11 Hit TV Shows That Aged the Worst, Ranked

Even if Donald Trump hadn’t become one of the divisive political figures of our era, The Apprentice has lost any appeal it once had, now that a former producer has exposed its deceptive tactics.

One car’s name and paint job drove this TV show out of public favor: The Duke boys drive a Dodge Charger named General Lee after the Confederate general, and as if that weren’t enough of a reference to slavery-era America, the roof of the car bears the Confederate flag.

This musical comedy hits so many wrong notes. For starters, it trivializes sexual misconduct and statutory rape, it passes racist comments off as jokes, and it features a glee club director who gets uncomfortably close to his high-school-aged students (and who raps).

For all its laughs, Friends wasn’t so friendly to anyone who wasn’t a straight, cisgender, svelte New Yorker. (Where’s that “I’ll be there for you” attitude?) And there’s a surprising number of inappropriate relationships and instances of unwanted touching.

Bill Cosby had a conviction of aggravated sexual assault vacated, but after he was found liable in a sexual battery case and after no fewer than 60 women had accused him of various offenses, it’s hard to watch anything Dr. Cliff Huxtable does without thinking of his portrayer.

Between this TV show and its big-screen continuations, we get slut-shaming, fat-shaming, bi erasure, and many a transphobic epithet. And as with Friends, the focus remained on well-to-do white New Yorkers. Maybe the franchise really did need the And Just Like That… “woke moment” explainers.

The cop procedural may be popular in reruns, but those older episodes also show its sins. You’ve got uncritical depictions of police brutality, racist characterizations of characters, casual use of transphobic and homophobic slurs. What in the name of Mariska Hargitay is going on here?

Less than legen-wait-for-it-dary is this show’s sexual politics: Men are allowed to be pickup artists, but women who dare be sexual are branded sluts. And then there are all the yellowface moments in “Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra.”

Even Tyra Banks has acknowledged this reality competition’s many failings. If a contestant gained weight, seemed too gay, or had a gap in their teeth, they were rebuked. And they were rebuked by a show that aired two blackface challenges.

This show and its imitators took viewers on ride-alongs with law enforcement officers on their patrols. But as critics have pointed out, Cops ignored systemic issues of the criminal justice system — and perpetuated racial stereotypes along the way.

All in the Family this ain’t. Al Bundy (Ed O’Neill) is a fat-shaming, chauvinistic pig whose biases are played for comedy instead of social critique. He and his son bond over their lecherousness. And the show’s sexualization of a then-underage Christina Applegate gives us all the icks.