For some reason, sitcom premises have always relied on having a grown man move into another character’s home. It never struck me as odd growing up, but in hindsight, this idea of having these guys move into your home was kind of a bad idea.

6 Joey Gladstone

Show: Full House
Qualifications: Mediocre impressions, Is Canadian

Joey and Bob Saget’s Danny Tanner character were supposedly blood brothers because Joey said some guy who was picking on Danny had a big butt. When that’s the premise your entire kinship is based on, there are bound to be problems. Plus the fact that Joey is just kind of creepy, as illustrated in this video:

From his Wiki:

Joey also has a big interest in cartoons, toys, and other things traditionally marketed to children. He can sometimes be seen wearing pajamas and slippers with a character from some children’s show on them.

Joey has several relationships throughout the series, but none of them turn out to be very serious. In the second season, he started dating Cheryl. She appeared in two episodes as his girlfriend.

We were about one season away from a very special episode where Joey bought a van and busted his Bullwinkle impression out at the schoolyard with his genitals playing the part of Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

5 Balki Bartokomous

Show: Perfect Strangers
Qualifications: Foreign, Probably smells like incense or cheese

So Balki was main character Larry’s distant cousin and he just shows up to his door one day. So of course, Larry completely takes that at face value (if it were up to me, the first ten episodes would be us taking DNA tests and going, “Are we sure about this Doc?”) and thinks it’s, at the very least, an acceptable idea for Balki to stay at his home. And introduce his culture to him, as seen in the clip below.

I’m sure Larry thought he was just doing a good thing for a family member but where I come from, when a strange foreigner comes to you with requests, we don’t call giving into their request “a favor”. We call that a Nigerian scam. Larry’s just lucky he didn’t wake up in a bathtub full of ice and all his important organs missing while Balki went out and did blow with a bunch of illicit women.

4 Will Smith

Show: Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Qualifications: Colorful hats, Experience with boomboxes

Now I get that Will was Vivian’s nephew and he seemed nice enough when he came to Bel-Air, but in what reality does it seem like a good idea to bring a kid who might have been gang-banging, doing drugs, and, I dunno, break-dancing across the country to live with your well-to-do family. Listen to theme closely:

Right from the get-go, Will seems like a problem. He’s LOITERING around, he’s probably a pathological liar (no one gets in “one little fight” and has their mom go, “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GO ACROSS THE COUNTRY, I CAN’T TAKE IT”), and he seems to find trouble wherever he goes (he found the most ‘hood cab in Los Angeles immediately on arrival… those dice are probably a violation of some livery commission ordinance). So yeah, it turned out okay. But the odds were way more in favor of them ending up with a young Pacman Jones than they were of a rose grown in concrete.

3 Tony Micelli

Show: Who’s the Boss?
Qualifications: Is Italian

Tony Danza’s Tony Micelli character (clearly named because Tony Danza found himself incapable of answering to a name other than “Tony”) was a former St. Louis Cardinals second baseman. But when he had to retire due to a shoulder injury, he was in need of work and a new life for he and his daughter (who never seemed like his daughter, as illustrated in the delightful montage below).

So of course, that was enough qualifications to become a live-in maid for Judith Light’s Angela Bower character. I’m not sure when “Can adequately hit a little white ball” translated to “adept at taking care of my son and keeping my house in order”, but apparently Angela just wanted a bit of hot Italian man meat around the house “just in case”. This is like the stereotypical guy situation where a guy hires an extremely hot assistant with big boobs even though she doesn’t even know how to insert paper into a printer, only in this case, Tony Danza is the hot chick with big boobs. Which is not as sexy a visual as you’d think.

2 Charles

Show: Charles in Charge
Qualifications: College kid, Willing to live in a basement

Here’s a red flag for you: CHARLES DIDN’T HAVE A LAST NAME. I’ve never thought of having someone live in my home and care for my kids without them having a last name. Unless it was Cher. I’ve had a soft spot for her since Mermaids, what can I say? The theme is below because I love it.

Anyway, Charles was a college kid who liked living in basements, from what I can gather. He also apparently had some mind controlling potion because there’s no way I’d ever go, “Hey, 19 year-old college kid… want to live in my house and take care of my kids, including my budding teenage daughter Nicole Eggert? *whispers to wife* What’s wrong honey, why are you hitting me? It’s a great idea!”

1 Cody

Show: Step by Step
Qualifications: Has a van and a willingness to live in it

He was Patrick Duffy’s nephew, making him instantly a creep by association (Duffy’s always up to no good, just look at him). And in hindsight, it doesn’t help my perception of Cody that the guy who played him, Sasha Mitchell, went to jail multiple times after the show was over. And that I found this montage:

You know, you could probably have a character out there who was perfect in every way and YouTube will have a video montage of them that makes them look completely unhinged.

But yeah, I can’t see any situation where having a nephew who lived in a van (Has there ever been anything good done by someone living out of a van? Except for maybe Jonas Salk.) and seemed perpetually stoned around your kids is a good idea. Probably not the greatest influence on your newly merged families. And look at how he’s there in the opening clip with an arrow through that stuffed animal. He’s sending a message. To whom? Who knows… probably Christine Lakin for not accepting him out on a date. Not that you could blame him.

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