Whenever a television sitcom starring children becomes a runaway success, you can predict a shelf-life of about five years. After that studio execs often attempt to revive dismal ratings by recycling the character formula that made the series a smash in the first place.
I think back to all the shows I watched as a kid. Shows that started out good, but got worse when the networks rolled out the sitcom scrubs – that crop of younger, cuter characters to relieve the aging stars. Yes, once Bobby Brady, Arnold Drummond and Rudy Huxstable started squeezing pimples they became less appealing, so to amp up the cute, lovable quotient (or so the networks thought) we get Cousin Oliver, Sam McKinney and Olivia Kendall – all characters we’d just as soon forget.
Heck, even cartoons weren’t off-limits. Once Scooby-Doo made the annoying nephew, the forever crappy, Scrappy-Doo a recurring character I officially grew up. The only thing more painful than watching aging adults recapture their youth is watching television shows try.
