What is the greatest sitcom of all time?

All in the Family, Roseanne, I Love Lucy

Frasier. I can rewatch some episodes and still laugh my ass off.

definitely Frasier.

the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire

The Nanny

Seinfeld.

And none of the usual sitcom tropes when the writers run out of ideas: nobody got married, nobody had children, nobody moved away; nobody died, no group hugs when the show was over.

I don't get the love for GGs. I've seen it and it's okay Sophia's shtick gets old fast. Not sure why they had her play Italian like an old Jewish bubbeh.

That '70s Show

Sports Night

The Simpsons, season 2-9

Definitely top five! Wow, OP! You're a real critic.

But R3 makes you look like Pauline Fucking Kael!

I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore Show, MASH, All in the Family, Cheers, Golden Girls, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

To say GG was one of the best written sitcoms ever is hyperbole at its worst.

Veep Frasier Taxi Cheers

Like R5, I never understood the GG obsession. It certainly doesn’t belong with these brilliantly-written shows. (MTM of course, but OP mentioned it.)

MTM forevah!

I guess it's all subjective. I never liked the Honeymooners at all.

I think the ones that are experts at showing hilariousness at both home and work are the best:

The Dick van Dyke Show

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Bob Newhart Show

Frasier

Ok, my list:

MTM

The Honeymooners

All in the Family

I Love Lucy

Roseanne

Cheers

The Jeffersons

The Facts of Life

Rhoda

Father Ted & Fawlty Towers.

America? That's harder. All in the Family, I guess. Liked Coach, back in the day. And early Roseanne.

I would add Three's Company, especially the early Chrissy/Ropers seasons. I think it still holds up as just funny farce.

Frasier does hold up well. although in the final years the premise of the pompous guy getting his comeuppance at the end wears a little thin. Still, I enjoy watching it over and over again.

The Valentine's episode where David Hyde Pierce does the whole scene in pantomime is pretty close to brilliant.

Dammit, Datalounge! Sixteen posts and not a mention of me!

Some of the ones already mentioned get my vote, as does Barney Miller.

R17 I almost did!

That theme is sooo fucking good.

R16 that is one of my favorites. DHP has is great at comedy. I wish he'd get more work.

Sticking to US ones: Arrested Development. Though I still get a laugh from Bilko repeats after all those decades.

I often felt that Kate & Allie was underrated. Really well written show from the people that wrote the DVD Show.

I shall list my favorites by decade: The 1950's- The Honeymooners, 1960's- The Munsters, The 1970's- All In The Family, 1980's & 1990's- Roseanne, the 21st century- Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Out of ALL of these shows my favorite is All In The Family.

The MTM show may be a GAY fav but it NEVER made me laugh out loud. I thought the Ted Baxter character was TEDIOUS and ANNOYING. I couldn't wait for him to say his lines and get out of the scene.

R22-Kate and Allie was BLAND. It was a show for suburban white woman FRAUS.

all time favorite - Curb Your Enthusiasm

[quote] The MTM show may be a GAY fav but it NEVER made me laugh out loud. I thought the Ted Baxter character was TEDIOUS and ANNOYING. I couldn't wait for him to say his lines and get out of the scene.

You ain’t got no taste, ya cunt.

Not really the greatest, but very underrated: "Scrubs."

"Everybody Loves Raymond" was a rare example of an old-fashioned sitcom that was excellent in the late 90s and early 2000s.

It's all about writing and then casting. "I Love Lucy" would not be an all-time classic without that cast.

Maybe sappy, but for its time, I loved Andy Griffith.

Back to Frasier for a second.

Can anyone else think of a sitcom where the protagonist is really not a nice guy? Ralph Kramden, I suppose, although you felt sorry for him rather than disliked him. Seinfeld? He could be pretty obnoxious.

Frasier Crane can be downright unpleasant, which makes it all the more fun to watch. It's a thin line, the star of the show has to be someone you want to invite into your home regularly, but at the same time, if she/he is too goody-goody, it gets boring (I notice nobody is citing Donna Reed as an example of a great sitcom although it ran for eight seasons)

Wings

Taxi

Frasier

Marblehead Manor

I was a big fan of Herman’s Head.

R29- I'm only giving you half a second.

Brady Bunch

Father Ted, I’ve watched it countless times and still laugh.

