What's Happening!!

Series Similar to What's Happening!!

If you enjoyed What's Happening!!, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. Welcome Back, Kotter

   1975 · Comedy · ended96% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, also on ABC.

   Gabe Kotter returns to his old high school -- this time as a teacher. He's put in charge of a class full of unruly remedial students called the Sweathogs. They're a bunch of wisecracking, underachieving and incorrigible students, and it takes all of Mr. Kotter's humor -- and experience as a former Sweathog himself -- to deal with his class.

2. The Cosby Show

   1984 · Comedy, Family · ended96% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   The show focuses on the Huxtables, an affluent African-American family living and growing up in Brooklyn, New York.

3. Are We There Yet?

   2010 · Comedy · ended95% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   America's favorite blended family is back in the neighborhood. Terry Crews and Essence Atkins star in this popular sitcom as a newly married couple adjusting to life as newlyweds and the complexities of raising children, while also dealing with the everyday challenges of romance, friendship and the drama of extended family. Teala Dunn and Coy Stewart co-star as Nick and Suzanne's children, 14-year-old Lindsey and 10-year-old Kevin. Keesha Sharp is Suzanne's best friend and coworker, Gigi, who has a taste for men and the finer things in life. Special guest star, Ice Cube will return as Suzanne's brother, Terrence. Recurring characters include Nick's best friend, Martin, played by comedian Christian Finnegan and Suzanne's mother, Marilyn, played by Telma Hopkins.

4. Fawlty Towers

   1975 · Comedy · ended95% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.4), hidden gem.

   Fawlty Towers is set in a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay. The plots centre on tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty, his bossy wife Sybil, comparatively normal chambermaid Polly, who is often the peacemaker and voice of reason, and hapless Spanish waiter Manuel, showing their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests.

5. Soap

   1977 · Comedy · ended95% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8), hidden gem, also on ABC.

   Soap is an outrageous comedy saga serializing the hilarious exploits of the characters in two unusual families. Meet the Tates and the Campbells, two families who have relationships as complex as those in a Russian novel. But the fun is in the unraveling.The well-to-do Tate family is comprised of Chester Tate the father, and Jessica, the mother, the parents of three children. Their two daughters, Corinne and Eunice, have distinctly different personalities. Their son, Billy, compared to the rest of the family, is the only sane member of the group, according to Benson, their hired employee who knows everything about everyone. The witty Benson does his best to hold the family together. Living with the Tate family is Jessica's father, referred to as the Major -- who doesn't quite believe that World War II is over.On the other side of town lives Mary Dallas Campbell, Jessica Tate's younger sister. Mary is wed to Burt Campbell who is not as prosperous a breadwinner as Chester. Mary's former husband, Johnny Dallas, has passed on, leaving her with two sons, Danny and Jodie. The older son, Danny, does not quite see eye-to-eye with his stepfather, and while the rest of the family knows Jodie is gay, Danny just thinks Jodie has a wonderful sense of humor.

6. 227

   1985 · Comedy · ended95% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   Set in Washington, DC, the series follows the residents of building number 227, a solidly middle-class apartment house located in a neighbor that is rapidly becoming gentrified with posh condominiums. Gibbs plays Mary Jenkins, a no-nonsense housewife. Mary's construction supervisor husband, Lester, is a caring, dependable father to their teenage daughter, Brenda. Mary's best friend is Rose Lee Holloway, a gossipy widow. The two pals love to sit on the stoop and discuss their lives and the lives of anyone else who happens to wander by. Sandra Clark is the building's resident vamp, a sashaying mantrap whose haughty attitude often sets her at odds with down-to-earth Mary. Pearl Shay is an elderly busybody who observes all of 227's comings and goings from her perch at the window of her first floor apartment. Rounding out the building's principal residents are Calvin, Pearl's seventeen year-old grandson (and Brenda's boyfriend), and Rose's daughter Tiffany.

7. Better Off Ted

   2009 · Comedy · ended95% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.2), also on ABC.

   Better Off Ted is a satirical office comedy about successful good guy, Ted Crisp, who runs research and development at Veridian Dynamics, a company with a morally questionable approach to its employees. Whether it's standing by a memo with a typo that encourages employees to now (as opposed to not) use offensive language with each other, to championing interoffice dating based on DNA matching to save money on health care, Veridian is a company that puts its bottom line first and employees last. Ted's a single dad to a seven year old girl, and he loves his job, but he's starting to take a closer look at the company's extremely dubious practices.

8. The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin

   1976 · Comedy · ended95% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8), hidden gem.

   Leonard Rossiter stars in David Nobbs's black comedy about a sales executive whose mid-life crisis results in him faking his own death.

9. The Jeffersons

   1975 · Comedy · ended95% match

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile.

   Set in a high-rise apartment building in the heart of New York City, the show spun around George, a classic character portrait of vanity, arrogance, and petty prejudice. Balanced by the more level-headed but just as strong-willed Weezy, George's self-serving abrasiveness struck comic gold, particularly in the second season, when the show's style had been set but was still fresh. Episodes tackled subjects trivial (George and Tom wear the same tacky dinner jacket to a party) and trenchant (a country club invites George to join, but only so that a newspaper reporter will think the club is open to minorities). The black and white mix of the cast allowed for a sharply satirical take on race relations, which managed to have a genuine sense of hope while never glossing over the complexity of racial tension--and was consistently funny. In fact, it's striking how well the show's humor holds up; The Jeffersons turned a series of half-hour farces into a sly examination of marriage, race, class, and the battle of the sexes; it's sad that so few contemporary sitcoms have this kind of intelligence, courage, and sheer talent.

10. Ronny Chieng: International Student

    2017 · Comedy · ended95% match

    Recommended for similar Comedy profile, hidden gem, also on ABC.

    Ronny Chieng: International Student is the story of Ronny Chieng, a Malaysian student who has travelled to Australia to study law. All he has to do is study, get good marks and make his Mom proud. Well, that was the plan anyway.