The '90s were an ideal time for truly weird and experimental television, from the low-budget gems of the MTV generation to the start of NBC's Must-See TV era of smash hit sitcoms. But for every ubiquitous and ever-present series like Friends and Seinfeld, there are dozens of quality shows that fall under the radar, possibly due to being canceled too soon or from a lack of streaming rights.
Here are some of the most underrated and under-discussed classics from the '90s that deserve more attention.
In Living Color
Despite being one of the best sketch comedy series of all time, and despite boasting future superstars like Jim Carrey and the entire Wayans family, In Living Color rarely comes up in the same conversations as Saturday Night Live, madTV, Key & Peele and others. Perhaps its often crude humor is the reason it’s not as timely, but its barrier-breaking impact should forever be celebrated.
The Adventures Of Brisco County, Jr.
Beyond “more Evil Dead,” Bruce Campbell fans would arguably most love to see the actor return to the sci-fi western universe of The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., which lasted for a single season on Fox. The cult TV fave was co-created by Last Crusade and Lost Boys screenwriter Jeffrey Boam and Lost’s Carlton Cuse, and featured a stellar recurring cast including John Astin, R. Lee Ermey and more. Awards should be named after it.
The Commish
Before Michael Chiklis broke bad on The Shield, he brought a lighter touch to crimefighting across five seasons of ABC’s The Commish. An early broadcast adopter of the dramedy genre mashing, the show mixed family-based narratives with police-focused drama, and took on quite a few serious social issues along the way. Then along came NYPD Blue and nobody brings up The Commish as much.
Duckman
Beyond Seinfeld, Jason Alexander also co-starred in another one of the funniest (if slightly more neurotic) comedies of the ‘90s in Duckman, which followed the titular web-footed P.I. and his unique family situation. It was crafted in part by animation giant Klasky Csupo, features a slew of talented voice actors — duck-billed chef’s kiss for Nancy Travis — and was absolutely bonkers. We could all use a little more Duckman in our lives.
The Pretender
Airing from 1996-2000, The Pretender stars Michael T. Weiss as one of the world's most skilled imposters who escapes from the conspiratorial organization that kidnapped him as a child, and uses his talents to take down criminals of all kinds. The show was popular enough to spark two successive TV movies following its untimely cancellation.
Viva Variety
The State’s Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, Kerry Kinney and Michael Ian Black are now known for committing themselves to every kind of comedy under the sun, and yet their late-’90s euro-variety show spoof Viva Variety is still unlike almost anything that exists on TV. From avant-garde to zany and back again, some form of Viva Variety should always exist.
Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction
Whether you prefer each episode’s campy reenactments and dramatizations or the serenely surreal hosting chops of Star Trek vet Jonathan Frakes, the guessing game anthology series Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction is a gem whose stories can occasionally burrow their discomforting ways under one’s skin. Yep, that one was real.
Nightmare Ned
Right up there with the most original and offbeat projects in Disney’s long history of lesser-remembered movies and series, the animated series Nightmare Ned brought a truly imaginative touch to its central tween character’s nightmares, though its over-budget production sealed its fate at just 12 episodes. They went right into the Disney vault, but there’s also a video game of the same name out there.
Millennium
Chris Carter hit it out of the conspiracy park — but did anyone see this hit? — with The X-Files, but still hit a perfectly bonkers double with Lance Henriksen’s not-a-psychic Frank Black and Millennium. Its three seasons have built a fandom in the years since its cancellation, and since it’s hard to imagine, let’s keep celebrating this wacky thriller.
The Sifl And Olly Show
For a while, MTV’s scripted programming catered to a wide variety of weird interests, and Liam Lynch deserves a big hand (or two) for the sock-puppet sorta-sketch brilliance of The Sifl and Olly Show. The lo-fi aesthetic has rarely been replicated, and I’m not sure anything could replicate its alchemy of silliness, surrealness and rock ‘n’ roll sleaze, and yet it became impossible to watch anywhere for years after airing.