R29, Basil Fawlty is pretty unpleasant. He is also the star of the best sitcom ever.

One of my favorite episodes of The Munsters is when Lily and Marylin open up a Beauty Parlor and turn two snobby woman into hags and then into EGG heads. The ZOMBO episode was terrific too.

Bewitched of course!

OK I am a pretentious intellectual and college prof and I think the best sitcom is Friends. It's so straightforward and rigidly structured. It's very mathematical. This worked beneath things to pull in the audience hit their pleasure centers. This is why it was so popular. Almost every episode follows a 3 story, 3 act arc. This is the "main" story The "substory" and very brief "anecdote"

Each has 3 segments. Introduction, development, and then conclusion.

So there are 9 "bits" to an episode. The mind gets used to it and the writing serves it. It is one of the most globally successful sitcoms - many people from different cultures will catch onto the structure, and get pleasure watching it repeated over and over.

A perfect product. Like Coca-cola and McDonalds.

SO MANY homos WORSHIP Bewitched why no love for I Dream Of Jeannie?

Arrested Development

The Office US

The greatest is obviously "I Love Lucy."

Everything that followed is somehow a knock of it. If you look, Lucy and Ethel lurk in all the sitcoms that followed. To a lesser extent, Ricky and Fred do, too.

Amongst black shows perhaps my favorite is WHAT'S HAPPENING!

Rerun- Hey Shirley, what's the scoop?

Shirley- Scoop is you're FAT!

R36-You must be British.

R39- a perfectly MEDIOCRE product like Subway .

R 45 - better than subway. McDonalds.

That 70’s Show, Fresh Prince, Roseanne, or Sabrina The Teenage Witch...okay maybe not the best but my favs!

One of the attributes that makes 'Fawlty Towers' so ingenious is its brevity. There were only 12 eps ever produced; contrast that with 'Friends' (whom no one has mentioned, unsurprisingly) or other American sitcoms that film 22+ eps/season and last 10 years. This is the same reason 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' is usually so good...Larry David won't do another season until he's good and ready to do so, and so HBO lets him make his own schedule.

Roseann show:

Dan Conner: Roseanne I'll make dinner tonight.

Roseanne: But dear , you just made dinner FIFTEEN YEARS AGO!

Taxi had some stand-out episodes. In the one linked below, called ‘Jim The Psychic’, it’s the final of 3 clips showcasing a hilarious Danny DeVito.

R48 what am I (at R39) chopped livah? Fuck you.

I Love Lucy had about 35 episodes per year and it was still a QUALITY show.

"Are You Being Served?" is the only choice.

The BRITS are generally as good at comedy as they are about CARS and FOOD.

WKRP in Cincinnati Gilligan’s Island Love, American Style

DL people , didn't Jack Tripper on Three's Company have a bit of a GAY accent.

You gays must be restricting your choices to broadcast TV.

“Frasier”. It’s the smartest show in the history of prime time network television.

Frasier, imo the best

Friends, although flawed ridiculously well written

R27 I’ve been rewatching Scrubs on Amazon Prime and it holds up so well. The first two seasons have so many hysterical scenes.

I’ve never seen the MTM show or Rhoda but DL makes me want to check it out now

I'm not a big fan of sitcoms, but I do love Curb Your Enthusiasm and Arrested Development and both have made me cry laughing more than a few times. MTM was before my time. Looks like it's on Hulu -- maybe I'll start watching it.

America - Three-way tie:

St. Elsewhere

Rescue Me

M.A.S.H.

Britain - Tie:

Fawlty Towers

Are You Being Served

R62- St Elsewhere was NOT a comedy it was a DRAMA.

Mary Tyler Moore Show is really the only sitcom from the MTM factory that holds up. I find Rhoda and Phyllis (the sitcoms, not the characters) mostly unwatchable, and I know Bob Newhart Show is considered iconic, but I just find it pretentious and unfunny. Now Newhart from the 1980s is still funny, but it seems to be just a footnote in TV history.

Rhoda is fucking underrated.

I can't believe no one has said The Andy Griffith Show. My all time fav.

#1 Dick Van Dyke Show (childhood to now fave)

Partridge Family (childhood fave)

Mary Tyler Moore Show

Arrested Development

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Larry Sanders Show

Veep

Seinfeld

Ab Fab

Peep Show (British)

The British Show "Veep" was based on with the Scottish guy floridly cussing EVERYONE--can't remember the name of it.

