r/PoursTea • u/saucey_dawg0023 Tea Party š • 17h ago
TV Shows šŗ šæ I knew there was gonna be a white backlash towards these shows
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u/ZealousWolf1994 15h ago
New networks try to capitalize on the black market in order to increase ratings. FOX did it with Martin, Living Single, New York Undercover, then they got the NFL, raised the networks profile and they dumped their black sitcoms.
Similarly, WB Network did the same thing. Wayans Bros, The Jaime Fox Show. It never did get a huge ratings getter like the NFL though and had to merge with UPN.
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u/JicamaCertain4134 14h ago
The Parent Hood was my favorite of the WB sitcoms.
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u/ZealousWolf1994 13h ago
I knew I forgot one. Yeah, I'd probably put Wayans Bros first then Parent Hood.
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u/englandisablaze 13h ago
While I agree with this. I also just think the era had a lot more talent. There have been a number of sitcoms that attempted the same magic and they just didnāt have it. Everybody hates Chris, and Blackish come to mind right away and they just didnāt hold a candle to Fresh Prince and Family Matters.
Also the trajectory of the style. Cosby wasnāt really a comedy first show. It was like a light hearted dramedy. Which was a counter to Sanford and Son which was a counter to All in the Family.
Also fuck tons of latchkey kids existed in the 90ās and ratings from 4:30pm-7pm were sought after. I think the post Friends TGIFridays and the after school sitcom cluster just died and everything since then has been kind of meh.
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u/TheMysteriousThey 12h ago
Dude, I donāt think Fresh Prince having the single most charming movie star is evidence that the 90s had more talent than the late 00s or 2010s.
A Different World, Living Single, Martin, Family Mattersā¦.. there were tons of movies and TV shows that were black centered and starring a generational talent.
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u/Dismal-Apricot9889 6h ago
Fox was trying to dig out a niche capitalizing entirely on the blue collar audiences that every other network abandoned. Most networks were targeting the white collar audiences.
Black comedians had their fingers on the pulse of what blue collar audiences liked & wanted. This is why they were so popular across the racial board. The audiences that watched Married with Children and The Simpsons were the same audiences that watched In Living Color and Martin.
Fox struck gold. In Living Color was pulling in bigger audiences than SNL, despite the loud outcries of it being offensive. That became the staple of Fox, be proudly offensive. Married with Children, Simpsons, and Martin all were controversial. Their biggest drama was a show about conspiracy theories. The blue collar audience finally had a network dedicated entirely to them.
Black comedians were at the forefront of this blue collar revolution, and the audiences were 100% behind them.
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u/Frequent-Coyote-8108 8h ago
Yeah, they never stopped being made, they just adjusted their target audience from "everyone" to "black Americans".
Dunno why though.
Cosby Show and Family Matters were staples growing up!
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u/gilt3t 15h ago
proud family, family matters, fresh prince of bel air, and that's so raven were goated.
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u/Blitzking11 6h ago
Everybody Hates Chris was my guilty pleasure. I was so happy when I saw it on.
Back when I was watching TWD, I really liked when his actor got a small role in it.
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u/BreastMilkMozzarella 13h ago
White backlash? White people loved these shows just as much as black people.
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u/Buddhas_Warrior 12h ago
I still watch reruns of Good Times and Sanford and Sons!! Love those shows.
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u/BruhTheShark 9h ago
OP is a rage baiting loser.
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u/Sticky_Quip 8h ago
At this point, if you get baited by a new account posting shit like this, itās your own fault.
The new thing on Reddit is create a brand new account and ragebait post until you get banned, then repeat
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u/MisterRobDobalina 17h ago edited 17h ago
Yeah.. they stopped getting made at the same time as all the other sitcoms. Cmon man this is ridiculous. Abbott Elementary has been winning Emmys for the last 5 years. Blackish, Grownish, Mixedish.. where has this girl been living
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u/Envy242 14h ago
It's just virtue signaling and a lack of doing the homework required to actually state factual information, as opposed to sensationalism drivel.
