12 Best TV Shows Like Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage

Packed with small-town charm, hard times, and big laughs, “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” deconstructs its titular union with verve and aplomb. The “Young Sheldon” spin-off about a couple (Montana Jordan and Emily Osment) who marry young thanks to an unplanned pregnancy explores the perils of having little money and education but a lot of love. It’s also all about sharing space with your in-laws, as Georgie (Jordan) moves in with his new wife and her mother and father (Rachel Bay Jones and Will Sasso, respectively). It also foreshadows the man Georgie we know will become at some point in the future, as his years as “Dr. Tire,” which we know about from “The Big Bang Theory,” loom ahead of him.

One of CBS’ most popular scripted offerings, the sitcom is a ratings success, but with only a single season to watch as of this writing, where should you turn when you want to watch something with similar vibes during those long months before we get new episodes? This list of sitcoms includes shows about large, multigenerational families sharing space, about struggling working-class couples, or about both at the same time. One of them is set in Texas, where Georgie and Mandy are based. Here’s a list of sitcoms you should give a chance to once you’re all caught up with watching “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.”

“Married” takes a somewhat less happy look at two people who are stuck trying to make a go of it with multiple children to care for and too little money to pay the bills. The dramedy features Russ (Nat Faxon) and Lina Bowman (Judy Greer), a couple that loves each other and their three kids but is being dragged down by work, financial instability, and their own frustrated feelings about their marriage. Fortunately, they have good friends on their side — A.J. (Brett Gelman), who remains single after a bitter divorce, and Jess (Jenny Slate), whose sedate marriage to an older man clashes deeply with her wild child attitude.

The FX sitcom’s a little more melancholy than “Georgie and Mandy” and only lasted for two seasons, but it’s still a wonderful show that’s just similar enough to the CBS sitcom to entertain anyone looking for more down-at-the-heels humor into watching.

While the Simpsons might not seem like they have a lot in common with Georgie and Mandy at first blush, when you really think about it, everyone’s favorite dysfunctional animated clan actually bears a lot of similarities to the Coopers. After all, Marge (voice of Julie Kavner) and Homer (Dan Castellaneta) meet when they’re high school students, fall in love, and end up marrying thanks to an unexpected pregnancy. They then settle into a lower-middle-class life in a spacious suburban house bolstered by Homer’s blue-collar job (a questionable thing about the show that fans long ago learned to ignore). The tenderness between Homer and Marge contrasts with the sour grapes left over from their unfulfilled dreams, something Georgie and Mandy often confront while coping with their new lives as a married couple. Sure, Bart (Nancy Cartwright) is far more rambunctious than little CeeCee, but the parallels are all too clear.

Of course, thanks to having three kids of varying ages, Homer and Marge’s lives are rather less sedate than Georgie and Mandy’s. But the two dysfunctional extended families would definitely bond with each other over trips to the mall and Jell-O mold desserts, and the long-lived sitcom provides perfect entertainment for anyone looking for more heartfelt yet ridiculous sitcom antics.

If “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” is like a colorful fajita plate served up at Chili’s, then “Everybody Loves Raymond” is a nine-season-long platter of meatloaf and mashed potatoes served up at your local diner — comforting, satisfying, and a staple of middle-American life. A bedrock sitcom that helped define the 1990s, “Raymond” also features a large, loving, overbearing extended family like “Georgie & Mandy’s,” and when it comes to the Barone family, things are just as spiky between each branch of the clan as they are between the McAllisters.

Ray Barone (Ray Romano) is a journalist caught between the needs of his wife, Debra (Patricia Heaton), and the machinations of his smothering mom, Marie (Doris Roberts). His cranky pop, Frank (Peter Boyle), and his insecure police officer brother, Robert (Brad Garrett), are very jealous of Debra’s clear favoritism. Ray and Debra get by raising their three kids, but Marie, Frank, and Robert are right there with them through it all. Sounds an awful lot like what Mandy and Georgie’s life at the McAllisters entails, doesn’t it?

A classic sitcom that still has plenty to say about the modern world decades after it made its debut in 1971, at its roots, “All in the Family” has a cultural clash similar to the divide between Georgie’s down-home roots and Mandy’s highfaluting hopes of life in the city. While “All in the Family” is much more socially conscious and was planted firmly in the time period when it was released, as opposed to the way “Georgie and Mandy” roots itself in the 1990s, there’s an undeniable sense of working-class truth lying at the foundation of both shows that makes one a natural follow-up to the other.