Fawlty Towers

Roseanne (original version)

I have been singing '60s (and earlier) sitcom themes to myself during covid. The Patty Duke Show, Dennis the Menace, and the Three Stooges pop up most frequently.

Rhoda is just awful. Classic example of when NOT to build a while show around what was never meant to be more than a supporting character. Plus the character oy worked when she was insecure and self-deprecating. All of that was lost in her series.

For British shows, Coupling did the Friends schtick so much better. The US version of that though was even worse than the US remake of Kath & Kim (another favorite sitcom)

1950s, I Love Lucy 1960s, Dick van Dyke 1970s, Mary Tyler Moore 1980s, Roseanne 1990s, Friends 2000s, Everybody Loves Raymond 2010s, Modern Family 2020s, Schitt’s Creek

Luceee

In no order:

Cheers

Seinfeld

Mary Tyler Moore

Golden Girls

Roseanne (original run)

R69 ...

I Love Lucy

Mary Tyler Moore

Maude

Family Ties

Three's Company

FUCK YOU ALL! Mama's Family and The Beverly Hillbillies, you bunch of philistines!

[quote]Mama's Family

Not one second of it was funny.

The Newharts

Seinfeld Golden Girls Curb Your Enthusiasm

Underrated: George Burns And Gracie Allen Show The Munsters That Girl Good Times

British: AbFab Keeping Up Appearances Are You Being Served

Murphy Brown (seasons 1-6)

Is The Wonder Years considered a sitcom? The first few seasons were truly excellent.

I married Joan - a vintage 50's sitcom starring Joan Davis. She was quite funny although at the time ILL was the front runner so IMJ never got the traction it deserved.

As many have mentioned above Fraiser is tops in my book.

I great British comedy was - Keeping Up Appearances - that show was/is quite amusing. Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet) her henpecked husband Richard, Hyacinth's sisters Daisy, Rose (the tramp) and Violet (the one with the Mercedes and room for a pony!) Worth a look if you enjoy British humor.

FWIW, many critics believe ENCORE! ENCORE! with Nathan Lane to be empirically the worst ever greenlit. You can use it as a metric to judge worthiness of other maligned sitcoms.

Funny Face

R81 I would consider it a drama and I loved it too. It was definitely the precursor to my favorite tv show of all time: My So-Called Life.

Frasier

Veep

All in the Family, the Mike & Gloria living with the parents years.

Roseanne before lottery win.

Seinfeld

Dick Van Dyke

Mary Tyler Moore

I Love Lucy

I don't get the love for Veep. I tried watching it, but everyone is so unlikable, and I feel they're trying too hard.

No, the Wonder Years is not considered a sitcom. American sitcoms are generally 30 minutes long, and until the 21st century they were almost always recorded in a studio with multiple cameras.

R66 Andy Griffith show WAS mentioned upthread of you.

Will never be mistaken for one of the greatest sitcoms but Logo has been running the Facts of Life (a lot) and there are a couple of seasons in there (last season of Ednas Edibles /first season of Over Our Heads) that are actually quite funny.

Sometimes later seasons of sitcoms can be better in that the characters/actors feel so comfortable with each other. And I like how Tootie went from an annoying melodramatic nut to a self-aware drama queen that she learned to play for laughs (intentionally).

House Calls, Goodnight Beantown, Blansky's Beauties.

Did you ever get One Foot In The Grave in America?

The best moments of that were really genius, but the show usually mixed hilarity with extreme misery. I’m not sure if it would travel well across the Atlantic.

Beverly Hillbillies

I Love Lucy

Soap

Even though he turned out to be a creep, The Cosby Show was great.

AbFab, Father Ted, and Are You Being Served? for UK.

Anything from this century?

The Jack Benny Show, Our Miss Brooks, Private Secretary, My Little Margie, Burns and Allen. I would get a certain mysteriously tingly feeling as a gayling when Ronnie Burns would be on screen. I would later come to understand what that meant.

Roseanne. I still catch it on TV Land.

