I don't know if any of you have seen this video on that subject (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MissingMom/LiveActionTV):
a9m_Vy9kIf0

But to just to name a few, we had:

Blossom - It's not really an '80s show, since it debuted in 1990, but still, since it was mentioned in the video, Blossom's mother, while not dead, abandoned her family none the less. Incidentally, the show that Mayim Bialik starred in right before Blossom, Molloy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molloy_(TV_series)), did actually depict her mother as being deceased.

Diff'rent Strokes - Arnold and Willis as well as Kimberly's own mother are deceased.

Empty Nest

Full House - This is probably the most obvious example of the children's mother being dead at the start of the series.

Gimme a Break

My Two Dads

Punky Brewster - Punky's mother technically, abandoned her rather than passing away, but still, the other shoe fits.

Silver Spoons - Ricky's mother didn't die but she obviously, wasn't around too much in his daily life.

Valerie - When the show was retooled into The Hogan Family and Valerie Harper's character was consequently, killed off.

Webster

Who's the Boss? - Samantha's mother is deceased.


I'm sure that there are (https://www.imdb.com/list/ls088826907/) many others (https://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=6#google_vignette) that I left out, but I just wanted to get to the "core" shows from Cracked's list (https://www.cracked.com/blog/why-every-80s-sitcom-decided-to-kill-off-mom).

Dead mothers were nothing new. Earlier shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, Bachelor Father, and Family Affair had them.

I might be wrong. The movie Two men and a baby were popular. So the male raising the child was the mark I think a lot of shows were going for.

To add to the list..

Saved By The Bell

Slater was raised by his dad. Just no mention of his mother.


Amen
Thelma was raised by Decan.

The movie is Three Men and a Baby, not Two Men and a Baby

Alvin and the Chipmunks were also abandoned by their mother.

The Dennis O'Keefe Show was an early instance of a TV household where there was no mother. Moving on quite a bit, another noteworthy example was Nanny and the Professor.

don't forget my two dads

Night court. Even Harrys Mother was Deceased

Valerie doesn't count in my opinion as her role was cut through the series and wasn't intended to be a show without a mom.

Who's the Boss? had Angela and Mona, mothers on the show, and Samantha had surrogates with maternal guidance in the house from them. I even recall an episode with them buying her a dress and Tony couldn't handle seeing his daughter so feminine and grown up.

Night court. Even Harrys Mother was Deceased

my 3 sons long,long,long running tv series......original kiddos...mike..robbie..chip...mike (son) left and ernie was adopted...ernie actor had played pal of chip ?ernie and chip actors were siblings....it was very hard process in those days...1960/s or early 70s to have a dad without a lady .....hard to adopt..be single MALE and adopt......social woker seen helper...uncle charley..tour teh douglas home and ernie was adopted...ernie's parents had died ..never married or ?

Night court. Even Harrys Mother was DeceasedNight Court was a workplace sitcom though, not a family sitcom.

I remember this era well. There was a huge backlash against 1950s sitcoms that had nuclear families, going all the way back to the 1970s. People said they weren't realistic and old fashioned. The backlash is why TV sitcoms not only kept having missing parents, broken families, etc. but made every nuclear family dysfunctional (Roseanne, Married with Children, The Simpsons, etc.).

Family sitcoms still had a dark element you could say, going into the '90s. Not just Full House and Blossom, but there's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where Will had to be moved to Bel-Air because him and his friends were getting into trouble on the streets of Philadelphia and getting into fights. And there's Sister, Sister, where Tia and Tamera were both adopted by a different person and didn’t even know the other existed until running into each other while shopping, and spent a lot of the show wanting to learn about their biological parents.

Valerie doesn't count in my opinion as her role was cut through the series and wasn't intended to be a show without a mom.

Who's the Boss? had Angela and Mona, mothers on the show, and Samantha had surrogates with maternal guidance in the house from them. I even recall an episode with them buying her a dress and Tony couldn't handle seeing his daughter so feminine and grown up.

Somebody in the comments section for the video even noted (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9m_Vy9kIf0&lc=UgzYsH00Pju4BE7wgaR4AaABAg) that usually on these sitcoms, if the mother is not physically around (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MissingMom), then the children still have a woman to serve as a mother figure (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MissingMom/LiveActionTV) in their life.

