The Top 10 Sitcoms of All Time

Intro by Michael Lytle


Here at Rambling Ever On our favorite thing to do is argue. Scratch that. Arguing is our SECOND favorite thing to do. Our real favorite is ranking things. That is our passion. So we were excited about trying to determine the best sitcom ever. Most websites would throw a few names in a hat and come up with some ridiculous list. That was simply not an option for us. We had to go above and beyond. Our nine-member panel developed a 128 entry, double elimination tournament to definitively determine the Top 10 Sitcoms in the history of television. We spent months voting. Friendships were severely tested, unkind words were spoken that can never be taken back, but we did it all for our loyal readers. We present now our Top 10 Sitcoms of All Time.


The Top 10 Sitcoms of All Time

10. 30 Rock

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Most sitcoms rely on the tired formula of 1.) Joke set up, 2.) Punchline, and 3.) Canned laughter. The jokes are so predictable you can see them coming a mile away. 30 Rock turned this tired formula on its head. The jokes came in at such a fast pace that if you were not paying attention or if you laughed too long at one joke you might miss the next three. This show was wildly inconsistent, but when it was “on” there was nothing funnier. Tina Fey nailed it when she created this TV show about a TV show. It also gets bonus points for turning Alec Baldwin into a likable character. – Michael Lytle


9. Community

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Great, sharp writing. One of the best ensemble casts of any show ever. Even when it was not trying to be funny it had a lot of great things to say about friendship. Greendale Community College is not a place any of us would ever want to attend, but we enjoyed watching the study group make their way through it while trying to maintain their sanity. Possibly the most creative storytelling of any show on this list. The only knock was that the quality varied from season to season. Even the worst seasons were funny, though, and any show that gave us Troy and Abed in the Morning deserves a place on the list. – Michael Lytle


8. The Simpsons

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The Simpsons premiere in 1989 was a TV landmark for several reasons. It was neither a Saturday morning cartoon nor a family show like prime time cartoons of yore such as The Flintstones and The Jetsons. So, Fox took a big risk when they green-lit the project. But that risk has paid huge rewards! The Simpsons, currently airing its 27th season, is the longest-running animated American series, longest running American sitcom, and longest running scripted prime time series. The show also pioneered the way for several future prime time animated shows in the same vein.

Historical qualification and ramifications aside, The Simpsons is one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen. Period. What set the show apart was the style of humor. The freedom accompanied by animation made it possible to feature comedic moments and styles that would not be realistic for a live action show, such as Homer’s day-dream sequences which became one of numerous trademarks. Also, both in subtle and overt form, the show was often a critique of our culture and fearless in its comedy. The Simpsons took shots at any and everything including its own network, Fox, proving no one was out of bounds. Though the show has declined in recent years proving it’s hard to stay fresh for nearly three decades The Simpsons belongs in any discussion of the Top 10 Sitcoms of all-time! – Mark Sass


7. Frasier

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What can I say about Frasier? It was smarter than it needed to be, and I mean that as a compliment. There are still hundreds of obscure music, art, or opera references that I will never understand. And that is ok. The show didn’t rely on its intelligence to make us laugh. It was simply icing on the cake. The main cast: Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Jane Leeves, Peri Gilpin, and Moose/Enzo (Eddie the dog) were the perfect comedy team. They were generous as performers, allowing each other moments to shine. They were as capable of silly, over-the-top scenarios, with fast-paced timing and tongue-twisting dialogue as they were of heartfelt, emotionally bare moments of drama.

While the show did climax a few seasons too soon (with Niles and Daphne finally getting together – spoiler alert?), it was still funny throughout its run. I can’t fault the actors or the writers for stretching things out a little too much. We didn’t want to say goodbye either. – Phill Lytle


6. The Office (U.S. Version)


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The Office was good from the beginning. “Diversity Day” in Season 1 leaves no doubt about that. But there was a run starting around season 3 when the Scranton branch usurped the Stamford branch that the show entered rarefied air for entertainment. In a lot of ways, it was like watching a championship basketball team. They had their superstar in Michael. He was definitely the centerpiece and he was such a legendary sitcom character that you can easily divide his moments into Hilarious Michael, Awkward Michael and Redeeming Michael.

