What was the best sitcom of all time? By which I mean, a 30-minute program aired on either network or cable teevee.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I gotta go with Mary Tyler Moore. It pretty much had every element going for it and I don’t think there was a bad episode, unlike, say Seinfeld.
I have to agree. The moment I saw Booman’s post I wanted to say the MTM show and I’m jealous someone posted it first. If the standard is, can they make viewers laugh now, MTM wins.
MASH was great while I was growing up, but watching reruns now, it doesn’t seem in the least bit funny anymore.
Others that are not the best but still very good are Three’s Company, (even if it was a rewrite of Brit sit come “Robin’s Nest”) and the Honeymooners.
If the Simpsons counts as a sit com, then MTM has some competition. But not a fair comparison as you can do a lot more visually with animation.
I am, in fact, a HUGE MTM Show fan, and a MTM fan in general. Even have her autobiography, autographed.
that said, it’s impossible for me to say. The “MTM show” was brilliant. But what about “All in the Family” or “Maude”? “MASH”? “Seinfeld”? The Ted Danson/Shelly Long years from “Cheers”?
great writing, all of them.
Fawlty Towers
I think those episodes were an hour long. But aside from that quibble, seconded.
No, they were 30 minutes. I just watched one on Netflix. The only issue might be it wasn’t an American network even though they aired her.
If we’re going British, I’d take their version of The Office over Fawlty Towers.
For me –
I found the British “The Office” to be the most soul crushing thing I have ever seen. Occasionally very funny but Ricky Gervais, while utterly brilliant, was simply painful.
The pain was the genius. No show could make you cringe more than The Office.
My personal favorite is Sienfeld
There is a time when I would have said Seinfeld, but that show just hasn’t held up well for me. I think 9/11 made it seem impertinent. And then Michael Richards lost his mind. If you can’t love Kramer, how can you really love the Seinfeld show?
Have to admit I haven’t watched them much in reruns. Also, I try to draw a strong line between artists performance and their personal lives .
Seinfeld or M*A*S*H. Fawlty Towers might be in the running if it had more damn episodes. I don’t think it’s fair to include it with such a small number.
Arrested Development.
Durr.
It’s really only a race for 2nd. Maybe MASH, Seinfeld, or Cosby.
…I’ll take M*A*S*H for 2nd place– you know I’m a fan because I take the time to put in each asterisk.
And per someone else’s comment, All In The Family is also in the running for 2nd. That show was a gem.
1.All In The Family
there isn’t a network executive today that would have the balls to approve it.
if it was made today, it’d have to be on HBO or Showtime.
2. I Love Lucy
Ball found her calling and there isn’t one episode of that show that TODAY, can’t make me LOL at some point during the show.
the first 4 seasons of Cosby Show – it was the first time I ever saw anything close to my life as a Black person in America being shown on tv.
Arrested Development – to this day, I don’t get how that show stayed on the air for 3 seasons.
MASH – the Trapper John/Frank Burns years.
Apparently they are making another season of Arrested Development, somehow.
i LOVED the Cosby show when I was a kid. And ditto on Lucy.
Cosby was my favorite as a child, still love it…just wouldn’t put it in the top 5 of all time.
But now rikyrah’s got me watching clips on YouTube.
These were my first two thoughts – not only because they were funny and well-written, but each in its time was truly groundbreaking. And each, in the decades since, has had any number of imitators, none of which have come close to replicating their success.
Mary Tyler Moore would have to be right up there, too. And the phrase “situation comedy” doesn’t say anything about live actors, so you’d need to include The Simpsons, too.
I never “got” Seinfeld. But then, I live 3000 miles from New York for a reason.
I’m going to have to go with the Dick Van Dyke Show. When I was a kid, it made Wednesdays my favorite day of the week. I still find myself thinking about some of the episodes. What other show has brought together so many excellent comedians?
I’ve been told that if you saw an episode today, you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it, that it would be too sexist. That’s a shame. I think most of the sexism was in the Millie and Jerry subplot, which was never an important part of the series.
To this day, even thinking of the hypnosis episode makes me burst out laughing.
Seinfeld
Dick Van Dyke Show
Taxi
M*A*S*H
The Cosby Show!
Soap.
Soap was definitely solid.
Soap dominated.
Soap was brilliant. and, like I said about All In The Family, there isn’t a network executive alive today that would approve it for network tv. it’d be on HBO or Showtime.
Yes, soap was great.