Archie (Carroll O’Connor) and Edith Bunker (Maureen Stapleton) are your average working-class couple living in New York. Innocent, house-proud Edith always sees the good in others, while irascible Archie regularly expresses a number of bigoted attitudes while secretly harboring a heart of gold — and then their daughter, Gloria (Sally Struthers), comes home with her young husband, Mike (Rob Reiner). Both of them are modern types with very liberal attitudes, so Mike and Archie immediately spark into conflict, with Archie frequently calling his son-in-law by the insulting nickname “Meathead.” Sounds like something Audrey would love to call Georgie, doesn’t it?

“Life in Pieces” is another multi-generational sitcom that, like “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” gets its laughs from the way three generations of a single family collide and interact with one another. It might remind you of “Modern Family,” but it’s also a fun watch if you like Georgie and Mandy’s antics along with those of their extended family. 

The sprawling Short family is comprised of dad John (James Brolin) and mom Joan (Dianne Wiest). They have three kids, Heather (Betsy Brandt), Matthew (Thomas Sadoski), and Greg (Colin Hanks), who have all married and started families of their own. The Shorts now have seven grandchildren, both biological and adopted, between their three kids. Add three spouses to the mix, and a simple Sunday night dinner proves to be anything but ordinary for them. While there are way more Shorts than Coopers as of this writing, if you like shows that take a comedic yet serious look at life shared by a sprawling family, then this show is for you.

Here’s a short-lived sitcom featuring characters that go through situations that Mandy would definitely relate to. “Welcome to the Family” takes two feuding clans — the Hernandez family and the Yoders — who find themselves in conflict when recent high school graduates Junior (Joseph Haro) and Molly (Ella Rae Peck) announce they’re having a baby. Though “Welcome” has the added layer of cultural differences between the families, the resemblance to the dynamic seen between the McAllisters and the Coopers after the birth of CeeCee is strong.

Though “Welcome to the Family” only lasted for a brief twelve-episode run, it still manages to make audiences laugh. Dan (Mike O’Malley) and Caroline (Mary McCormack) Yoder thought they had it easy once Molly managed to make it out of high school, only to be presented with new challenges. Lisette (Justina Machado) and Miguel Hernandez (Ricardo Chavira), meanwhile, worry that their son’s fast track to Stanford will be interrupted thanks to his connection with Molly. When Caroline figures out she’s pregnant, too, she desperately conceals it from Dan, who does not want another child. Tragically, this conflict is never resolved, but fans of “Georgie and Mandy” will love the ride anyway.

Set in a small Texas town just like “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” “King of the Hill” focuses on the close-knit but imperfectly quirky Hill family. Together, they face difficulties like parental estrangement, infidelity, and the horrors of having a narrow urethra. The town of Arlen might be slightly more colorful than Medford, but “King of the Hill’ still takes audiences on a comforting ride that mixes up drama and comedy in a way that, in its best episodes, will feel familiar to fans of the Coopers.

Helmed by straight-arrow propane salesman Hank (voice of Mike Judge), officious substitute Spanish teacher Peggy (Kathy Najimy), and their son, Bobby (Pamela Adlon), the Hill family hosts Peggy’s college-aged niece, Luanne Platter (Brittany Murphy), for much of the show. The Hill family also has a number of close friends who help anchor the series, including exterminator and conspiracy theorist Dale Gribble (Johnny Hardwick), lovelorn loser and army barber Bill Dauterive (Stephen Root), and laid-back ladies’ man Boomhauer (also Judge). The Hills’ lives are disrupted by the arrival of a Laotian-American family, the Souphanousinphones, into the neighborhood, providing Hank with a regular frenemy in Kahn Souphanousinphone. As the years pass, friendships stay strong, preconceived notions are tested, and life goes on in a way that “Georgie and Mandy” fans will appreciate.

Another series about a family that experiences a major cultural shift when they join a multigenerational household that’s unified in a single home, “Family Reunion” combines three generations of the McKellan family under a single roof when a visit for a family reunion turns into a much longer stay. The combination of gentle intergenerational comedy as well as the family’s constant planning and scheming to get ahead will likely make the show a winner with fans of “Georgie & Mandy.”