And there were moments when he was two of these and even times when he was all three (when he gives the speech to Ryan’s college class and drops the mic). But they also had the perfect blend of stars in Dwight, Jim and Andy and role players (Creed and Kevin especially) who all knew their part. The show was good even down to the 10th and 11th most important characters, even if they were not supposed to be funny. If you told me that Oscar and CFO Wallace were real people who they pulled in off the street and didn’t know they were in a sitcom, I’d believe you. The acting was that good. And the juggernaut rolled. Only The Office could make a fire drill the best cold opening ever. And for that it earns a place in our Top 10 sitcoms of all time. – Gowdy Cannon


5. The Andy Griffith Show

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There are those who will tell you that Don Knotts made the show. It cannot be denied that he was a huge part of the success and hilarity of the show during its first five seasons. Nor can it be forgotten that the quality of the show went downhill soon after he left. However, Barney was just one of a huge and unforgettable cast of iconic characters that included the likes of Otis Campbell, Floyd Lawson, The Darlins, Ernest T. Bass, Aunt Bee, Opie Taylor, and, of course, the inimitable Andy Taylor. This is not to mention the many, many other amazing and colorful characters who gave the show its rich texture. This is also not to mention some of the best music and intro theme song of all time.
– Benjamin Plunkett


4. The Cosby Show

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Throughout all eight seasons, The Cosby Show had some pretty bad acting or just plain annoying side characters. But the show was all about the Huxtables, and these actors clicked in every single season. And in every single season they made you love them, live with them, and laugh with them. All of this loving, living, and laughter was brought together by Bill Cosby’s amazing Dr. Cliff Huxtable, one of the greatest and most hilarious T.V. fathers of all time. With the steady support of his true love, the lovely Clair Huxtable, the two created a home that warmed its way into the hearts of millions of watchers and ascended to timeless T.V. sitcom greatness. – Benjamin Plunkett


3. Parks and Recreation

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In a TV landscape filled with cynicism, vitriol, and negativity, Parks and Recreation was a breath of fresh air. Joyously optimistic and earnest, Amy Poehler and company made a show that was cheery, happy, and unflappably nice. If you think this would limit how funny it could be, you would be wrong. One of the best acting ensembles proved repeatedly that you didn’t have to be mean spirited to make the audience laugh. The merry humor relied on an assortment of colorful and memorable characters. People like Ron Swanson, Andy Dwyer, Tom Haverford, and Leslie Knope. Bolstered by minor characters like Jean-Ralphio and Councilman Jamm. Parks and Recreation was a dose of smiles and laughs without all the snark. It’s entirely deserving of being on any Top 10 Sitcoms list. – Phill Lytle


2. Arrested Development

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Irreverent. Original. Hilarious. Arrested Development only needed 3 seasons (we are going to pretend the fourth, long delayed Netflix season never happened) to prove that it belonged in the conversation for best sitcom of all time. The cast is as good as it gets, with every single cast member owning their role from the first minute they are onscreen. The jokes were fast paced and one on top of the other. The show set up jokes in the first season that didn’t fully pay off until the third season. A sitcom about a completely dysfunctional family should not have been this fresh or this funny. Thankfully, it was. So yes, we only got 53 original episodes. That was still enough for half days at Army, never-nudes, hermano, Tobias Funke’s acting career, STEVE HOLT, chicken dances, and a thousand eye rolls by Lucille Bluth. The Bluth’s are terrible, terrible people. But they are family, and that is the most important thing. Or is it breakfast? – Phill Lytle


1. Seinfeld

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Chances are you know a close talker or a low talker. It’s very possible you have re-gifted something in your lifetime. It’s highly likely you’ve at least considered not dating someone because of a weird mannerism they have. Chances are that Seinfeld captured something you can relate to, even if it is at your most petty or annoyed. There are a million reasons why Seinfeld remains at the top of many lists of greatest sitcoms of all time, including ours. But perhaps the one that sticks out after all these years is how it took the daily, trivial, menial moments we all experience and it made them funny.