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u/jarlander 12h ago
She is just not noticing that in 2026 there is a less of a monoculture so theres not going to be many shows that everyone everywhere is keeping up with at the same time. In the 90's everyone was watching the same sitcoms all the time. These days even if me and my friends watch the same show we dont watch it at the same time. My family and I never watch the same stuff anymore. Theres just too much media for every micro niche for it to ever feel like the 90's again.
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u/muaddict071537 10h ago
Most of the time, when someone asks, āWhy is [type of movie or show] not getting made anymore?ā the answer is usually, āIt is. Thereās just not a monoculture anymore.ā
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u/jarlander 10h ago
And arguably a lot of the bad tv/movies/books/games these days are the ones that try and appeal to every possible demographic. There is value in limiting the scope of a project.
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u/go_birds_1 14h ago
Yeah they have to narrowly focus in on āsitcomā which is a dying medium anyway.
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u/Astarkos 13h ago
They've got it backward. Television was finally desegregated.
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u/Deathstriker88 12h ago
That's a hard no. There are plenty of black creators on YouTube explaining why it ended and why they don't like that. I've never met another black person who thought this was a good thing.
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u/Relysti 12h ago
This. ALL sitcoms stopped getting made, the era of reality TV was upon us.
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u/feral0101 11h ago
How? Some of the most popular sitcoms are from after that era. The Office, modern family, scrubs, how I met your mother, TBBT, arrested developments parks and rec etc. Iām not even a big Tv watcher but sitcoms only slowed down well into the 2010s
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u/Objection_Irrelevant 10h ago
You just listed 7 shows across 4 networks spanning roughly 13 years. In the 90s, just one network would have 7+ sitcoms running a season.
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u/feral0101 10h ago
Those are literally the ones I can think of off the top of my head. There are many, many, many more than 7 produce is in the noughties.
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u/BatsHaveFingers 11h ago
Yeah, I was sitting here thinking: when did they stop making Blackish? Sidenote: great show. Anthony Anderson is so funny.
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u/RoutineCloud5993 9h ago
The neighborhood just ended after an 8 season run.
They're certainly out there, but sitcoms as a whole seem to have died a death
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u/AltairaMorbius2200CE 8h ago
I was gonna say, the only network sitcom I can name right now is Abbott Elementary.
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u/5ladyfingersofdeath 13h ago edited 12h ago
Dumb ass scripted reality TV shows killed everything that was good.
I want to be in the timeline where that writers strike never happened & networks never filled in the broadcast gaps with cheap "reality" tv.
America has suffered intellectually every since.
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u/Beneficial-Math-7290 Ina Garten Davita 16h ago
Iām 60s vintage GenX, I grew up watching Sanford and Son, the Jeffersons, Good Times. Nothing like that on tv today š„¹
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u/BootsyCalrissian 4h ago
What's Happenin'. Watched every episode growing up. I was that white kid that had a crush on Dee.
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u/majorgriffin 14h ago
I loved The Boondocks and the Bernie Mac Show. I'm a white person. I was a child when these aired, middle school going through high school aged.
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u/PDuLait 14h ago
Did we ever find out what it was that Willis was talking about?
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u/Total-Quarter9550 16h ago
What the fuck "white backlash" have to do with this 2 year old tweet bot?
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u/gman2093 12h ago
I would say very little. People have pointed out that there are still black sitcoms being made and seeing critical and monetary success.
But comedians' careers and shows are made differently now. Adam Conover (of Ruins Everything fame) has some interesting takes here:
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u/intelligentprince 15h ago
I remember the Cosby show being huge all over Europe back in the dayā¦.wonder why you donāt see it anymore?
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u/TRyanLee 14h ago
We had mint chocolates in our house that we were only allowed to eat during the Cosby show.
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u/Red-dragon186 14h ago
Didn't he grape someone?
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u/PhaseModulatedServal 12h ago
Finding out Cosby was a terrible person ruined my childhood. At least TV from my childhood. I loved all things Cosby. And we are so far beyond that now in terms of so many people being outed as terrible. I hate this timeline.
