10 Great Sitcoms That Everyone Forgot About

Image via FX Published Sep 5, 2026, 6:52 AM EDT Christine is a freelance writer for Collider with two decades of experience covering all types of TV shows and movies spanning every genre. With a particular affinity for dramas, true crime, sitcoms, and thrillers, if it's a top TV show, Christine has likely watched it and is eager to share her thoughts. When she's not furiously writing away, you can find her enjoying the next binge obsession with a glass of wine in front of the TV. Sign in to your Collider account The sitcom space is and has been flooded with so much choice. At any time of day, you can turn on the TV and catch a sitcom airing on a local network. There are many on streaming services, too. The ones that have stood the test of time, like Seinfeld and Friends, remain firmly at the top of the list of the best sitcoms ever. Then you have ones that are memorable but had their runs and then they're done. A third category are forgotten sitcoms, ones that were popular when they were originally on the air but then ended and fell into a dark pit of lost shows. You may remember some of them, but several will elicit an "oh yeah, I forgot about that sitcom!" reaction. And some of them are still available to stream today. 'It's Your Move' (1984–1985) Image via NBC Jason Bateman's career is a long one, having started as a child actor. But most people remember him first from either Little House on the Prairie or The Hogan Family. But between those two shows, he starred in the short-lived sitcom It's Your Move. He plays Matthew Burton, a teenager who scams people to make money or get what he needs. He does all this without his widowed mother Eileen (Caren Kaye) knowing what's going on. But when Norman Lamb (David Garrison) moves into the building and starts dating Eileen, Matthew is finally challenged by someone who is onto his schemes. It's easy to see why It's Your Move was controversial. Matthew became a poster boy for acting out, and NBC reportedly received letters from angry parents whose kids were copying the character's actions. As the show progressed, Matthew's scheming ways were changed. From there, it didn't cut it as a traditional family sitcom without that hook. But the show was good while it lasted and remains one of the best one-season '80s shows. 'Small Wonder' (1985–1989) Image via Metroland Video Productions I have fond memories of watching Small Wonder as a child, a comedy sci-fi sitcom that was far ahead of its time. Ted Lawson (Dick Christie) is a robotics engineer working on a domestic servant robot. He decides to bring his creation home, a robot known as V.I.C.I. (Voice Input Child Identicant), to test it in a real-life home setting. But he also passes her off as a real girl named Vicki (Tiffany Brissette), an orphan the family has taken in. Naturally, the funniest moments come as the family interacts with this machine, which lacks traditional human reasoning, speaks in an expectedly robotic tone, doesn't understand sarcasm, and takes things literally. She also has superhuman strength and speed, but sometimes, she can malfunction. Small Wonder is one of those near-perfect sitcoms nobody remembers and that could easily be replicated today with a much more believable robot. 'It Takes Two' (1982–1983) Image via ABC A progressive sitcom for its time, It Takes Two follows married couple Dr. Sam Quinn (Richard Crenna) and Molly (Patty Duke Astin) whose lives are upended when Molly decides to go to law school and start a career. Once she becomes an assistant district attorney, Sam has a tough time getting used to not having the housewife to which he had become accustomed. With both having demanding jobs and working long hours, their romantic relationship begins to suffer, too. The series follows the pair as they try to navigate this new reality, knowing that Molly needs more out of life than just being a housewife. It sounds somber, but the show is funny and heartwarming, tackling the idea of following your dreams, handling political differences, and finding ways to reignite love amidst change. It Takes Two would easily fit with today's climate. Plus, it has Helen Hunt and Anthony Edwards as the couple's teenage children. 'Step by Step' (1991–1998) Image via ABC Another sitcom I fondly remember watching, Step by Step was like a modern day The Brady Bunch. Frank Lambert (Patrick Duffy) and Carol Foster (Suzanne Somers) surprise their kids when they return from a vacation in Jamaica to reveal that they got married. Now, this blended family with three kids each is coming together under the same roof. The story in the near-perfect family sitcom no one remembers follows the antics as the kids try to get along with one another after suddenly discovering they're now step-siblings. They fight, get annoyed by one another, but also grow to love each other. It's a sweet family sitcom that delivers plenty of laughs, thanks to the interactions within the family as well as other characters, like Cody (Sasha Mitchell), Frank's ditzy but handsome nephew. Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong. 🚨The Pitt 🏥ER 💉Grey's 🔬House 🩺Scrubs FIND YOUR HOSPITAL → 01 A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are. AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview. ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are. ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way. NEXT QUESTION → 04 You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question. AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly. NEXT QUESTION → 05 How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image. AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like. NEXT QUESTION → 06 How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice. AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours? AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital. NEXT QUESTION → 08 At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you. AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job. REVEAL MY HOSPITAL → Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for. The PittYou are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away. You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics. You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it. You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name. Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else. ERYou are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential. You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is. You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through. You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough. ER is television about endurance. You have it. Grey's AnatomyYou came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door. You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with. Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves. You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection. It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way. HouseYou are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one. You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it. You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong. Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up. The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do. ScrubsYou understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time. You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field. You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy. You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here. Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 'Get a Life' (1990–1992) Image via FOX Chris Elliott has become known to the newer generations thanks to his memorable role in Schitt's Creek. But the comedian has been around for a while, and one of his most bizarre sitcoms was Get a Life. In the show, he plays Chris Peterson, a 30-year-old slacker who lives above his parents' garage and delivers newspapers. What makes the show so strange, however, is the unconventional storylines that see Chris die in every episode, only to come back for the next. Such weird shows might fit in today's world of streaming where we can accept more creativity. But on network television at that time, it was a little too disturbing for the family primetime sitcom hour. Get A Life did last two seasons, though, before it was canceled and forgotten forever. If you're a fan of Elliott's goofy humor, it's worth grabbing on DVD to check it out. 'Wilfred' (2011–2014) Image via FX When you think of Elijah Wood, you think of The Lord of the Rings films. Younger folks might think of movies like The Good Son. But no one remembers Wilfred. In this sitcom, he plays Ryan Newman, a depressed former lawyer who sees his neighbor's dog Wilfred (Jason Gann) as a man in a dog suit. Wait, what? Yes, he is the only one who sees this version of Wilfred, and the two become friends. Wilfred helps Ryan confront his past, but he's also vulgar and rude while doing it, which makes his lessons hilarious and heartwarming at the same time. Wilfred is one of those shows that you think sounds more like a Saturday Night Live sketch. You can't quite comprehend how or why someone came up with the odd concept. But somehow, it works. Also starring Chris Klein and Rob Riggle in recurring roles, Wilfred was well reviewed when it was on the air. Wood and Gann had talked about the potential concept for a follow-up movie when the show ended, but nothing has materialized as of yet. 'Speechless' (2016–2019) Image via ABC Minnie Driver is known for so many great movie roles, but this ABC sitcom flew under the radar, even though it aired for three seasons. In Speechless, she's Maya DiMeo, a mother raising her kids alongside her husband Jimmy (John Ross Bowie), including the eldest child Jimmy "JJ" (Micah Fowler), who has cerebral palsy. In a wheelchair, JJ is also non-speaking. The series combines humor with heart, illustrating the unique challenges of a family with someone with this condition. JJ manages to express his quick-wit by communicating through headgear and a laser pointer to indicate letters, words, and numbers on a board connected to his wheelchair. Humor, he shows, isn't confined to any one language and transcends all types of communication. The show promotes inclusivity, understanding, and education about the challenges that families like the DiMeos face. In the show, they move to an upscale part of town so JJ can attend a school equipped to provide the proper care, but they can only afford the cheapest, most rundown home, which poses its own hardships. It's a shame Speechless didn't continue. It should be remembered for not only depicting someone with this condition but also casting an actor who has it as well to play him. 'The New Adventures of Old Christine' (2006–2010) When an actor like Julia Louis-Dreyfus has characters like Elaine from Seinfeld and Selina from Veep on her resume along with the mountains of awards that came with both, it's not surprising that her criminally forgotten sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine fell into oblivion after it ended. Airing for a solid five seasons, she plays the title character, a newly divorced mom trying to navigate her new life. It doesn't help that her ex-husband Richard (Clark Gregg) has already moved on with a new, much younger girlfriend who happens to also be named Christine. Though the show earned nine Emmy Award nominations (of course, Louis-Dreyfus took home one of them), The New Adventures of Old Christine is the last thing you remember from her resume. Yet it has a killer cast that also includes Wanda Sykes as Christine's best friend Barb and Hamish Linklater as her brother Matthew. Christine is chaotic, insecure, and competitive, and the show exploring her life as she tries to manage these traits is downright hilarious. 'Single Parents' (2018–2020) Image via ABC It only ended six years ago, but Single Parents has already been pushed to the back of the sitcom vault as one of those shows no one remembers even existed. It centers around Will Cooper (Taran Killam), a 30-something-year-old divorced dad trying to navigate single parenthood. The more he gets involved at the school, the more other single parents notice. Soon, they all come together to help Will learn how to balance parenting with focusing on himself, too. Also starring Leighton Meester and Brad Garrett with Adam Brody, Hannah Simone, and Vannessa Bayer among the recurring characters (you'll also notice Quinta Brunson in a small role), Single Parents lasted two seasons. It was well-reviewed, but somehow, didn't make the cut to continue. It's an endearing sitcom that is still well worth a watch, even if it was short-lived. 'Can't Hurry Love' (1995–1996) Image via CBS If you didn't know that Mariska Hargitay was in a sitcom before she became Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU, one of the longest-running shows of all time, you might be running to order Can't Hurry Love on DVD and check it out (it's not available to stream anywhere at this time). In the show, she stars as Didi alongside Nancy McKeon as Annie, Louis Mandylor as Roger, and Kevin Crowley as Elliott, a group of 30-something-year-olds living in New York. The Friends-esque sitcom focuses on Annie as the protagonist as she tries to balance work and dating with the help of her friends. It remains a mystery why CBS canceled Can't Hurry Love after just one season when it was seemingly performing well and had so much room to grow. This could be a blessing in disguise, however, since Hargitay landed the SVU role three years later. We can't imagine anyone else playing Benson, which has become the defining role of Hargitay's career that she continues to play to this day. But her role in Can't Hurry Love was a fun one that proved she could pull off comedy, too. Can't Hurry Love Release Date 1995 - 1996-00-00 Network CBS Cast David Pressman Elliot Tenney Louis Mandylor Roger Carlucci Nancy McKeon Annie O'Donnell Seasons 1 Producers James Widdoes Creator(s) Gina Wendkos