JPF Home Page Forums Creative Arts Forums Acting, Theater, Film and TV Forum Your 5 Favorite Sit Coms Of All Time

There are certain shows that are just timeless and forever fill my heart with joy & laughter. When I'm not doing well, which is practically always I turn to these shows as well as great films for an escape. I turn to music too but music is part of my problem lol

Okay here are my favorites of all time and briefly why...

#5 - NONE! I actually don't have a fifth favorite. Over the past two decades many shows around I liked about the same. I looked back on some shows that seemed great back then when they were out but actually were pretty bad and not too funny or long lasting. Cheers for me is one like that, great theme though and i think Frazier blows it off the map. Taxi is another.
Raymond was very very good as was King Of Queens But we'll see in 20,30 40 or 50 years, Well some will see

#4 - All In The Family
This show is just incredible ground breaking stuff and funny as heck! Archie is one of TV's all time great characters if not the greatest. And Edith is the lovable one!
The show would sometimes get too serious which is why it's 4th for me for comedy.
Some heavy issues on that show. But some of the funniest stuff I have ever seen.
Catch episodes like "Battle Of the Month" or when Archie meets Sammy Davis Jr.
Or the refrigerator repair men episode, Or Maude's Here lol

#3 - I Love Lucy -
Ya know when i was a kid this was already in syndication and I didn't really get the appeal of this GREAT show until more recent years. I acquired the entire series on DVD And let me say it is FANTASTIC. Again GROUNDBREAKING!
Lucy was BRILLIANT period! And the LATER shows are way better than I remembered. Season 7-8-9 were combined into and were the One Hour Lucy & Desi Show. They live in the Country! GREAT episodes with great casts of stars.

Hollywood episodes were they bring in a massive amount of great people into the shows. You live there lives with the cast as they they travel around the world from season to season. Ricki is funnier than you think, and makes GREAT faces. And Fred is too much. Corny songs, with slapstick and dancing but it's all wonderful.
She was a great comedian and physical actress! And what makes this show more special than anything else is the love it's genuine.And why it's 3rd for me.
Too many incredible episodes to mention. But here's a few anyway.. Working at the candy store, Vegamita vegimeeta lol... Lucy meets Harpo, John Wayne episode,
The One with Barbara Eden and The Dance...on & on great to the very last one.
Awesome picture on the new DVD's perhaps the finest show to ever air on Televison.

#2 - The HoneyMooners
Just flat out RAW! This edgier show is just too GREAT. Reason 1 Jackie Gleason was
The Great One! Perfect cast and great writing, Actually all the shows I mentioned have great writers of course. Again GROUNDBREAKING!
How can a show be SO funny when 90% of it take place on that one set in that horrible kitchen. Talent that's how!
Gleason & Carney are magical together and so is Audrey Meadows.
So much anger and LOVE in this show.
I remember as a young child hearing my father LAUGH so loud. He never laughed
and i would run in to see why, And there was The Honeymooners on. I would sit and watch and laugh with him. 25 years later there he was at home laughing out loud over the same 39 episodes he has seen over & over a thousand times.
"Dad HOW can you still laugh like that over the same show?"

Now fifty years later, and with Dad long gone I put that DVD set on, pick any one it doesnt matter. And I bust out laughing over & over again. And its; not only on the bits or jokes,, It's the add libs mistakes, and the expressions and little nuances of Gleason and Carny.
Must See's - 99,000 Answer, Momma Likes Mambo, Better Living Through TV,
Funny Money,Brother Ralph HEck All 39 Classics and few lost ones as well....

#1 The Odd Couple
Forget one guys a neat freak and ones a slob.. It's way more than that.
The writing for this show is sublime. The chemistry between Randell & Klugman is sublime. Unlike today were stand up comedians get shows these guy were actors, and Broadway theatre actors. There timing is INCREDIBLE!

Also the use of guest stars AS WHO THEY are is wonderful. In most shows like Friends Bruce Willis is Joe somebody's boyfriend. In the Odd Couple they used the stars as who they were. And it's brilliant the way they work them in. You have a photographer and a sports writer. So you are all set up. Genuine love on that show.
Again the subtle stuff rules, the way they inter act like fighting over each other at the same time. Not okay - pause here's your punch line all the time.....

Jack Klugman read a post i put on his website.. His son saw it and re-sponded to me about it and how touched Jack was when he read it.

I nailed the heck out of the heartbeat of that show and he appreciated it and some of the things I said.
Before these awesome re-stored DVD's there was only TV and videoing them from TV, I sat up on a marathon for 24 hours straight and taped every Odd Couple editing all commercials.


Also I can't sleep at night, and the only thing that calms me down and makes me ALWAYS feel better is the Odd Couple. I have fallen asleep to it (ready now) every single night for the past 16 years!!!
This was the best show on TV.. you put on the episode of "Password" or Lets Make Deal" and try to tell me different. lol... never happen!