The trick to being a great sitcom is to have more than one absolutely hilarious character. All in the Family had Archie and Edith. Taxi had 3 (Jim, Louie, and Latka). The Honeymooners had Norton and Ralph. Seinfeld had George and Kramer.
You can get by on one hilarious character, but to be an all-time classic comedy, you need 2.
Barney Miller
Taxi
Taxi > Barney.
Damn, Taxi was hilarious.
I’m loving how much love Barney Miller is getting.
It’s one of the most consistently funny shows, ever. Never a dud when it was in its prime.
If you love DeVito, you have to watch It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He’s great in that role.
Mary Tyler Moore
Barney Miller
The Honeymooners
All In The Family
Taxi
Newhart (the 70’s)
I think the key to being a top and lasting comedy is having an ensemble of characters around which any story can be woven. All of these had that. I loved Seinfeld, too. But I don’t put it in the top 5. Maybe it will find its way there eventually.
And Fawlty Towers is an absolute classic. But its humor is not something that is understood by the masses. It is brilliant, but if you don’t get the British style of humor, you look at its fans like they are lunatics.
Andy Griffith gets honorable mention.
The Newhart show is my choice!
Yay, someone else said the Honeymooners!
Cheers is getting no love. I’m not saying I’d pick Cheers, but I’m surprised no one has mentioned it.
I haven’t seen a funny sitcom in years. For the best, I’d have to go with “Barney Miller,” “The Bob Newhart Show” (the New England one), and the first two seasons of “Cheers.”
Present day:
“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” – so wild and brilliant.
Reruns:
“All in the Family” – all time favorite.
“I Love Lucy”
“Newhart” – the one in which he runs a Bed&Breakfast somewhere in New England.
“Frasier”
“Golden Girls” – I love everyone of those girls.
I tried watching the first few episodes of “Sunny” but it seemed like all the characters just end up screaming at each other all at once. Like bad improv. Does it improve at all?
Try these:
“Mac Bangs Dennis’ Mom”
“Sweet Dee’s Dating a Retarded Person”
“The Gang Dances Their Asses Off”
“Dennis and Dee Go On Welfare”
“The Gang Gives Back”
Frasier- the episode where Niles gives a dinner party with a bird stuck on his head.
Benson – visual comedy, I like that
Tie for me between the Dick van Dyke Show and the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
I remember whole episodes of DVD 40 years after seeing them.
well darn, now I gotta add “Golden Girls” and “Desiging Women” (the “Susanne Sugarbaker” years)
Northern Exposure. Yes, I know, it’s an hour show. Now get off my lawn.
I might say that this is the best comment thread of all time.
Dick van Dyke for me, because it’s so meta.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
If you want to go British, Waiting for God
Yes. Bob Denver as Maynard G. Krebbs. The “G” stood for Walter.
I have a pet theory that Maynard G. Krebs was one of the cultural factors that allowed the 1960s to happen. Conceived as humor at the expense of the beats, he was the original DFH in the public mind. But he became a sort of antihero that was attractive.
The mythology of the DFH has become very much an endless repetition of the character traits of Maynard G. Krebs.
Max Shulman went on to write Anybody Got a Match, a sendup of the tobacco industry that has become one of those life-imitates-art pieces. The plot has an ad agency for a tobacco company create a campaign to divert from the “smoking causes cancer” science that had just appeared. The campaign sponsors and publicizes the fact that “food causes cancer”.
I was thinking about Dobie Gillis a while back. I watched a segment that had been posted on youtube, and I was shocked that it was supposedly set in a High School. The actors looked too old to even be undergraduates. The Max Shulman book that I read in high school was “Barefoot Boy With Cheek.” Hilarious.
I’m a little disappointed that no one mentioned WKRP in Cincinnati, I even had a pea coat because I was such a Johnny Fever fan.
Maude, Golden Girls, Designing Women ~~
Seeing a trend, lol!?
Dang, I forgot Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The greatest of them all!
I would have mentioned Monty Python’s Flying Circus myself, except it’s sketch comedy, not a sitcom. I had to choose only one TV show to watch, forsaking all others, MPFC would be it.
Absolutely.
Ack, I meant to write “If I had to choose…”
I know it’s not cool but as a kid, I loved Hogans Heroes.
my all-time favorite Cheers line:
Hey Norm, how you doing?
It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Sammie, and I’m wearing milkbone underwear.
cracks me up everytime
M*A*S*H