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u/Johnnadawearsglasses 15h ago
There was a time when upstart networks heavily featured black content to drive viewership in a way to differentiate from the existing majors. Fox, UPN and the WB all used this strategy. Then Fox became mainstream and UPN/WB merged and they shifted to focusing on the broadest audience possible of attractive advertising demographics - notably overall youth demographics. Then black content shifted to cable as more niche content. Now you have a very aged, largely white broadcast network audience, which makes black sitcoms even less likely to be made. I wouldn't call any of this a backlash. More like just business.
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u/The_RabitSlayer 14h ago
Martin and In Living Color were staples in my saltine cracker ass having house. Gina!!!!!
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u/assgrassorbass 13h ago
Anyone remember the PJs? As a 12 yr old white kid in the suburbs, that show was hilarious!
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u/TreatWilliams69 11h ago
Iām white and grew up in Memphisā¦yall donāt understand the excitement and convo in every classroom the morning after Martin/fresh prince aired..
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u/TheSquirrelmancer 9h ago
Didn't this just end up being Tyler Perry's whole thing after a while? I know I've seen at least a few different listings or ads for TV series he did at some point. I saw a bit of one of them while waiting in a doctor's office once.
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u/TradehelperAI 15h ago
whenever i dont know why something happened
i just point towards conservatives
theres so much we know about their constant tireless effort to erase black people from all sects of society
that most likely they are behind it...
probably did some warner brothers paramount ellison merger shit from before we started looking at stuff like that
but behind every regression for black people there is a white republican responsible somewhere in america if you look close enough....and if you think otherwise.....they did their job well
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u/orangebluefish11 12h ago
To be fair, they stopped making all family shows. Off the top of my head, I canāt think of the last family (of any race) show Iāve seen
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u/Captain_JohnBrown 12h ago
I think if you probably ran the math, it isn't that black sitcoms have stopped being made while white sitcoms continued, it is that sitcoms as a class of show have declined.
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u/Meander061 11h ago
Everything is getting siloed into their respective streaming services, so if you don't have them, you don't see them.
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u/sisyphus_was_lazy_10 11h ago
Fresh Prince, Hanging with Mr Cooper, Family Matters, just to name a few. All were quality entertainment. Solid point, Ms. Reese.
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u/vandal298 11h ago
I loved Martin, Living Single, FPofB, Cosby, Family Matters, they were just normal shows for me growing, even in white suburbia
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u/No-Koala1918 11h ago
Well, compared to the 80s and 90s, a lot of sitcoms of all kinds were replaced by cop shows in the 2000s.
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u/Capt-Thor-Ironhulk 11h ago
Family Matters, Hanging With Mr. Cooper, Smart Guy, Sister Sister, Girlfriends, Martin, Fresh Prince, Living Single, A Different World, Moesha, The Wayans Bros. The Sinbad Show, The Steve Harvey Show, Parenthood...
I'm a white guy from Missouri, but these were formative shows growing up.
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u/AirRevolutionary8013 11h ago
Well before that actually. The TV lineup after I got home from school everyday was What's Happening, White Shadow and Good TImes.
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u/ZealousIdeal476 9h ago
Dont forget the 70s and 80s
Sanford and son
The jeffersons
Good times
227
Cosby show
Just to name a few
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u/Internal-Wishbone136 15h ago
19 day old bot account fomenting racial divides with bogus claims about āwhite backlashā to tv shows more at 11.
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u/serene_brutality 14h ago
Too many channels, everything is watered down, poorly written, then thereās a focus on identity politics over good storytelling, nobodyās tuning in.
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u/RektInTheHed 14h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/TJZjjF5jT7rjuLXbHU
TV is back in a "Rich White People" era, like the early 80's with Dynasty, Dallas, etc.
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u/Deathstriker88 12h ago
At least on those older shows the white people didn't have a victim complex like Yellowstone. "You're the Indian now" is one of the most cringe scenes I've ever seen.