"The Mary Tyler Moore Show"

"Cheers"

"Seinfeld"

"The Middle"

"30 Rock"

"All in the Family"

"Everybody Loves Raymond"

"Friends"

"I Love Lucy"

"Arrested Development"

Runners-up: "Sanford and Son," "Leave It to Beaver," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "Frasier," "The Golden Girls," "The Jeffersons," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Sex and the City," "Modern Family," "Will & Grace," "Roseanne," "Veep," "M*A*S*H," "The Bob Newhart Show," "Strangers with Candy," "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt"

Going to throw one into the mix that I'm sure I'll get it in the neck for - but after 50 years still cracks me up: Green Acres

The show itself Green Acres is DULL, but the opening tune is FABULOUS.

The Thick of It

The Bob Newhart Show

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Daria

Soap

The Office UK

Forgot a few for the runners-up category: "The Office," "Parks and Recreation," and (feeling generous) "Gilligan's Island" and "The Brady Bunch."

No love for The Nanny? My current comfort sitcom.

Arrested Development (first three seasons) is still the most consistently funny thing I have ever seen. The fourth season is AWFUL; the fifth season is better than the fourth, but quite a step down from the first three. Thereafter I would rate as runners up, in no particular order:

The MTM Show (although the last season is not as good as the rest)

Seinfeld

Fawlty Towers

Ab Fab (first three seasons)

Schitt's Creek (again, the last season is not as good as the rest)

The Office (until Michael left)

Parks and Recreation

I Love Lucy

Veep

Good Neighbors

The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin

The Dick van Dyke Show has some awful episodes (e.g. anything involving Rob's brother Stacy, any flashback stories to Rob's and Laura's USO days), but some that are as funny as anything on this list

I don't know if you would consider The Comeback a "sitcom" but I think it's easily one of the best written and acted shows of the last 20 years.

Peep Show Ab Fab Vicar of Dibley Curb

Empty Nest

"I married Joan - a vintage 50's sitcom starring Joan Davis. She was quite funny although at the time ILL was the front runner so IMJ never got the traction it deserved."

IMJ was a blatant rip-off of I Love Lucy by an arrogant, over-indulgent Joan Davis, who described herself as "America's favorite queen of comedy."

Note: no one else in America so described her, and her co-star, Jim Backus, loathed her.

The Ropers was hilarious and underrated.

R103 - Yes, the Nanny was a great series and is one of my favorites. The show was rather risque considering it was a 'family' show aired during prime time. I know it's crazy but I have the first 5 seasons on DVD and it's still funny and a good 'escape' sitcom.

The Golden Girls is the all-time favorite.

Better Off Ted and Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

Mary Tyler Moore

Seinfeld

All In the Family

Veep

30 Rock

The Jeffersons / Maude

r113 I forgot

The Beverly Hillbillies

Arrested Development

All time greatest: Arrested Development (the abominable added season is excluded)

Current best: What We Do in the Shadows

The Golden Girls

I’m surprised that no one has mentioned Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. Truly brilliant political sitcoms that are equally relevant now.

I hadn't realized Golden Girls had a big following on Datalounge.

It's so rarely discussed here.

Veep is derivative of The Thick of It. It's shit compared to the original. Alan Partridge and The Office are definitely up there as is Peep Show. There are great British sitcoms completely left off this list! As I was typing, r117 posted another great.

"Black Adder" (The Third and The Second, in that order)

"Fawlty Towers"

"BoJack Horseman"

"Curb Your Enthusiasm"

"Silicon Valley"

"The IT Squad"

You mean "The IT Crowd," r120.

Though dated, The Andy Griffith Show was funny.

Another one, early on, The Beverly Hillbillies had some funny episodes, though corny.

Green Acres

Petticoat Junction

My Three Sons

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

Gilligan's Island

McHale's Navy (I really liked)

Number One Forever: The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The others:

Designing Women

The Dick Van Dyck Show

Will & Grace

Cheers

Seinfeld

The Powers That Be

I Love Lucy

The Lucy Show

Leave It To Beaver

For me, in no particular order, I’d say All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Seinfeld, The Golden Girls and Soap.

The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and Three’s Company probably don’t have the quality of the other 5, but they have a special place in my heart.

Critically:

Frasier

All in the Family

Roseanne

MTM

Arrested Development

I Love Lucy

Personally:

Will and Grace

Arrested Development

Frasier

The Monkees

Who's The Boss

I Love Lucy was the *first* great one. It remains the greatest one in the physical comedy genre.