Like on Who's the Boss?, Samantha had Angela and by extension, Mona. On Full House, D.J., Stephanie, and Michelle had Becky as their surrogate mother figure. On Gimme a Break, the Kanisky girls had Nell Carter's character. On Webster, there was Katherine or Ma'am as the Webster character likes to call her. On The Hogan Family, there was Sandy Duncan's character after Valerie Harper was removed from the series. On Silver Spoons, Ricky had Kate, his dad's personal assistant and later, wife. On Punky Brewster, there was Mrs. Johnson, Punky's best friend, Cherie's grandmother. And on Diff'rent Strokes, when Mr. Drummond married Maggie, Arnold, Willis, and Kimberly gained a stepmother.

I think it was really just meant as a way to explore single parent households and the at the time relatively new social idea of fathers raising kids without mothers.

Divorce was becoming more commonplace and a lot of families had only a father, which to TV was a brand new concept (although in reality had likely always occured).

Or it could just be a product of lazy writing, one show was a success with the idea so more shows followed.

Also add to the list, My Two Dads. Two fathers, no mother (she's dead). I wouldn't count Empty Nest since the kids on that show were adults.

It probably was used to open up more storylines than a typical nuclear family.

Multiple reasons, including (https://www.quora.com/Why-did-so-many-family-sitcoms-from-the-1980s-and-early-90s-have-deceased-or-absentee-mothers-Whether-it-be-Diffrent-Strokes-Webster-Punky-Brewster-Whos-the-Boss-My-Two-Dads-Silver-Spoons-Full-House-and-Empty-Nest/answer/Jon-Mixon-1):


It can be used a method to “jump start” the narrative - The series is introduced as taking place shortly after the death of the parent (usually the mother) and so the family’s “healing” is a major portion of the story, until or if audiences are attracted to the project and then the missing parent can “fade” into the woodwork.
It’s a cost saving move - Dead characters don’t normally have to be cast (unless they are shown later in a flashback episode) and so the production doesn’t have to pay them.
It’s bad writing - The unseen character can be written in any number of manners, and so the writers don’t have to create dialogue that sounds like it’s something that a “real” person might say.
It’s bad writing #2 - The character doesn’t have to be written too deeply because they are never going to be part of the ongoing program. They can be a cipher and remain one for the length of the series run.
A fair measure of sexism - Most of the series that you listed were vehicles for the male actors on them. Female leads were uncommon for many years in the 1970s and 1980s and even when they were more common (ironically earlier on television) they were nearly always wives. Widowers allowed the program to run through a number of female actors to potentially become a “mate” for the male lead and that would be deemed agreeable. A single woman dating extensively would be viewed as being “trashy” and perhaps even promiscuous. Although times have changed, few programs will still show the lead female character dating a number of men as that doesn’t seem to “appeal” to viewers.

Maybe it was a mirror of society from the 1970s and 1980s~ latchkey children

The term latchkey kid became commonplace in the 1970s and 1980s to describe members of Generation X who, according to a 2004 marketing study, "went through its all-important, formative years as one of the least parented, least nurtured generations in U.S. history." Latchkey kids were prevalent during this time, a result of increased divorce rates and increased maternal participation in the workforce at a time before childcare options outside the home were widely available. These latchkey children, referred to as "day orphans" in the 1984 documentary, To Save Our Children to Save Our Schools, mainly came from middle or upper-class homes. The higher the educational attainment of the parents, the higher the odds the children of this time would be latchkey kids.

On a personal note, I was one of those latchkey kids. My dad worked the swing shift and was never home between 2pm and 2am. My mom worked and arrived well after 6pm. The idea of being orphaned resonated too well for me.

5. A fair measure of sexism - Most of the series that you listed were vehicles for the male actors on them. Female leads were uncommon for many years in the 1970s and 1980s and even when they were more common (ironically earlier on television) they were nearly always wives. Widowers allowed the program to run through a number of female actors to potentially become a “mate” for the male lead and that would be deemed agreeable. A single woman dating extensively would be viewed as being “trashy” and perhaps even promiscuous. Although times have changed, few programs will still show the lead female character dating a number of men as that doesn’t seem to “appeal” to viewers.

Female leads of the '70s & '80s: Here's Lucy, Alice, She's the Sheriff, Phyllis, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laverne & Shirley, Funny Face (The Sandy Duncan Show), Rhoda, One Day at a Time, Kate & Allie, Maude, Valerie, Who's the Boss, Free Spirit, The Doris Day Show, Angie, Mama's Family, Designing Women, The Partridge Family ...hardly "uncommon."

Few were "wives" in those decades or in earlier ones either, as with series like My Little Margie, Our Miss Brooks, Petticoat Junction, Julia, That Girl, The Lucy Show...

