A Sitcom whose premise includes at least one Fantasy or Science Fiction element, often an Amusing Alien. These were especially popular in The '60s, as writers and networks cast about for novel alternatives to the more conventional Dom Coms of the preceding years.
See also: Comic Fantasy, Magic Realism, Mundane Fantastic, Urban Fantasy, and Monster Roommate. Not to be confused with a comedy that just happens to be very good. See Supernatural Soap Opera for a serious action and drama filled version that focuses more on the supernatural world instead of trivial everyday things.
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Fantasy examples
- The Addams Family: The daily life of eccentric millionaire Gomez Addams and his macabre but loving family, who live in a haunted house.
- Ah! My Goddess: Average college student accidentally becomes the boyfriend of a goddess.
- All Saints Street: The daily lives of monsters that share an apartment together.
- The Amazing World of Gumball: Covers the lives of the Wattersons and their friends and neighbors, in an extremely surreal world where Everything Talks.
- Amphibia: Asian-American girl ends up trapped in a world of talking amphibians.
- Bewitched: Ad exec Darrin Stevens tries to live with his witch wife Samantha and her crazy family of magicians, witches, and warlocks.
- Black Jesus: Exactly What It Says on the Tin
- Big Wolf on Campus: A teenage werewolf, his best-friend and an Action Girl deal with the Monster of the Week, making movie references all the way.
- Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer: Three kids who are science lab partners get trapped in a world Beneath the Earth.
- Boy Meets World (Featured Crossovers with Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Time Travel, Eric temporarily developing Psychic Powers, and Chet Hunter's ghost.)
- Bruce Almighty: God grants most of his omnipotent powers to Bruce Nolan, a down-on-his-luck TV news reporter. Bruce proceeds to comically abuse his new Reality Warper abilities.
- Evan Almighty: sequel where God appoints newsman-turned-politician Evan Baxter to become a modern-day prophet in the vein of Noah, warning Washington DC of another Great Flood.
- The Calvinverse: World of Weirdness antics abound in these very Medium Aware Script Fics.
- Captain Nice: A mild-mannered mama's boy who discovers a secret formula that, when taken, transformed him in an explosive burst of smoke into superhero Captain Nice.
- Cavemen: Based on the "Cavemen" Geico campaign, Present day with Cavemen still existing and being integrated into Homo Sapien as a seperate sub-group.
- The Charmings: Snow White, Prince Charming, kids and wicked witch mother-in-law all in modern suburbia.
- Dave the Barbarian: An Affectionate Parody of Heroic Fantasy in general and Conan the Barbarian in particular; teens Dave and Candy and their kid sister Fang rule over a fantasy land with their eccentric wizard Uncle Oswidge.
- Dead Gorgeous: The main protagonists are 150 year old ghosts suddenly dropped into a modern school.
- Delicious in Dungeon: A band of fantasy heroes learn about cooking and surviving in a dungeon from a veteran adventurer.
- Disenchantment: Cartoon parodying Medieval European Fantasy tropes, from the same creator of Futurama.
- Dog with a Blog: A dog with a blog who can talk.
- Each Little Universe: Two slacker inventors meet a girl from the stars; hijinks ensue.
- The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants: Based on the book series by Dav Pilkey, two mischief-loving elementary schoolers hypnotize their grumpy principal into becoming a super-hero to deal with various strange and fantastic threats.
- Eerie, Indiana: Think The X-Files turned into a comedy for kids.
- Fat Guy Stuck in Internet (Exactly What It Says on the Tin)
- The Flying Nun: About a nun who, well, flies.
- Free Spirit: Blithe Spirit with magical powers becomes a Magical Nanny to a divorced lawyer's kid.
- The Genie from Down Under: A snobbish British girl discovers an opal housing a father/son pair of very Aussie genies. Hilarity Ensues as the genies attempt to earn their freedom while a Penelope attempts to make wishes the Literal Genies cannot cause to backfire.
- Genie in the House: British sitcom about an apprentice genie living with a father and his two teenage daughters.
- The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: Family lives in a cottage haunted by an old sea captain's ghost.
- Ghosts: A couple inherit a Haunted House and must deal with, well, ghosts.
- Gilligan's Island
- The Girl With Something Extra: The "something extra" being Psychic Powers.
- God, the Devil and Bob: God and Satan decide to involve themselves in the life of a random guy named Bob, a blue-collar family man from Detroit.
- The Good Place: A troubled woman navigates a mundane afterlife and tries to figure out how she wound up there, while trying to behave herself and debating philosophy with her neighbors.
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: The Grim Reaper is tricked into becoming a slave at the whims two children who torment and embarrass him, all while dealing with a Rogues Gallery from the underworld.
- Happy!: Based on a comic by Grant Morrison, an alcoholic ex-cop turned hitman teams up with a girl's Imaginary Friend to save her.
