U: Unhappily Ever After

Unhappily Ever After

This was one of the four sitcoms that launched the now-defunct WB Network in early 1995, along with The Parent 'Hood, The Wayans Bros., and Muscle. All but Muscle returned for WB's first full season, each lasting until 1999. The WB closed in 2006, as did rival network UPN, the two merging into the CW.

Unhappily Ever After was basically the opposite of Married...With Children, the show that had helped launch the Fox network just eight years earlier. The focus was on the Molloy family of Los Angeles: alcoholic patriarch Jack (Geoff Pierson), a cynical and chronically depressed used-car salesman; Jennie (Stephanie Hodge) his irritable ex-wife (who was killed off in the final season), and their children Ryan (Kevin Connelly), Tiffany (Nikki Cox) and Ross (Justin Berfield, pre-Malcolm in the Middle). Bobcat Goldthwait was the voice of Jack's stuffed rabbit, Mr. Floppy, to whom only Jack could talk. Joyce Van Patten played Jennie's mother Maureen for the first two seasons. Gradually Tiffany became the focus of the show once her mother was killed off. 

In my area, there was no WB station for most of the time that network was around. Really hard to explain this in full, but one might seem to guess that I never saw this. Yes and no. At home, no, but when I left for college in fall of 1995 I saw maybe a few episodes over the two years I was on campus (we got cable hooked up in our housing). I can't remember a specific episode, but I do remember the opening theme song, Ray Charles's "Hit the Road, Jack," used beginning in the second season (watch below). Episodes can be found here on Youtube.