One of the Worst Sitcoms Ever Got a Rare 0% on RT and Is Everything TV Should Avoid

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One of the Worst Sitcoms Ever Got a Rare 0% on RT and Is Everything TV Should Avoid

Television networks, faced with a poorly rated sitcom, will do everything in their power to avoid responding to the first negative reviews, hoping that by airing said sitcom, the court of public opinion will justify its existence. Generally, it’s a risk worth taking: A lot of money is invested in these shows, and critical claims like “unfunny” or “uninspired” are often at odds with viewers at home (case in point: the critically ravaged film). Yes dear).

It takes up an absolute abomination of airtime for a network to have to respond to very negative reviews before a single episode even airs, and really stupid to try to put a positive spin on it. Surely no network can be that stupid, right? With that, Shirley, I present to you the debacle of a 2013 season. Dads, a sitcom that serves as the perfect warning sign of what not to do on network television.

Image via FOX

Dads (stylized as dads) features Giovanni Ribisi like Warner and Seth Green like Eli, two friends and business partners who together launched a successful video game company, for which they are together developers. The neurotic Warner handles the business side of the business, while the more laid-back Eli focuses on the creative side. Sure, they have their differences (Warner wears a shirt and tie, Eli wears T-shirts and blue jeans), but a long-standing friendship and mutual respect ensures smooth sailing.

Yes, life is good for Warner and Eli. Make this life was good for Warner and Eli… until their respective fathers moved in with them. David, the father of Eli (Pierre Riegert), who left Eli as a child, comes back into his life and moves into Eli’s apartment, spending his days sitting on the couch, eating on the couch, watching TV from the couch, and arguing with Edna (Tonita Castro), Eli’s servant, from – you guessed it – the sofa. Crawford, Warner’s father (Martin Mull), meanwhile, is an unsuccessful businessman, making bad investment after bad investment in a never-ending vicious cycle to revive his failed career.

My goodness, if you think it’s “funny” just reading about it, there’s more. Warner has two children with his ex-wife, Camila (Vanessa Lachéy), and he is afraid of sex. Eli has no children, is single and a perpetual horndog. David is a lazy, grumpy jerk who farts. A lot. And Crawford throws racial slurs like they’re old fashioned, but seems to ignore the fact that what he’s saying is racist. Yeah.

‘Dads’ sparks controversy before airing a single episode

Executive producer Seth MacFarlane is certainly no stranger to controversy, but the pilot episode of Dads could very well be the pinnacle (or make it the bottom) of his infamy in this regard. One of those critics who reviewed the sitcom before it aired, Maggie Furlong of HuffpostTV, summary of feelings many saying, “It’s racist, homophobic, sexist, ageist. You name it, (the producers) were just piling on many, many offenses.” John Doyle of The Globe and Mail was more succinct: “It was an epic hate session. »

Is this a fair assessment? Yes, and on the contrary, it is perhaps too nice. In this pilot episode, Eli and Warner force Veronica (Brenda Song), their Asian-American assistant, to dress as a sexy Asian schoolgirl in an attempt to attract potential Chinese investors. This stunt prompted Crawford to assert, “You can’t trust (the Chinese). There’s a reason why “Shanghai” is a verb. » It was enough to attract the attention of Guy Aokifounder of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (by CNN), who asked Fox to reshoot the pilot to remove the most offensive material. They didn’t do it. “It’s incredibly racist against Asians. We’re really surprised. I mean, how can you have an episode that is so ‘anti’ against a particular group?”

Asian Americans are not the only identifiable group to Dads attacks in the pilot either, with gays and Latinos also serving as targets for Dads“offensive attempts at humor: Edna is Latina and speaks broken English; Warner’s Latina ex-wife is mistaken for a maid; a TV boxing match prompts the comment that it should be called “Punch the Puerto Rican.” And so on. What made matters worse, in Furlong’s eyes, is that the cast is full of people who are respected veterans of industry, and hearing such hateful words from them, according to CNNis “100 percent trustworthy”.

Fox Tries (and Fails) to Put a Positive Spin on Negative ‘Dads’ Advertising

It’s not just bad publicity. It’s an advertisement from the depths of Hell, determined to drag Dads to eternal and fiery damnation. You can’t spin this, but that doesn’t mean Fox didn’t try. Their brilliant idea was to use the bad press for their own benefit, so they started broadcasting a new promo for the seriesone that urged viewers to ignore the bad press. During the 30-second spot, comments like “offensive” and “morally wrong” are followed by shots of a screening of the pilot, where the audience is seen laughing (one woman says, “I don’t see how you could be offended by that; you’re just laughing.”).

Needless to say, it didn’t work.and Fox had to eat humble pie. Fox entertainment chief Kevin Reilly told critics in August 2013: “Do I think all the jokes right now are being graded in the pilot?” Co-creator Wellesley Wildin the same presentation, added: “We want to keep [“Dads”] insulting and irreverent, but most importantly it’s funny. If we missed the mark in the pilot, we aim to achieve it better in future shows. To their credit, the second episode, which also played to critics, was not as racist, but, as Collider notes in its review of the show, he commits the sin of “just being boring.” Dads would happily end on May 7, 2014earning a notoriety that few others have achieved: a perfectly round zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes.