13. Alex P. Keaton (Family Ties)
We've already covered his Bel-Air counterpart, but there would be no Carlton Banks were it not first for Alex P. Keaton. Growing up in a family full of hippie-liberal types has to be difficult when you are-- by nature-- a Reaganite republican. Alex's struggle throughout the series is to find his own identity on the right of center in a house full of Jimmy Carter apologists. Of course, Alex's character wasn't simply limited to politics. He was a driven, fastidious individual. And before Lisa Simpson was ever shown to get hooked up pep pills, Alex had his own struggles with speed in order to get ahead in school. In one of the first examples of a family sitcom to deal with actual struggles, Alex hits bottom the way so many other neocons have, with the bottom being the bottom of a bottle of pills. Fortunately for him, Alex cleaned himself up. And while we never got the Alex Keaton spinoff, we were fortunate enough to have Mr. Fox at least grace us with another great and underrated sitcom in the '90s, Spin City.