Picket Fences
The first big TV hit created by David E. Kelley after L.A. Law, Picket Fences remains one of CBS' weirdest series ever, inspired in part by the offbeat small-town lore of Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure. With a cast led by Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker, the dark and quirky dramedy brought a legal drama mindset to a variety of strange cases involving social topics not often seen on TV at the time.
Action
Crafted by Bosom Buddies co-creator, with mega-producer Joel Silver backing it, Fox’s Hollywood-skewering comedy Action boasts the co-star trio of Jay Mohr, Illeana Douglas and Buddy Hackett working behind the scenes of action-film factory Dragonfire Films. It was perhaps too outrageous and sardonic for broadcast TV in 1999, as Fox canceled it after only 8 of 13 episodes aired.
Tenacious D
Jack Black and Kyle Gass have been comedian rock gods for so long that the project that properly put Tenacious D on the map, their six-episode HBO series of the same name, doesn’t get its due in comedy convos or Tenacious D convos. It’s the best show in the world, but it’d serve as a suitable tribute.
Perversions Of Science
Boasting executive producers Richard Donner and Robert Zemeckis, Perversions of Science is HBO’s single-season spinoff of the cult horror series Tales from the Crypt, with a stronger focus on sci-fi over straightforward horror. Based in part on stories from the comic Weird Science, this underrated series boasted genre vets such as Heather Langenkamp, Sean Astin, Jeffrey Combs, William Shatner and more.
Night Stand With Dick Dietrick
‘90s entertainment was arguably the zenith of parody culture, but not enough credit goes to Timothy Stack’s Night Stand with Dick Dietrick, which spoofed the trashy side of '90s daytime talk shows like Jerry Springer and Maury Povich, with Springer even appearing as a guest star. It’s a silly good time that deserves to be talked about more.
Anything But Love
Jamie Lee Curtis transitioned from scream queen to a comedy queen thanks to Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda, and she teamed up with stand-up icon Richard Lewis for the romance-forward sitcom Anything But Love. Airing for four seasons between 1989-1993, the Wendy Kout creation went through major casting and story retoolings from season to season, but survived as long as it did because its co-stars’ stellar chemistry.
Fun House
While it may not be remembered as one of the best game shows ever, the youth-skewing Fun House did feature one of the coolest obstacle courses of any series, as well as Double Dare’s mess-friendly approach to trivia. Hosted by J.D. Roth, the madcap show produced a whopping 375 episodes airing across syndication and Fox from 1988-1991, and yet it hasn’t sparked any primetime reboots yet.
Down The Shore
Before co-creating Yes Dear and writing for Raising Hope, Alan Kirschenbaum crafted the two-season sitcom Down the Shore, which focused on three childhood friends who get a house on the Jersey Shore to meet women, with all the hijinks one would expect from an early ‘90s Fox comedy. Helping the quality factor were early roles for Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn and Better Things’ Pamela Adlon.
The Adventures Of Pete And Pete
Nickelodeon isn’t known for transcendent programming, but The Adventures of Pete & Pete is its closest example. Michael Maronna and Danny Tamberelli star as the titular brothers living quirk-ridden lives in the fictional berg of Wellsville, where they have fun and surreal adventures involving many of the town’s other unique residents, with a host of familiar faces popping in and out. Long live Mr. Tastee, even if DVD releases are next to impossible due to various rights issues.
Square One TV
Beyond Sesame Street, another of the most pop culture-savvy kids shows also came from PBS: Square One TV, a melting pot of math-based parodies of everything from Late Night with David Letterman to Fawlty Towers to Pac-Man, with the key segment being the Dragnet-spoofing Mathnet. It may not have made math easier, but it was fun all the same.
American Gothic
This oft-forgotten gem of a dark thriller, American Gothic stars NCIS’ Gary Cole as a charismatic small-town sheriff with an extremely wicked personality who crosses paths with his journalist relative (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Paige Turco) investigating her mother's death. Many delightfully devious moments ensue, with other familiar genre stars like Sarah Paulson and Evan Rachel Wood.
