9. The Cosby Show (NBC, 1984 1992)
What Was The Show? A family sitcom based around the stand-up of comedian Bill Cosby.
What Was The Stupid Decision? Including too many new characters.
How Did It Kill The Show? Something that will always hurt a sitcom is having too many regular characters because it becomes increasingly difficult to give each character enough screentime. Up until Season Six, The Cosby Show just about managed with eight main characters. But as of Season Six, that number grew. Former regular character Denise Huxtable had been a recurring character for the fourth and fifth seasons but became a series regular again in Season Six with the addition of two new characters in the form of her husband Mark and stepdaughter Olivia. Then in Season Seven, another new regular character was introduced: Pam Tucker, a cousin of the Huxtable family who moved in with them after her mother left to look after a sick relative. And with Pam came the introduction of three recurring characters in the form of her best friends. Increasing the number of main characters to eleven upset the balance of the show and viewers didnt warm to the new characters, especially since they began to draw focus away from the more established characters. Also, the purpose of adding Olivia was very much the same as adding Cousin Oliver to The Brady Bunch: If your shows ratings start to slip, bring in an adorable child to up the cute factor. It didnt have much success since Olivia (played by three year old Raven Symoné) was written and portrayed as incredibly precocious which is guaranteed to grate after a while. Particularly with the increased focus that the character got. And as for Pam, she was aggressively shoehorned in with a lot of the dialogue in her first episode being variations on Welcome to the family, Make yourself at home, and Youre part of the family. As well as this, she was much closer to the portrayal of the stereotypical urban African-American which the show had always tried to avoid and was a stark contrast to the successful middle class Huxtable family, causing the character to not sit too well with the established atmosphere of the show. This plan to give the show a kick-start backfired and the ratings slipped considerably until NBC decided to cancel it after Season Eight before it could slip any further. Despite a patchy last two seasons, The Cosby Show bowed out gracefully and is regarded by many as the best and most influential sitcom of its time.