At times it was funny because the characters would say out loud what most of us wouldn’t dare (“I’m much more comfortable criticizing people behind their back.”) At times it was funny because they would do what most of us wouldn’t dare (Have you ever told an annoying person you can’t be friends with them any more?) But it was funny every time because it made the boring outrageous, the irritating hilarious and the mundane memorable. It is the Jerry Rice of sitcoms and I don’t know that it will ever be beaten. – Gowdy Cannon


So there’s our Top 10 Sitcoms of All Time. Didn’t see your favorite on here? Upset that the shows we picked wouldn’t make your top 100? Tell us about it. Seriously, we encourage healthy and exuberant debate. There is a handy comment section just a little ways down the page. Have at it!

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73 thoughts on “The Top 10 Sitcoms of All Time

  • January 13, 2016 at 8:54 am
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    BOO Seinfeld!! Just kidding. It’s awesome. I was really hoping Scrubs would make the list (it just barely missed out) and I love me some Family Ties and Who’s the Boss? I think most of the unkind things I said were about the latter. At least people loved Tony Danza. (Tony Danza, in my ha-and!)

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  • January 13, 2016 at 11:03 am
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    How and why is cheers not on the list? It was Seinfeld before Seinfeld was Seinfeld!

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    • January 13, 2016 at 11:19 am
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      Good question Larry. Cheers was a great show. Its two losses were by a combined vote of 10-8. (5-4 each time.) It was eliminated by shows that made our top 10. You could chalk that up to the luck of the draw I guess. Or, the bad luck of the draw in this case. I love the show. I do think that it has not aged as well as some shows from previous generations though. Maybe that is why it didn’t make the cut?

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  • January 13, 2016 at 11:17 am
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    The Arrested development write up was amazing. Nice work, Phill!

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    • January 13, 2016 at 2:18 pm
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      I agree. My favorite write up and that includes the brilliant work I did!

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  • January 13, 2016 at 11:18 am
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    Ha Larry! Cheers was a Top 8 seed. But it ran up against Community in the 2nd round and then 30 Rock midway through the losers bracket. I voted for it both times. I am shocked it didn’t do better. I

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    • January 13, 2016 at 11:22 am
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      You left us hanging there Gowdy.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 11:22 am
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    There was some disagreement about evaluation as far as “then vs. now”. It’s hard to watch Family Ties today because it has not aged well. I watched my favorite FT episode a few years ago no Netflix and cringed through some of it. But for the 80’s it was perfect. So I voted based on how I felt about the show during their runs. Others disagreed and voted on how well they do/have done over time. That made for some good discussion as well.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 11:23 am
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    Sorry Phill. No edit button on these comments. Just a flub on my part.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 12:20 pm
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    I Love Lucy? The Brady Bunch? I dream of Genie? Come on guys! This list stinks… I disagree with about 80% of it.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 12:32 pm
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    I’ll give you I Love Lucy. Great show. It finished in the top 20.

    The Brady Bunch and I Dream of Genie…the less said about them, the better.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 1:24 pm
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    Where is MASH? It should be in the top 3, in my opinion. Cheers should be top 10. Did anyone over the age of 40 vote on this?

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    • January 13, 2016 at 1:37 pm
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      People younger than 30 and older than 40 and women and minorities were all disqualified from voting because they are not us.

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      • January 13, 2016 at 1:52 pm
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        David Lytle is my hero!

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    • January 13, 2016 at 1:42 pm
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      That would be me. I’m 42.

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    • January 14, 2016 at 11:18 am
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      Totally forgot about MASH. I still watch it now. It should be in there as well.

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    • July 9, 2016 at 10:59 am
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      Apparently not…Brian and I watched M*A*S*H all the time!! I Love Lucy, Everybody Loves Raymond, Wings, Sanford and Son, The Wonder Years, Rosanne, Taxi, The Jeffersons, All in the Family…I think we need to make a senior citizen’s list!!

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      • July 11, 2016 at 10:27 am
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        Debbi, find some “senior citizens” and come up with a Top 10. I would love to read it! Many of those shows got serious consideration in our bracket. I still think M*A*S*H deserved to make our list.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 1:29 pm
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    Gowdy’s explanation about “then vs now” gives important insight to this list but leaves a ton of questions. Like others have said, this list is basically a current day best shows and in my opinion not a “Top of All Time”. I’m not sure how it was determined that something had “aged well”. Was it Political Correctness? (I don’t really think so given the judges)

    All in the Family, Jeffersons, Honeymooners each have to replace at least half of this list.
    Cheers should obviously replace the Frasier spin off.
    Friends? Roseanne.
    Newhart, Gilligans Island, I Love Lucy, Brady Bunch, Wonder Years, Growing Pains, Different Strokes again all at least better than at least half of this list

    Bottom Line I think this test of “then vs now” is what pushed the mediocre shows on this list over the timeless classics. Do the judges have a different explanation?

