ROLLING STONE - 100 Greatest Sitcoms of All Time...

Vince Evert

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Rolling Stone has just printed online their 100 greatest sitcoms of all time. The following introduction is what their criteria was based on.

100 Best Sitcoms of All Time

From family stories to band-of-misfits hangouts, classic rom-coms to workplace mockumentaries, cringe comedies to antihero showcases, and some shows that defy definition, these are the hundred series that have made us laugh, think, occasionally cry, and laugh all over again.

By Alan Sepinwall & Maria Fontoura & David Fear & Rob Sheffield

For more than eight decades, the sitcom has both marked the times and provided a balm against them. From Rob Petrie tripping over his ottoman on The Dick Van Dyke Show to Ilana face-planting on a Broad City subway car; from The Honeymooners’ Ralph Kramden barely containing his frustration with Ed Norton to Atlanta’s Paper Boi doing the same with his cousin Earn; from Lucy Ricardo getting drunk on Vitameatavegamin to Fleabag enjoying Gin in a Tin with the hot priest, the genre’s most beloved characters have been by our sides.

To choose the 100 greatest sitcoms ever, we first had to decide how to define the term. Sketch comedies were out, from the explicit, like Saturday Night Live and The Muppet Show, to the more ambiguous, such as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Ditto comedy-drama hybrids that ran around an hour — Freaks and Geeks, say, or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Half-hour dramedies presented a blurrier picture; we took those on a case-by-case basis, applying our own version of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” Where Enlightened and The Wonder Years seemed to fall just too far over the drama side of the line, for example, Atlanta and Better Things had enough comedy to qualify. This list is also composed entirely of English-language comedies, primarily American ones, with a handful of British and Canadian shows making the cut.

Mostly, though, we were looking for a consistent group of characters and settings. Then we considered not just how much these series made us laugh, but also how much they influenced the shows that followed, how well they reflected the world around them, and, on occasion, how deeply they made us feel emotions beyond mirth.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-lists/best-tv-sitcoms-1162237/derry-girls-netflix-1163261/
 

Vince Evert

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:astonished-face: Huh !!! Only 66 for "Get Smart" !!! COME ON ! And where's "Yes Minister" ??? What a huge omission i thought that was.
Another one "Happy Days" did not make the cut at all.


# 66
'Get Smart' (NBC, 1965-1969; CBS, 1969-1970)
Among the catchphrases of James Bond wannabe Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) was a claim that a bullet “missed me by that much.” When master of satire Mel Brooks teamed up with future Graduate co-writer Buck Henry to lampoon the Sixties spy craze that gave us Bond and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., they didn’t miss at all. Brooks, Henry, and Adams made Max into a parody not just of secret agents, but of a certain breed of arrogant American man oblivious to his limitations. (More often than not, Max had to be saved by his more capable partner 99, played by Barbara Feldon.) And some of Max’s iffy gadgets — a shoe phone, a Cone of Silence that always did the opposite of its intended purpose — have outlived 007’s comparable devices in the public imagination. A.S.
 

Vince Evert

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On the flip side, am very happy to see CHEERS made it to #2 but am also surprised. It;s certainly worth a top 10 placing but not that high.
 
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On the flip side, am very happy to see CHEERS made it to #2 but am also surprised. It;s certainly worth a top 10 placing but not that high.

That is surprising. And incorrect, IMO. Any list which doesn’t put the UK version of The Office at or near the top is wrong.
 

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It was all of the pop-ups on what oIt was all of the pop-ups and what not, I just hope that the Sopranos and Mad Men are high on the list. I imagine All in the Family and I Love Lucy are way up there as they should be. The Bob Newhart Show was fabulous too.
 
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