Friends as a kid (how I learned English as an elementary school kid repeating sentences in my mind while watching)

Scrubs a young adult (JD and Turk and Dr Cocks were my family growing up)

Bojack as an afformative human being (that finally decided to acknowledge its dysfunctional and substance abuse and griping with the reality of dying alone)

Roseanne was always uncomfortable for me to watch because it hit a little too close

King of The Hill but Hank was a huge narcissist that cheated on Peggy repeatedly. Also add lots of Bobby getting yelled at.

Never saw a TV family that reflected mine, but wished as a younger man that I could live in Cicely, AK as seen on Northern Exposure for a year.

major wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 1:59 pm King of The Hill but Hank was a huge narcissist that cheated on Peggy repeatedly. Also add lots of Bobby getting yelled at.

So, King of the Hill but your dad was Cotton

The show doesn't reflect my family but WKRP In Cincinnati was very important to us. I grew up on it, loved it, loved all the characters, it was my Dad's favorite show. He would tape it off TV on Betamax and he, my brother, and I would watch hours and hours of it in the 1980s. I still remember all his favorite episodes and jokes and I still can hear him laughing when I see them. It cracked him the fuck up. I have the DVD sets even though 15% of the music had to be replaced with soundalikes. I still have all the Beta tapes and a deck. I will digitize them someday and post them to youtube with all of the '80's commercials and bad syndication edits. It's like comfort food for me. Of course I watch the Thanksgiving Turkey Drop episode every year in between segments of the MST3K Turkey Day marathons. My Dad died in 2019 but it is something that reconnects me to him every year at that time. He always broke up with uncontrollable laughter at that last line where Arthur says he thought Turkeys could fly. Even after seeing it a hundred times it always made him laugh. I miss that laugh, and that man.

Lu Zwei wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 10:43 am
Bojack as an afformative human being (that finally decided to acknowledge its dysfunctional and substance abuse and griping with the reality of dying alone)

That show was absolutely amazing. Quite a stretch for Tv family, but incredible TV.

joe_lmr wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 4:27 pm

major wrote: Mon Sep 15, 2025 1:59 pm King of The Hill but Hank was a huge narcissist that cheated on Peggy repeatedly. Also add lots of Bobby getting yelled at.

So, King of the Hill but your dad was Cotton

Shit, you’re right.

There isn't one show that would accurately portray my family. We were too bougie for Good Times but I saw a lot of my dad in "James Evans, Sr." We also had a sassy neighbor like "Willona" who was a permanent fixture and literally would enter our home without knocking. I wasn't a follower of Amen but my grandfather, a Reverend, was the leader of a Baptist Church and my grandmother had a religious book store. It would've been nice to reflect the Campbell's on Soap but we weren't nearly as soapy and I was much too young and not fey enough to be Billy Crystal's "Jodie." Far too working class for The Cosby Show but the shenanigans were real.

Don't know any shows where the family moved to three different states, including a 2.5 year stint in Germany, from birth to 14. Couldn't relate to anybody I met in that respect, let alone to any TV families. Besides the killer tunage, that's probably a huge reason why I gravitated and aspired towards bands and the touring musician lifestyle so much. I resented all the moving at the time, and it definitely set me back in certain ways, but I'm super grateful for it all now though. Good call dad on making sure my brothers and I got to see that there's a whole world outside of Huntsville, Alabama.