What are your feelings on sitcoms with morals in them?

All sitcoms reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the producers and the writers. Even ”M*A*S*H” or Star Trek had a clear moral philosophy. What sitcom has no underlying viewpoint or believe system?

@Dr_Lawrence I actually think of Star Trek as having a lot of morals at the end of the story. But I wouldn’t compare, say, Seinfeld with a show like The Facts Of Life.

I prefer truffles.

@janbb: Oh, shiitake! You beat me to it.

You cremini’d me tonight.

Laissons chanterelles avec joie.

I don’t mind, since it’s usually so corndog and cheesy that it destroys any plausible amount of realism they might wished to have portrayed.

Putting morals in your show is a good way to normalize them, and to keep everyone on the same page. Trouble is, people don’t generally agree on what’s moral.

The ones that aren’t contested are generally old hat, and so I’m inclined to be a tad irked. Especially if they’re blatant and poorly done.
The ones that are contested get my approval if I like them (Veggie Tales’ moralizing comes to mind), or my undying scorn if I don’t (like that one episode of Firefly where Shepherd Book demonstrates that he’s really lousy with apologetics. If you could scratch-n-sniff that episode, it would smell like Whedon on a soapbox).

I watch sitcoms for entertainment (when I can find an entertaining one). By the way, if you can’t decide which type of mushroom to buy, is that a morel dilemma?

@Austinlad Totally a morel dilemma. :D

Doesn’t leave mush room for equivication, does it?

Good question. I’ve thought about this before and I think it sucks when morals are put in a show. Every comedy show I thought was/is really funny rarely, if ever had a moral inserted. The more morals, the lamer the show. For example: Seinfeld: no morals, awesome. Everybody Loves Raymond: full of morals, stupid. Curb Your Enthusiasm: no morals. Full House:full of morals, horrible.

Obviously this is an oversimplification, but the funniest shows stick to comedy and don’t excessively develop emotional relationships. The Office has been going downhill with all the Pam/Jim stuff, but 30 Rock is keeping it superficial and still funny.

I wondered what made Law and Order so successful, and I realized it was because it remained plot driven and rarely ventured into the private lives and relationships of and between the characters. Some people like the emotional drama, and there are shows for that. I don’t feel it works in comedy. Like how many movies have you seen that start out funny, then get sappy? God I hate that.

Never watch sitcoms.