The Weird Al Show
Essentially Pee-Wee’s Playhouse with a “Weird” Al Yankovic twist, The Weird Al Show was the parody superstar’s first foray into producing children’s TV (with Dick Clark also behind the scenes of this one), combining ridiculous stories with animated and musical segments, as well as surreal attempts at educating viewers. It lasted only a single season on CBS, but is still worth watching whenever it can be tracked down.
Get A Life
Larry Sanders and The Simpsons writer David Mirkin, Late NIght writer Adam Resnick, and comedian Chris Elliott co-created the live-action cartoon Get a Life, which lasted for two seasons from 1990-1992. Centering on Elliott’s paperboy manchild, and exploiting his seemingly endless stupidity, the show is a love letter to sitcoms of previous eras, with tons of surreal comedy setting it apart.
Sports Night
While Aaron Sorkin’s most cited credits are The West Wing and The Social Network, his first TV series is still my favorite thing of his to rewatch on a whim. Centering on the team bringing the SportsCenter-esque program Sports Night together on a daily basis, the quick-paced and high-stress comedy features memorable lead performances from Peter Kraus, Josh Charles and Felicity Huffman, among many others. Despite being an awards magnet right out of the gate, ABC canceled the show after just two seasons.
Herman's Head
A show arguably most famous for its live-action Simpsons’ co-stars Hank Azaria and Yeardley Smith, Herman’s Head was basically Inside Out from the perspective of William Ragsdale’s Herman, with four sections of his personality vying for decision-making power inside the attic-space of his mind. The Fox sitcom is also celebrated for breakout roles from Walker’s Molly Hagan and Friends’ Jane Sibbett.
Nightmare Cafe
Lasting for just six episodes that aired in early 1992, NBC’s Nightmare Cafe is a fantastical genre-blending series about a reality-skewing cafe where those who enter are given a second chance to course-correct a forked path in their lives, with various results. Most notable, however, is the fact that the series reteamed A Nightmare on Elm Street’s writer/director Wes Craven and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund.
Wings
Co-created by Cheers vets who went on to co-create Frasier. Wings ran for eight seasons and was the breakout gig for Tim Daly, Steven Weber, Tony Shalhoub, and Thomas Haden Church, with vets Rebecca Schull and David Schramm also killing it. Set in an airport on Nantucket Island, Wings hits all the checkmarks of a classic sitcom, and never quite got the credit it still deserves.
The Chris Rock Show
Though the list of memorable talk show hosts stems largely from broadcast networks, HBO has long been the premium cable option for loftier topics in that space, with The Chris Rock Show still not getting quite enough credit for shaking the game up when its five-season run kicked off in 1997. Its humor was charged and socially relevant, and Rock welcomed a host of rappers and Black entertainers who might not have received the screen time elsewhere.
Profiler
A classic ‘90s crime drama that mixed procedural cases with serialized arcs, Profiler first centered on Ally Walker’s FBI profiler and stalker victim Samantha Waters, whose life has been terrorized by the monster known as the Jack of All Trades. Sharing a universe with The Pretender, Profiler changed things up for its fourth and final season after Walker’s departure but it wasn’t quite the same.
The Ben Stiller Show
For a single season, The Ben Stiller Show brought its namesake’s manic energy to spoofing the entirety of ‘90s pop culture, from Die Hard to Beverly Hills 90210 to the artistry of Charles Manson. It's perhaps best known as a comedy incubator, though, kicking off the careers of Judd Apatow, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross, Janene Garofalo, Andy Dick and more.
Weird Science
Movies based on hit films are far more miss than hit, and somehow USA’s ‘90s dude-com Weird Science works as both a remake and its own weirdo sci-fi comedy that utilizes the jovial chemistry between stars Vanessa Angel, John Mallory Asher and Michael Manasseri. Someone should invent a machine that makes it easy to freely stream Weird Science.
The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo
Nickelodeon shows have a sub-fandom all on their own, yet a show that only true ones are quick to bring up is the children’s mystery show The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, which followed the investigative adventures of Irene Ng’s detective and Pat Morita as her loving grandfather. Why it’s not talked about more is the real mystery.