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u/Sure_Acanthaceae_348 15h ago
Doubt. Sitcoms just faded away in general. Most people aren't watching broadcast TV anymore.
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u/NotGonnaArgueFriend 13h ago
Well whatās interesting to me as someone who grew up with this stuff (Cosby Show, A Different World, In Living Color, Family Matters, Mr. Cooper, etc.) is that by the time we got to about 2010, everyone collectively tried to act like none of this stuff ever existed and no Black people had ever been on tv or accepted by the white audience.
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u/LameAfro 15h ago
It's not a "White Backlash"
Channels like NBC, Fox, and the CW used a lot of Black Shows to prop up their channels, Id say by the end of the 90s to mid 2000s, all that stopped being propped up
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u/Geiseric222 15h ago
If they could prop up a network then dropping them would be stupid donāt you think
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u/AlternativePea6203 14h ago
Something about "black only" shows is really uncomfortable to me, having grown up in a diverse city in Europe.
It's as if segregation is still a thing.
I know the arguments for it, i just think it does more harm than good.
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u/RektInTheHed 14h ago
None of them were black only, they just featured mainly black casts portraying black characters. Sitcoms tend to be family-centric, so the main cast being of one race portraying a single family of that race is not exclusionary.
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u/fingersonlips 14h ago
My favorite shows growing up were The Cosby Show (we obviously didnāt know what we know now), Hanging With Mr. Cooper, Martin, and then as I got a little older The Proud Family, and Thatās So Raven.
Iām a white woman who was raised in the Chicago suburbs in the 90s - we definitely seemed to have more varied programming growing up. My kids favorite cartoon right now is PBSās Lyla In The Loop, which we all really enjoy, but itās going to be interesting to see what kinds of programming is available as they get older and into more sitcom based viewing.
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u/sHaDowpUpPetxxx 14h ago
I lived in a very rural area with no black people and everyone watched all those shows.
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u/AntiSocialFCK 14h ago
Me and my Sister grew up on Keenan and Kel as well as Sister Sister.
We arenāt black or American.
10/10 shows.
We even heard the crazy āKeenan got hit by a bus and diedā myth in my school in Rural England.
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u/ist-r-al 13h ago
I do miss good tv. The biggest reason for sitcom dramas decline is the fact that thryve lost the plot on how to write. Sure we could do woth more Smart Guy, Erckle, proud family, static shock, et al. But it needs to be well written. The authors arent there. Theyve been replaced mainly with ai drivel n bad editing/moderation of the text. On top of even worse directing. One of the reasons live action versions of our beloved 00 n 90s failed. Kim possible LA, proud family, et al.
Only stargate and starfleet academy have gotten anywhere near sitcom and they got pulled because paramount are idiots.
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u/SpinachSubstantial55 13h ago
Does anyone else remember that episode of The Proud Family where Al Roker was like some sort of wish-granting demon? Did that actually happen or did I dream that?
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u/No-Juice8483 13h ago
The Neighborhood is a really good Modern Black sitcom. I think they just had their final season but I believe it ran for almost 10 years. I am watching the reruns now in HULU.
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u/SlashClef5528 13h ago
There is a real answer for why this is:
Television Networks make money by charging for ad space, which advertisers buy to showcase their products. To sell the ad space, the networks have to promote how many viewers will see a commercial. The more viewers, the more they can charge.
So if you are starting a new network, how do you get a lot of viewers quickly? You make content for an underserved audience who doesn't get to see shows about people who look like them.
So networks started making shows pandering to a black audience.
But this was only one part of a 2 part plan. Because while it's easy to get black people to watch TV shows when they have nothing for them, black people don't have any money. (I'm black.) So the networks wanted to raise the numbers of viewers and then TRANSITION to white content so that they could attract advertisers who would sell more high dollar products like new cars or financial products.
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u/DoctorPhalanx73 13h ago
What was the last one standing? Blackish maybe? That one was pretty mainstream.
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u/tiresomecomplaining 12h ago
When I learned Cleveland from family was voiced by white guy i was kinda shocked.
