A Working Class Sitcom is Something to be

I've spent a while now asking my friends if there's been a sitcom since Roseanne that portrayed "real" lower middle-class families. Even the "struggling" characters on today's sitcoms are absurd - eg in The King of Queens, the characters are a UPS guy and secretary, yet they live in a humongous house with a yard, a huge garage, and a basement that's the size of a baseball diamond. In Queens. 

I watched about 6 hours of Roseanne today, and then I saw this article, which echoes my sentiments re: the absurdity of the way characters on tv look now, along with their never-ending stream of $100K cars and mansions. How often do you see a character on tv in a car that looks like it has more than three miles on it? Somewhere along the line, TV decided that "real" was "unwatchable" and "not money-making", and they pulled the switch, and it's always been my thought that it happened after Roseanne. - XMASTIME

It looks like tv may be slowly returning to the working-class sitcom:

Killing It is one of a growing number of scrappy, smart half-hour comedies carving out their own quirky, irreverent paths while tackling the illusory nature of the American Dream, slapping their characters and audiences in the face with the knowledge that the whole system is rigged. Of course, sitcoms that center characters living in financially precarious situations aren’t new. In the 1970s, Norman Lear premiered All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Good Times, and One Day at a Time — series that focused on families grappling with economic instability and changing🤗 social norms. From the late 1980s to the aughts, Roseanne, The Simpsons, The Wayans Bros., Living Single, and King of the Hill regularly featured episodes in which their central families and friends worry about omnipresent bills and overdue rent, navigate strikes and labor disputes, and bristle at the extra respect society automatically extends to the rich under the assumption that monetary success equals moral goodness. They laid the groundwork for spiritual and direct sequels like Bob’s Burgers and The Conners, shows whose constant shenanigans are owed to the difficulties of running one’s own business, the high cost of prescription drugs and health care, and the seeming impossibility of financially preparing for the future.

 Goes on to list two of my newest slices, Abbott Elementary and Killing It!