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Sex and TV sitcoms go together like—well, actually, they don't. Because of broadcasting standards and current social mores, American sitcoms are notoriously prudish.
But there are exceptions. There are couples whose repressed sexual attraction is a running gag—the ex-ballplayer and the uptight career woman, for instance. And there are couples who are obviously sexual even if they never get too sexy on screen—you have to assume that a dashing astronaut and a busty genie are making hot monkey love. And then there's Al and Peg Bundy, the Sid and Nancy of sitcoms.
Here are the 25 Most Sexual Sitcom Couples of All Time, starting with Ross and Rachel from Friends. Just kidding! Ross and Rachel were the opposite of sexual, the sort of tortured, joyless, endless relationship that is about everything but sex.
As we were saying: the 25 Most Sexual Sitcom Couples of All Time...
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25. Angela Bower and Tony Micelli on Who's the Boss?
Played by: Judith Light and Tony Danza
Tony Micelli was the hunky Italian former ballplayer hired as a housekeeper (is this a logical job for an ex-ballplayer?) for a driven, divorced, WASPy ad exec. It's like a bunch of writers sat around a table trying to come up with a show that could run multiple seasons (eight, in fact) fueled completely by sexual tension.
It's obvious from the jump that these two will want to get it on, but differences in class and concern for "the kids" in the household will get in the way. Angela was a nice looking woman, after all, and Tony had the kind of wear-you-down charm that no one could (ultimately) resist.
In the final season, they did acknowledge their feelings for each other, and became engaged. Fireworks.
24. Stanley and Helen Roper on Three's Company
Played by: Audra Lindley and Norman Fell
Helen and Stanley Roper are sexual in that sex defines their relationship. Helen always wants sex, and Stanley never provides it. Although it's clear she's fond of him, it's often overshadowed by her complaining that he won't give it up. Helen, therefore, is television's original desperate housewife.
23. Oliver Wendell and Lisa Douglas on Green Acres
Played by: Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor
Oliver Wendell Douglas moves to the country with his Manhattan-loving socialite wife, who also happens to be gorgeous and Hungarian. The world they live in is an absurd pageant of shysters, hayseeds, and Arnold, the pig that thinks he's people. Why exactly the couple doesn't run screaming back to the city is a mystery, but Oliver is no dummy—if you're going to be stuck in the sticks with just one person who kinda understands you, Eva Gabor's Lisa Douglas is the way to go.
22. Mary Kay and Johnny Stearns on Mary Kay and Johnny
Mary Kay and Johnny began broadcasting in 1947, and is widely considered to be the first sitcom. It also holds the distinction of being the first television show to depict a couple sharing a bed. This is a fairly big deal considering the bedrooms of famous TV couples for years afterward—the Ricardos on I Love Lucy (1951-57), the Cleavers on Leave it to Beaver (1957-63)—slept in twin beds.
21. Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big on Sex and the City
Played by: Sarah Jessica Parker and Chris Noth
Mr. Big is a big shot, a big personality, a big spender who is a big deal—he also has a big cock. That right there is a sexual detail you're not going to get on network TV. Big is sort of Carrie's boyfriend, but sort of not. They're grownups with professional lives and a certain amount of chemistry, but they're also garden-variety fuck buddies. They've found that special place where inability to commit (his) meets uncertainty about whether he's "the one" (hers)...might as well have a sleepover.
Again.
And again.
Even after Big gets married and Carrie finds a serious relationship, they still can't help themselves. It's the longest summer-camp affair in history.
20. Jeannie and Tony Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie
Played by: Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman
She's a supernatural being in a legendary midriff-baring and cleavage-enhancing costume. She's undoubtedly the sexiest sitcom girl of the '60s—so sexy that 20 years later Andrew Dice Clay was still affected enough to crack dirty jokes about her.
And don't forget, he's an astronaut. According to Axe Body Spray, nothing beats an astronaut in terms of attracting the ladies. So this couple is on fire. Even if the onscreen interactions were a tad chaste.
