. Weird stuff.)
I’ve got to toss in two much earlier shows.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is totally underappreciated. First, Max Shulman as writer/creator did the best dialog on television at the time. I’ll bet the scripts for that show were twice as long as those for Donna Reed or Father Knows Best. Everybody talked a lot, talked funny, and talked in ways that enhanced their characters. And what characters. Dobie himself, his father always muttering “I gotta kill that boy” - in the 1950s[!], Maynard G. Krebs (the G standing for Walter), Zelda Gilroy, Chatsworth Osborne Jr. and his mother, Mr. Pomfrit, the best-characterized teacher ever on television. In some ways, he and they were all too good, because they typecast themselves out of future roles. Only about two of the four seasons were top-notch, but at its best it was like nothing else on television.
The Monkees was the Son of Dobie. Dobie was the first tv show to have parents out of control of their kids; The Monkees was the first show not to have adult authority figures at all. The humor got better after the clichés of the first half-season, and much of it holds up surprisingly well today. And how can anyone not want to watch the music videos evolve into ones as sophisticated as anything on early MTV?
Well, the music copyrights have prevented WKRP from being released onto DVD, but I doubt that they have anything to do with its current lack of airtime. If anything, I suspect that a mere four-season show like WKRP simply has limited syndication appeal.
Speaking of which, Bailey was smokin’ hot.
I think “Married With Children” was actually overrated, but looking at the quotes deom IMDB there was some damn funny lines. Maybe I personally underrated it.
I love that type of joke.
I still think that Undeclared and Andy Richter Controls the Universe never got their dues from Fox. At least Undeclared is on it way to dvd.
Many fine shows have been mentioned.
Barney Miller was just great. Wonderful cast.
Night Court was of the same general time and is much overlooked.
(Ah! Miss Sullivan!)
The Nanny is rarely mentioned, but I suspect it will be rediscovered and shown to the equal of I Love Lucy due to its strong cast.
News Radio and Married with Children were very nice, but were not ‘underrated.’
WKRP had a good cast, but the writing was not quite up to it. (‘As God is my witness, I thought Turkeys could fly’ may be the finest comedic line in American TV though.)
I’ve seen this claim several times, and it doesn’t jibe with what I remember, or apparentlywhat some others remember
Sports Night
I’m still bitter over its cancellation.
My top choices have all been mentioned, so I’ll go with the almost forgotten One Day at a Time. What I liked about this show was that the main character (Ann Romano) was a divorced mom who didn’t look like a fashion plate, her kids had real problems (especially Julie, who of course was played by McKenzie Phillips who was having [to quote Jesus Jones] real real real problems off camera) and some of the episodes were genuinely funny (Barbara [Valerie Bertinelli] and her nebbish boyfriend running away together and the cop pulling the covers from them in a cheap motel to find them both fully clothed).
Does anybody remember a surreal show from the early 80s called No Soap, Radio? I used to find that one hysterical, but haven’t seen it in a quarter-century so I may be wrong.
I was also a big fan of the TV series Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I remember being impressed by the fact that they not only used the same history textbook I used in school, but it was beaten up like a real textbook, and Ray Walston’s semi-sadistic Mr. Hand was a blast.)