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  • January 13, 2016 at 1:47 pm
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    Ben’s two write-ups indicate his age…

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    • January 13, 2016 at 1:52 pm
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      Chris said: “Ben’s two write-ups indicate his age…”

      How so?

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  • January 13, 2016 at 1:50 pm
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    “Then vs. now” was not a factor for all of us. We all used our own criteria. This is our list. Not yours, or your dad’s, or your cousin’s friend from childhood. We started with 128 sitcoms. 9 of us voted. It was a double elimination bracket. It got pretty heated at times. My top ten would look different than the list we ended up with, because, as I said earlier, this is OUR list. No one person dominated and pushed their favorites through. Each show had to win their vote.

    Yes, this is clearly modern day heavy. I think the simple reason for that is that the modern day shows make us laugh more. At least, they make me laugh more. And that was my main qualification. I had others, but that might not be that interesting to anyone but a few. If you want to know why I voted the way I did, I will be happy to respond.

    Also, it’s good to remember that this is a very subjective list. This specific group of nine men, all of similar age, came up with this list. Our ages range from mid-to-late thirties to mid-forties. That clearly affects the outcome. Also, we are all men. That played a role as well.

    Regardless, we decided to post this list because we knew it would spark some conversation. I didn’t expect anyone to agree with the list completely, because none of us agrees with it completely.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 2:00 pm
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    I’m assuming Ben is the oldest judge since it seemingly was mistakenly noted earlier there was no judge over 40. Even before that post, I knew Ben was 40 because we were in school together. The fact that Ben wrote up the non-“modern day” shows is the indication.

    Obviously humor changes and what makes people laugh changes. If the criteria is really “what makes you laugh more” then any list will always be modern heavy.

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    • January 13, 2016 at 2:05 pm
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      Chris, Ben wrote those because we asked him to. Not because he championed them. They were the 4th and 5th ranked shows on our list for a reason. A lot of us voted for them.

      And as I said before, we all had our own criteria. And “what made me laugh more” is only one part of the equation for me. I don’t know about anyone else.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 2:04 pm
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    I thought the end result was too NBC 05-present heavy for my tastes, but all of those shows are very good. There is a show here from the 60’s, one from the 80’s, two from the 90’s, and one that has run from the 80s til now. There is plenty of variety age wise. The issue of how well a show holds up was defined as “As you watch them now in your living room in 2016 which makes you laugh the hardest?” I didn’t go by that criteria, and others didn’t, but i get it. Even so, half my favorite 10 are from the last 15-20 years (Seinfeld, KoQ, Scrubs, Arrested Development, The Office).

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  • January 13, 2016 at 2:04 pm
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    Despite my advanced age, I too played a part in ushering in our present list. I voted for all of them several times. (Pretty sure.)

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  • January 13, 2016 at 2:05 pm
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    All the shows that have been listed in the comments were considered and found lacking. This is especially true for Gilligans Island and The Brady Bunch because they are the worst shows ever.

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    • January 13, 2016 at 2:10 pm
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      I don’t know, Saved By the Bell might top them in that regard.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 2:08 pm
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    I may be wrong as to what the definition was for “Then vs. Now”. We voted a long time ago. Like from Nov. 14 til February 15. I do remember Mike saying at one point “this isn’t a nostalgia bracket” .

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  • January 13, 2016 at 2:17 pm
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    Sorry, Ben, I forgot how old you actually are.
    I also forgot that Gowdy is a girl, so my previous post it entirely invalid.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 2:20 pm
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    ut I have a huge beard! Like that matters…

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    • January 13, 2016 at 2:34 pm
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      That’s because you’re a female dwarf.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 2:46 pm
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    I see we are off topic. And Josh Crowe isn’t anywhere around!

