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Grace Under Fire
1993 · TV series · 5 seasons
Created by Chuck Lorre
Grace Kelly is a tough woman with kids to raise. A recently divorced recovering alcoholic, Grace struggles with the pressures of being a single mother supporting three children. Grace doesn't always handle situations with, well, grace, but she does get results.
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5 comments on Hacker News
> I don't know if that was the case for most people, it's what sitcoms depicted.
It wasn't. Bill, from the Cosby Show, was a physician, Tony, from Who's the Boss was a former baseball player, the dad from Full House was a TV broadcaster, etc.
It's probably the reason "blue collar" sitcoms were popular in the 90s (Rosanne, Grace Under Fire).
> For example, about 20 million people tuned in to watch the first episode of the latest season of hit show Game of Thrones.
> It was one of the most-watched non-sporting events in TV history.
This is not even close to true.
Nearly 17 million people watched the Murder She Wrote finale in 1996. In the 1970s, each year, the highest rated episodes of All In The Family were consistently over 20 million. Seinfeld had 35 million once. 60 minutes has gone over 20 million many times.
Grace Under Fire, a mediocre sitcom most people here have never heard of, averaged about 20 million viewers for a full season in the mid 1990s.
I love when TV writers act like TV didn’t exist before The Sopranos.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts_in_the_United_States
I remember growing up as a lower-middle class midwestern kid, Roseanne was a show I loved, because I identified with it so much. Dan and Roseanne were my parents, and my friends were just like Darlene and Becky.
Another similar show from that era is "Grace Under Fire".
As a 35-yo upper-middle class guy still in the midwest, I look at what's on TV (both broadcast and Netflix/Amazon/etc.) and see none of that representation of middle class America. Besides "The Middle", which I still identify with, there are no successful middle-class sitcoms on TV.
Using inputs from IMDB, I think these are the shows he is alluding to.
>Roll your freelance success into your first sitcom staff job. ... After three years of miserable, seventy hour weeks someone ... cancelled
My Two Dads http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092410/
>Facing unemployment, fight to get on a hit show that everyone else is fighting to get off of because the star ... my agent a mack daddy?"
Roseanne http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094540/
>the star, while undeniably talented, has a few personal issues not to mention a coke-addicted boyfriend
Roseanne (BoyFriend was Bill Pentland)
>Roughly nine years after walking through that first door, finally get a chance to create your hit sitcom.
Not sure, nothing on IMDB got cancelled in 5 weeks in this time period.
>Your employers think it's a swell idea but instead want you to write a sitcom about a blue collar single mom on videotape.
Grace Under Fire http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106017/
>gal cast by your employers to play mom, hates kids, hates people, hates sitcoms and, most importantly, hates you.
Brett Butler
>Quit the hit show you created and get right to work creating another hit sitcom for another wack-job diva because you are just plain stupid.
Dharma and Greg http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118303/
>when you're about to quit the business in disgust, write a pilot script with an old friend.
Two and a Half Men http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369179/
An excellent piece. For those who don't know Chuck Lorre:
Chuck Lorre (born October 18, 1952) is a writer, director, producer and composer who has created many American sitcoms, including Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, and The Big Bang Theory. Lorre also serves as executive producer of the sitcom Mike & Molly which premiered on CBS in September 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Lorre