Laverne and Shirley.

WKRP in Cincinnati (surprised only one other person mentioned it)

Night Court (except for seasons 7 and 9)

Martin

Get Smart

Living Single

Archer

Grounded for Life

Father Knows Best

Bossom Buddies

British Comedies

Keeping Up Appearances

Are You Being Served?

Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, Roseanne, Modern Family and -

EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS, Chris Rock's autobiographical sitcom. Reruns currently on FuseTV. I'd rank it with the others above, one of the greats, only four season.

Seinfeld

Cheers

Frasier

I have seen some episodes of One Foot in the Grave. It was pretty funny but the lead male character was a miserable old prick most of the time though one scene struck me as very funny that I remember. They were in a rowboat in some reeds and the old man said something like "why are we out here on the bloody Apocalypse Now set?" but it was the way he said it that was so funny.

Married ... with Children (especially season 5)

Golden Girls was fine but does not belong among the best sitcoms. Sorry.

Frasier.

King of Queens.

Sergeant Bilko.

All in the Family.

M.A S.H.

R29, I grew up with The Beav, Donna Reed, Father Knows Best, and the like. I didn't regard them as sit-coms because the humor was rather low-key---a chuckle, not a guffaw---and always leading to some lesson.

Angie

Frasier. Hands down. Nile's doppelganger is hilarious.

The Andy Griffith Show

Cheers

Frasier

Mom

Mike & Molly

The Middle

I remember when the Friends series finale was approaching, and NBC marketed the show as "the best sitcom ever". Later, they were forced to apologize. One of the producers conceded that All in the Family and MASH might have been better.

Over 141 replies, and not a single vote for "Friends". Because it was dull fluff.

R103 I LOVE The Nanny.

Could never get into Frasier at all - still can’t.

R130 it DOES win for best opening credits (possibly of all time).

But if I were forced to watch only 2 sitcoms for the rest of my life, it would be The Golden Girls and Three’s Company.

Here Come the Mertzes! Bathhouse Brady, and The Claxton Chronicles were probably the best sitcom spinoffs of all time.

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

R25 is on the money. Curb Your Enthusiasm is the funniest show I ever watched and the most clever comedy. Loved that episode where he bought his Latina maid a bra and her boyfriend, Jesus, tries to beat him up with a real estate sign that is shaped like a cross after he takes off the advert and then, gores his foot with a nail...like Jesus. That was genius.

R67 here! I forgot to add

All in the Family

30 Rock

Parks and Recreation

If this thread isn't proof that time stopped for most DLers sometime during the reign of Bush The Elder, I don't know what is.

Get Smart was just so silly, never failed to make me laugh.

That Girl was charming, well written.

I don’t know if Leave It To Beaver is the best sitcom but it has the best sitcom parents of all time.

1) I Love Lucy was laugh-out-loud due to Lucille Ball’s amazing physical comedy and incredible cast. It is timeless.

2) The Andy Griffith Show was sweetly comedic. Every episode had a morality tale. Some episodes broached controversial issues. It is also timeless.

3) The Beverly Hillbillies was funny but it’s dated now.

4) Cheers was relatable to me because I had a favorite neighborhood bar at the time.

5) 30-Rock offered intelligent humor.

R148’s observation is correct for me. I’ve never seen Fraiser or Arrested Development but am now inspired.

Someone upthread mentioned The Powers That Be. That was a really smart and funny show that should've had legs, but it was buried on Saturday night before 9 I believe.

The White House 2017-2021

Four fun-filled seasons of zany, madcap fascists and white nationalists centered around the hijinks of the Orange Colonel Klink. It was sidesplitting!

R153 FAIL!!

Seinfeld Soap WKRP in Cincinnati Arrested Development Mary Tyler Moore The Office Parks and Recreation Curb Your Enthusiasm Veep

I agree with Three's Company. I've loved the show since it's original run. Even though I didn't get the jokes, I enjoyed the physical comedy and the plot lines.

People are always critical of this show, but I find the misunderstandings and bawdy humor to be similar to Shakespeare's comedies.

Another unpopular opinion: Terri was the best "blonde" roommate. I loved her deadpan sarcasm. I wish the actress had done more comedy.

THE GOLDEN GIRLS!