19. Niles Crane and Daphne Moon on Frasier
Played by: David Hyde Pierce and Jane Leeves
Over the 11-season run (really?) of Frasier, the Niles-loves-Daphne was the most enduring and interesting plotline. Daphne's a physical therapist who was hired to take care of the Crane patriarch, but she soon became more valuable to the series as the object of Niles' simmering lust. And it is full-on lust: Though Niles is supposedly all brainy and a bit effeminate, Daphne shows him how to be a man, you know, with desires and stuff. When Daphne walks past, he inhales the scent of her hair; when she bends over, he checks out her butt.
She's oblivious to his desires and constant ogling for the first six seasons, but they end up getting married and having a child. White intellectuals need life below the waist too.
18. Mallory Keaton and Nick Moore on Family Ties
Played by: Justine Moore and Scott Valentine
You didn't get a lot of edge in '80s sitcoms. It was the Reagan era, and although there was a lot of sexuality in pop culture—think risque videos by Madonna and George Michael, Friday After Dark on Skinemax, the rise of VHS porn—prime time avoided such trends. Mallory's boyfriend Nick was different, though. He was an artist. He had an earring. He was a lotta Judd Nelson (portraying John Bender in The Breakfast Club) and a little bit of Sly Stallone (the sub-verbal thing) with some John Waite-style rocker appeal. He was the most nearly-dangerous recurring character of the day, the kind of sexy beast who wouldn't hesitate to drag a dim-witted good girl like Mallory Keaton into his seedy world.
Well, that was the first impression anyway. He was pretty quickly revealed to be totally harmless—but the earring, man. The earring. Pure sexual danger.
17. Tom and Helen Willis on The Jeffersons
Played by: Franklin Cover and Roxie Roker
What was so disturbing about interracial marriage to so much of white America? Was it the thought of a black man doing the dishes while a white woman vacuumed the living room? The idea of a white man and a black woman sharing a bank account?
No, silly. It was the sex thing. Black people and white people having sex with each other freaked the hell out of an older generation of white Americans. It freaked the hell out of George Jefferson, who pointed out their abnormality by calling them "zebra" and "chocolate and vanilla."
You know what they say about TV characters—they're not just images on a screen. They come into our homes, into our living rooms. Tom and Helen Willis came into the living room and had sex on the coffee table. It saved America.
16. Fran Fine and Maxwell Sheffield on The Nanny
Played by: Fran Drescher and Charles Shaughnessy
Fran Fine starts out as the brassy Jewish girl from Queens, the polar opposite of Maxwell Sheffield, a British producer of Broadway productions who hires her to look after his kids. The two fall in love, and by love we mean lust, as they have nothing in common, intellectually speaking. Paula Abdul and MC Skat Cat were right: Opposites do attract—for the purpose of passionate copulation.
15. Marge and Homer Simpson on The Simpsons
Played by: Julie Kavner and Dan Castellaneta
Marge and Homer have sex, that much is clear—and the fact that they're still doing it after 24 years on the air is a tribute to their marriage. Sure, they have slow periods—when Homer gained a bunch of weight to go on disability in "King-Size Homer" (season seven, episode seven) Marge admitted she wasn't as turned on by the extra-large version of her hubby. In "Natural Born Kissers" (season nine, episode 25), they discover that the risk of getting caught turned them on, so they went on a spree of having sex in semi-public places.
It helps that Marge is a total fox—in "The Devil Wears Nada," (season 21, episode five) she poses nude for a charity calendar and becomes the talk of the town. This was around the same time, you may recall, that Marge appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine...
14. Jay and Gloria Pritchett on Modern Family
Played by: Ed O'Neill and Sofia Vergara
Jay is an old guy who won the lottery. Jay is the kind of old guy other old guys look at and think, "You lucky bastard." Sofia Vergara is the most overtly sexual woman to ever appear on a sitcom, and here she is shackled to a dude in his Viagra years.
Can an older man really have much in common with a woman 27 years younger than he is? What does she see in him? Security? Maybe she looks up to him. Maybe he's a father-figure type. We don't really know. What does he see in her? Sexy sex sexiness with extra hot sexy sauce and a side of sex with sexy sex. Boner.
