Cringy Moments From '90s TV Shows

Not every moment in life is worthy of applause; everyone has a moment when they look back and cringe about something they did or said. The same can be said of TV shows. Scenes like I Love Lucy’s pregnancy reveal and Ellen’s coming-out episode made people cringe but were ultimately hailed as groundbreaking moments. 

Those examples tackled subjects that are a part of life with class and honesty. Not every show handled topics the same way. Some are handled like the subject matter is nothing more than a punching bag. An issue or situation that should be laughed at or mocked to a degree that has always been unacceptable. Some actors and entertainers recognized how inappropriate something was and apologized for their part in the moment. 

TV is supposed to unite people. Fan bases come together and discuss their favorite shows or couples. But when there is a moment that makes viewers uncomfortable, then the show has gone too far. The 1990s were a decade where cringe moments happened on a semi-regular basis, thanks to some of the hit shows that aired in the era of Must See TV. 

Sex and the City Says Bisexuality Doesn't Exist

In the ‘90s, Sex and the City was one of the hottest shows on television. It pushed boundaries that no other program had done to that point. To many it helped redefined feminism and how people thought about sex. But it did nothing to help the bisexual community. In the season 3 episode, “Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl,” Carrie Bradshaw goes out with a man who identifies as bisexual. She is shown to be very uncomfortable with her beau’s sexual orientation, even going as far as to say this line: “I’m not even sure bisexuality exists. I think it’s just a layover on the way to Gaytown.”  

Many in the LGBTQIA+ community were furious with the show for spouting a bi-phobic cliché. The fury over the episode has not subsided over the years. When the Sex and The City reboot was announced, Attitude magazine ran an op-ed about how the new show could and should right this wrong. 

David Letterman Jokes About Monica Lewinsky

Bill Clinton’s sex scandal provided fodder for the late-night hosts. Bawdy jokes made the standards and practices departments of networks sweat. David Letterman was the most popular of the hosts. On The Late Show with David Letterman, the host was known for his top 10 lists. In the late 90s, many of them centered around the president's indiscretion. Instead of taking aim at the president, though, he went after Monica Lewinsky, the woman in the center of the scandal. One list had the top joke, “Top 10 Lines From Monica’s New Book,” which contained the line: “Me and my big mouth.” 

The LA Times reported that complaints poured into CBS about the joke. Lewinsky stated that she thought the jokes at her expense were too much, even admitting in an interview that she feels stuck in that time period. As he was set to retire from his hosting duties, Letterman told Barbara Walters in an interview that he regretted going after the young woman the way he had. He also reached out to Lewinsky in private and apologized to her. 

Barbara Walters Blames Courtney Love For Husband’s Death 

In 1995, Courtney Love was an interviewer's dream “get.” Her husband, Kurt Cobain, had committed suicide, and the networks all wanted to speak to the widow. She agreed to sit down with Barbara Walters, a journalist known for making people cry. During their interview, Walters asked the young woman if she could have stopped Cobain from taking his own life. The moment seemed made for the promotional spots ABC was bound to take out for it and to get people talking about the interview.

And talk they did; many people wrote to ABC News telling them how inappropriate it was for Walters to ask that question. Love wrote about the incident in her 2006 memoirs, “Dirty Blonde: The Courtney Love Diaries,” that the question further propelled her downward spiral that Cobain’s death started. It is now considered one of the times when Walters pushed the bounds of journalistic integrity too far. In 2021, as the world reviewed how the media treated Britney Spears, some social media users pointed to Walters’ treatment of Love as just as bad. 

Melrose Place Explodes After Oklahoma City

Melrose Place was the hottest, wildest nighttime soap of the 1990s. Every week brought new twists that became entrenched in pop culture. The show was the very definition of a water cooler show. Producers wanted to top everything they had done to that point with the season 3 finale, so an arc was built around the apartment building being blown up. Days before the finale was set to air, there was a bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The network pushed back on the plot and asked producers to change it; there was some hesitation. Eventually, they played out the plot as planned but left the question of whether the building would be blown up until season 4. 

