Throwback Thursday: Remembering 90's Sitcoms

What you consider the golden age of sitcoms depends on when you grew up.

If you grew up in the era of black-and-white TVs and three channels, you probably think the sitcom peaked with I Love Lucy and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

If you’re a child of the 70′s, you’ll probably prefer The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H or All in the Family. The 80′s? Cheers and Cosby.

Each era has its highlights, they’ll likely all get their own dedicated Throwback Thursdays eventually. But, this Thursday, we hearken back to those halcyon days of Seinfeld, Frasier and TGIF.

That’s right. We’re going back to the 90′s! (And, as always, you can check out any and all of these shows from the Mentor Public Library. We’ve even linked to our collection so you can put them on hold wherever you are.)

Hangout comedies

For most of the last century, sitcoms fell into one of two categories: the family and workplace sitcom. (Some shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show combined them.)


Cheers begat a third: the hangout sitcom.

The 90′s neither invented nor perfected the hangout sitcom. (I don’t know by what metric you rate a sitcom; but, no matter what, Cheers has to rank pretty high, right?) But it did proliferate them, and some of the best sitcoms of the decade were of this type.

Friends, Seinfeld, Will & Grace and even latter years of Boy Meets World were all about characters who you wanted to spend time with. Maybe something happened in that episode, maybe nothing happened; but, either way, you wanted to hang out.

Workplace comedies

Workplace comedies fell out of vogue in the 90′s. More often than not, the workplace became part of the family sitcom. For example, Home Improvement wasn’t based around Tool Time and Frasier didn’t spend all of his time at the radio station, but you still saw that part of the characters’ lives.

However, there were still some comedies based around the job in the style of The Mary Tyler Show. My favorites of the bunch are Newsradio and Just Shoot Me. Coincidentally, both are based around jobs in media. For Just Shoot Me, it’s a fashion magazine. For Newsradio… well, I think it’s pretty obvious where they’re working.

If you only recall Newsradio and Just Shoot Me as the things Phil Hartman and David Spade, respectively, after Saturday Night Live, then you should give them another look. They’re better than you remember.

Family comedies

From The Honeymooners to Modern Family, the family comedy will never go out of style. And while the 90′s is mainly though of as the era of the hangout comedy, there were still several great shows based around families.

Roseanne, Married… with Children, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Simpsons, Dharma & Greg, Full House,Daria and Family Matters depicted different families that represented the diversity of families watching.

The one thing they all had in common: They made us laugh.

Feel free to check out any of these shows from Mentor Public Library. It’s free with your library card (and you have a library card, right?)

What was your favorite sitcom from the 90′s?

Come back each week for a new Throwback Thursday profile.

Lowe's at the Library: Tips for Painting Your House

Each month, the experts at Lowe's come to the library to offer home-improvement tips for do-it-yourselfers (and prospective do-it-yourselfers.)

Last week, Dakota Doyle gave suggestions to those who want to paint the outside of their home.

Here are some of his tips. (If you're in a rush, he talks about the biggest mistake people usually make in the embedded video.)

1. Prepare yourself.

Don't just buy a color and start painting. Proper preparation will save you a lot of exasperation later.

Caulk holes. Clean your surface. Cover -- or, better yet, move -- everything you don't want to get paint on. Tape things off.

If you're painting over a shiny surface, you should sand and/or prime it first. (Paint doesn't adhere as well to glossy surfaces. The trade-off to that is glossy surfaces will be much easier to clean later.)

And definitely make sure you buy enough paint. There are few things more obnoxious than starting a project and then stopping because you ran out of paint.

Doyle estimated that a gallon of paint will cover between 300 and 400 square feet. However, that number can change depending upon how porous your surface is.

2. This is where I might break down the differences between oil- and latex-based paints, but almost all oil-based paints are illegal in Ohio.

(Oil-based primers, however, are still legal and great for covering stained or particularly pungent surfaces.)

Doyle recommended using a synthetic brush and urged people not to cheap out on their rollers.

A cheap roller is more likely to get lint in it and leave lumps in your painted wall, he said.

"If you can afford it, by all means, get a sprayer," he added. "It will save a lot of time and the paint will go on more evenly."

One downside to a sprayer (besides the expense): They use more paint than a roller would because some of it goes into the atmosphere. Take this into account when you're buying supplies.

3. The ideal painting conditions: 70-85 Fahrenheit, dry and as low humidity as possible.

Most paint cannot be applied if it's colder than 50 F. However, Lowe's does have a few brands that are effective down to 35 F.

Most paint is dry to the touch after 30 minutes; but you'll want to cover freshly painted exteriors before rain can get to it. If it starts to rain on you suddenly -- this is, after all, Northeast Ohio -- you'll have some streaks that you'll need to paint over later.

4. Doyle said he 2-coats everything, at least. If he's working with a brighter color (an orange, red or yellow,) he might do even more.

He also suggested using a gray primer when painting a bright color. It makes a better color base than white and might even save you a coat of paint later.

Always keep your strokes one direction whenever possible and corner as you go. Those odd strokes will stand out more if you wait until everything's finished to detail them.

5. Lead paint has been illegal for more than 40 years.

But if you have an older home and are concerned it might have lead paint, test it.

It it turns out that you do have lead paint, let the professionals handle it.

A lead test costs about $3. The fine for illegally disposing of lead paint is more than $3,000.

The next Lowe's at the Library program is 6:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 11 at the Mentor Public Library's Main Branch. The pros from Lowe's will offer tips on how to build your own deck or pergola. You can register for the program here. You can also find more home improvement ideas and how-to's at Lowes.com.