Television series

Mad About You

Name: Mad About You
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Released: 1992
Cast: Paul Reiser, Helen Hunt, John Pankow, Anne Ramsay, Leila Kenzle

Mad About You is a chatty, close-up sitcom about two people learning what marriage actually feels like once the wedding is over — the arguments over closet space, the meddling relatives, the small daily negotiations that either wear you down or bind you closer. Reiser and Hunt play it with real warmth and comic timing. It's for anyone who likes their comedy talky, intimate, and rooted in recognisable domestic friction rather than big set pieces.

TVMaze rating

7.4

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Everybody Loves Raymond1996

If Paul and Jamie's in-laws drove you slightly mad, wait until you meet Marie and Frank. Raymond mines the exact same territory — marriage under siege from meddling family — with even sharper teeth and a live studio audience roaring along.

But The in-law conflict is louder and more abrasive than Mad About You's gentler bickering; some viewers find Marie exhausting rather than funny.

Seinfeld1989

Same era, same Manhattan, same NBC Thursday night — but Seinfeld swaps romantic devotion for gleeful selfishness. Watching the two shows back to back is like seeing the flip side of the same city and decade.

But There's no romantic through-line at all — if you watched Mad About You for the marriage, Seinfeld's commitment-phobic singles might feel like a cold shower.

Friends1994

Also New York, also 90s, also obsessed with the rituals of adult friendship and coupledom, but broader, bigger-haired, and built for a wider audience. A comfort-watch cousin rather than a twin.

But The ensemble format dilutes the marriage focus — you're getting six lives instead of one couple's, which some find less intimate.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Scener ur ett äktenskap1973

Same premise as Mad About You — a marriage examined in intimate, talky detail — but stripped of comedy entirely, showing what the format looks like played dead straight and deadly serious.

Bergman's miniseries watches a marriage from the inside with unbearable, tender honesty — no jokes, no laugh track, just two people talking their way through love curdling into something else entirely.

But It's Swedish, subtitled, emotionally punishing, and roughly five hours of raw marital confrontation — the opposite of a comfort watch.

Frasier1993

Different city, different decade energy, but the same commitment to witty, character-driven comedy about relationships and self-delusion, delivered with theatrical precision rather than sitcom shorthand.

But Frasier's world is more overtly farcical and less grounded in the ordinary — less relatable domestic realism, more elaborate misunderstandings.

Catastrophe2015

Take the premise — a couple stumbling through the unglamorous mechanics of coupledom — and strip away the studio gloss. Catastrophe is meaner, ruder, and far more honest about how ugly marriage can get before it's funny.

But It's considerably more sexually explicit and cynical; the sweetness that softens Mad About You is largely absent here.

The Dick Van Dyke Show1961

This is where the whole genre started — a married couple, played with real chemistry, navigating work and home with the same warmth Paul and Jamie would later inherit. Elegant, tightly written, still funny sixty years on.

But Black and white, single-camera pacing of its era, and considerably more chaste — don't expect any of Mad About You's frankness about sex or modern relationship anxieties.

thirtysomething1987

Drop the jokes-per-minute rate and you get this — a serious, sometimes agonising look at the same demographic Mad About You mines for comedy: young marrieds, career anxiety, the terror of adulthood.

But It's a drama, not a comedy, and the tone can tip into the navel-gazing that made it a lightning rod for critics at the time.

Marry Me2014no page yet

A direct spiritual heir — newly engaged New Yorkers, a will-they-survive-the-relationship structure, single-camera warmth. If you wanted more Paul-and-Jamie-in-the-early-days, this is the closest modern equivalent.

But Cancelled after one season and it shows — the show never quite finds its full comic rhythm before it's cut short.

Up All Night2011no page yet

Swap the newlywed anxieties for new-parent ones and you get this underrated single-camera comedy, with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett navigating the same everyday-miracle territory with real chemistry.

But It reshuffled its format and tone mid-run trying to find an audience, so the show's identity is less consistent than Mad About You's steady, comfortable groove.

Rosemary's Baby1968

Same setup — newlyweds, a nosy apartment building, meddling outsiders pressing in on the marriage — but the genre engine is flipped from comfort comedy to paranoid horror.

A young couple moves into a Manhattan apartment building and negotiates married life among nosy, overbearing neighbours — sound familiar? Polanski just turns the dial from sitcom cosiness to creeping dread.

But It's a genuinely unsettling horror film with real menace — nothing about it is comforting, and the ending isn't going to make anyone feel warm about domestic life.

Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica2003no page yet

Same basic pitch — watch a young married couple bumble through daily life together — but performed for real cameras instead of a script, trading Reiser and Hunt's timing for unfiltered, unglamorous reality.

Before reality TV ate everything, this show put an actual young married couple's bickering, confusion, and domestic mishaps on camera unscripted — the trashy, real-life answer to the sitcom fantasy.

But It's shallow, dated, and entirely about celebrity gossip rather than craft — go in expecting cheese, not comedy writing.