What Is/Was Your Favorite Sitcom?

All In The Family
Roseanne (The show ... not the person)
Amos and Andy
Taxi
Cheers
Honeymooners
Sports Night
Leave It To Beaver (May not qualify as a Sitcom ... but still one of my favorites)

 

Or how about Leslie Nielson's (sorry, I forgot his character's name) *smooth* parking maneuver whenever he pulled his squad car over to the curb (usually taking out a few trash cans, bus stop benches and fire hydrants in the process).

Jim W.

 

I think it's the classiest sitcom ever. Period. And, oh, was Laura Petrie gorgeous! I didn't really care for how MTM's look evolved later, but she was a vision of loveliness on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW.

 

I haven't thought about that one in awhile. I believe it was airing on PBS here shortly before they picked up Monty Python. Although the "timeline" is no longer clear to me, I also believe I saw this before there was an "All in the Family". Aside from the "rougher than US TV" language and the dark subject matter - what I remember being struck by was that the med students were often shown drinking heavily in their local pub, and enjoying it. Somehow, on US TV - people in bars either never actually DRINK the beverages in front of them - or they get blasted drunk out of depression. Recreational drinking, like the yards of beer these med students used to down in one shot, was (and probably is) never shown on US TV.

I remember an episode where they had absconded with a cadaver so that they could study anatomy, and they had to lug the it all around town in an effort to return it. Funny stuff.

 

Don't mention the War...


Because I don't really consider the Flying Circus a sitcom, lets face it its a variety show, I only have two great shows.

THE HONEYMOONERS: Way too youg to have seen when it aired but WPIX in NY always showed them at 11 pm (followed by Star Trek) when I was growing up. The ad-libs make it all the better.

FAWLTY TOWERS: On lots of lits because its so well crafted and funny.

 

My favorite sitcoms ever, in no particular order:

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, aka Rocky and His Friends
Police Squad!
All in the Family
Buffalo Bill
The Odd Couple

 

Big to your two comments here.

I like M*A*S*H best in its earlier seasons. Nothing against BJ or Charles (they had some great moments), but they weren't as hilariously funny IMHO as Trapper John and Frank Burns, and the interaction between those original cast members. Compare a first season episode to the final episode, and you realize how much had changed. The last episode was a bit touching, but to me the newer shows seem--what--more sterile (?) than the older ones perhaps? Not bad, just different.

I don't offend with the sex jokes very much, but you described it better than I ever could. A clever double-entendre would go over the heads of some of the viewing audience and most kids, and would take some skill for a writer to compose. It just seems so *cheap* these days--direct and to the point, and the laugh track tells us when to react. I just shake my head when I have to walk into the same room where the Mrs. is watching one of those crotch shows...I just don't get it, I guess. It just seems that good, subtle, well-crafted humor is a thing of the past. And it also explains why a channel like TV Land is still popular today.

 

Everyone of my favorite TV shows of yesterday are still quite enjoyable today. Actually,I enjoy some more today as they bring on some great memories of my past.

 

Always followed by the line "My boss was already there."

 

No matter how many times I've seen the Honeynooners. I still laugh out loud! Just an incredibly funny and enjoyable show...Mind you I know every line and still laugh! Quality...

 

The biggest problem with MASH in its final years was it stopped being funny. The characters of Hawkeye and Hot Lips were basically replaced by Alan Alda and Loretta Swit essentially playing themselves. The serious plotlines seemed to become more melodramatic and lose their subtlety, while the "funny" plots just really weren't funny. I remember during the last couple years there was a plotline where Hawkeye was in charge of the payroll and it was eaten by a goat. C'mon, I'd expect to see that on Gomer Pyle, not MASH (no offense to anyone who likes Gomer Pyle). The last few years the episodes are really rigidly formularized, always split down the middle with one "serious" and one "funny" plot per episode. And yeah, in general the new characters were less interesting than the ones they replaced, in my opinion. The departure of producer Gene Reynolds as well as Larry "Frank" Linville after season five is to me the clear demarcation point where the quality takes a nosedive.

 

A couple of years ago, one sitcom the wife and I were really into was Stark Raving Mad. Loved that show. Then they pulled the plug on it. Why?

Anyone else remember it?