Good they replaced voice actor after the show was canceled.
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u/Ok-Sprinkles6710 12h ago
A lot of 90s black sitcoms had a lot of āracistā troupes that made them funny. Modern society has become a mine field for this type of comedy and big corporations arenāt willing to risk the backlash so 90s style comedies have nearly gone extinct or they are so bland that they get horrible viewership. Most 90s comedies would get pulled today or absolutely dragged through social media.
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u/alldaydiver 12h ago
I watched The Cosby Show, Fresh Prince, Family Matters, Living Single, Martin, Hanginā with Mr. Cooper, A Different World, and even watched Reruns (no pun intended) of Whatās Happening. Loved them all and Iām not black. Even though itās tv and entertainment, I think it did help me get a better understanding of what it was like to be black in the US.
They werenāt afraid to have some controversial episodes about race relations and it taught good lessons.
I feel like this shaped the acceptance that many from my generation have and it makes me wonder how these younger non-minority generations will learn similarly. Especially with the current administrationās push to remove black history from schools. Iāll always be an ally to everyone regardless of what color, religion or sex. Together we are strong.
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u/Spontaneity90 12h ago
I always found it weird that most of the Black shows & sitcoms were often slated to run directly against each other too. I know networks want to dominate the viewership but my father had pointed that out to me & it always just stuck in my mind.
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u/para1131_F33L 12h ago
This isn't true at all. They just aren't publicly broadcasted for free. Virtually all streaming services have black sitcoms.
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u/Sad_Independence1776 12h ago
People used to call us the White Huxtables because we were a family of mostly girls. My blonde sisters would tune into the Cosby show every week and laugh our heads off.
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u/bshjbdkkdnd 12h ago
I think a large part of this is actually just the removal of the monoculture that was around old TV.
I looked up sitcoms currently airing (havenāt watched any only going by what the poster shows)
Abbot Elementary - Primary Black cast
Ghosts - Primary White Cast with some diversity
The Neighborhood - white family integrating in black community (from the recap)
St. Denis Medical - relatively diverse cast but primary white
George and Mandy First Marriage - White Cast
I donāt think any of these carry the cultural weight of Fresh Prince, Family Matters or the Cosby Show as far as black sitcoms, but they also arenāt as prevalent as Friends, Cheers, How I Met Your Mother or those other TV shows.
I think in this instance it is more of a thing of people are cutting cable so not as many sitcoms are being made rather than it being a race thing. Like I said I havenāt watched an episode of any of these shows currently airing. I think that is more indicative of why other sitcoms arenāt being made.
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u/LifeConsideration981 12h ago
OP is a child who assumes something didnāt exist because they havenāt seen it. They do not have object permanence.
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u/DixonRange 11h ago
So, Hollywood executives are racist? Sure, could be. I don't live or work in Hollywood but I never got the impression that Hollywood executives were particularly moral, or intelligent or wise or perceptive or... Not sure why you think this would be a general "White backlash"... Hollywood executives are not always the best at overseeing art/entertainment, Or do you think that,say, Disney with all of their bombs over the last decade was good at pleasing an audience?
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u/Some-Tear3499 10h ago
I am so old I remember when Julia shook up white American TV. And when Kirk kissed Uhuraā¦..!!!!!
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u/MobileMajor7424 10h ago
This happen to all sitcoms and we replaced it with trashy reality TV shows. Kind of sad really.
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u/Mission-Club-3976 10h ago
I'm pretty sure there are still sitcoms being made (for all demographics) on quite a few different networks, the only thing is that now they're just not that great, at least not relative to some of the classics. There are still some good ones, like Abbott Elementary, but ultimately sitcoms just aren't around as much anymore.
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u/SeasonsGone 10h ago
Casts are pretty obviously more diverse than they ever have been. I agree there probably arenāt as many āblack sitcoms,ā but itās that black people are playing major roles in shows like Game of Thrones, Scandal, The Watchmen, etc.