- Harry And The Hendersons: Brief attempt to adapt a movie about Bigfoot living with a suburban family into a weekly series.
- The Haunted Hathaways
- Hero Corp
- I Dream of Jeannie: An astronaut discovers a Persian genie in a bottle while stranded on a deserted island, who ends up following him home.
- It's Garry Shandling's Show: A Sitcom about having your own Sitcom. Reality is frequently out to lunch, with mile-tall treehouses and time machines.
- Jackie Chan Adventures: Action-adventure-comedy about Jackie Chan, his eccentric uncle, and their hyperactive niece traveling around the world to fight criminals, demons, and evil sorcerers. Lots of slapstick humor and magical antics ensue.
- Jimmy Two-Shoes: An average kid ends up in a Hell-like setting while dealing with various monsters, including Satan and his bumbling, goody two-shoes son.
- Kaamelott deals with the Arthurian legends (including wizard, magic sword and all) from a comedic point of view.
- Less Is Morgue: An Odd Couple comedy about a peppy ghost girl and a paranoid ghoul hanging out and running an amateur talk show in a paranormal version of Tallahassee, Florida.
- The Librarian
- The Lost Saucer: Gomer Pyle and Ruth Buzzi as androids.
- Marley's Ghosts
- Me And My Monsters: A family moves to a new house only to find that there are monsters living in their basement.
- The Mighty Boosh
- Mighty Magiswords: Brother–Sister Team have misadventures wielding different types of silly swords.
- Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid: An office lady discovers that a dragon whose life she saved is now her new live-in servant.
- Mister Ed: An architect moves to the country, and befriends a talking horse.
- The Munsters: Adventures of a working class suburban family who happen to be a Frankenstein's monster, his vampire wife and father-in-law, werewolf son, and normal-looking teenage daughter.
- The Muppet Show: Human guest stars appear on a vaudevillian variety show entirely composed of talking animals and stranger beings. Magical and/or science fiction sub-plots are common.
- My Living Doll: Psychiatrist is entrusted with the care of a lifelike female android.
- My Mother the Car: David Crabtree drives an antique car that is the reincarnation of his mother.
- My Own Swordsman: The fantastical Chinese martial art world of Wuxia, as viewed by the regulars of a tavern; making it also a Work Com.
- My Phone Genie: Genie in a phone.
- Nanny and the Professor: A college professor discovers the new nanny to his three children has psychic powers.
- Old Harry's Game: The series takes place in Hell and focuses on Satan who gets into humorous debates with the more idealistic Professor.
- 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd: The neighborhood bully is transformed into a talking dog, and has to complete 100 good deeds before he can be turned back into a human being.
- The Owl House (The Demon Realm as the main setting and the main characters are witches & monsters)
- Pelswick (Protagonist has a guardian angel)
- Pushing Daisies: A baker with the ability to bring back the dead investigates crimes.
- Rentaghost: A company of ghosts for hire.
- Round the Twist: Three siblings move into a lighthouse with their dad, in an isolated community where they become Weirdness Magnets for the supernatural.
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch: A high school girl from a Witch family navigates everyday life.
- Its Animated Adaptation Sabrina: The Animated Series, though slightly more adventure-themed.
- Seriously Weird: Harris Pembleton, a new arrival from England, becomes a magnet for all that is weird after he disrespects Steve, the Ruler of The Weird Dimension.
- Sigmund and the Sea Monsters: Two boys help a sea monster avoid his ruthless, abusive family.
- The Smothers Brothers Show: A bungling apprentice angel lives with his mortal brother.
- Son of Zorn: Zorn, a cartoon barbarian similar to He-Man who comes from the magical South Pacific island of Zephyria, reconnecting with his live-action family in Orange County, California.
- Steve D'Monster
- Teen Angel: One of the main characters is a Guardian Angel.
- That's So Raven: A teenage girl finds her life complicated by psychic visions of the future.
- Raven's Home, a spin-off with Raven's son who is also a psychic.
- This Is the End: Horror Comedy about several self-centered, obnoxious celebrities trying to survive a global apocalypse, which turns out to be the same apocalypse prophesied in the Bible, in which demons invade the world.
- The Thousand Year Rose: Three sassy witches hunt for the legendary treasure in Ireland sealed by a rose that will only bloom for somebody with a pure heart.
- Topper: One of the earliest examples of the trope - The ghosts of a young couple killed in an avalanche [as well as the ghost of the St Bernard that tried to rescue them] try to help an uptight Banker loosen up and enjoy life.
- Transylvania Television: Vampire, Yeti, Bat, Skull, Frankenstein Monster and a large workforce of zombies run a television station.
- Ugly Americans: Every supernatural or mythological being is real, and have the same problems as any other minority groups.