And what ever happened to Titus? Loved that one too.

 

Actually, that would be more like the Bevery Hillbillies, not Gomer Pyle. Gomer Pyle used to have a real live Marine consultant to ensure that the show maintained a sense of respect.

Did you know that Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch was always trying to keep the show down to earth? He used to scrutinize every script, and when he found somrthing that was too off the wall. or something that didn't adhere to logic or the laws of physics, he would argue about it with the writers until they changed it. He was always on the phone with the Los Angeles Public library looking for facts. Notice how he was always serious in the show? RR was trained as a serious stage actor, and kind of resented being in a sitcom. But he stayed the whole time because he did like the show and he felt like the Bunch was his extended family. I guess Marcia (Maureen McCormick) and Greg (Barry Williams) were feeling incestuous! They used to get caught messin' around in Tiger's doghouse!

 

My favorite sitcoms:

The Dick Van Dyke Show
I Love Lucy
Cheers
Absolutely Fabulous
WKRP in Cincinnati
Fawlty Towers
M*A*S*H
NewsRadio (At least until Max showed up)
The Bob Newhart Show

Honorable Mentions:
The Simpsons (Its a cartoon, but surely a sitcom as well)
Monty Python's Flying Circus (Not technically a sitcom, but a great, under-an-hour comedy)
Fernwood 2Night (again, not really a sitcom, but oh, this one has made me howl so many times...)
Police Squad! (again, not technically...)

Sadly, no sitcom on air right now really grabs me, though I dig The Gilmore Girls and 24.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

Haven't chimed in here yet. Here's some of Yeahman's favs.

MASH (It's the Beatles of sitcoms. How much more Marx-ian could it have gotten? The answer is none, none more Marx-ian)

Night Court (I think I stole my sense of humor from this show)
Scrubs (Have every episode on DVD. Watch them constantly)
Parker Lewis Can't Lose (Cartoon set to real life)
Fernwood Tonight (Fred Willard is the man!)
B&W Andy Griffith ([long southern drawl]"Thank you Mrs. Riley"[/long southern drawl])
Simpsons (Consistent writing. Best Satire on TV)
Hidden Hills (Prematurely canceled in my opinion)

... and my favorite comedy masquerading as a drama:
Northern Exposure

 

Jamie, How about Mary Hartman Mary Hartman?...Since ya dig Fermwood Tonight...I'd love MH MH on DVD!

 

I never got Mary Hartman. I remember it scaring the hell out of me when I was a kid for some reason. TV Land was showing it before Fernwood for a while, I just never caught on to the humor.

 

True, and I do love those Johnny Johnson episodes, but as a whole, the show fell enough to knock that season out of my list of favorite sitcoms. Still, you are right, it was still better than most.

It is heresy, but NewsRadio is my favorite American sitcom of the 90s!

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

I'll put in a belated vote for Murphy Brown. Might have gone on past its prime, but it was frequently hilarious. I loved any episode with Peewee Herman and/or Gary Marshall.

 

Not to mention that anything elliciting a silly Dan Quayle tirade was allright with me.

 

Here's mine - of course I like many others, but these are the ones that quickly come to mind as my favorites. I could watch these shows over and over without getting tired of seeing them:

1. The Honeymooners

and the rest in no particular order:

Cheers
Seinfeld
All In the Family
Sanford and Son (nice to see this is on TV Land now)
WKRP In Cincinnati

A note about WKRP - I was REALLY annoyed with the revised copies of this that have started to be shown on some channels. The copies being distributed in recent years have almost all of the music originally played on the show (and even a few spoken passages) replaced. Disgusted me to the point that I didn't even want to watch it when it came on because it wasn't the real thing. Luckily I recorded everything when the E! channel was showing WKRP around 1995/96 - those had basically all the original music intact, though the shows were shortened a bit. I'm only missing the very few episodes E! never aired, such the one where Les gets his pig award (the Silver Sow) and goes to the ceremony with Jennifer, and I think a couple of others.

 

1. All in the Family
2. Three's Company
3. Everybody Loves Raymond
4. The Brady Bunch
5. Taxi
6. The Simpsons
7. King of the Hill
8. The Bernie Mac Show (so far)
9. WKRP in Cincinnati
10. The Jeffersons