I think almost every sound has it's place. A cheesy DX-7 bell piano sound can ruin a song if the feel of the song isn't right but can also be a lot of fun in the right song.
I find that the Amiga mod scene was good at this. For example, melody that comes in at 0:49 in 4mat's Madness (link below). It's super cheesy and totally wouldn't work in a generic 8bc chiprave song, but in a good humored and light song it works really well.
The other scene that seems really good at taking terrible and/or cheesy sounds and making it work is the italo disco genre. Especially my favourites, proxyon. I don't even need to give you a timecode, just listen to any part of the song below and you'll hear a slew of awful sounds coming together to make - in my opinion - an awesome song.
4mat's Madness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcPL1C65HBo
proxyon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_veynd3Dk