That’s my take on it. The OP is comparing the sitcoms they watched every night in the 80s to those sitcoms of earlier eras that stood the test of time. I’m sure there were plenty of examples of crappy sitcoms from the 50s to the 70s that no one ever re-watches.
Also, I’d suspect the total output of TV in the 80s was much greater. In the 70s, there were still the Big Three TV networks. The 80s saw the start of TV expansion, with cable channels gradually growing in size. More TV being made means more bad TV being made, all else being equal.
Since the OP only lists 3 or 4 good shows from each era, I have no doubt that we could find 3 or 4 80s shows that hold up.
Cheers, Night Court and WKRP in Cincinnati for three still seem to have a lot of fans.
I was going to say the same thing. Taken on its own merits, “The Cosby Show” actually holds up pretty well, certainly better than most every other family sitcom of that era. The problem is, of course, that it’s been thoroughly tainted by Cosby’s legacy.
Also, if you think most of the sitcoms of that era have aged poorly, try watching some of the action shows from the time. I don’t know how anyone can watch an episode of “The A-Team,” “Airwolf” or “Dukes of Hazzard” without rolling their eyes far enough into the back of their heads to see gray matter. And I say that as someone who loved those shows when I was a kid.
I enjoyed it, though I’d forgotten about it until you mentioned it.
The fact that it wasn’t an American sitcom, and that during the '80s, it (like Doctor Who, in that same time period) was shown on PBS stations (and even then, not always consistently) probably means it had a lot lower viewership than the other series being mentioned here.
Zep did not tour in 1980, Bonham collapsed in Germany onstage in August 1979, they were supposed to do a US tour starting in Oct 1980 but Bonham passed out and died around midnight 24/25 Sept 1980 and was cremated a week or so later. But you are right, I grew up listening to them, and consider them part of the soundtrack of my youth. Whenever I hear certain of their songs, I am transported to the summers of the mid 70s [74-75]. [To me, when I think Pink Floyd, I think summer of 1980 and The Wall for some reason. Rolling Stones, I resonate with their 68/69 stuff.]
They toured Europe in the summer of 1980. North America was planned for autumn but then Bonham died. You’re right that he collapsed onstage, but that was June 1980.
No, it wasn’t. Comedy on the show was very low brow. There was not a redeeming quality amongst the ENTIRE cast, and they were all dumb as hell. I take that back - the dog was smart.
Never got into Seinfeld. Maybe because, like 95% of the country, I’m not from New York and have never spent any time there. Yes, there were funny moments; things that entered the societal zeitgeist (“spongeworthy”, for example), but I never could get into it. Similar with Friends. Couldn’t get into it. That being said, one of my all-time favorites was the blue-collar cousin of Friends - The Drew Carey Show.
Others have already mentioned my favorite comedies from the 80s - WKRP and Night Court. I’m not sure how well either will have translated into today, but…
Another favorite, crossing between 70s and 80s, was Soap. Can’t find those anywhere as a whole for binging, but MeTV showed them all a year or two ago, so I recorded them. Was watching one of the early episodes, when my oldest (25+ yrs old) came into the room. He was watching how they treated an openly gay character, and commenting on how the whole show was homophobic. I, on the other hand, remember protests against the show - how DARE they show a pervert like a “normal person”, and noted how this was a breakthrough in American television. Heck, I think Jody might have been the sanest person on the show, after Benson. Now, watching in the 2020s, I do note some very very VERY wrong things. For example, one of the first plot lines for Jody was his wanting a sex-change operation so that he could marry his NFL Quarterback boyfriend. Gay does not equal Transvestite does not equal Transgender, but they were treated almost the same. However, later on, the way the courts would have treated a homosexual parent in a custody suit vs. the grandparents was spot on for the time. Still, the show was revolutionary for the time, and has to be taken in context.
WKRP suffered immensely from the producers screwing up and not getting the syndication rights to the music on the show. This kept it from getting re-aired for a long time, and finally came out on DVD with a whole new set of music. Since there were a lot of jokes that related to the music being played, this was confusing to viewers, and the music obviously wasn’t nearly as good. And since then, the cost of the music they used (all the great bands of the 60’s and 70’s) has gone through the roof.
If WKRP had been in syndication rotation and streaming like Friends and other 80’s shows were, it would loom much larger in TV history as one of the great comedies. As it is, it usually makes top-10 lists of best comedies or comes close.
Those are all the reasons it was good (and funny). The broad humor hasn’t aged well, but it innovated the “cast of deplorable characters” sitcom that created the mold for shows like Seinfeld and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
In the most recent DVD release of WKRP, Shout! Factory strived to get new rights to as many of the original songs used in the series as possible. They were able to get rights to use about 90% of the music, but for the rest, getting usage rights was either prohibitively expensive, or flat-out impossible (such as a Pink Floyd song which originally appeared in the “Turkeys Away” episode, and which they simply could not get).
I can remember that Eve absolutely hated “Soap” for its casual confusing of gay and trans. It didn’t help that the storyline you’re talking about, with Jodie trying to get gender reassignment surgery, ended with his attempting suicide.
The character of Jodie was, I believe, the first time that I had encountered the notion of homosexuality (in retrospect, I’m kind of amazed that my parents let me watch the show at all). Overall, I viewed Jodie as a positive, likeable character, and I’m glad that my first exposure to a homosexual character was one who was so sympathetic. But at the same time, the show got a lot wrong about being gay as well (the less said about the later seasons, where Jodie essentially turns straight and starts dating women, the better).
Soap ended in 1981, and I really think of it more as a 70s show, for whatever that’s worth.
I think the thing with those two shows in particular, and why they’ve endured so long, is that the funny moments happen multiple times per episode. The closest I’ve ever been to NYC is driving on the Palisades Parkway in New Jersey, so relating to the characters wasn’t terribly important to me. Both of those shows have many, many jokes that land.
I’m not saying you’re wrong for feeling how you do. People like what they like, and that’s fine.
It’s been 20 years since I watched Seinfeld, and I never watched Friends outside its original run, so I don’t know if I’d still find them funny.
Another 80s sitcom that I enjoyed at the time, but have not seen since, was the original Head of the Class with Howard Hesseman. It always seemed more intelligent than many of what people are mentioning as being so bad in this thread. What we watched and didn’t watch lined up pretty well with what people here are mentioning as the better and worse shows.
Perhaps Mork & Mindy can be the quintessential 70s good 80s bad show, as it was (seemingly) brilliant for the first season or so, and then get real bad in the 80s.