If you’ve just finished watching Happy Family Conditions Apply on Prime Video, chances are that you’re looking for more comedy TV shows with dysfunctional families like the Dholakias. So to cure that fix, we’ve curated a list of such TV shows (with some special mentions of Hindi movies too), both in Hindi and English, that will leave you in splits. In addition to granting you with a chucklesome experience, these shows may also hit a bit close to home and remind you of a family (your own or others) in your vicinity.
Let’s dig into the jolly ride that awaits us and binge watch these hilarious TV series and vicariously relive through the feel good vibes of the old days.
Some Comedy TV Shows With Dysfunctional Families That are Way Too Relatable
1. Khichdi
Just like Happy Family Conditions Apply, Hats Off Productions also produced the 2002 original Hindi sitcom that used to air on the Hindi language entertainment TV network STAR Plus. Now streaming on Hotstar, and again like the recently released family comedy show, Khichdi, too, revolved around a Gujarati family.
Living in an old mansion, the Parekhs were a big joint family having to deal with typical Indian situations, that each of the members found even more atypical solutions for. Due to their extremely individualist characters and personalities, which often clashed for many reasons and none at all simultaneously, the one thing that united the family was their common agreement of wanting to get separated and form their nuclear families.
However, the old patriarch had a different plan that presented them with the choice to either make do with what they had or give up on their respective quotas of money due to them. As a result, the mobile middle-class family picked the former and continued to insufferably deal with each other with endless banter sessions in the mix.
2. Sarabhai vs Sarabhai
Yet another Hats Off Production, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai ran on the Hindi TV network STAR One from 2004 to 2006, and later returned for more seasons in 2017 on Hotstar. Ratna Pathak Shah led this lot as well with her character’s upper class family living in South Mumbai. Eventually, she crossed paths with her new daughter-in-law Monisha, who’s completely opposite from the rich Sarabhai family. The constant tussle between Monisha and her mother-in-law, mostly arising out of the conflict between their two disparate social classes, left us chuckling once we got accustomed to their crazy lives and dynamics.
3. Modern Family
Also streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, Modern Family, too, comes with an ensemble cast and is an American sitcom featuring the diverse nuclear family set-ups of a long extended family, with all of its units linked together through the old and wealthy patriarch Jay Pritchett and his daughter Claire and son Mitchell. The Emmy-winning comedy series introduces us to three different set-ups of families living in suburban Los Angeles, each of them bringing about new definitions of nuclear families, hence the reference to modernity in the show’s title. Each unit also defines a new type of crazy, but once they all get together, the boisterous chaos concocted in the process is one-of-a-kind.
4. Yeh Meri Family
The 2018 Hindi TVF series available on Prime Video turns the clock back to the summer of ’98 and recounts the entire story through the eyes of the middle child Harshu, who has to work out through various challenges in the process of growing up, while feeling conflicted about his family. Additionally, this also allows us to take a sneak peek into how the middle class Gupta family, dealt with endless tribulations along the way.
5. The Aam Aadmi Family
Available on ZEE5, the Hindi comedy series’ title translates to ‘The Middle Class Family’, and lives the concept through and through. Each member of the family holds their own and adds spicy drama to the family tree as a whole. The gossip-monger grandmother is seemingly the child in the family, while the hardworking father and well-cultured mother pull the family together. On the other hand, the grown up kids deal with their middle-class existence the best way they can.
6. Malcolm in the Middle
Following the usual half-hour sitcom runtime pattern, Malcolm in the Middle, streaming on Disney+Hotstar, once again picks up a middle class family as its focus. The bright and intelligent Malcolm walks us through the daily lives of the quintessential dysfunctional family members, while he works out through the struggles of being a teenager and, of course, the middle child.
7. Tu Tu Main Main
8. Shararat
Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar for free, Shararat is a Hindi sitcom that aired on the STAR network in 2003, and leads with three women from three different generations, all having inherited supernatural and magical powers. Upon turning eighteen, Jiya, the youngest of the three unlocks her powers, and tries her best to make it all work out while leading her average life as a teenager. While the neighbours may not be aware of their abilities, Suraj, Jiya’s father is well aware of everything and is always at his wit’s end when having to deal with the powers possessed by his wife, daughter and mother-in-law, last of whom always cooks up hilarious chaos for him.
Also read: 8 Netflix Sitcoms You Should Check Out Now: Unstable, One Day at a Time and More
9. The Simpsons
The long-running American animated sitcom available on Disney+ Hotstar centres around the Simpsons family, who bring alive the satirical depiction of the American ways. Set in the fictional town of Springfield, the animated dysfunctional family becomes a medium through which the creator of the show, Matt Groening, parodies American life, culture, society and more.
10. That 70s Show
Attaining adulthood may make adolescence seem like the easiest puzzle to put together in the long run to some. However, whilst still dealing with that phase, teenagers would definitely draw out a different picture altogether. The 1998 American teen sitcom pictures the life of six teenage friends living in the fictional reality of Point Place, Wisconsin. While not each of their family is brought on screen, somehow they all find a family of sorts with their fellow buddy, Eric Forman’s family consisting of his cheerful and loving mother, his conservative father, also a Navy combat veteran who served in World War II and the Korean War, and is always hard on Eric, and his mean sister, Laurie.
Special Mentions – Hindi Movies With Relatable Families
Dil Dhadakne Do
Kapoor and Sons
Gulmohar
Piku
Do Dooni Chaar (2010)
Khosla Ka Ghosla
Which of these TV shows or movies will you be watching next? If you’ve watched them already, which one of these left you laughing the most? Let us know your picks in the comments section below.