Lets bring it back to the 90s

SO. Fun little story that inspired me to blog. I was reading through a powerpoint presentation for my intercultural communications class (I accidentally slept through it... whoops), and came across the "family" section of the powerpoint, and what defines it.

after a few definitions, my professor decided to list a few television shows that defined the idea of "family" throughout the years.

Of course, it started with Leave it to Beaver, and Father Knows Best in the 1950s,

then Julia, and The Brady Bunch, in the 1960s,

followed by The Partridge Family (who didn't love their music), Good Times, All in the Family, and Different Strokes in the 70s, what a decade for the untraditional family.

in the 1980s, of course, it was all about Rosanne and Cosby, just to name a couple. How about Charles in Charge? Thank you, Scott Baio.

BUT. When the slideshow came to the 1990s, the only example my professor used was: Friends. Really? Friends?

Now, of course being the lazy bitch that I am, I wasn't there in class to actually hear her explanation of how Friends fit in to this category. I'm assuming it went as such:

"These friends were so close they acted as a family...." and all that jazz. Or, maybe she was tired of listing some of the same old, multi-camera sitcom family shows.

But, what we have to remember is there were some AMAZING family shows throughout the 1990s, I know because I lived it. Lets take a look back at some of my favorites SHALL WE?:

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The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

omg. Well first of all lets just get it out of the way. Who didn't love, THE SONG

IIINNN WEST PHILADELPHIA BORN AND RAISED... enough.

This family-based sitcom was great as a wealthy African-American family living in California take in their cousin, played by Will Smith, a street smart class clown from Philadelphia who is always down for a good time and who occasionally clashed with the rest of the family's business sense, school first attitude. It was a wonderful case of opposites attract, and an eye opener for how family members can relate to each other, no matter how different they are.

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The Nanny

this show is SO underrated. Even though everyone hated Fran Drescher's voice you can't help but love the comedy. This woman is absolutely hysterical with a show idea similar to one of The Fresh Prince, where an upper established family is brought back to Earth by some crazy outsider, causing mayhem. The show, which Drescher was executive producer, was different because even though many shows dealt with nannies, for the most part they were MALE nannies (Charles in Charge, Who's the Boss, etc). As far as I can remember, this show was one of the first in a while to have a female nanny come and implode the workings of a wealthy family, and actually be funny and successful. The chemistry between Fran and Maxwell is great, and it really brings me back to my "stay at home sick days" in elementary school.

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Sister, Sister

if you were a female (and lets admit it, some males) who grew up in the 1990s you, at some point or another, watched this show. A NEW kind of Brady Bunch, except, get this, the sisters were RELATED. How convenient. Tia and Tamera were amazing throughout this show, and as a young child I thought they were the funniest things since the looney tunes. And with Jackee Harry and Tim Reid as the parents, you really couldn't go wrong. I loved the ridiculous concept of two sisters being separated at birth, finding one another, and having their parents fall in love. It was great and totally 90s.

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3rd Rock From the Sun

YESSSS!!! So great!! Thank you John Lithgow, Kristen Johnson, French Stewart, and of course Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I love you all for making probably the most untraditional family sitcom ever. A group of aliens posing as an American Family in order to watch humans living in the "least important planet" in the universe? Absolutely brilliant and another underrated show. They really don't show enough of this in reruns and I would love nothing more than to get it as a box dvd set (HELLO PRESENT IDEASSS) This show was amazing because it tapped into all the ideas of what the "traditional American family" does, and of course, makes fun of it. Absolutely brilliant.