The Ugily Family

I actually took part in a preview screening of this show in 1982, and it was so bad I still remember it vividly! The premise was based on cultural mix-ups. In brief, Bradley Ugily (pronounced you-gee-lee) and his family have moved from New Jersey to Southern California and must deal with the hip culture there. Along for the ride is his overweight mother, played by none other than Doris Roberts, who would go on to co-star in Remington Steele.

The truly awful thing about this show was the writing, which was done to fulfill an East Coast person's preconceptions about what California is like. All the Californians were tanned, wore Aloha shirts, and had perpetual smiles like their facial muscles were frozen stiff. The Ugily's moved into a beach-front house (of course!), and their daughter was concerned about her performance in a new fad, "Disco Sand-Dancing"! The entire show basically rested on a one-joke premise: that California is a beachfront Babylon of suntans and easy living. In all likelihood the writer lived in New York City and took his cues from listening to a tape-loop of the Beach Boys.

When the time came for the audience to submit their ratings, I took great pleasure in giving this video horror an enthusiastic thumbs-down. Thankfully, it sank into oblivion, never to resurface.