Oooh… Nazis, reminds me of** Hogan’s Heroes**.
Also, I HATED Saved By The Bell!
You’ll get no argument about that, I’m thinking.
As for the quality of “The Suite Life…” shows, upon reflection it really isn’t fair to call them sitcoms, since they’re aimed at Disney’s audience of children. London Tipton’s over the top airheadedness and slapstick humor is ok because that’s what kids like.
I used to watch sitcoms and finally just got tired of them as they all seemed to be reruns of the Honeymooners or I Love Lucy (same plots, different characters). That was some 25 years ago. I still only see any sitcoms very occasionally and generally am still of the opinion that they are pretty dumb. 2 1/2 Men - horrible. And the worst part to me was the damn laugh track which would be fired off any time anyone on the entire show opened their mouth. I was like “Wow, I have to be told when to laugh”. Not that none of the jokes are entertaining. It is more like I got so overrun on then as a child and teenager that I can only watch sitcoms in very small doses before the stupid starts to get to me. I don’t find stupidity particularly funny.
I’m not going to pretend that any of these shows are bad, but I did (or do) find them infuriating for one reason or another. There are a hundred terrible cookie cutter sitcoms, dramas, and procedurals out there that are all much worse simply for there lack of originality than any I’ll mention.
Frasier - A solid 33% of the episodes were absolutley brilliant. Terrific build to a sidesplitting finale. The problem is, there was a bottom 33% that I found completely pointless and unfunny. The middle third is just average. What makes it especially infuriating is simply how great the top third was and it’s comparison to the bottom third is especially stark.
The Mentalist - I watch it every week but the case that needs to be solved is predictable even for a police procedural. Luckily I like the characters enough to stick with it every week. I like Psych much better.
Yes, Dear - alright fine, wholly unoriginal but the characters had a certain chemistry that I liked. My problem is that Jerry van Dyke would show up on occasion and I would be reminded at how much I absolutely love that man. Maybe he didn’t want to be a full cast-member but couldn’t the producers give him a godfather offer? Anyhow my infuriation comes from the fact that I’d love the episodes he’d be in and they would instantly be elivated from average to pretty decent.
Glad somebody else hated Gilligan’s Island. I hate that show.
3rd Rock? Are you sure you didn’t mean to type 30 Rock instead? 3rd Rock was quite funny, at least up until the last season. 30 Rock is unwatchable dreck.
I think the poster upthread who said this would be better titled “Popular sitcoms that you personally don’t like” had it right. I haven’t read through the whole thread but after the first page I got to thinking those that responded don’t like sitcoms in general. On the other side of the coin, I’ll watch most any sitcom, though often they just serve as background noise while I’m doing something else.
A few that I will absolutely not watch are
The Nanny
Three’s Company
Full House
Sanford and Son
Wow, talk about being a thorough Jerry van Dyke fan. 
Allow me to reiterate Leave it to Beaver. There should be much more hate for that boring, doubleplusunfunny pile of crap.
Well, yeah…but Tony Dow was DREAMY!
Many will disagree with me, and it does require a disclaimer, but…
Designing Women- The show makes for some great YouTube clips: Julia’s ass&scenery chewing rants, Suzanne’s vapid rants, Alice Ghostley’s “Black man! Black man!” and other off-the-wall moments, but the truth is that these moments were few and far between, then left completely with Delta Burke and Jean Smart. Most of the show was completely forgettable paint-by-the-numbers stuff about a group of snobby women who didn’t seem to do anything but sit on a sofa bitching and playing with their pet black guy and their pet senile woman. It hasn’t aged well at all, partly because it was shot on film I think. (Video just ages better for sitcoms.)
There have been several threads about TV houses that don’t make sense, but there’s kind of a weird correlation between the logic of the set design and how well the show ages. Designing Women also had one of the worst sets in history. It doesn’t make any kind of logical sense- we know Julia lives upstairs, though where upstairs is a bit of a mystery since the staircase goes up a wall and then has a long balcony that’s completely exposed to the single room of the first floor- maybe she throws out a sleeping bag on the balcony each night. The design firm has no offices, just one great big room with a couple of small desks- where does any work get done? Don’t they have to consult with clients, draw out plans, make orders, etc.? And then of course it doesn’t have jack to do with the house used for the outside shots.
Murphy Brown was a show I loved at the time but it has aged terribly due to a combo of the aforementioned shot-on-film datedness and the fact that every single episode is grounded in Bush 1/Clinton era references.
Did a bit of googling, that’s pretty funny. Seems like the guy has good instincts (at least in my most humble opinion, anyhow).
From the UK:
2.4 Children
Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps
Keeping Up Appearances
All of these were just awful, but pretty successful.
Another British sitcom that bears mentioning is “My Family”.
It’s just like those insincere mass-produced American sitcoms, what with its large team of writers and low quality standards
Only the new stuff - not the stuff with Charlie
The Mentalist is not a sitcom. Though I am trying to imagine a sitcom where the protaginist causes his wife and daughter to be brutally murdered. **Psych **is probably closer to a sitcom than a drama.
My bad, slipped my mind while reading the thread.
iCarly is the source of one of my current favorite quotes, from Sam as Carly was passing by the couch:
“I’m soooo hunnnngryyyyyy!!”
“So go get something to eat.”
“I’m soooo laaaazzyyyyyyy!!”
Man, which to pick? There are so many. Tons of sitcoms are just schedule placeholders, with barely anything to distinguish them from one another. Here I’m thinking of things like Family Matters, Valerie, Growing Pains, Family Ties, According to Jim, Yes, Dear, Still Standing, and so forth. I think people watch them because there really aren’t that many other sitcoms anymore, and if you don’t like reality shows or cop dramas, According to Jim is about all that’s left.
But for real badness, you gotta cross the line from “dull” to actually “annoying”. And for that reason, my vote goes to The Nanny.
Hey! Get Fish off that list!
Saw this and thought of this thread (and others):
Yeah, about that. I have bit my tongue on this show harder than I have on The Wire. I am going to let out.
I’m not a nerd (not for lack of wishing) but I know enough bona fide, asperger having, autism spectrum dwelling, math majoring, telescope polishing Poindexters who hate this show to feel comfortable saying that one doesn’t have to be a non-nerd to think this show sucks. When I first saw it, having heard that it was a show for smart people, I thought it was going to be a smart, witty show that bucked the corny formula that most laugh tracky sitcoms lean on. Wrong. It is just another sitcom that happens to use a lot of sciency humor. The actual quality of the show is just as bad as Two and a Half Men, though. I gave it plenty of chances, asking friends much smarter than me if there is some subtext to the show that I need to hover a cursor over like a cryptic xkcd comic, but no. Turns out the show is just not very sharp or funny and the only thing ‘nerdy’ about it is the fact that the weak writers simply write ‘jokes’ about nerdy topics…the actual show isn’t wittier than the rest of the dreck out there. Man, it feels good to get that off my chest. Go ahead nerds. Do with me what you will. But if will grant me mercy, I will admit that the acting of Sheldon and the lead with the glasses is very good.
ETA: That linked Bizarro strip is comedy gold, man.