13 Forgotten ‘90s Sitcoms That Were Way More Popular Than Anything On TV Today

Football and sitcoms ruled American entertainment in the ‘90s. A combination of the two turned out to be a match made in heaven for ABC, whose show about a college football coach ran for nine seasons and 200 episodes. Coach follows Hayden Fox (Craig T Nelson), the titular coach who wrangles his unwieldy players and assistants while trying to be a good partner and father. It struck all the right notes for a ’90s sitcom: it's funny, occasionally clever, and sentimental when it needs to be. The solid supporting cast is given just enough material to prevent Coach Fox from shouldering the plot, and it never tries to do anything too far outside the box. 

Coach didn’t get the legacy of Friends or Seinfeld, possibly because its cast was already middle-aged at the time of its run and didn’t have the budding charisma of their younger rivals, but it was a hit for ABC throughout its nine-season run, pulling in close to 30 million viewers per episode at its height. In 2015, NBC announced a straight-to-series revival of the show, only to ax it with little explanation almost immediately, dooming it to continued obscurity.

The transition from stand-up comedy to acting can be rocky, but Drew Carey stuck the landing, at least as far as ratings were concerned. His eponymous sitcom opened to strong viewer numbers in 1995 and lasted an impressive nine seasons, proving that an unknown quantity that had nothing to do with New York, Roseanne, or hospitals could be a hit. Set in Cleveland, it follows a fictionalized version of the comedian as he tries to survive his department store job. He has the requisite cast of quirky friends, a few love interests, and a scene-pilfering professional nemesis played by Kathy Kinney. The show rests primarily on Carey’s comedic chops, which, in hindsight, do not always age well. There is an episode centered around mocking a character with dwarfism, for example, and fat-phobia is such a consistent theme that it belongs in the show’s tagline. 

For these reasons, The Drew Carey Show doesn’t always conjure warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia for the '90s the way other shows of the decade do, but with Carey's charming, everyman persona, occasional dance numbers, and animation sequences, it was inventive enough to become a mainstay for ABC. After nine seasons of solid but never outstanding success, one commentator labeled it “dead-but-still-twitching,” and ABC bounced the show from time slot to time slot before all but burying the finale. The fact that it ended with such a whimper may be partially to blame for why it's been largely forgotten in the years since.

When Mad About You debuted in the 1992-93 season, it was a hit with both audiences and critics. During its seven-season run, it won twelve Emmys and four Golden Globes, earning consistently high ratings along the way. Centering on newlywed couple Jamie and Paul Buchman, played by Helen Hunt and the show’s co-creator Paul Reiser, it avoided the constant dating clichés of Friends and Seinfeld, instead delving into the relatable aspects of married life. Episodes revolve around the stresses of sofa shopping, the Buchmans’ conflicting careers, and their attempts to recapture the spark of their pre-marriage days. 

Though it’s rarely mentioned alongside Friends and Seinfeld, Mad About You was part of the roster of hit shows that would become NBC’s impenetrable “Must See TV” block on Thursday nights. By its sixth season, Hunt (who had transitioned to movie fame by that time) and Reiser (whose contract stipulated equal pay) were each making $1 million per episode, more than anyone in the Friends cast. With Seinfeld, Friends, and ER to compete with, it was always left in fourth place but still managed to pull in 23 million viewers an episode at its height.

A man and woman lock eyes through a subway window, strike up a conversation at his office, fly to Nevada to eat pie, and get married - all in one day. But wait, it gets weirder. Dharma (Jenna Elfman) is a yoga teacher raised by anti-establishment hippies. She has a dog who has his own pet dog, sleeps outside on full moons, calls her parents by their first names, and is incapable of holding grudges. Greg (Thomas Gibson) is a graduate of Harvard Law and a federal prosecutor who does things by the book and wears a suit to work every day. His parents play golf at the country club and gossip about silverware. There is no reason these characters should end up together, but they fall in love at first sight and get five seasons to explore their compatibility. 

The show burst out of the gates with 13.9 million average viewers during its first season in 1997 and hit its peak in its third season with an average of 15.76 million viewers. Aside from the chemistry between its leads and some snappy writing, these impressive numbers were likely due to its time slot after the massively popular Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Its popularity dwindled in its fourth and fifth seasons, but for such a far-fetched premise, it managed to be heartwarming and surprisingly relatable right up until its cancelation in 2002.

Grace Under Fire is one of the rare forgotten shows of the ‘90s whose failure was due to behind-the-scenes drama rather than low ratings. Starring Brett Butler as the titular single mother of three, it was created by hit-making guru Chuck Lorre and snagged top five ratings in its first two seasons. The show was built around Butler, a successful stand-up comedian at the time, and drew inspiration from her personal life as a recently divorced recovering alcoholic. Set in small-town Missouri, it has the charm and struggles of blue-collar America that all the ’90s sitcoms set in Manhattan never attempted to capture. 

Butler received two Golden Globe nominations for her role and the show tied with Frasier for a People’s Choice Award for best new TV series. But when Butler’s struggles with addiction took hold, it marked the beginning of a painfully protracted downward spiral for the show. Lorre left after one season, setting a revolving door in motion which saw a slew of writers and a new executive producer every year. Julie White, who played Grace’s best friend and next-door neighbor, left mid-season due to Butler’s erratic behavior, as did the actor playing Grace’s oldest son. The fifth and final season was delayed so Butler could attend rehab, but hounded by bad press, plummeting ratings, and Butler’s deteriorating health, ABC cut the show mid-season. Grace’s down-to-earth appeal wore off the more Butler’s struggles took over tabloids, and the show eventually became known for its backstage woes rather than the on-screen charm that drew audiences to it in the first few seasons.

Empty Nest was intended to be a spinoff of The Golden Girls, with an episode of the hit show acting as a pilot. But the episode, which starred Rita Moreno and Paul Dooley as the prospective empty nesters, was so poorly received that the idea was scrapped and overhauled. (“Empty Nesters” is still the lowest-rated Golden Girls episode on IMDb by far). Eventually, the creators found a new angle and a new cast, gave it primetime scheduling, and landed a hit. 

Airing for seven seasons from 1988 to 1995, Empty Nest was one of the highest-rated sitcoms on television during its run, sitting comfortably in the top 10 for its first two seasons despite having little crossover with The Golden Girls. It stars Richard Mulligan as Dr. Harry Weston, a Miami pediatrician and widower navigating life as a single man of a certain age with three adult daughters and a St. Bernard named Dreyfuss. It has a cast of goofy supporting characters who add the obligatory comic relief, most notably Park Overall as Dr. Weston’s acid-tongued Alabama nurse with a nearly incomprehensible Southern drawl. Most of the plot is derived from Harry’s two oldest daughters, a cop and an anxious divorcee (played by Kristy McNichol and Dinah Manoff, respectively), who move back home at the end of the first season. Empty Nest is solid, unremarkable '90s sitcom fare, which considering its high viewership, was exactly what audiences wanted at the time.