The Corrigans

The Corrigans is an American television sitcom created by Richard Berkeley which aired on RKO from September 28, 1990 to May 15, 1998. Often described as "a show about the '90s", the series follows the Irish American Corrigan family and explores their lives in. It consists of witty matriarch Leanne (Angela Deegan), patriarch Michael (Donovan Grayson); tough first son Brian (Webster Johnson), "geeky" second son Tristan (Logan Lee Stark), and talented third son Shane (Steve Lynn Green), and Michael's more conservative and "behind the times" father Joseph (Patrick Dobson) The supporting cast includes Brian's best friend Simon Pearson (Michael Beasley), the Corrigans' neighbor Bobbie McGowan (Kennedy Ortega), Michael's friend Julian Jackson (Stuart Grover), and Leanne's friend Marlene Moore (Karen Vaughn). The series has often been noted for avoiding the usual family sitcom antics, as it took a more satirical approach to storytelling by lampooning American culture while simultaneously focusing on character development and personal growth.

The series originated from The Corrigan House, a sitcom Berkeley pitched to the network in 1988. According to him, it was more like a traditional, "play-it-safe" family sitcom, focusing on " stuff" such as social issues and characters. After the pitch was turned down, Berkeley rewrote the show into a new series focused on satire and dark humor rather than the conventional slice of life stories, renewing RKO's interest in his project and leading to it being picked up by the network in 1990 as The Corrigans. Filming took place on set at RKO Studios West in,.

The show premiered to mixed reception from critics, but after Berkeley made further changes to the show's setup—the push of background characters to the foreground, heavier emphasis on cultural topics and lampooning modern society, and the show itself having more of a "punk"/"rebel" attitude—The Corrigans became both a commercial and critical success, drawing in increasingly high ratings and receiving widespread acclaim from television critics. In 2017, Sideshow magazine ranked it #1 on its list of the Top 10 Best Sitcoms of the 1990s, and Get-Go ranked it #8 on its list of the Top 25 Greatest TV Shows of All Time in 2023. The series' pilot was ranked #7 on Entertainment.com's list of the Top 10 Greatest Series Premieres.