The Five Greatest Sitcoms That Were Entirely Spoofs
From the Lethal Weapon parody episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, to the Mrs. Doubtfire parody on Arrested Development, to the Die Hard parody in every show made after 1988, sitcoms regularly spoof other media. Only a handful of sitcoms, however, are entirely a parody themselves, as in the premise of the whole series is to spoof another show or some other form of entertainment.
Here are five of the best…
Childrens Hospital (2010)
Adult Swim’s parody of hospital dramas like E.R. and hospital-centered movies like Patch Adams is in the running for some of the darkest comedy to ever appear on television and certainly deserves recognition for being one of television’s best spoofs. In their tightly-written, 11-minute episodes, Childrens Hospital made mangled children the butt of the joke and never apologized for it.
Police Squad! (1982)
Leslie Nielsen’s Lieutenant Frank Drebin made a much bigger impact on film through the Naked Gun series than he ever did on television, but that doesn’t make Police Squad! any less great. Following their success with Airplane!, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker tried their hand at television with 1982’s gag-filled Dragnet parody Police Squad! While the show was incredibly funny, it failed to catch on before the plug was pulled after just six episodes. Fortunately for us, the characters of Police Squad! fared better on the big screen and many of the best jokes were lifted verbatim from the little-seen TV show to the blockbuster films.
Reno 911! (2003)
Back when COPS was still a hit show on FOX, Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon and Kerri Kenney-Silver saw enormous potential in a direct parody of a show in which a police department full of morons constantly causes more trouble than they resolve. The very first scene of Reno 911! set the tone for the entire series. It begins in COPS-esque style when Detective James Garcia (Carlos Alazraqui) gets an emergency call over the radio that says “Officer down” along with the address of the incident. Garcia speeds to the scene and quietly approaches a dark house. Once he busts in a door, the lights turn on and about a dozen fellow officers shout “Surprise!,” revealing a party for Garcia’s birthday. Garcia, however, gets spooked and opens fire, shooting a fellow officer. After that, the call goes out over the radio again saying, “Officer down.”
Sledge Hammer! (1988)
Whereas Reno 911! and Police Squad! were police parodies with stupidity at the forefront, creator Alan Spencer’s cop comedy Sledge Hammer!, which was a direct parody of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry films, offered a smart, scathing satire on police brutality while also offering up delightfully silly gags. Sledge Hammer, played by the ever-straight-faced David Rasche, loved to inflict violence on anyone who stepped outside the law. He also spoke to his gun as though it answered back.
Like Reno 911!, Sledge Hammer! also had a perfect opening scene that encapsulated the madness of the entire series. In it, a person on the ledge of a large building is threatening to jump. As other police officers are trying to talk him down, Hammer’s solution is to grab the bazooka he keeps in his trunk and level the building, stopping the man from killing himself by causing him to die in a building demolition. That’s Sledge Hammer! in a nutshell.
Get Smart (1965)
Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, Get Smart was a send-up of James Bond, and its lead character, Agent Maxwell Smart, was a bumbling, moronic spy — a fact clear to everyone but Agent Smart himself. In just about every way, Get Smart was the perfect parody. Maxwell Smart was played by comedy master Don Adams, who embodied the role with confidence and charm. He was also complimented by the more-than-capable Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon, and their ever-frusted boss, The Chief, played by Ed Platt. The writing included a delightful mix of silly physical gags and complex wordplay to create a series of catchphases that, in five years, never got old.