A family of six — sportscaster and former football star dad Moz (Anthony Alabi), mom Nicole (Tia Mowry), kids Jade (Talia Jackson), Shaka (Isaiah Russell-Bailey), Mazzi (Cameron J. Wright), and Ami (Jordyn Raya James) — the McKellans move from Seattle to Columbus, Georgia, after realizing how beneficial small-town living is for both their souls and their bank accounts. Grandma M’Dear (Loretta Devine) and grandfather Jebediah (Richard Roundtree) hold down the fort and give the kids a place to stay, but it takes a lot of love for this family to figure each other out.

For fans of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” who really like the sitcom’s central couple, “Angie” might be the perfect throwback series to watch while waiting for the “Young Sheldon” spin-off to return. It’s all about a waitress, Angie Falco (Donna Pescow), who finds herself in a fish-out-of-water situation when she falls in love with a pediatrician, Bradley Benson, M.D. (Robert Hays), which causes all sorts of cultural clashes. Angie and Bradley’s families come from completely different walks of life, so the titular waitress is not at all sure how any of this will work out. Nevertheless, the two soon elope, after which they have to adjust to the expectations and feelings of their very different families.

While Mandy’s high-class ways mostly exist in her mind, and she generally comes from the same economic class as Georgie, the situation Angie and Bradley find themselves in will feel quite similar. Fans of the currently airing sitcom will likely enjoy watching these two fall in love as much as they’ve liked watching Georgie and Mandy do the same.

For fans of Mandy’s television news career arc, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” is a classic, much-beloved sitcom set in a newsroom. If this is your favorite part of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” then bingeing one of the most rewatchable sitcoms of all time is going to be a huge treat for you. A single woman in the middle of the country learning to adjust to city life as a single woman in the 1970s might seem different from a young married couple with a baby, but the struggle Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) goes through is universal for any woman who’s tried to make a life in the professional world.

Mary originally makes the move to Minnesota to pursue life as a secretary, but she eventually becomes a segment producer for WJM news in Minneapolis, where her colleagues gradually become her friends and second family. She also moves into an apartment where she makes two more friends — Rhoda (Valerie Harper) and Phyllis (Cloris Leachman), both of whom would eventually get their own spin-off sitcoms. Between the two locations, Mary experiences romance and heartache, wins respect from her peers, and advances her career — all while turning the world on with her smile.

This entry on the list is for those of you who really love the McAllister Automotive portion of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.” “Shifting Gears” is another new sitcom on the block, which features gearhead-minded plots that take place in Matt Parker’s (Tim Allen) auto customization garage and the cross-generational clash between Matt and his daughter, Riley (Kat Dennings). If you primarily tune in to “Georgie & Mandy” to find out what Georgie and Jim are up to down in the garage, then this is where you should go while waiting for Season 2.

In the series, Matt takes in not only Riley but also her two children, Carter and Georgia, in the wake of his wife’s death. For Riley and Matt, this is a whole new twist in their long and tortured relationship, as she fled the house years ago to dodge her dad’s rules. Now, with Riley coping with a breakup and trying to establish a new career for herself, father and daughter are stuck trying to figure themselves and each other out. Fortunately, they have friends and family who are always happy to lend a helping hand.

If all else fails and you missed — or want to revisit — how Georgie and Mandy first got together, diving into “Young Sheldon” might be your best bet. It tracks Georgie’s childhood, how he and Mandy got married, and CeeCee’s birth. It also explains how Meemaw (Annie Potts) became the sass master she is and, even more importantly, how Sheldon Cooper (Iain Armitage) became the man who would one day win the Nobel Peace Prize on yet another show in the “Sheldonverse,” “The Big Bang Theory.”

Other characters from “Georgie & Mandy” –  including mom Mary (Zoe Perry) and little sister Missy (Raegan Revord) — are huge parts of “Young Sheldon.” You’ll even learn more about minor characters like Pastor Jeff Difford (Matt Hobby). Most importantly, you’ll watch George Cooper Sr.’s (Lance Barber) health decline, ultimately leading to his death. That’s a huge building block in Georgie’s psyche and a big part of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” making “Young Sheldon” a must-watch sitcom for anyone who wants to understand everything central to Georgie and Mandy’s universe.