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!