1- The Odd Couple
2- The HoneyMooners
3- I LOve Lucy
4- All In The Family
5- None!

Note: They are all set in New York!

Mike, I love every one of the programs you listed. Here is my top-5 list:

#5. The Red Green Show - Canada's answer to "Home Improvement". I'm not sure if "sit-com" is the best description, but it seems pretty close. Let's all bow our heads and recite the Men's Prayer: "I'm a man, but I can change.. If I have to... I guess."

#4. The Mary Tyler Moore Show - Probably the funniest single episode of any sit-com has to be the episode where Chuckles the Clown died.

#3. M*A*S*H - Although some of the episodes were a little preachy, this is still one of the all-time great shows.

#2. Soap - This ran for 4 season from 1977-1981 and brilliantly followed every soap opera cliche to perfection.

#1. Sports Night - Aaron Sorkin's first series (He also wrote and produced 2 of my other favorite programs, The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), this is probably the best-written sit-com ever, but was unfortunately too smart for commercial broadcast television and only lasted for 2 seasons from 1998-2000.

Mike and Kevin,
I love all you mentioned plus I'd have to add:

Will and Grace - the writing was brilliant and it should have been called "Jack and Karen"

Fawlty Towers!

Oh, I can't choose. I liked them all.

Andy Griffith-favorites are The Haunted House, Citizen's Arrest, the Lady Convicts, The Lady Druggist, Frank Miller's house, and two for their serious sides: the lady speeder and the guys selling on the side of the road.

Sanford and Son

Leave It To Beaver-I loved the hominess of this show. I'll never forget the one where Beaver got caught up in the cup of soup on the billboard.

Designing Women


Odd Couple

I don't know. A lot were good. It takes a lot to write comedy, not as easy as it appears.

Hogan's Heroes, Mash, Get Smart, Green Acres, Lucy.....

My two favorites of the only three TV shows I liked were (in order) Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Darkwing Duck. (The third, Win Ben Stein's Money, was a game show.)

Joe

Car 54,Where are You?

Newhart

Friends

Yes,Dear

Just shoot Me


These aren't in any specific order,I love each of these shows.I do think that Bob Newhart is one of the funniest men to ever live.I love the old Bob Newhart Show also,but enjoyed the newer show ,Newhart more.

I CAN'T believe no one said the "Dick Van Dyke" show...it was SO funny...remember when Rob told Laura not to open his mail anymore, and a package came and she couldn't resist...and it a a huge inflatable raft that blew up in their living room...or when Rob's mom gave Laura a broach with everyone in the family's birthplaces...and she droppped it in the garbage disposal

I have to say that "Two and a half Men" is rip roaring side splitting funny to me...the best comedy since Frazier !

The only ones I could add to the list are "Amos 'n' Andy" and "The Little Rascals".

John

Another one: "The Life of Riley". Both the William Bendix one and the Jackie Gleason one.

Remember Waldo (played by Sterling Holloway):
Voice of Winnie the Pooh

Fawlty Towers
The Young Ones
Everybody Loves Raymond
That 70s Show
South Park (Though I guess it's not officially a sitcom.)

Donna

What still gets my attention is:::


The Cosby Show

Everybody loves Raymond

The King of Queens

Home Improvement

and King of the Hill

Good stuff guys!

Hey I think "Everyone Loves Raymond" is an exceptional sit com as well. The only thing is they play it 5 times a day on 3 different stations. So ya just keep seeing it over & over & over again. Just like Friends...

Some shows are a bit quirkier or softer than others but are still good and or you simply enjoy something about them. Some are light hearted but not flat out funny.

FWIW, My writing partner has directed the following shows:

Married...With Children
Still Standing
The Drew Carey Show

Some of which, were actually funny.

The sad part was when the sitcom world changed drastically...right about the time we started writing music together. I thought it was going to be a slam dunk, getting music placed with HIS connections.

#5......Green Acres--Needed to throw a "Buck Henry" driven show in there somewhere...Okay so it's taking the "fish out of water" theme and flogging it to death, but c'mon..."Arnold, the pig" LOL ?? Verry funny, this is "Andy" with "irony"...

#4....The Office (American Version)--I love the ensemble acting, but the show is handicapped by continuing on with the "fake documentary" gimmick...I mean, how long are these guys supposed to be having a documentary being made about them, maybe that's how they can "lose the gimmick", they investigate the "documentary makers", and they turn out to be quacks or something...

#3.......All In the Family--Norman Lear was socially relevant and funny, once upon a time. How better to improve society, then to hold a mirror up to it? What a great ensemble cast as well!

#2......Boston Legal--Not really a sitcom, but actually made me laugh more than ANY sitcom, other than #1, in the last ten years. For the first time in 17 years, David Kelley has NO shows on TV (remember "Picket Fences?")...he could write and produce a half hour sitcom IN HIS SLEEP that would be better than 99% of what's out there now!!!

