On Thanksgiving, everyone will be watching the Macy’s Day Parade. Thanksgiving Day dinner is always bought the day before the holiday and all at once in an enormously filled shopping cart. Yet Dad will always have to go out for the food that was forgotten.
They live in a place that has sunshime 364 days a year, yet it always snows on Christmas Eve.
One of the children will be dating someone who they want to marry, but they are too scared to propose. Eventually they will on the holiday in front of the entire family.
Amusingly Ethnic Character will lose his green card, and have to marry another character to stay in the country. A whole season full of wackiness as they try to fool the INS! Eventually, of course, they fall in love with each other but don’t know it, and there is much zaniness as each pretends that they’re only being romantic “to fool the immigration people.”
Meanwhile, Attractive Teenage Daughter has had a fight with her Boyfriend That Dad Doesn’t Like But Who Treats Her Well. So, Dad sets her up with the Well Mannered Son of a Business Associate, who tries to molest her once they’re alone. Of course, BTDDLBWTHW arrives and punches the guy. Dad learns an important lesson about judging people by their appearances.
Don’t forget that if the BTDDLBWTHW is of a different ethnic persuasion than the family, he disappears after this episode and is never seen again, as was stated previously in this thread. Oh, and of course the WMSoBA absolutely must be the same ethnic persuasion as the family because otherwise we’re dealing with (gasp) racism!
Our male hero will score some sweet tickets to a sporting event, but unfortunately it will be at the same time as an important dinner/party/charity event/anniversary that the wife needs him for. But have no fear, husband will go to said event and find a way to sneak out anyway, and we can laugh at his discomfort as he tries to get away with it.
Or…
Wife makes deal with husband, who will have to make it up by going to the ballet/opera/art gallery with wife. Of course, husband is bored to death and we can laugh at his predicament. By the end of the episode, we will have learned a Very Special Lesson about compromises in relationships, which is usually climaxed by a Very Important Scene in which husband and wife acknowledge said compromise with a discussion and loving looks or hot steamy (off-camera) sex.
There will never be a fat woman on the program, and, if there is one, she will never be married, as no thin man would ever marry a fat woman, and the fat men are too busy marrying thin women.
Hot But Somehow Not Popular Teenage son/daughter has a major crush on the ultra cool jock/cheerleader. Miraculously, Ultra Cool Kid likes HBSNPT back and they go out. At the party, UCK offers Teenager a cigarette/drugs/alcohol. Teenager learns a valuable lesson about saying NO!
or
HBSNPT’s friend goes to the same party, tries drugs and gets hooked. Younger brother/sister of said friend finds out and is disappointed in friend. Main family unit helps Friend kick the habit.
Subplot: Silly Dad! Cellphones are for Kids! Dad loses the cellphone/other expensive device that he is supposed to have for work, only to discover that Oliver or other Tiny Toddler was using it as a toy.
The family learns that it has a chance at richness, either by discovering some sort of valuable or winning the lottery, and make grand plans about how they’ll use the money. BUT WAIT! That valuable was a fake, or they were holding the lottery ticket upside-down/destroy the lottery ticket on accident! Oh no! But then, they realize they like things just the way they are.
The family journeys to a tropical desitination via stock footage of a 747 flying through a blue but cloud-studded sky. Once at the destination, they never go to the beach or pool, but talk endlessly about what a great time they’re having a) in the hotel room or b) in the hotel lounge.
The love interests of the first 6 episodes don’t end up together.
If the family has a pet, it meows/barks everytime it comes on screen. After two episodes, it’s never seen again.
Oldest Son who is normally the prankster/bad student, will be accused of doing Very Bad Things (smoking, breaking the neighbor’s window with a baseball, stealing a copy of an important test, etc) and of course everyone believes the accusations. But Oldest Son swears he is innocent; eventually the real criminal is caught and Oldest Son is vindicated. The family apologizes and realizes that there is more to Oldest Son than just his pranks; he is a Really Good Boy on the inside. He accepts the family’s apologies, who swear to always believe him, and yet next week, he is accused of another stunt that he is innocent of and no one believes him.
Also, there is another sibling, younger, who is the do-gooder/nerd/overachiever and the youngest kid, the smart aleck. There is also a dog, but he is only referred to or seen when the plot calls for it.
After a couple of years or so, the wacky neighbor/coworker who is soooo funny and yet a true friend deep down inside will suddenly disappear. Then a new neighbor/coworker will appear, and while he/she appears to have the many of the same lovable, funny personality and quirks of the original, they will be about 1/10 the strength of the original.
Oddly enough, no matter how much WE complain about the original neighbor/coworker leaving, the husband and wife will never again mention him/her.
