A Complete Guide to Sitcoms Set in Detroit
The Motor City has hosted its fair share of sitcoms over the years. These are the best of the best.
Image via Complex Original
When you think of art set in Detroit, you probably don’t think about comedy. A list of the best known films set in the Motor City doesn’t exactly fill the room with mirth: 8 Mile, The Virgin Suicides, True Romance, RoboCop and Garfield: The Movie (the horror). When it comes to pop culture, Detroit poet laureates Eminem and Kid Rock made their names with songs about coming up hard and fighting to survive. When Detroit makes the news these days, the coverage tends to involve shuttered businesses, foreclosed homes, or residents without water. Despite Detroit’s hardscrabble public image, the city has been the home for a number of sitcoms over the years. Some of them you’ll remember from years of after-school reruns, and others are as forgettable as a TV show can be. Though, all of them called the Motor City home. Here is A Complete Guide to Sitcoms Set in Detroit.
Rhythm & Blues
Aired: 1992
Network: NBC
Given that no network shows have been canceled yet this network television season, every series on the air will have a larger back library than Rhythm & Blues. The short-lived NBC show lasted only five weeks before taking its rightful place on the sitcom scrap heap. While many shows that flame out after a handful of episodes are championed as “brilliant but canceled,” Rhythm & Blues was utterly forgettable. Though the premise, where a white man gets a job as a DJ at a black radio station, could have had potential, low ratings and a cast of no-name talent ensured that Rhythm & Blues wouldn’t make it longer than two months on the air.
Rita Rocks
Aired: 2008-2009
Network: Lifetime
In 2008, Lifetime premiered a sitcom with the most Lifetime-y premise you’ve ever heard. The network found itself with reruns of Reba and needed something to pair it with to make a comedy hour. They decided to air Rita Rocks, the story of a working mother, demoted due to her pregnancy, who starts a garage band with her mailwoman and her daughter’s boyfriend. Believe it or not, she self-actualizes in the process. The show was canceled after two seasons due to low ratings. The Detroit setting didn’t have much of an impact on the sitcom that Variety’s Brian Lowrey described as “utterly conventional.” Lowrey pointed out that the goal was to hit a tonal palette appropriate for Lifetime, not dig deeper into the characters or setting. He wrote, “Lifetime does quite well with movies that follow a familiar pattern, so aggressively pushing the envelope would hardly make sense.”
Soul Man
Aired: 1997-1998
Network: ABC
When a series’ premise is at least partially inspired by a cover that the star performed decades ago, it should be a red flag. Dan Aykroyd performed a version of “Soul Man” in Blues Brothers back when people gave Dan Aykroyd good projects, and years later he was tapped to play a widowed minister in suburban Michigan in a series of the same name. Surprisingly, the series was relatively successful, and was created by the team behind Home Improvement. It seems that bad blood between the network and the producers led to the show’s premature cancellation. It’s No. 29 ranking at the end of the second season supports the producers’ argument that cancelation came about due to bad blood, and not a ratings shortfall. That being said, we didn’t exactly lose a televisual revelation when Soul Man was canceled.
God, the Devil and Bob
Aired: 2000
Network: NBC
A solid cast and intriguing premise couldn’t save God, the Devil and Bob from swift cancellation. The animated series was yet another twist on The Book of Job. Bob (voiced by French Stewart) was chosen by God (James Garner) and the Devil (Alan Cumming) to determine the fate of humanity. If it could be proven that Bob made the world a better place, God would spare the world from absolute destruction. Though Bob is a Detroit autoworker and Red Wings fan, like most animated comedies, the show careens from location to location including Hell and Hollywood (we’ll spare you the obligatory gag about how they’re the same thing). Though the episode log lines sound pretty great (Devil feels neglected when God doesn’t call him about their golf outing; Bob finds future sports scores on the Devil's Palm Pilot and considers it a blessing when he gambles and wins), low ratings and the ire of the religious right cut the original run to just four episodes. Cartoon Network aired the remainder of the first season on Adult Swim in 2011, which would have likely been a far more successful original home for the series.
8 Simple Rules
Aired: 2002-2005
Network: ABC
As early as its premiere, 8 Simple Rules (originally titled 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter) felt dated. Overbearing fathers doling out rules to potential daughter suitors as they cower on the couch doesn’t exactly jive with 21st century feminism. The able cast elevated the dusty material though, leading to a healthy three-season run. Katey Sagal, who endured several sitcom wife roles before landing the role of a lifetime as Gemma Teller on Sons of Anarchy, and Kaley Cuoco, who has probably purchased a fleet of yachts with The Big Bang Theory residuals, buoyed a cast that also included TV veterans David Spade and James Garner. Star John Ritter used his decades of TV experience to his advantage on the show. At the time, critic Alan Sepinwall wrote, “Fortunately, Ritter is such a seasoned pro at this sitcom thing that he makes ‘8 Simple Rules’ vaguely watchable, and at times actually funny, when in lesser hands it would be thoroughly unpleasant.” Ritter’s death early in season two doomed a show that was succeeding despite itself; the plug was mercifully pulled after the third season, at a point when the remaining cast could no longer sustain the poorly written show.
Home Improvement
Aired: 1991-1998
Network: ABC
This massive hit of the ‘90s is one of many vintage sitcoms that feel like relics today. The feel-good family lessons and laugh track-laden, multi-cam style remind us of a simpler time in television that we like to remember in listicles, but can barely stand to watch. Home Improvement’s connection to Detroit was superficial at best. Yes, we met out-of-work handymen and auto industry veterans, but these characters were generally window dressing for Tim Allen’s macho antics and subsequent third act epiphany that testosterone could be a bad thing. Though cars and power tools make sense in Detroit, Home Improvement could have been set in any town in America where guys let their machismo get the best of them, which is to say, it could have been set absolutely anywhere. Home Improvement was a middle-of-the-road, bland family comedy, and with a peak viewership of over 20 million, it was clearly the right show for its time and place.
