Larceny is so adorable.

In the past, most sitcoms featured characters with character, people who were honest and fair as well as funny. Can you picture Lucy shoplifting? Fred Mertz cheating on Ethel. Edith Bunker lying to get a free meal? All that has been changed by today's comedy writers, notably Chuck Lorre who has the sitcom market cornered. In a recent Mike and Molly, a Chuck Lorre show, Molly was going to Las Vegas for a girls' weekend. She planned to bring a large bag with her for all the things she planned to steal. Mike objected until she suggested she could steal him a robe (value, about $90). This thievery was presented in a humorous tone. In addition to the immorality, the show all too often tells us more than we ever want to know about Mike and Molly's hygiene, digestive systems and bathroom habits. In Rules of Engagement, another Chuck Lorre show, almost all the characters are sex-obsessed and constantly lying to each other and others. One couple would fake becoming engaged in restaurants in order to get free meals. The other couple are constantly lying to each other and ridiculing one another behind their backs. The Patrick Warburton character is incredibly cheap and obviously loves sports more than his wife. The David Spade character is obsessively promiscuous and often one-step removed from being a rapist. They constantly socialize together though they have no respect for one other. Also, like every Chuck Lorre program it includes lots of bathroom humor. While both of these shows have amusing situations and very clever writing, overall they are amazingly immoral and extremely vulgar. I find it amusing that the programs we watch often feature people we probably would not want to list among
our friends.  At least I hope we wouldn't.