13. Sam Malone and Rebecca Howe on Cheers
Played by: Ted Danson and Kirstie Alley
But wait, wasn't Diane the love of Sam's life, the one that got away? We're not here to make a call on that, but we do know that Diane was a total drag. Shelly Long played the character so convincingly that it was almost impossible to imagine her in a sexual situation, which sucks for Sam.
Rebecca may not have been as good for the comedy on Cheers, but she was way more attractive than Diane. Highlights of their not-quite relationship included they time they had sex in Sam's office and another occasion when Rebecca tried to seduce him but was too drunk to get it done.
12. Samantha and Darrin Stephens on Bewitched
Played by: Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick Sargent and Dick York
The woman (Elizabeth Montgomery) is a sexy witch. She's constantly messing up the ho-hum life and job of her husband Darrin, a mortal whom she and any of her magical family members could squash like a bug, or turn into a bug, or afflict with a plague of bugs. Really, this is destined to end poorly for Darrin—after all, Samantha is already hundreds of years old and still looks fresh as a daisy. But this just shows how a man can lose all judgment in the presence of a seriously hot babe who can do mind-blowing things with her unusually talented...nose.
Wow, I got through that without even making any jokes about how she could handle two Dicks—that would be Dick York and Dick Sargent, both of whom played Darrin. I need to lie down.
11. Sterling Archer and Lana Kane on Archer
Played by: H. John Benjamin and Aisha Tyler
Sterling and Lana used to be an item, before the show started, but now they're rival secret agents. In addition to being the world's most dangerous secret agent, Archer is a selfish, shallow asshole—he'd gladly have sex with the foxy Lana because he'd gladly have sex with anyone foxy, and the innuendo he directs her way is always a bit mean.
10. Morticia and Gomez Addams on The Addams Family
Played by: Carolyn Jones and John Astin
There aren't many running gags in the history of sitcoms as blatantly sexual as what happens when Morticia Addams speaks French. Gomez, flush with desire and unable to control himself, grabs her arm and kisses it from the wrist upward.
There's little doubt as to where this is heading—if Morticia were allowed to get more than a sentence or two out without Uncle Fester or Lurch barging in, she and Gomez would be in the Addams family bedroom making a little sibling for Wednesday and Pugsley.
9. Hal and Lois on Malcolm in the Middle
Played by: Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek
Hal and Lois were so into being intimate with each other that they stopped at nothing to get the boys out of the house for some alone time, and that includes Hal forking over a wallet full of credit cards to his son just for a moment with his wife.
By the series' end, the reason for the couple's insatiable sex drive became clear: They just wanted to have a baby girl (possibly to off-set the doofiness of their first four sons).
8. Kenny Powers and April Buchanon on Eastbound & Down
Played by: Danny McBride and Katy Mixon
It's HBO, so the show doesn't have to be as prudish as its network counterparts. And we could have mined a lot of HBO/Showtime material for this list because there's a lot of the having of the sex on those shows—Entourage, House of Lies, Californication, all the way back to Mind of the Married Man and First & Ten. But there's a difference between having sex on a show and being truly sexual.
When Kenny and April get within ten yards of each other, something electric happens, and they just want to jump each other's bones. Even if April manages to give Kenny the Heisman, you know she didn't really want to. Star-crossed lovers? Maybe not—but sexual enablers, absolutely.
7. Claire and Phil Dunphy on Modern Family
Played by: Julie Bowen and Ty Burrell
Claire and Phil aren't constantly trading sexual banter or slapping each other on the ass—they do bicker quite a bit, and sometimes it's a bit sexual—but for one shining moment they established themselves as perhaps the most sexual couple on any sitcom. Ever.
January 19, 2011. Episode: "Caught in the Act." The kids walk in on Phil and Claire having sex, which is a little risque for prime time, but what puts it over the top is how they're having sex. The positions Phil and Claire are in, as they hurriedly try to cover themselves, indicate that it wasn't missionary. Phil and Claire were doing it in the manner of canines. Pooch fashion. As the hounds do. Doggie style.
Most. Sexual. Sitcom. Moment. Ever.
