Hit Television Shows...Who's Success Surprised You?

[The Great Escape]

Not necessarily a show you thought sucked. It might have even been a show that you liked but it surprised you that it had a good run.

I would have to put "Designing Women" at the top of my list. I really didn't think the premise of the show seemed that interesting. Truthfully, I don't think I watched much of the first season or so. I kept having folks I knew tell me great things about the show, I started watching it and loved it.

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. Will and Grace, for all the obvious reasons but also.....

because it just was not funny when it began. The Megan Mullally (Karen Walker) character saved the show from cancellation and continues to save it from the clumsy, self-conciousness of the other three characters.

[Ediacara]

8. I agree

Will and Grace was terrible in its first season. It was the least-gay show about gay people I'd ever seen. Then it seems like they got a writing staff full of real live gay people rather than straight people writing gay comedy.

And it's BRILLIANCE!

[tuvor]

2. Cheers.

People in a bar. And how many years did that last?

I don't think I watched one episode of it, FWIW.

[Borgnine]

5. I really hate the early seasons.

Although some disagree with my opinion, I felt the first two seasons of that show almost warranted cancellation. It wasn't until they stopped trying to be a melodrama and focused more on actual comedy that it really caught on. Nobody wants to watch miserable people with no lives spending all day in a bar, but people with no lives spending all day in a bar and reveling in it is different.

[lpbk2713]

3. One of my favorites was Hill Street Blues.

NBC was ready to cancel it after only a few episodes. They reconsidered and it caught on and later became a big hit.

[LeftyMom]

4. The X files

That's just about the only tv show I've liked a lot that lived a long happy life. I would've guessed it was really to wierd to catch on, just because most any show I like dies a quiet death after a season or two.

The show that amazed me by surviving was every incarnation of America's Funniest Home Videos. How the hell people falling over, getting hit in the nuts or bouncing off a trampoline over and over again can amuse people for a decade mystifies me.

[Borgnine]

6. Mystery Science Theater 3000

Usually genius like that goes without recognition. Yet with no budget, it was the little show that could, lasting ten years (eleven if you count the year before they went national).

[Kire]

7. Two Verbs

It was a great show based on am "anti-Grammar Handbook", of all things, that glorifies contractionless phrases like "You are dry cleaning is done".

Actually, it's lack of success is what surprises me most.

[Contrary1]

9. Seinfeld

Couldn't stand it the first season or so, mainly because
I couldn't get past Jerry's monologue at the beginning of
each show. I've never considered him much of a comedian.

But, after a while, with nothing else to watch but repeats,
I left it on once, and became instantly hooked on the goofy
assortment of characters.