A Complete Guide to Sitcoms Set in New Orleans

Image via Complex Original

Aired: 1987-1988

Network: CBS

Frank’s Place holds the odd distinction of being the most recent show to be nominated for an Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy that was also cancelled before airing a second season (the show received several other nods, and won for writing). As is often the case in situations like these, the show was ahead of its time. Frank’s Place was a comedy-drama in an era before shows like Weeds and Californication popularized the form. The show even predates Northern Exposure—one of the great triumphs of network dramedy.

The show followed Frank Parrish (Tim Reid), an African-American Ivy League professor who inherits a restaurant in New Orleans. Though he resists at first, Frank ultimately embraces a new life as a Southern restaurateur. This premise provided the opportunity for the show to explore issues of race, class, and region that still figure prominently in America culture today, but remain conspicuously absent from mainstream film and television in 2014.

Todd VanDerWerff at the AV Club wrote a lovely tribute to Frank’s Place that should be enough to convince you to take a look at yet another show that was taken well before its time.

And yes, leading man Tim Reid also played the dad in Sister, Sister.

Aired: 1972

Network: Syndicated

The best remembered of the great Muppet television specials tend to be the Christmas programs Emmet Otter’s Jug Band and John Denver and the Muppets: Christmas Together. There have actually been over two-dozen Muppet TV specials over the years, some for the holidays and some not. You could collectively call them a mini-series; you could call them mini-films; you could call them sitcoms. Whatever you call them, you have to admit that most of them are predictably wonderful, including The Muppet Musicians of Bremen. The hour-long special transplants the German folktale The Town Musicians of Bremen to the Louisiana countryside.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the tale follows the exploits of farm animals that have outlived their usefulness to their owners. After narrowly escaping being put out to pasture, they resolve to become useful to society by becoming musicians. The cast was anchored by Muppet mainstays like Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and lived on alongside The Muppet Show in syndication and as an audiobook.

Aired: 2007-2008

​Network: FX

The Riches is yet another in a long line of unfairly short-lived dark comedy series. Even as far as dramedies go, the set-up of the FX show is incredibly dark. Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver play former members of a gypsy-like Irish con artist community. After objecting to the impending arranged marriage of their daughter, they flee their “traveler clan” after fleecing them of a large chunk of change and start a new life. They quickly learn that they can’t easily escape their past when a group of travelers accosts them on the road. The ensuing conflict leaves a rich couple (named heavy-handedly “The Riches”) dead. Our “heroes” take on their identities and take a stab at a comfortable, sedentary life for the first time. The Riches’ fictional home is technically in Baton Rouge, though much of the filming took place in New Orleans.

Though the show enjoyed cult popularity, it was cancelled following a short (seven episodes) second season. Despite solid ratings, critical adoration, and the phenomenal work of Izzard and Driver, FX opted not to bring the series back following the conclusion of the writers’ strike.

Aired: 2013–Present

Network: Nickelodeon

If you don’t think that there are any new twists left on the family sitcom, then you obviously haven’t seen The Haunted Hathaways. The Nickelodeon show follows the exploits of two families: one alive and one, well, not so much. Michelle Hathaway (Ginifer King) moves her daughters to New Orleans to start a new life by opening a bakery. They quickly find that their new home is occupied by the Preston family, who are ghosts not-so-quietly living out their afterlife. The series follows the families as they learn to get along despite being on opposite sides of the mortal coil. Ratings and critical response have been steady for the show, which has gained praise for bringing originality to a somewhat stale genre.

Aired: 2012–Present

Network: A&E

Despite being a reality show, a number of critics, perhaps most notably Maureen Ryan of the Huffington Post, have identified Duck Dynasty as a sitcom. Though the show is set well outside of New Orleans in West Monroe, the series deserves mentioning here, as it will likely go down in history as the most successful Louisiana-based show of all time (though NCIS: New Orleans will almost certainly threaten it in terms of ratings). Unlike many reality shows that thrive on a competition or soap opera format, Duck Dynasty highlights the simple comedic moments of the Robertson clan’s life instead of wringing melodrama from their exploits. The burly, bearded men of the family attend baby showers and go to yoga class in what feels more like a CBS multi-cam B plot than high drama.

There is a subtle brilliance behind Duck Dynasty. Though there is a tradition of rural comedy that stretches back to Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies, and includes hits like Roseanne, Home Improvement, My Name is Earl, and Reba, few sitcoms get far from the city these days. For every The Middle, you get a handful of hip urbanite shows like New Girl or suburban series like Cougartown. Duck Dynasty has filled a void in the Middle American viewing experience—the need to see people “just like us.”

No, not all rural Americans are millionaire duck-call manufacturers, but there is a reason that Wal-Marts across the country were selling dozens of Duck Dynasty and Duck Commander items in their stores last holiday season, and will likely repeat the performance this year. Very few shows offer conservative, Christian carnivores as their subjects, yet the audience that identifies with these three C’s numbers in the tens of millions. You may not like Duck Dynasty—and you certainly may not like some of the statements made by its subjects—but the show remains the most popular sitcom this side of CBS, and it continues selling everything from rifles to loofahs to its fans.

While New Orleans has been the setting for only a few sitcoms, numerous series have taken their characters on a pilgrimage to the Big Easy. The Drew Carey Show did an episode in which the main characters went to NOLA looking for love. An episode of the light-hearted procedural Bones was set in post-Katrina New Orleans. The Big Easy was even home to an episode of the ‘80s cartoon Jem & the Holograms. Perhaps the most famous one-off New Orleans TV episode was the legendary Simpsons installment “A Streetcar Named Marge,” which took the cartoon cast into the show’s version of the most famous Tennessee Williams play.

Another interesting trend in both drama and comedy has been the inclusion of displaced Katrina victims in television plots. Series as diverse as House and Curb Your Enthusiasm have featured Katrina refugees in prominent plotlines. The tragedy of Katrina has thrust New Orleans firmly back to the forefront of America’s imagination. If the sharp increase of television production in the Big Easy continues, a list like this might be twice the length in several more years. It goes without saying that our airwaves would probably be better for it.