Hmm... you know I never thought much of the '80's in terms of sitcoms, but then I realize, I wouldn't be able to appreciate them in the single digits of age.
I've found 3 good ones so far.
Amen - hard to find any of these, mainly I've seen what I could find at Youtube, and a lot of the time with a really loud fuzz the whole way through, but it's what Sherman Hemsley did after he was done being George Jefferson. Here he's a Deacon, and it's pretty damn good.
Mr. Belvedere(whole series appear to be on Youtube) - Here, the titular character is a butler for a household where the father works daily and the mother studies to become a lawyer. Premise kinda falls apart in the 5th season though... There's actually a series of movies in the late '40's/early '50's, the first one being based off a novel, where the character is actually incredibly arrogant, but he's always able to back it up. He's almost nothing like that in the '80's sitcom, but he does still have his worldly experience. It's a pretty good show. Interesting fact, the last movie in that series had Zero Mostel in it, who was the star of Mel Brooks' The Producers, or at least co-star with Gene Wilder. That movie has a scene where they're casting for an expectedly awful play, and the casting director was Christopher Hewit, who was the '80's sitcom Mr. Belvedere.
Finally, lately I'm watching Gimme a Break! (over here
gimme break - YouTube) and it's pretty good. It has the spirit of a Norman Lear production(All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, Maude, Good Times, One Day at a Time, etc.). Case in point, some of the earlier episodes are kind of emotional for a sitcom, but the humor's always there, and it does pick up more as it goes along. It stars a black woman, who volunteered to be the housekeeper of a white family, when the mother died. The father(a police chief)'s incredibly old fashioned, and has, onscreen, slapped at least 2 of the 3 daughters so far. You wouldn't see that today, at least not in a show trying to be a sitcom. Seems a bit ahead of it's time in some ways too. They used a "kiss asphalt" line almost 10 years to the day before The Simpsons did it.
Once I'm done with that, should be interesting to see if there's anything else good I missed because I was too young, but I doubt I'll see anything as being as good as the '70's were in this department.
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