Wednesday, November 04, 2015

'All in the Family' Ranked Best Sitcom of All Time ... by Mathematical Formula


2. "Cheers"
3. "Frasier"
4. "M*A*S*H"
5. "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"

I love sitcoms and I'm a sucker for a list, so you know I'm all over Johnny Diaz's new piece in the Sun Sentinel, which profiles a duo that wrote a book that sets out to use math to rank our television favorites ("The Top 100 American Situation Comedies: An Objective Ranking"). Placing "All in the Family" at No. 1 is hard to argue with -- I'm almost embarrassed I have it No. 3 -- but that "Cheers" and "Frasier" made the Top 5 gives me pause, of course, since I was never a huge fan of the former and never watched the latter. But any excuse to get the conversation going again.


You may recall the last time this top came up I corrected Vanity Fair's list (above) with my own:

"The Mary Tyler Moore Show"
"The Bob Newhart Show"
"All in the Family"
"I Love Lucy"
"The Odd Couple"
"Roseanne"
"The Honeymooners"
"Seinfeld"
"Arrested Development"/"Curb Your Enthusiasm" (I don't really consider these sitcoms, but if you do OK.)
"Happy Days"/"Laverne & Shirley" (when they were good)
"Barney Miller"/"Maude"/"One Day at a Time"/"Family Ties"/"Family Affair"/"Green Acres"/"Leave It to Beaver"/"Will & Grace"

(And though they weren't in my wheelhouse, where are/were "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "M*A*S*H," "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Taxi"?)

Read Johnny's piece HERE.

What's YOUR Top 5?


Order HERE.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

m*a*s*h
barney miller
the mary tyler moore show
the bob newhart show
green acres

das buut said...

I agree All In The Family is up there.

Those others, not so much. I did really like Frasier and have fond memories of Cheers, but they were what they were, good for their day.

Vanity Fair must have been smoking pot, because only 1 on their list made me even snicker when viewing. Friends? Seinfeld?? 30 Rock??? Is that last one even a comedy?

Bill Carter said...

Arrested Development
The Larry Sanders Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Honeymooners

Kenneth M. Walsh said...

Are you THE Bill Carter?
https://twitter.com/wjcarter

GuyDads said...

I work with a lot of Millennials and it is shocking to me that how many of them have never heard of or seen any of these classic sitcoms of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Bill Walsh said...

I need a list to work from, but my order would be something like:

The Bob Newhart Show
Seinfeld
The Odd Couple
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Simpsons
All in the Family
Roseanne
Modern Family
Arrested Development
The Honeymooners
Roseanne
The Larry Sanders Show
Family Guy
Frasier
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Portlandia
Newhart
Happy Days

And then there are the great ones I either didn't watch, didn't watch enough or didn't care for. I Love Lucy, MASH, Cheers, Barney Miller, WKRP, etc.

Bart said...

All in the Family
M*A*S*H*
The Honeymooners
I Love Lucy
The Bob Newhart Show

Classics one and all - my top five US sitcoms!!

Bill Carter said...

>Are you THE Bill Carter?
>https://twitter.com/wjcarter

Would that I were.

Sorry, I'm neither Bill Carter the media critic, nor Billy Carter, the former President's brother. I'm not even Bill Carter who was lead singer for the Screaming Blue Messiahs.

Just someone with an extremely common name, which can sometimes be a problem, but is more often an advantage.

Sorry.

Terence Walsh said...

The Bob Newhart Show
All in the Family
Barney Miller
The Simpsons
Family Guy

Roseanne (can't believe it's not in my top 5, but if the animateds count ...)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Odd Couple
The Honeymooners
The Larry Sanders Show
The Critic
M*A*S*H (pre-Mike Farrell and Harry Morgan)
WKRP in Cincinnati

The "Seinfeld" episodes I remember fondly (up to 1993 or so) don't seem so great when I watch them now, though I remember how different the show was from other sitcoms at the time. "Frasier" had some good ones, but the writing is often too cute for my taste. Never got into "Cheers," although the Cliff Clavin bar blowhard/know-it-all character is brilliant. "The Dick Van Dyke Show" never once made me laugh.

BW said...

Boy, the Wigland Milliplade ...

Johnny Diaz said...

Thanks for sharing Kenneth! I don't have my own personal top 5 list of favorite sitcoms. I'm more partial to light-hearted dramas (Providence from NBC, Brothers and Sisters from ABC, Touched by An Angel from CBS.) I'm quirky like that :)

Anonymous said...

i forgot the larry sanders show, shame on me.

shle896 said...

No Roseanne? It's a modern day classic.