#1....Curb Your Enthusiasm-Larry David is a genius on pacing and plot development, to where the last minute of many episodes deliver "multiple payouts", one after the other. Show me another show, or another writer with a better "last minute."

Mike

I'm a sucker for British Sitcoms

(1) Fawlty Towers
(2) Blackadder
(3) Absolutely Fabulous
(4) Keeping Up Appearances
(5) Red Dwarf

Scott

I love old radio sitcoms. I have hundreds, and quite a few dramas and variety shows. My favorite is Amos and Andy. Though the main characters, Amos, Andy, Kingfish , and Lightnin' were played by white actors, the rest of the cast, Saphire, Saphire's mother, Homer Van Porter, Madame Queen, Plukey, Algonquin Calhoun, and Gabby Gibson, were played by black actors.
It was the longest running radio sitcom from 1928-1959, and set the standard for TV sitcoms of the future by taping in front of a live audience and the first show to use syndication.

The early shows from 1928-1939 were recorded on vinyl and sent to affiliate radio stations to be played simotainiously usually twice a week. They focused on the three main characters Amos, Andy, and Kingfish with no studio audience. After 1939, they were picked up by NBC I think, and started taping regular 30 minute episodes with a studio audience. Amos started taking less of a role and made weekly cameos as the chemistry between Andy and The Kingfish was so strong along with Kingfish's wife Saffire that the focus became mostly on Andy, a hapless bachelor who would propose marriage to any girl he met and always get into trouble. His real true love was Madame Queen, a hair dresser who weighed 400 pounds.

Other radio sitcoms that I like are:
Granby's Green Acres- Precursor to the TV show starring Gale Gordon, Bea Benaderet, and Parley Bear
The Mel Blanc Show- He owned a fix-it shop and used many of his charactor voices.
The Great Gildersleeve
My Favorite Husband- Early Lucille Ball

Favorite radio dramas:
Inner Sanctum
The Shadow- The one with Orson Wells
CBS Radio Mystery Theater- Spin off of Inner Sanctum
Gunsmoke

Favorite TV sitcoms:
Both Newhart shows
Honeymooners
Andy Griffith
Green Acres
My Name Is Earl

Hey Folks,

Seems that no one has mentioned Hulu.com.

Check it out. Find the "search" box, and see what ya come up with.

For instance, speaking of shows set in New York...

http://www.hulu.com/watch/30476/the-dick-van-dyke-show-it-may-look-like-a-walnut

Midnite

Mike,
I'm really not copying you but you pinned most of my old favs. without a doubt Frasier is number one.
2.Cheers
3.Taxi
4.Everybody Loves Raymond
%.Golden Girls

Would "The Simpsons" classify?

Add in "Gilligan's Island" for me.

Most of the other good ones were mentioned.

Oh, since I live down south, I have to add in "Beverly Hillbillies" and every now and then, Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt would appear on the show.

I haven't watched sitcoms in so long.

1. M*A*S*H
2. All In The Family
3. Sanford And Son
4. The Jeffersons
5. Beverly Hillbillies

These pretty well date me, but hey.

Not big on sitcoms here, but I watched most of Seinfeld. That one must be my all time favourite.

We don't get them all here in Europe, unless we pay big bucks, but a couple of others I'd enjoyed were MASH, Cheers, Baywatch (back when I was a bachelor :-), Frasier, Friends, the british ones are fun once in a while and I still sometimes zap into The King of Queens..

But when it comes to ranking, I can only rank Seinfeld ahead of the others..

OMG, I love all the CSI shows!

Here's my top 5 of all time!

5. Andy Griffith Show (gotta love Don Knotts, the whole cast was great though)

4. Green Acres (gotta love the contrast, opposites attracting and having fun, miss that one!)

3. Mama's Family

2. Carol Burnett Show, was that a sitcom? No, it wasn't but I love the reruns anyway (anything she was in was great)oh and I guess I'll tie this one with Benny Hill, also a sketch show, but I remember it well, lots of fun!!

1. of all time??? oh, this is hard. Umm....has to be The Little Rascals, not one show watched more by me growing up.

Movies, now that's a different story!

My all time favorite movie, could watch it over and over, oh wait, I have...The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, I love that movie!! Don Knotts is one of my favorite comedy actors. But then again, I love the Three Stooges, and I also love Laurel and Hardy. Ooh, wait, can't forget the man himself, Jerry Lewis, and teamed with Dean Martin, oh how fun!! But, then I'd have to mention Abbott and Costello too. Umm. but still leaving out Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, oh the dance scenes in those movies are so memorable! I'm glad you said sitcoms and not movies, that's just too difficult!

1.) Northern Exposure
2.) Dick Van Dyke/MTM
3.) M*A*S*H -- didn't that start off w/o a laugh track, I hate laugh tracks
4.) Andy Griffith Show
5.) I think of another later (maybe Cheers).