- Wishfart: Every character in the show is a different type of magical creature, from leprechauns to ghosts to talking animals to mermaids.
- Wizards of Waverly Place: A trio of young Wizards in New York City.
- Woof: A kid finds himself constantly turning in a dog for unexplained reasons. Hilarity Ensues.
- Yo Kai Watch: Strange creatures meddle with the life of a middle-schooler.
- YooHoo & Friends: Five greedy, corporate executives are turned into cute, cuddly animals by Father Time. In order to become humans again, they have to atone for their actions by fixing the mess they've made and helping out the environment.
- Young Dracula: Some of the main characters are vampires.
Science fiction examples
- ALF: An alien crash lands in suburbia and moves in with a human family.
- Aliens in the Family: Alien falls in love with her abduction victim and they raise their five kids on Earth.
- American Dad!, which is a bit more sci-fi than its predecessor.
- Come Back Mrs. Noah: A suburban housewife and a small crew are trapped on a space station that is accidentally launched.
- Dani's House: Dani is a teenage actress and singer who is regularly left in charge of her younger brother Max, his friend Ben, and their youngest sibling, "the baby from hell". She and her friends Toby and Sam spend most of their time at her house in a den hangout. As they go about their lives, they encounter some bizarre situations. Meanwhile, two aliens known as Coordinators (Coordinator Zang and Coordinator Zark) observe their actions.
- The Bottle Episode "The Lodger" of Doctor Who is a pastiche of one of these shows, with the Doctor acting as a wacky alien housemate. Chunks of "Pond Life" pastiche the formula too.
- Doraemon: Robot cat travels 100 years in the past to give guidance to a hapless 10 year old boy.
- Duckman is supposedly about the home and work life of an irascible detective, but features mad scientists, berserk computers, alien abductions, reincarnation, and the near-destruction of the universe by White Out.
- Family Matters: Later in the series, Extraverted Nerd Steve Urkel's inventions reached Applied Phlebotinum levels.
- Far Out Space Nuts: NASA janitors try to return to Earth after an accidental launch.
- Final Space
- Flander's Company: Office life in a supervillain company. Mixes superpowers and super-technology.
- Future Man
- Futurama: Unlucky Everydude from 1999 AD trapped in stasis for 1000 years, winds up living in the 31st century.
- The Giant Claw
- Goodnight Sweetheart: Modern hero discovers time portal to 1940's London, the exact nature of which was never made entirely clear to either him or the audience.
- Happy Heroes: Robot Kid superheroes defend their home planet from various monsters of the week, with plenty of comedic tropes (including several jokes that use Breaking the Fourth Wall and Lampshade Hanging) thrown in for good measure.
- Heat Vision and Jack
- Herman's Head: Four characters representing the thought processes of an office worker help him navigate life.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: An ordinary British fellow is rescued from the destruction of Earth, and travels the cosmos with his long-time friend who turns out to be an alien.
- Homeboys in Outer Space: Two men and a lovestruck computer explore the universe.
- Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: Adaptation of the film series, focusing on the further adventures of Wayne Szalinski and his family.
- I Am Not an Animal: Collage animation satire about self-obsessed talking animals created in a lab.
- Invader Zim: An evil alien spy infiltrates the planet Earth, trying (and failing) to conquer it for his people.
- It's About Time was based on the Fish out of Temporal Water trope. It started with two astronauts accidentally Time Traveling back to the prehistoric era and making friends with a family of cave dwellers. When the show got disappointing ratings, a mid-season retool resulted in the astronauts returning to their own time—with the cave family in tow.
- The Jetsons: An ordinary family who happen to live in the future.
- Lab Rats: A trio of bionic superhuman teens.
- Marvin Marvin: An Alien Among Us Kid Com.
- Mars Attacks!: An Alien Invasion movie that is Played for Laughs.
- Men in Black: Action-comedy movies about The Men in Black policing alien visitors on Earth. Much of the humor comes from just how weird the aliens can be, among other things.
- Men in Black: The Series: Animated Adaptation of the above.
- Mork & Mindy: Alien moves in with suburbanite woman, learns about humans.
- My Favorite Martian: Ray Walston plays an alien visitor passed off as Bill Bixby's uncle.
- My Hero: Superman-like hero married to normal woman.
- My Living Doll: Air Force psychologist lives with beautiful woman-shaped robot.
- My Parents Are Aliens (well, foster parents, at any rate)
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 A human and his Robot Buddies are imprisoned on a Space Station by a Mad Scientist and his/her henchmen, who force them to watch bad movies.
- The Neighbors: Amusing Aliens in suburbia who take on the appearance of a multiethnic family (white husband, black wife, Asian son, white daughter) with the names of famous American athletes.
- The Orville: A parody of Star Trek about a space captain and his ex-wife having to learn to get along while exploring deep space.