One of the issues somewhat alluded to earlier is that, at least in decades past, single dads trying to fill the roles of both father and mother was seen as comedic, and dating multiple women over the course of the show was just seen as normal.

A single mom trying to be both mom and dad to kids was seen as sad and depressing. And as said earlier, a woman dating multiple men was seen as trashy.

Those are all unfair stereotypes, and Julia and One Day at a Time were some of the first shows to try to break that mold. The Lucy Show to an extent as well, but the focus was rarely on the kids, especially in later years. Looking at those shows through the lens of what I said earlier really does show though how groundbreaking they were.

One of the issues somewhat alluded to earlier is that, at least in decades past, single dads trying to fill the roles of both father and mother was seen as comedic, and dating multiple women over the course of the show was just seen as normal.

A single mom trying to be both mom and dad to kids was seen as sad and depressing. And as said earlier, a woman dating multiple men was seen as trashy.

Those are all unfair stereotypes, and Julia and One Day at a Time were some of the first shows to try to break that mold. The Lucy Show to an extent as well, but the focus was rarely on the kids, especially in later years. Looking at those shows through the lens of what I said earlier really does show though how groundbreaking they were.

I'm going off the top of my head, but The Partridge Family with Shirley Jones was the first "older" TV show that came to my mind that depicted a single mom whose children's father was presumably deceased or at the very least, doesn't play an active factor in their lives. For an '80s show, there were the Powell family seasons of Charles in Charge (Season 2 onward), where the dad while not deceased, was never around since he was on naval duty. So the kids' grandfather, Walter was the defacto father figure in his place. Out of This World was another '80s sitcom in which the dad wasn't physically present.

There was also Judith Light and by extension, Katherine Helmond on Who's the Boss?, who for the most part, both played single mothers. The Mona character that Katherine Helmond portrayed in particular, was depicted as dating multiple men. Kate & Allie also if I'm not mistaken, also from that time frame, depicted single mothers, who didn't have their children's fathers around too much.

PRIME TIME ABANDONS ITS MOMS THE NEW CROP OF SITCOMS WITH MOTHERLESS FAMILIES FOLLOWS IN A LONG TV TRADITION. (https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1991/05/31/prime-time-abandons-its-moms-the-new-crop-of-sitcoms-with-motherless-families-follows-in-a-long-tv-tradition/)

By
PUBLISHED: May 31, 1991 at 4:00 a.m. | UPDATED: July 26, 2021 at 6:29 p.m.

When television producers Danny Jacobson and Norma Safford Vela were casting their ABC sitcom Davis Rules – starring Jonathan Winters and Randy Quaid as father and son raising Quaid’s three boys – they couldn’t find the right actress to play Quaid’s wife. So they killed her off before the show began.

Jacobson recalls that as they wrestled with that decision, Vela balked, asking, “Is this going to be another dead-mom show?”

Mothers, in case you hadn’t noticed, are biting the dust in primetime comedies.

Lately, there has been a weird sort of post-feminist backlash in television’s depiction of the American family, and the message is hardly subliminal: If mom’s not going to stick around in the kitchen, then – poof – let’s dump her.

Sometimes she has up and walked out (as in Blossom, to pursue a singing career, or as in Wings, to serve time in prison for embezzlement). Usually, though, she’s dead, the victim of a car crash.

And riotously or not, a hapless dad, a la Mr. Mom, is left to fend for himself and the kids, often with the help of a male in-law.

In ABC’s sleeper Full House, a father, his boyish-looking brother-in-law and his pal do their heartwarming best to look after three girls.

The Family Man on CBS stars Gregory Harrison as a fireman who, with his father-in-law, raises four children.

Down Home and Empty Nest, both on NBC, feature widowed fathers dealing with their grown children.

The Fox network has a new father-son show called Top of the Heap, a spinoff of Married . . . With Children that stars Joe Bologna.

Motherless families have long been a staple of American television.

Think back to the Ponderosa days of Pa and Hoss on Bonanza. Then there was My Three Sons, Bachelor Father, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father and Family Affair.

Then, for a while, TV moved closer to mirroring reality with fatherless series, most notably One Day at a Time and Kate and Allie.

Fantasy or hidden truth?

So why the resurgence now? Why are so many television mothers missing? Is TV reflecting the culture or offering a fantasy? Could Marge Simpson be the next to go?

“I shudder to think what would happen if Marge weren’t there to keep Homer from killing the kids,” says Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, who has as keen an eye as anyone in television for how dysfunctional families work.

“In our culture, fathers have schemed their way out of familial duties. These sitcoms without mothers finally force them to do the parental thing.”