R148, Or, conversely, that for some DLers there was no popular culture before 1988.

Angie

[quote]I remember when the Friends series finale was approaching, and NBC marketed the show as "the best sitcom ever". Later, they were forced to apologize. One of the producers conceded that All in the Family and MASH might have been better. Over 141 replies, and not a single vote for "Friends". Because it was dull fluff.

Except for one who uses one logical fallacy after another to defend the indefensible.

R39, you need to lose your accreditation unless you are lying about it in the first place, which I believe you are if you can't see what an awful show this is. It was a stupid, unfunny, poorly written and acted, and outright offensive show then and it has gotten even worse with the passage of time. Seriously, fuck you if you consider it anything other than the worst TV show ever of any era or genre. Cancel culture needs to go after it to have any credibility at all.

This is why I mainly watch Black sitcoms. I'd rather watch the post-John Amos [italic]Good Times[/italic], the post-H0nky [italic]Jeffersons[/italic], the Sam and Maggie years of [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic], the post-Dolph Sweet [italic]Gimme A Break![/italic], and the flop spinoffs of [italic]Sanford and Son[/italic] than suffer through one second of this absolute shit. I'd even rather watch [italic]The Facts of Life, Benson, 227, Amen, Silver Spoons, Webster, Punky Brewster[/italic], and [italic]Small Wonder[/italic]. Yes, that's a Black sitcom because of Reggie. The Lawsons gave up the chance for a much nicer home because the neighbors they would have had made a racist comment about him as soon as he left the room. And yes, I would even rather watch [italic]Amos 'N' Andy[/italic]. [italic]Friends[/italic] should be banned from reruns instead. [italic]Will & Grace[/italic] can go with it for being everything wrong with this lousy show with a coat of pink paint over it.

A Black sitcom this bad would not have run 13 weeks on UPN. In fact, Black people couldn't save [italic]Hello, Larry[/italic] and they couldn't make [italic]Saved by the Bell[/italic] any funnier, but the worst of their shows is not worse than the worst white shows, and the best of their best is miles ahead of the best white show. Call me a racist, but I don't care. Black sitcoms are better because they are more consistently funny and have better writing and acting.

I'd even rather watch the post-Rerun [italic]What's Happening Now!![/italic] episodes.

R125 can die in a grease fire.

[quote] Who's The Boss

Wrong. That show was horrible on every level. It was the [italic]Friends[/italic] of the 1980s

[quote] Will never be mistaken for one of the greatest sitcoms but Logo has been running the Facts of Life (a lot) and there are a couple of seasons in there (last season of Ednas Edibles /first season of Over Our Heads) that are actually quite funny.

I think [italic]Facts[/italic] holds up spectacularly well when you consider how many outright bombs premiered the same year and how many subsequent shows don't even qualify for the test of time. [italic]Family Guy[/italic] managed to get a lot of mileage out of it.

Facts was great, because not only did you get good comedy writing, but there was also a lesson in each episode. If you were the age of the characters, you learned from their experiences, and it might even have prevented you from making making the same mistakes.

[quote] Call me a racist, but I don't care. Black sitcoms are better because they are more consistently funny and have better writing and acting.

OK. You're a racist. And a bit of an asshole beyond that.

No, I'm not since I'm not white.

It is racist to call nonwhites racist and it is also racist to attack the things they create. I'm sick of wypipo shows getting put on a pedestal. I'm sick of [italic]All in the fucking Family[/italic] getting a fucking magazine cover while the shows starring the people Archie was prejudiced against get nothing.

Soap and AbFab. I wanted to watch Bosom Buddies, but they were “worried” about me.

[quote] No, I'm not since I'm not white.

You JUST told me I could call you racist. Which is it?

And all you [italic]Golden Girls[/italic] queens better thank a woman of color named Winifred Hervey Stallworth for writing so many of those lines that had you in stitches.

[quote]You JUST told me I could call you racist. Which is it?

I reserve the right to retaliate in kind.

[quote] Soap and AbFab. I wanted to watch Bosom Buddies, but they were “worried” about me.

Who's "they"?

Is Dean Browning in this thread now?

[quote]I hadn't realized Golden Girls had a big following on Datalounge. It's so rarely discussed here.