Tonight, on a very special episode of “The Ultimate Sitcom Thread”, Bebubula is shocked to discover that the thread reminds him of “Family Matters”. But in the end he discovers that he loves “The Ultimate Sitcom Thread” gang too much to ever leave.
This thread is a good example of why I have never been abl;e to stand watching entire episodes on most sitcoms. I personally thing that sitcom cliches should be kept in some sort of database.
If a writer begins to use some of the more comon ones, perhaps a "three strikes and your out" method, the writer should be taken out a shot and his body tarred and hung outside the studio as a warning.
Also I'm supprised that no one has mentioned the thanksgiving episode, wher instead of of going down to the local Piggly Wiggly and getting a butterball, the sitcom creatures get a live turky which they intend to slaughter and serve for their dinner.
Then the youngest, oh so cute, child falls in love with the bird. Wackyness ensues as the little bra… err child tries to keep his beloved pet away from his hungy family.
Of course they all eventually understand and sit down to their Thanksgiving dinner of pizza, with the bird given a special place at the table.
Next episode the turkey has vanished, and is never mentioned again.
I can’t believe this one hasn’t been mentioned yet:
Two characters with a certain love/hate sexual tension between them are going to the same dance/party/whatever. In an attempt to not show their true feelings towards each other they each bring mind numbingly shallow dates to the event. While the “not quite lovers” smolder at each other and ignore their escorts, the dates fall in love with each other and leave Our Heroes giving each other Significant glances and coming to terms with their True Feelings towards each other. Said feelings are then swept under the rug until the next time this scenario plays out or the Very Special Episode We’ve All Been Waiting For(aka the Wedding Episode).
sweetums, I’m with you on the sitcom database; when one of these happens, my wife or I will comment with, “Well, there’s sitcom cliche number 49: everyone in a 70’s flashback will have an afro.” (However, I don’t dislike sitcoms; in fact, I love them despite all their cliches–or maybe because of them. I find that a rousing game of “predict the cliche” can be quite fun while watching.)
Let’s not forget that every time someone drops in to someone else’s home/apartment for a beer, they will take one sip (maybe), then realize that they have to be somewhere else, leaving the beer to go to waste. Other than in Cheers, I’m fairly sure that no one in a sitcom has ever finished a bottle of beer without realizing they had somewhere important to be, looking at their watch, and/or exclaiming, “I’ve got to run!”
The two zany weird characters who don’t get along end up doing some ridiculous stunt, like dress up in gorilla costumes at a zoo*. Somehow or another, the obviosuly blind zookeeper or whatever mistakes them for real live gorillas and locks them in a cage. Hilarity, wackiness, and sheer stupidity ensue as our heroes (yeah right) spend the rest of the episode trying to escape. At the end of the episode, when they are comfortably free and back to someone’s house/the hangout/work, they have a nice laugh over how so and so will never listen to the other person’s foolish ideas again, but what a nice team they make. The end.
*You can substitute this for any animal of your choice, or abandon the animal idea all together and throw in most wanted criminal and jail; important famous person and airplane trip; or some other ridiculous idea.
-Or-
When the teenage daughter gets hit on the head and passes outm she dreams she’s Dorothy and all the other characters are other Wizard of Oz characters. This also works well using Alice in Wonderland.
General Rule #912: All male children under the age of ten, as most of them are, must have the “bowl haircut.” As if some barber of negligible skill hhad placed a bowl over the child’s skull and cut around it, leaving the hair long (and ideally, curling slightly). No crewcuts are allowed, ever.
Sitcom Cliché #772
The teenage son wants a ridiculously expensive luxury item or ski vacation, so his parents tell him he can’t have it unless he gets a job. Hilarity ensues as the teenage son applies at a fast-food restaurant where he must wear an embarrassing uniform and/or paper trainee hat. The teenage son always takes orders with a long face, and much mischief is made in the kitchen. Sometimes there is a food fight during this person’s stint at the restaurant. No matter how much the teenage son suffers, however, at the end of the day he knows that Hard Work Pays Off and learns the Value of a Dollar, and he gets the luxury item/ski vacation he was after.
And we never see the teenage son in his job position again.
A close relative of this cliché is #793, which involves the family patriarch getting riled at his boss over a matter that could have been cleared up through civil discussion, but escalates into the father being fired, thus forcing him to take a job at a fast-food restaurant in an embarrassing uniform and/or paper trainee hat until such time as he is sincerely repentant to his superiors at his old job … or the end of the episode, whichever comes first.
I’m curious… Which sitcoms would you people say are most overrun with these cliches? I’ve noticed a ton of them myself.
And my contribution –
One must always defile a great work of literature by deciding it would be much GREATER if the characters act out the parts. Take the Oddyssey for instance! The surly teenage son has to figure out how to chase out the weird neighbor raiding the fridge!