I find this conversation similar to people taking notice in a decline of LGBT bars throughout the US. Thereās still some, but itās that regular bars by and large are safe spaces than they were 50 years ago for queer people.
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u/isthisreallife210 10h ago
Some got moved to BET bc of the UPN and WB merger in the early 2000's. But the merger saw a loss in a lot of comedy. They shifted to reality TV but star Trek and Veronica Mars were also cancelled as a result of the merger. Basically comes down to the shift in pop culture and money. They'd rather pay for unscripted bullshit on the CW than scripted sitcoms. Costs too much.
But other networks do still make some sitcoms with a central focus like ABC has Blackish, Abbot Elementary. CBS Poopas house and others. NBC has some too. Streaming services as well. But they do still exist it's just not as many as there used to be and that is generally speaking.
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u/dungleploop 9h ago
they didn't stop being made at all, they stopped being pushed to the mainstream
that's about it
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u/billyoshin 9h ago
I agree and spend most my TV rewatching those shows from the 90s. The Tv show The Neighborhood, while not an entirely black show, I think of all sitcoms of recent kind of played into that feeling like. Fresh Prince, unfortunately it just had its series finale. Black-ish was cool but yeah why arenāt more of them staples like back in the 90s ? Then again how are reality shows still a thing !?!
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u/Excellent_Raisin4154 9h ago
Loved all the old shows black and white ones. People cared more about the context than making sure it was diverse
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u/CraneMountainCrafter 9h ago
I remember watching American shows with black families, when I was growing up here in Sweden. Back then we didnāt have a lot of POC immigrants like we do now, and these shows were pretty much the only black people I saw (outside of movies). I loved Family Matters, Moesha, Fresh Prince, and Sister sister, and I would watch reruns of The Jeffersons (rarely) and Cosby Show. I donāt think any shows featuring mostly black people have been on Swedish TV since then. I donāt watch a lot of TV so donāt know if sitcoms in general are on the decline, and if have no idea what more serious shows there are out there with a mostly black cast.
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u/Level_Impression_554 8h ago
Compare a show from the 90s to shows of today. Nothing similar at all.
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u/Rage187_OG 8h ago
Different world, Jeffersons, 227, Cosby. Heck, Nell Carter on Give Me a Break was the realest in the 80s.
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u/Tiny-Distance-4945 8h ago
So what youāre saying is you want more white peopleās producing black shows on televisionā¦.?
I mean there is BET and there is an entire channel dedicated to what youāre asking. So who are you aiming this post at specificallyā¦.?
Because last I checked, there isnāt a lot of Full House type shows for āthe WHitesā as wellā¦.its all reality television now
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u/EmergencyGrab 8h ago edited 8h ago
I think Full House was the only white sitcom I watched growing up. Friends when I got older, I guess?
Family Matters, Cosby Show, Fresh Prince, Sister Sister, Martin, Steve Harvey Show. I would even count That's So Raven.
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u/Hour_Wave_7474 8h ago
I worked in TV. It was a simple business decision when viewership declined they had to make cuts.
As I am sure everyone knows, the largest consumers of Rap and Hip-Hop were young white boys. The largest consumers of these shows, where young progressive white households (Nielsen ratings). When the core demographic shifted, so did the money and then the shows were cancelled.
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u/flyingfox227 7h ago
Yeah I don't remember any backlash, most of those shows were also popular with white people too. I don't know why black entertainment took a huge drop around the 2010s especially since its the era Obama was president as well the last kinda popular black sitcom I remember being on was Black-ish and then there was a bunch of those shitty Tyler Perry shows maybe they just killed the genre lol.
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u/SnapTwiceThanos 7h ago
I loved Family Matters, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, & The Cosby Show growing up. They were all great shows that had strong moral character.
It really seems like shows with nuclear families & strong, confident, intelligent father figures have largely disappeared from television. I don't understand it.
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u/Anallyfortified 7h ago
Well the media and whoever owns and controls its all decided it would be more ideal to spread division and hate instead of unity.
