Updated April 13, 2020 21.6K votes 6.9K voters 168.8K views
Voting Rules
Vote up character losses that were so sad, you forgot you were watching a sitcom.
Sitcoms are supposed to make viewers laugh, but sometimes, they make us cry. Television can be a reflection of life, and therefore, sitcom deaths are an inevitability. Sometimes, showrunners eliminate characters because their story arc is complete; other times, an actor just wants to leave a series, or perhaps an actor passed away in real life. No matter the reason, these sad sitcom character deaths made viewers totally forget they were watching a comedy.Â
The losses affect the lives of the characters that loved them on the show, but these tragic storylines also affect audiences. Which character end had you sobbing the most? Vote up the saddest demises in sitcom history.Â
In the Season 4 episode, "Jurassic Bark," Fry discovers a fossilized version of his beloved pet dog, Seymour. Prior to Fry's cryogenic freeze a 1,000 years before, he told his dog to wait for him outside of Panucci's Pizza.
The Professor agrees to clone Seymour at Fry's request. However, just before the process, Fry reconsiders because his dog passed at 15-years-old, which means he lived 12 years without Fry. He determines that Seymour must have moved on and decides to stop the cloning process.
Then, in an emotional sucker punch, the episode reveals through montage that Seymour actually waited for Fry to come back. The obedient dog sat outside of the pizzeria every day until his passing, anticipating a reunion that never occurred.
It's a tear-jerker of an episode for Futurama fans. Yes, it is okay to cry during an animated series if it's about the thought of poor Seymour just waiting and waiting for his owner to return until the day he dies.
Even though Dr. Perry Cox (John C. McGinley) divorced Jordan Sullivan (Christa Miller), he remained close and friendly with her brother, Ben Sullivan (Brendan Fraser.) Dr. Cox and J.D. (Zach Braff) diagnose Ben with leukemia; however, both doctors believe that Ben has a chance to beat cancer.
In the Season 3 episode, "My Screw Up," Ben returns for his nephew Jack's first birthday party appearing cancer-free. However, he has failed to receive treatment for two years. The audience is aware that someone at Sacred Heart Hospital has passed away but are led to believe that it was J.D.'s patient who succumbed to a heart attack.
Ben accompanies Dr. Cox throughout the episode, and they go to Jack's birthday party together, even though Dr. Cox does not want to. It is then revealed that Ben is the person who passed, and Dr. Cox had been imagining him the whole time. The party is not a party at all, but it's actually Ben's funeral.
It's an emotional episode for all of the characters. We see the sarcastic, cut-throat Dr. Cox finally let himself become vulnerable in order to grieve.
McLean Stevenson, the actor who played commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake on M*A*S*H, wanted to leave the series. The writers decided to go about his exit from the show in a manner that had never been done before on television.
At the beginning of the Season 3 finale, “Abyssinia, Henry," Blake receives news that he is being sent home. He's totally ecstatic. His friends throw him a little going away party that night, and after addressing his troops in the morning, he climbs aboard a helicopter.
The next scene takes place in an operating room. Radar (Gary Burghoff), who looked up to Blake as a father-figure and close friend, informs everyone that the Lieutenant Colonel's plane was shot down. He adds, "there were no survivors."
Radar is clearly devastated. Pain, shock, and cries fill the operating room. The television audience was also left stunned, many spectators were even angry. It's one thing to have a character leave a show, but to off a character? It was a totally groundbreaking and heartbreaking episode of television.
Marshall's (Jason Segel) father, Marvin Sr. (Bill Fagerbakke), was a recurring character on HIMYM. The father and son were especially close and talked every day. Marshall even admits that his dad was his best friend.
In Season 6 of the comedy series, Marvin dies unexpectedly of a heart attack. Adding to the emotion of Marvin's passing is that Marshall and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) find out that they're pregnant with their first child.
In the emotional episode, "Last Words," Marvin's loved ones attend the beloved man's funeral. Marshall is totally devastated by his father's passing. He finally brings himself to play a voicemail that was left by his dad, but then is disappointed when he discovers it was a butt dial. However, part-way through the call, Marvin realizes that he accidentally dialed his son. He tells him, "I love you."
Marvin's passing affects the whole group of friends. They each call their own fathers (Barney calls his mother) to let them know that they are thinking about them.
The TV audience never gets more than a glimpse of Mrs. Wolowitz's (Carol Ann Susi) face, but she was an endearing and important supporting character on The Big Bang Theory. Mrs. Wolowitz was Howard's (Simon Helberg) mother. She was certainly overprotective and loud, but she was also caring and supportive.
Susi passed away from cancer at the age of 62. The writers at the comedy series were left to figure out how to handle her character's death.
In the Season 8 episode, "The Comic Book Store Regeneration," Howard finds out that his mother died in her sleep. He is shocked by the news. The show opted not to have a funeral episode. Showrunner Steve Molaro explains:
There will not be a funeral episode. This is so tricky for us and for the tone of the show to not let things get too dramatic and too sad. The way we handled it enabled us to deal with it and also jump over a funeral-type episode. But we will certainly continue to deal with - Wolowitz and Bernadette in particular - with the fallout of her passing away for a number of episodes down the line.
Mrs. Wolowitz was like a mother to all of Howard's friends. A pushy mother, but a mother nonetheless. Her death impacted the entire group. After her funeral, they honored her by saying how much she meant to them.
Nick Colasanto's (Coach) passing from a heart attack at the age of 61 did not come as a total surprise to the cast and crew at Cheers. Over the course of the sitcom's third season, the actor was noticeably thinner and having problems remembering his lines. Colasanto's final appearance came in the Season 3 finale.
The dim-witted but kindhearted Coach was written out of the show without any real explanation or fanfare. During the Season 4 premiere, Sam (Ted Danson) informs Diane (Shelley Long) that Coach had passed.
With no time to mourn, the writers at Cheers quickly brought in a new character, Woody Boyd, played by Woody Harrelson. The small-town boy from Indiana was pen pals with Coach and came to Boston to see him. The crew at Cheers told Boyd of Coach's passing and offered him a job tending bar.
Although the show did not have a big memorial for the beloved Coach, his name would come up from time to time over the course of the show's 11-season run. His memory was always treated with great fondness.
