8 Supremely Dumb Sitcom Premises
Looking for laughs from slavery, concentration camps and talking cars
Many of the most popular sitcoms of all time have mundane premises — a group of friends hang out in a coffee shop, brainy nerds share an apartment, office workers struggle with their incompetent boss. But sometimes, Hollywood creatives go out on a limb and pitch something a little wackier, and dumbass networks occasionally make those ideas into reality — a reality that’s usually pretty terrible.
Here are eight supremely dumb sitcom premises that should have been laughed right out of the pitch room…
Cavemen
I wish I could say this was the only television commercial turned into a network comedy on this list, but that would be a lie. It is, however, the only one that stars Nick Kroll as a Neanderthal struggling to make it in the suburbs. Relatable.
My Mother the Car
It would have been easy to populate this entire list with sitcoms of the 1950s and 1960s, when doofus premises like being friends with a talking horse (Mr. Ed) or a nun who could fly (The Flying Nun, naturally) turned into actual hits. But for sheer stupidity, it’s hard to beat the idea of someone’s mother being reincarnated as an overbearing automobile. Jerry Van Dyke deserved better.
Homeboys in Outer Space
When critics liken your premise to “Star Trek meets Amos ‘N’ Andy,” you’re probably doing it wrong.
Small Wonder
To be fair, there are dumber premises than an inventor creating an android member of the family. But there’s seldom been a dumber execution.
Baby Bob
They got Adam Arkin, Joely Fisher, Holland Taylor and Elliott Gould to sign up for Baby Bob? This low-rent Look Who’s Talking rip-off is the only sitcom in television history to start as a series of commercials for FreeInternet.com. That domain is currently for sale, proving that even the ads couldn’t get the job done.
Jennifer Slept Here
How’s this for a creepy concept for a comedy? A teenage boy is haunted by a ghost who looks suspiciously like Ann Jillian, whose real-life bikini posters adorned the bedroom walls of American adolescents. And he’s the only one who can see her! The failed sitcom didn’t even have the courage to deliver on its “supernatural Penthouse letter come to life” premise.
The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer
A lighthearted spoof on slavery? “It’s no more funny to us than it would be for a Jewish person to find anything funny about concentration camps,” said Joe Madison, a former chairman of the NAACP Image Awards. Yeah, TV networks, show some class — you’d never do a sitcom about Hitler!
Heil Honey, I’m Home
What’s the more vile premise — setting a situation comedy in a Nazi concentration camp (Hogan’s Heroes) or making Adolph Hitler the sitcom’s lead character? I’ll go with Heil Honey, but it’s at least up for debate.
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