Okay, I'll buy MARRIED WITH CHILDREN as a working class sitcom, but I think
I will pass on FRESH PRINCE and 90210. Both do participate in a discourse on
the working class, but I don't think it is central as it is in ROC, THE
SIMPSONS, ROSEANNE and MARRIED WITH CHILDREN.  FRESH PRINCE does make much of
the Fresh Prince's working class background, but I have trouble seeing it as a
working class sitcom.  I'm not sure 90210 is a sitcom and, like FRESH PRINCE,
it does not seem to me to be centered on the working class, even though there
may be working class characters on the show.
 
I originally had intended to include FAMILY MATTERS on my list, but the
episodes I have seen do not seem to portray the family as having the same kind
of money-related problems the others on my list do. I may have this impression,
however, because I have seen only a few episodes.  If anyone else who is more
familiar with the show sees it as belonging with the other ones on my list, I
am open to being persuaded.
 
Right now we have: THE SIMPSONS, MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, ROSEANNE, ROC on the
list with the possibility of FAMILY MATTERS being added. Any others?
 
I am having a class write essays on working class shows and I want to give them
a list of which ones they can write about. Since in the U.S. it seems that
both middle class and working class are defined very loosely (and by many of my
students as the same thing) and in the minds of some include everything between
those on poverty and people with servants (a comment I think I am paraphrasing
from David Marc), I thought it best not to leave too open the determination of
what a "working class show" is.