They say that opposites attract. What they never told us was how often this would actually take place. Truth is, opposites do attract each other, and television has a distinct way of showing us that. It began with Felix (Jack Lemmon) and Oscar (Walter Matthau), two divorced men who share the same apartment but couldn’t be more different from each other. Felix was an absolute neat freak while Oscar was so laid back he was almost a slob. In its own graceful way this comedy made us laugh at ourselves, because after all, the best jokes are the ones that contain some truth in them, right? Well, Felix and Oscar didn’t keep the theme all to themselves.

Just a few years down the road we found out just how opposite some of us earthlings might be from aliens from outer space. When Mork and Mindy hit the scene, science fiction was so serious it was hard to make it funny. The complete ignorance of Mork in the ways of Earth made for absolutely hilarious comedy, in a classic late 1970s style. Today many sitcoms use the “odd couple” plot device to interject another dimension into the show. It’s because we can relate to these couples so well that they capture us with their television portrayals of real life and make us laugh.