6. Major Frank Burns and Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on M*A*S*H
Played by: Larry Linville and Loretta Switt
Though she's a disciplinarian of a head nurse, Margaret Houlihan is a devil in the sack, having picked up the name "Hot Lips" when a sexual encounter between her and Frank was accidentally broadcast over the camp's PA system. Major Burns, by the way, is married, making the most significant romantic relationship on the show an extramarital affair—nice.
5. Lois and Peter Griffin on Family Guy
Played by: Alex Borstein and Seth Macfarlane
Peter Griffin is an everyman, which means he's up for sex. Lois, though, is exceptional. Over the course of Family Guy's 11 seasons, she has given us glimpses of her taste for the rough stuff—she puts on an S&M outfit in "Let's Go to the Hop" (season two, episode 14), asks Peter to extinguish a cigarette on her arm in "Breaking Out is Hard to Do" (season four, episode nine), asks him to wiggle his finger in a bullet hole after he shoots her in "Barely Legal" (season five, episode eight), and asks him to kick her in the breasts in "Brian's Got a Brand New Bag" (season eight, episode four). Lois also believes that a man cannot be forced to have sex. Peter has his hands full.
4. Clair and Heathcliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show
Played by: Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad
Where did Phylicia Ayers-Allen (later Phylicia Rashad) come from? Nowhere—when she started on The Cosby Show in 1984, she was a complete unknown, instantly the newest and best MILF in the world. Together, she and Bill Cosby had a clear sexual interest in each other at all times. And she wasn't shy about playing the sexy-wife card, which is cool considering she had (in teeveeland) a college-age daughter. We can only imagine what sort of things they were doing to each other off-screen.
Actually, we don't have to imagine—we've seen the face Bill Cosby makes when he eats a Jell-O Pudding Pop. Gotta figure it was something like that, only better.
3. Red and Kitty Forman on That '70s Show
Played by: Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp
The focus of That '70s Show was on the sexcapades of the the Forman's youngest son, Eric, but no couple kept it consistently alive quite like his parents, Red and Kitty. The couple, who always capitalized on their alone time (i.e. subjected the audience to uncomfortable pet names and foreplay), had so much sex that they even had a pregnancy scare in the fifth season of the show, which turned out to be an early stage of menopause.
2. Alan and Amy Matthews on Boy Meets World
Played By: William Russ and Betsy Randle
In the season one Boy Meets World episode "Once in Love with Amy," Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) meets two particularly jarring—for a sixth-grader, at least—facts of life: Sometimes, parents cheat on one another, and other times they like to spice up their sex lives with role-playing.
Fortunately for young Cory, only one of those situations turned out to be actually happening with his loving guardians, Alan and Amy Matthews. Thinking he's caught his mother having an affair, Cory tells Alan only to find out that she's been cheating on regular-old-dad Alan with a more dangerous and secretive Alan.
That's right, in order to put the pep back in their bedroom steps, Amy and Alan Matthews pretend to be strangers in non-home settings. Which is only one of several instances on Boy Meets World where Cory's highly functional parents allude to the humping around that goes on behind their closed doors.
In a later season's episode, for instance, Amy signs up for the same creative writing class that eldest son Eric (Will Friedle) attends, where she pens steamy short stories that would feel right at home in a cheesy romance novel.
1. Al and Peggy Bundy on Married... With Children
Played by: Ed O'Neill and Katy Sagal
Al and Peggy Bundy might be the only truly sexual main characters ever to grace a classic prime time sitcom. They have sex, and it's discussed on the show, with Peggy complaining about Al's stamina. They both like dirty magazines and go to strip clubs, with Peggy being notorious for trying to get too friendly in the back rooms with the male dancers. Peggy has no marketable skills, nor any interest in a career or housework; she has big hair and big curves, which she jams into very tight outfits; and she has a childlike understanding of the world grownups are expected to live in—in a way, she's an aging sex kitten, a second-rate Brigitte Bardot of lower middle class American suburbia.
Whatever she is, Al totally digs it. Sure, he's constantly cranky, and tired, and befuddled by what his life has become, and makes a big deal of sulking off to the john to get away from her—but he totally digs her.
Ah, Married... With Children. There never was, and never will be, a show quite like it.