The cast and crew told The Hollywood Reporter in the oral history of Melrose Place that they were also uncomfortable with the twist. One of the biggest complaints they had was that no one in the main cast was hurt. It felt unrealistic to them, especially given the context of a real bombing happening where people were injured and lost their lives. Series star Heather Locklear said, “That was pretty crazy! We all were thinking, “Wait! We survived? Really?”

Martin Lawrence Talks About Women’s Hygiene On SNL

Martin Lawrence was one of the biggest stars of comedy in 1994; his self-titled sitcom was one of the hottest shows on TV. When he hosted Saturday Night Live on February 19, 1994, he stepped into a controversy that he was not expecting. During his opening monologue, he mentioned women’s hygiene and female genitalia. Lorne Michaels, the creator and executive producer of SNL, was not amused. He is notoriously averse to ad-libbing and controversy. Lawrence violated both policies in one fell swoop. NBC executives were on the phone with Michaels before the episode finished airing to find out what steps would be taken to remedy the situation. 

One of the solutions was that Lawrence was banned from the show for his cringeworthy antics. Further, the network censored the monologue in all future repeats, extending to showing the episode on Peacock. Cheat Sheet quoted Lawrence as saying that he was banned from NBC, but they later apologized. He also asserts that he wanted to make people laugh, and part of that would include them cringing at his humor. 

Oprah tries To Out Nathan Lane 

Nathan Lane came out to those closest to him when he was 21. For a time, he didn’t consider himself a public figure, as he mostly did Broadway shows and kept to himself. However, when he decided to do the now classic comedy, The Birdcage, with Robin Williams in 1996, his profile was sure to be raised. Still, he wanted to keep his private life to himself. He was stunned when he went on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and the daytime doyenne tried to force him to come out of the closet. Despite Lane showing clear signs of being uncomfortable, she kept pressing him on the issue of his sexuality. Williams chimed in and made a joke of her line of questioning. 

Following the episode, viewers wrote in complaints about Oprah’s questions, and there was a dip in the ratings for the show. Most significantly, she lost the Daytime Emmy Award, something that experts believed she was the frontrunner to take home. The Hollywood Reporter reported that Lane’s publicist warned him about the situation with Oprah before it happened. He came out in an interview with Advocate Magazine in 1999. 

Passions Invokes The Memory of Princess Diana

When Passions debuted in July 1995, soap opera fans were already weary of the show. It replaced the beloved, long running sudser, Another World. But NBC wanted to aim the show at a younger audience, in the hopes of establishing a new brand of storytelling in daytime. Alas, the show’s writers did no favors by connecting heroine Sheridan Crane to Princess Diana. The late royal died in a tragic car accident in 1997, something that the producers of the soap opera tried to replicate with Sheridan via a plot point in the show. The moment was so cringe worthy that even the soap press took the show to task for its flagrant use of a tragedy for ratings, something that remains atypical in the community to this day. 

The mainstream press, like Entertainment Weekly, also called the show out on its use of the tragedy. Even worse, the show debuted to low ratings, in part because several stations refused to air the show after the Princess Diana plot was revealed. The show never found its footing, even amongst its intended audience, and was canceled by NBC in 2007. Fans were given a reprieve when DirecTV picked it up in 2008, but it was canceled again one year later. A relatively short life for a daytime serial. 

Friends’ Misogyny And Homophobia 

Friends was one of the most popular shows in the 90s. It remains hugely popular now, thanks to streaming and syndication. However, in recent years it has emerged that the series was extremely problematic. One of the issues that is often cited as being one of the worst things the show did is in the season 3 episode called “The One With The Metaphorical Tunnel.” Ross finds his son, Ben, playing with a Barbie doll and freaks out, calling his ex-wife Carol, who is a lesbian, complaining about it being too girly. He goes on to use vaguely homophobic language to get his point across, despite Carol’s reassurance that it’s perfectly normal for the little boy to play with a doll. 

