Video: My In-Law, The Housefly

Off-the-wall comedy flourishes in out-of-the-way places

Network programmers like to think of themselves as wacky guys. Just look at the shows they put on the air. In NBC's The Fanelli Boys, four grownup brothers move back to Brooklyn to live with . . . their mother! In CBS's Evening Shade, a man is nonplussed when his wife tells him she's pregnant; he's already had a vasectomy! (Rim shot.) In Fox's Good Grief, Howie Mandel plays a nutty guy who does TV commercials for (hold on to your hats) a mortuary!

Had enough? Now try switching instead to Maniac Mansion, a family sitcom that is not so much...

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