In truth, of course, most American children are still being cared for by their mothers, not their fathers, even though the majority of mothers work outside the home.

But the current rash of shows without mothers can be traced to a confluence of psychological, sociological and economic factors, including the exploitation of every working mother’s most basic guilt about deserting her children and the flip side of that – a child’s fear of abandonment caused by women’s changing roles in society.

Television, says the child psychologist Judith Wallerstein, is simply ahead of the social sciences in reflecting an emotional truth, if not reality.

Wallerstein, who is the co-author, with Sandra Blakeslee, of Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce, explains that a rising interest in father-child relationships has been sparked by the fact that the mother’s role has changed because of divorce and work.

“The issue of mother as she used to be is vanishing,” Wallerstein says.

“The children I see of divorces complain of this all the time: ‘There’s nobody home. I come home to an empty house.’ These children are full of compassion about how hard mom is working, so their anger is inhibited by the compassion. But the sense of the mother not being there accurately reflects the psychological experience and the longing and the anger.”

Single dads are funnier Wallerstein points to recent data showing that about 90 percent of children from divorced households live with their mother, many of whom are beset by financial problems.

But depending on custody arrangements, more fathers are spending time alone with their children. And in two-career marriages, fathers by necessity tend to be more involved.

“What these TV programs seem to be giving us,” she says, “is a sense of the vanishing mother,” both symbolically and in reality.

From the perspective of television writers and executives, the vagaries of prime time push for the conceit of the nurturing father because television is always looking for something different.

The current trend comes on the heels of TV’s so-called new traditionalism, exemplified by series such as The Cosby Show, Growing Pains (https://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showpost.php?p=6256798&postcount=7) and Family Matters, depicting an intact nuclear family. So the question is: How many variations can you get from mom, dad and the kids?

Says Bob Greenblatt, a Fox programming executive: “We don’t sit around and try to figure out how to do a show with a mother figure not on the scene. It’s just a setup that has inherent conflict in it. A lot of good comedy can come out of it.”

That said, though, it’s still mostly men who are writing these shows. And not only do men generally feel more comfortable writing male roles, sometimes their unconscious desires seep into their work. So, moms get killed off and dads get exalted.

Then there’s the copycat factor.

Movies have had recent success with the motherless premise. The box-office draw of films such as Mr. Mom and Three Men and a Baby has spurred on television development executives.

Mom-bashing intensifies Another reason for the current high TV maternal mortality rate is that death on television is still more acceptable than divorce. Thus, a widowed father and his brood are more sympathetic from the start than a divorced parent. Also, single moms are not inherently funny; they’re the business of real life. Plus, bumbling fathers are better fodder than inept moms.

And when a love interest for a single parent is added to the mix, middle America is more willing to accept a father bringing home gorgeous dates in spandex than a mother with sexual longings.

So the anger and venom spills forth week to week in a display of mom-bashing as never before seen on the tube. When moms pursue their own goals, they are vilified – and worse.

When Blossom first gets her period, she fantasizes that her mother is Claire Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad) of The Cosby Show, who, with a tube of frosting in hand, diagrams ovaries and fallopian tubes atop a cake.

Dismayed that her real mother is not around to explain things to her, Blossom roars, “Who am I supposed to ask? I’ll tell you who – I’m supposed to ask my mother. She’s supposed to be in the kitchen, waiting for me after school. . . . But my mother’s not in the kitchen. She’s not even in the country. She’s on the road, fulfilling her needs.”

On NBC’s Wings, things have gotten even dicier. Watching a golf tournament on TV, Brian notices that a woman conked on the head with a golf ball by Gerald Ford is – could it be? – his mother, who deserted him and his brother, Joe, 18 years earlier.

“I was suffocating here,” she explains to Joe about her sudden departure. “I hated the cooking and the cleaning and the car pools and the bridge clubs and the PTA meetings and everything. Joe, I was just not cut out to be a mother.”

Joe replies: “Yes, but you had two little boys who loved you and needed you. Was that so unbearable?”

“Yes,” the mother replies. “God help me. It was.”

“You didn’t have to leave us,” Joe later says.

“I did, Joe, and I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah,” Joe says, nearly spitting out the words, “sorry does not give me back my childhood.”

6Ft_sVB0rOM

Why do they kill off the mother to set up so many sitcoms in the 80s? Which 80s sitcom had the creepiest premise? And why do those sitcom intros look the way they do? Could it have something to do with... the love hormone?

I let myself get a little loose and weird with this one. Hope you enjoy.