30 Years Ago Today, A Lost Sci-fi Sitcom Premiered (It Was Cancelled After 2 Episodes And I Still Think About It)

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In the late 1980s, ABC created a programming block called TGIF, which aired on Friday nights. Despite Fridays typically being a difficult night for television ratings, TGIF became incredibly popular, launching several successful sitcoms. Some of the most well-known shows that aired as part of TGIF included Full House, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, Step by Step, and Boy Meets World. While TGIF was largely a success, it also had its share of failures, and surprisingly, the show I remember most vividly was one of its biggest flops – a fact I can’t seem to forget.

There was a short-lived sci-fi sitcom called Aliens in the Family that aired briefly as part of ABC’s TGIF lineup in 1996. While it wasn’t a hit and is largely forgotten, I actually remember watching the premiere on March 15th, 1996 – my family was tuned in! We even watched the second episode, but that was the end of the series. Surprisingly, I still remember the show and occasionally quote a character from it, even after all these years.

Aliens in the Family Was Clearly Trying to Be the Next Dinosaurs

The sitcom Aliens in the Family centers around Doug Brody, played by John Bedford Lloyd, who is unexpectedly swept off his feet – literally! – by an alien woman named Cookie Brody (played by Margaret Trigg). As shown in the show’s playful opening sequence, Cookie abducts Doug and the two fall in love, get married, and combine their families. This means two human children, Paige and Chris, now live with three quirky aliens, all with amusing names and even more amusing quirks, all under one roof.

The alien family features Spit, the oldest, who acts like a typical lazy teenager – except he can show his brain and literally spit out his lungs! He’s there for both gross-out gags and sarcastic commentary on Earth. The middle child, Snizzy, inherited her mother’s scientific mind. Rounding out the family is Bobut, the baby, who seems designed to be the next Baby Sinclair (from Dinosaurs). Despite being a baby, Bobut is secretly the future Emperor of the Nertron Galactic Federation – he’s clever and mischievous, but still acts like an infant. To add to the humor, the family hires a nanny, Julie Dretzin, which leads to plenty of funny clashes between Earth customs and the aliens’ way of life.

Bobut is the most memorable part of the show Aliens in the Family. In the beginning of the second episode, he wakes up frightened after seemingly babbling like a baby, but actually declares, “The world is coming to an end, the center will not hold, the unthinkable has happened!” He then quickly calms down after finding his stuffed animal, sighing, “All is well.” That line has stuck with me since childhood. It’s not particularly hilarious, but it’s definitely memorable. Bobut perfectly embodies the show’s strange humor—he’s a typical baby who enjoys simple things like pudding and story time, yet also claims to be incredibly sophisticated, having read Tolstoy in Russian and solved the mystery of Stonehenge.

The show Aliens in the Family had an interesting idea: a blended family dynamic like The Brady Bunch, but with alien family members brought to life through puppetry similar to the show Dinosaurs. Despite being made by The Jim Henson Company and drawing on these familiar elements, it didn’t become popular. Reviews were mixed, and very few people watched it when it first aired. Exact ratings numbers are hard to find, but I remember being one of those who didn’t tune in.

Aliens in the Family May Have Actually Been Ahead of Its Time

Let me tell you, it’s pretty clear why Aliens in the Family didn’t stick around. It debuted on TGIF, which was a tough spot, squeezed in between massive hits like Family Matters, Boy Meets World, Step by Step, and Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper. The only other show even remotely like it was Muppets Tonight. On paper, a sitcom format seemed like a smart move, but the real problem was the show just couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. The tone was all over the place – bizarre and inconsistent, making it hard to really connect with.

The first episode follows a classic sitcom formula: Doug, the dad, is striving for a promotion to better support his family. His son, Bobut, tries to help by hypnotizing Doug’s boss, leading to a series of promotions that ultimately cause Doug to work too much and miss out on family time. Alongside this, there’s a bizarre subplot involving Adam, the human son, who accidentally kills his class’s pet frog. Snizzy revives the frog with plutonium, causing it to grow to an enormous size and wreak havoc on the town – it even eats a mailman! Eventually, the National Guard manages to contain it (though we don’t see how).

Looking back, those two things together should have signaled that the show wouldn’t be a good fit with the rest of TGIF’s lineup. On the same night Aliens in the Family first aired, Family Matters had an episode where Laura found out her dad couldn’t afford her Harvard tuition. Meanwhile, Aliens in the Family made a joke comparing Newt Gingrich to an evil alien. The show’s humor just didn’t align with the tone of the other programs on TGIF – it was on a completely different wavelength.

The sitcom Aliens in the Family was quickly pulled from ABC’s TGIF lineup after only two episodes, with the remaining episodes moved to Saturday mornings. However, looking back after thirty years, the show seems surprisingly modern. Given the current popularity of animated sci-fi comedies like Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites, Aliens in the Family feels like an early influence on today’s humor. Jokes that would have been too strange for 1990s audiences—like a character eating a toaster for the crumbs or an alien baby locking a human baby in a closet—now seem relatively mild.

Should you bother watching Aliens in the Family? It’s a strange show, and it’s easy to understand why it didn’t last. But if you’re someone who enjoys unusual pop culture, it might be worth checking out. Be warned, though: the alien baby, Bobut, is surprisingly captivating, and you might find yourself strangely obsessed with him – I know I am!

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2026-03-15 16:16