- Other Space: Rookie space explorers sent on mission, stumble into alternate universe by accident.
- Outer Space Astronauts
- Out of This World (1987): Girl given time-stopping ability by her father, an alien.
- People of Earth: A small-time journalist seeks info for his next article by going undercover in an alien abductee support group. He slowly learns that this group isn't as crazy as they seem while audiences get to watch a group of aliens freak out that their abduction victims are slowly uncovering what they did.
- Phil of the Future: A family from the future gets trapped in modern times.
- Quark: A short-lived sci-fi parody about the captain of an intergalactic garbage scow and his ragtag crew.
- Red Dwarf: An average bloke is put in stasis for 18 months, accidentally stays in for millions of years, wakes up on a mining ship with no one for company but a hologram of his old bunkmate, a mutant descended from the offspring of his pregnant cat, a bumbling robot, and a sarcastic AI.
- Rick and Morty: A mad scientist takes his loser grandson on intergalactic, and interdimensional adventures.
- Santa Clarita Diet: A real estate agent from suburban California turns into an undead cannibal, while her husband and daughter try to cope with it.
- The Second Hundred Years: 1900 prospector buried in avalanche becomes a Human Popsicle and is revived 67 years later, lives with his much older son and same-age grandson.
- Small Wonder: A suburban family lives with their android daughter.
- Sonic Boom: A team of your favorite superpowered animals face mundane situations in their mundane village while facing off with a mad scientist and his Mecha-Mook (as well as other fantastic things).
- Space Janitors: Janitors in space.
- The Thundermans: A family of superheroes trying to settle down so three kids can have a normal childhood.
- The Time... Guys: Time-travelling scientist, his plucky young ward, and his Neanderthal intern.
- 3rd Rock from the Sun: Alien explorers masquerade as a human family.
- Transolar Galactica: Star Trek/Battlestar Galactica/military sci-fi parody.
- Trip For Biscuits: PI agency investigate alien phenomena, with hilarious results.
- Tsuritama: An anime series which focuses on the friendship between Yuki, an Ordinary High-School Student with social difficulties, and Haru, an odd and hyperactive alien. They save the world, by fishing.
- Upload: Series set 20 Minutes into the Future, which focuses on a 27 year old who is uploaded to a corporately-owned Artificial Afterlife after dying in a self-driving car accident.
- Le Visiteur du Futur: Centered on Time Travel.
- Weird Science: Two boys and their computer-generated magic genie.
- Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully: Amusing but potentially very nasty aliens take over an English village.
- Woops begins with nuclear annihilation, and moves on to giant chickens and meeting Santa Claus.
- Yo Soy Franky: Teenage girl robot attending middle school.
Science fantasy examples
- The Baskervilles: An animated show about a British family living in the most twisted theme park in the world.
- Courage the Cowardly Dog: A Horror Comedy cartoon about a talking dog who confronts various supernatural monsters that threaten his elderly owners and their home.
- Gravity Falls: Twin siblings spend the summer in the eponymous town, where they encounter a wide variety of creatures including gnomes, living wax statues, and macho minotaurs.
- The Hollow
- The Jackbox Party Pack 7: The framing device for The Devils and the Details involves a family of demons moving to the suburbs as part of a "demon-humans relations programs". Each "episode" features a list of challenge tasks themed around a stock sitcom plot (like hosting a sleepover or having hard-to-please relatives over for dinner), with some fantastic examples (like saving Earth from being hit by a gigantic meteor).
- Matt N Dusty: Includes robots, dragons, sentient game consoles, and dolphins wishing to take over the planet.
- Pixelface: Set inside a games console and starring video game characters in their downtime. Also features scenes set in the characters' games.
- Regular Show: A cartoon about the surrealistic misadventures of two slacker friends — an anthropomorphic bird and a raccoon — along with their coworkers in an urban park.
- Treehouse of Horror: An annual series of The Simpsons Halloween episodes that parody horror, fantasy, and science fiction stories.
- Uncle Grandpa: The main character is a Reality Warper who travels the world helping out youngsters in his own strange way; other main characters include a Godzilla-like lizard man, a talking fanny pack, a sentient pizza slice, a photorealistic tiger, and a robot.
- Villainous: A cartoon about a supervillain organization; its main characters include an ancient demon and a mad scientist.
Unclassified examples
- Dead Like Me: Mundane Fantastic Black Dramedy about Grim Reapers who escort the newly-deceased to their last stop and otherwise try to lead relatively normal "lives" in the world of the living.
- No Heroics, superheroes in their everyday lives.
- The Tick (2001) is about the daily lives of superheroes (rather than their exciting adventures).
- WarpZone Project (Multiple super hero series)
- Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell (Black Comedy about workers in hell)