At the time, controversy sprang up, and discussions were had about how parents should handle a situation like what played out on the show. Critics said that Ross’ reaction was the exact wrong way to handle it. Elle talked about the moment and people’s response to the scene now. One of the arguments that came about was that while it was a different time, fans of the show need to stop calling it progressive. The scene with Ben, Carol, and Ross is just one example of how cringe Friends was back then. 

Saved By The Bell’s Cultural Appropriation 

Saved By The Bell was known for many things in its original run in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Being subtle was not one of the many things that made its fans embrace the show. An episode in 1990, “Running Zack,” has become synonymous with how cringey the show became. The episode in question saw Zack Morris dress up as a Native American in order to secure an ‘A’ for class. After the episode aired, NBC received letters from fans calling the episode racist. 

Even Mark Paul Gosselaar, who played Zack, said he had a hard time filming the scene. He revealed to Eonline that he hated filming the episode; it felt wrong. Further, he says that in modern times there would be someone who shut the episode down when it was conceived, and it would not be made. Something he says that he is happy about because the entire episode is insensitive and racist. It relies on stereotypes. 

Tiny Toons Share A Beer 

Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toon Adventures was one of the most popular cartoons in the ‘90s. Most episodes offered belly laughs and a few lessons. But one episode, “Elephant Issues,” aimed to help teach kids lessons about various issues they might face, including underage drinking. In one segment called “One Beer,” the show’s main characters drink a beer on a park bench. The scene was so shocking and cringe worthy that the outrage started almost immediately.  

Parents started writing in complaining about how inappropriate the segment was and threatened to not allow their children to watch the show again. Fox Kids pulled the episode from rotation. Buzzfeed says it has been banned from every outlet since its first and only showing in 1991. Producers later said that it was supposed to be a satirical take on moral issues; however, that has not helped the case for the episode, and it remains out of rotation. 

Dawson’s Creek’s Bad Pact

The WB needed a big hit when Dawson’s Creek debuted. It came out with a big splash; storylines straddled the line of controversy most of the time. Surprisingly, Pacey’s first storyline, where he slept with his teacher, is not the plot that is noted as the cringiest. Instead, there is a scene where Pacey (Joshua Jackson) and Jen (Michelle Williams) agree to sleep together if they don’t find other partners. Fans hated the story, and the ratings declined for the behemoth. The actors also hated the plot and thought it didn’t make sense for their characters to go there.

This plot came amidst a lot of trouble behind the scenes, which showed onscreen. Williams and Jackson agreed with the fans. Former producers told Vanity Fair that the actors went to the network and complained about it. Executives at The WB listened to the complaints and shut down production on the show. As part of the retooling, the executive producer and several other producers were let go, and new ones were brought in. Greg Berlanti was brought in to retool the show and bring it back to its glory. He came up with the concept of a Joey/Pacey pairing, which went over much better with the fans.

Family Guy mocks Faith

What cringe list would be complete without a reference to Family Guy? The animated sitcom has been making people blush and cringe for more than 20 years. In the early episodes, the show pushed the bounds of what was acceptable. In a season 2 episode titled “Holy Crap,” Chris is seen coming out of the bathroom, and his grandfather is not pleased with what he thinks happened behind closed doors. After a brief exchange between grandpa and grandson, Chris surmises that he’s a sinner and God belongs on a list. 

After the episode aired, critics blasted the show and Fox for showing it. L. Brent Bozell III claimed it had an anti-Catholic bias and was moving the country further from the family values that they held dear. Family Guy was pulled from Fox’s schedule for nearly three months as a result of the controversy surrounding the episode, though at the time the network claimed it was due to low ratings. Later, it was admitted that the controversy played a big role in the show’s unexpected hiatus. It also led to the first cancellation of the show, though it did not last, as sales of the DVDs were huge and encouraged Fox to bring the show back for another run. Two decades later, Seth MacFarlane is still pushing the boundaries of cringe.