Yeah, it seems they never shut up about [italic]Silver Spoons[/italic], though. Day in, day out it's all I ever hear about. I can't even hear the phrase "here we are" without responding "face to face." I don't think Mark David Chapman was this obsessed with John Lennon.

Sorry, my parents were “they”. It was a time when there was only one tv controlled by my mother.

My mother didn't want me watching [italic]Married with Children[/italic] because it was "raunchy." No more than the soaps she spent 1/3 of her life glued to the TV watching.

[quote] I reserve the right to retaliate in kind.

Ah, got it. So based on knowing absolutely nothing about me, you can call me a racist. You're special.

I know that you're a racist for calling POCs racist.

And your racism proves George Jefferson was right. His show should get the magazine cover.

Jews are of color despite Norman Lear's bigoted father desperately clinging to false (and frankly self-loathing) claims of whiteness in order to justify his anti-Blackness.

George Jefferson is not "the Black Archie Bunker." Archie Bunker is the white George Jefferson.

And Maude is more racist than either of them but she pulls the V-card to justify it.

OP’s question is fantastic but the responses are clearly age/location based. I’m 65 and have never seen “Friends” but I remember coworkers talking about it in the coffee room while I interjected X-files amazement.

I have fond memories of my now-96 yo Dad and now-93 yo Mom laughing at The Honeymooners and All in the Family. My Dad also loved Sanford and Sons. But I found the shows to be so angry.

I loathed The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family. As well as Leave it to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, and My Three Sons as the wives didn’t do much of anything.

Tie - Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

[quote]OP’s question is fantastic but the responses are clearly age/location based. I’m 65 and have never seen “Friends” but I remember coworkers talking about it in the coffee room while I interjected X-files amazement.

I would rather not have a job than have to work with people like that.

[quote]To say GG was one of the best written sitcoms ever is hyperbole at its worst. Veep Frasier Taxi Cheers Like [R5], I never understood the GG obsession. It certainly doesn’t belong with these brilliantly-written shows. (MTM of course, but OP mentioned it.)

But a show with Tony fucking Danza does? I'll gladly take [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic] over absolutely anything that ugly moron appeared in. If [italic]Taxi[/italic] was so great, how come it couldn't even beat [italic]Diff'rent Strokes[/italic] in the ratings when they went head-to-head? Is that why Embassy gave him the worst show they ever made? Guilt because they beat his earlier, much less terrible show in the ratings with a kid's show?

And quite frankly, GG holds up better than [italic]Cheers[/italic], which was just a ripoff of a show actually taped in Boston called [italic]Park Street Under[/italic]. Get over your snobbery. It was a funny show but it didn't cure cancer. It didn't even cure bad TV when you see just how much crap ran concurrently with it.

From the studio that later brought you [italic]Webster[/italic]…

IM IT!

It's been decades since I watched it, but I remember "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" being hysterically funny.

Some may not consider this a sitcom as it was more of a soap format, except for the fact that it was hysterical and often over the line, but Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was the greatest show of all time. It is free to watch on Youtube, too. I highly recommend it if you haven't had the pleasure.

Where's the love for Burns & Allen? It was very funny and original and still holds up. As a plus, Ronnie Burns was extremely good looking. He made me all tingly and squirmy as a gayling. I would understand a few years later what that meant. And, yes I'm older than Methuselah.

Arrested Development FTW.

Malcolm in the Middle, Scrubs, Frasier, Friends as honorable mentions.

Superstore had some really funny episodes the first couple of seasons but now it is just meh.

Does Reno 911 count as a sitcom? That one still cracks me up.

Will & Grace, the middle years of the original run.

The lows in the mid 80s two parter was great.

Karen was terrific; Megan was the only person who won TWO Emmys.

Golden Girls.

Newhart

Allo Allo

Frasier

Fawlty Towers

Mash

Are you being served?

Soap

Dad's Army

Mr Bean

Rhoda

Benny Hill

The Good Life

To the manor born

Hot in Cleveland

Bewitched, Dick York seasons

MTM

Partridge Family, first season when they toured all the time.

WKRP

The Comeback

Are You Being Served?

Absolutely Fabulous

Waiting for God

Brighton Belles

Y'all know the answer to this one.

THE GOLDEN GIRLS!!!!!!!!

Another vote for Burns and Allen. Gracie was the funniest woman ever on television, IMO. Runners-up are Green Acres and The Honeymooners.