Sister, Sister
Aired: 1994-1999
Network: ABC, The WB
While Sister, Sister lacked the sneaky brilliance of teen offerings like Clarissa Explains it All and Gilmore Girls, it was solid and was generally on the right side of the issues that it explored, like race, gender, and sexuality. Of course, it tackled these topics with kid gloves; even the cast of Dawson’s Creek would have made the girls of Sister, Sister blush. The show needs to be evaluated in context though, and since they never got as unbearably saccharine as Full House and reigned themselves in before getting as broadly schticky as Family Matters, Sister, Sister should be remembered as a relative, if bland, success.
Undateable
Aired: 2014-Present
Network: NBC
Bill Lawrence has become a comedy juggernaut in recent years. Scrubs, Cougartown, and Spin City, his three biggest accomplishments to date, are more than enough to earn him a spot in the sitcom hall of fame, and he currently has two shows on the air, Undateable and Ground Floor. Though the buzz wasn’t incredible for Undateable after it premiered midseason last year, the show gained word of mouth and critical appreciation even though the ratings dipped as the summer went on. Despite the drop-off in viewership, NBC opted to renew the show as critical response improved. Buoyed by a solid supporting cast—most notably breakout star Ron Funches (who plays Shelly)—Undateable is headed into its second season in a fairly strong position creatively. It remains to be seen how patient the network will be if ratings continue to slip, but Undateable has developed into a show we will be sorry to see go if it does get the axe.
Martin
Aired: 1992-1997
Network: FOX
During its initial run, Martin was a mild success at best. The first season averaged a series high of 11.4 million viewers—good enough to be ranked 41st among broadcast series—and fell to roughly half the audience to six million viewers and 110th place by its final season. Unlike many other sitcoms of the period, Martin remains surprisingly watchable. You’ll find the show unironically on a number of Netflix cues, and with good reason. It may be the writing staff that included eventual 12 Years a Slave writer John Ridley. It may be Lawrence’s infectious presence. Whatever the reason, Martin mostly hangs together after all these years later while watching the TGIF line-up of yesteryear offer enough saccharine to make you gag with nostalgia.
As far as the show’s relationship with Detroit, the city played as much a role as can be expected in a multi-cam sitcom. Lawrence’s character was a DJ and, as such, would sometimes riff on local goings-on. Martin’s girlfriend Gina (Tisha Campbell-Martin) moves to Los Angeles at the end of the series due to her company closing the Detroit office—a nod to the economic realities of the city. Martin was far from The Wire for Detroit, but the setting was acknowledged as more than a typical stock photo high-rise sitcom city, and became a palpable aspect of the show.
The PJs
Aired: 1999-2001
Network: FOX
Oddly enough, the stop-motion series The PJs might be the sitcom that has most fully explored Detroit as a setting. The claymation form of The PJs allowed the show to delve into some incredibly dark themes with a hopeful, if slightly jaded, lens. The series followed the adventures of Thurgood Stubbs (Eddie Murphy), the grumpy superintendent of Detroit’s Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs Projects, and explored topics like drug addiction, shootings, and homelessness. No matter how heavy the social demon that The PJs took on, the show found optimistic humor in the darkest places. The PJs had an intentional social awareness that few sitcoms, live-action or animated, ever reach. This has become a hallmark of the work of co-creator Larry Wilmore, who’s best known for The Bernie Mac Show, Blackish, The Daily Show, and the forthcoming The Minority Report with Larry Wilmore. He has found humor examining the black experience in America since he got his start on In Living Color.
Hung
Aired: 2009-2011
Network: HBO
Calling Hung a sitcom doesn’t tell the whole story. The HBO Thomas Jane vehicle belongs to that sub-genre of shows that aired in the 2000s and ran about a half-hour, had funny moments, but chronicled the journey of a protagonist that found himself in over his head. The tone of these shows would often shift from episode to episode, ranging from the deeply hilarious to the darkly tragic. Hung stood out from the other shows in this sub-genre—think Weeds, Nurse Jackie, Californication—because of its Detroit setting. Jane’s character Ray is an out-of-work gym teacher forced to prostitute himself to make ends meet. With the show’s premiere occurring in the height of the recession and its setting in Detroit, the plight of Ray, though it strained plausibility, resonated with many Americans. As the economy improved, Hung’s fortunes declined. Despite a handful of Golden Globe nominations, HBO hung up Hung after three seasons.
Freaks and Geeks
Aired: 1999-2000
Network: FOX
Freaks and Geek is the best sitcom that has been set in Detroit, and is in the conversation for the greatest of all time. When you first watch Freaks and Geeks, you don’t necessarily process that the show is set in Detroit. Upon initial viewing, Freaks feels like it is set in Anysuburb, USA like so many other sitcoms. Subsequent viewings reveal Detroit as the perfect setting for the show. The 1980s were the era of Detroit’s massive decline: 39 percent of manufacturing jobs would be gone by the end of the decade. Though adults aren’t really the focus of the show, this background gives a bit more weight to the parental figures who struggle to understand their children’s problems. Though Mr. Weir’s sporting goods store was a source of comedy on the show, the backdrop of Detroit’s imminent decline gave a melancholy edge to his dinner table pronouncements on work ethic. Given the financial realities of the time, the alternately uptight and exhausted teachers make a little more sense. It’s also no wonder that the freaks grow in number through the season as more students become disaffected and adrift. Growing up in a town with fewer opportunities by the day would be enough to make anyone ditch their Mathlete sweater for a beat-up army jacket.