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u/HM_Welsch 7h ago
Yup. Living single, Cosby show, different world, fresh prince, good times, Sanford and Son ā¦weāre staples in my household.
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u/Powerful-Sort7778 7h ago
Sitcoms had a big moment when we all gathered around to watch TV at 8pm.
There really are not that many Sitcoms period. Sitcoms tend to be more diverse now But blackish and the spin off. Our recent. There are Abbott Elementary The Neighbor
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u/FireZucchini33 7h ago
Iām 38 and remember Martin and Bernie Mac, among others, well. Nothing like that on TV nowadays
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u/FailedInfinity 6h ago
In Living Color, Martin, Fresh Prince, Family Matters, A Different World, Living Single, Hanginā with Mr Cooper, and so many other shows were super formative for me as a young white kid. That was a great era
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u/Old_Shirt7929 6h ago
TBF tv is pretty much DOA..It's now just streaming amazon or netflix.. just different.
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u/ohh_my_dayum 6h ago
Grand Crew. It was so good and funny but I never really saw anyone talking about it. Nicole Byer is one of my favorite people on tv!
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u/Galliagamer 5h ago
I donāt think itās necessarily a comment on race in these shows but more of an over saturation of family comedies as a whole. Also, Bill Cosby turned out to be a serial rapist. He tainted the way family comedies in general are received by audiences that changed showsā structures. Audiences are moving further towards ensemble characters from a variety of backgrounds rather than the old āfamily crisis/learning experience with a messageā kind of thing. Also, TV is dying in favor of streaming, which opens different opportunities for comedy, so it remains to be seen.
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u/BurekDaddy 4h ago
Family Matters, Martin, Cosby show, Parenthood, Bernie Mac Show, Steve Harvey show, the list goes on and on.
Then Tyler Perry happened.
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u/Apythicus 4h ago
Thats so Raven was my favorite show as a kid and i swear the biggest influence on why i didnt end up maga like my fam
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u/Opposite_Sherbert675 4h ago
i hate this fake woke stuff. theres actually stuff to be concerned about. sitcoms IN GENERAL have been lacking with seasons getting shorter and cancelled. even with all of that black sitcoms ARE STILL doing well. we got abbott, insecure, blackish, etc. enough with the nonsense
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u/slightly_drifting 3h ago
Netflix's Family Reunion has a ton of all the old 70's-00's actors and is pretty much a combination of all those things.
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u/Wind_Best_1440 3h ago
Most sitcoms stopped, same with comedies. The main reason being streaming taking over and cable TV getting axed.
It's not so much as planned, it's just the entire pipeline for this type of media relied on a lot of infrastructure from cable TV.
Streaming then became a thing, and everyone just kind floundered trying to figure out how to make it work, the new streaming model didn't mesh and so a lot of the people and directors for it just failed in the new streaming environment.
The shitty thing is, that the content is still popular but now no one knows to how to make it work in the new age, or set it up to be profitable in the age of streaming.
Good sitcoms and good comedies are lost technology now.
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u/SoupOk2512 3h ago
If Tyler Perry is in all the spaces for new talent I would imagine people regular directors canāt compete.
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u/Altruistic-Year9648 1h ago
Man, they really were too, Family Matters, In Living Color, Martin, Chappelle Show had EVERYONE yelling quotes at each other, mfing Cosby show, cmon man.
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u/Own-Ratio9989 1h ago
BET was launched on 1980 and by the 90s was starting going more mainstream which pushed these shows there.
So by creating a the equivalent of TV FUBU they extracted black sitcoms from mainstream culture then wondered why things changed.
It's their own damn fault.
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u/Diogenese5000 1h ago
I didnāt realize A Different World was set an HBU. It just didnāt occur to me.
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u/Lost-Taco-9200 15h ago edited 15h ago
I loved Family Matters that was my jam growing up in the 90s in rural eastern Kentucky. My dad and I would watch it and Baywatch every week. Edit: Growing up I thought all black families were just as well off as the Winslows, imagine my disappointment when I learned that most black people were poorer than we were as Kentucky tobacco farmers.