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    • January 21, 2016 at 7:29 pm
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      My influence knows no bounds.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 3:22 pm
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    “This isn’t a nostalgia bracket” suggests a pre-determined disregard for the past.

    The criteria “As you watch them now in 2016 in your living room which makes you laugh the hardest”—I don’t know how any present day person could watch All in the Family or even the Jeffersons and not cringe more than laugh. And for that matter, even The Cosby Show now enters the realm of being unwatchable in mixed company.

    But the title of this thread is “Best Sitcoms of All Time”. While the judges seemingly disagree, that suggests to me an agelessness, a respect for nostalgia, and a fair judgment of past vs. present. Instead the final product is exactly how some of you are describing it, a NBC present heavy list representing the tastes (as opposed to “best”) of nine guys mostly under 40.

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    • January 13, 2016 at 3:32 pm
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      The Jeffersons cracks me up. I was never a huge All in the Family fan. The Cosby Show is incredibly watchable.

      I’m assuming you wanted us to come up with a “Best of” list that represented the whole world’s opinions… At least that seems like what you wanted. Of course this list represented our tastes. It’s our list, after all.

      Agelessness is a good thing. Nostalgia is not. Nostalgia is based on sentiment, not on quality. I respect the past. Some of my favorites that didn’t make this list were older shows: The Dick Van Dyke Show and M.A.S.H. were very high on my list.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 4:09 pm
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    I don’t remember saying “this isn’t a nostalgia bracket” but I wish I would have, that is a great line.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 4:09 pm
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    You cannot separate your tastes and what is “Best”. They are intertwined in opinions like these. But I’d say the tastes are fairly spread out. Just because 4 of the 10 are from the same era doesn’t mean it can’t be “best”. My NFL team list was 84-94 NFC heavy. Doesn’t mean anything other than the a lot of the best occurred close to each other.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 4:16 pm
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    MASH and Cheers are the biggest absentees in my opinion. Of those two I think MASH holds up incredibly well, Cheers not quite as much. I suspect that is because MASH was portraying something that had happened 20+ years previously when it first aired. I think Wonder Years is the next most glaring omission. I’ve never watched Arrested Development so looks like that is on my to-do list.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 4:19 pm
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    Wonder Years is high on my list as well. It was kind of hard to see it as a sitcom because it didn’t have a lot of the sitcom feel (studio audience, etc.) but it was voted on.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 4:41 pm
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    MASH is probably the biggest omission for me as well, that is a great show. 15 years from now we may look back and say the some of the shows we picked have not held up well. Who knows.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 4:56 pm
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    Are we missing cultural significance in this list. Where is Happy Days, Fonzie’s leather jacket is in the Smithsonian for crying out loud. Any top ten sitcom list has to include the three shows who finished at number one in the ratings. You got two of them, but where is I Love Lucy. All In The Family is one of the most culturally significant shows ever. (Archie Bunker’s chair is in the Smithsonian as well) It dealt with some heavy stuff, but it was a very funny show. ( I will give you a pass on this one because I don’t know if it would qualify as a sitcom) Nice work on Arrested Development was a terrific show. Some of the best writing that has ever been on television. Oh, and Cheers.

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    • January 13, 2016 at 6:21 pm
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      Apparently, we left out one of the most important qualifications: Is it represented in the Smithsonian? 😉

      I really don’t put as much stock in cultural significance as I do other things. Humor. Does it hold up? How does it compare to other shows of its time? How do we evaluate cultural significance? Is that popularity during its time? Ratings? Its affect on culture? Personally, I don’t value the sames things that culture at large values. Two and a Half Men was the highest rated show for years and extremely popular but it was garbage and didn’t make it out of the first round in our bracket.

      That is not to say I did not consider legacy and things like that in my voting. I did. I just placed a higher premium on other qualifications.

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    • January 14, 2016 at 6:10 pm
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      To me the issue of cultural significance is why MASH should be included in the top 10. To the best of my knowledge MASH never actually finished a year as the #1 rated TV show, but that was in the era when 60 Minutes and Dallas dominated everything. To this day the MASH finale is the most watched TV show of all time and by a wide margin. The final MASH had 20+ million more viewers than the Cheers finale and 30+ million more than the Seinfeld finale.

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      • January 14, 2016 at 6:12 pm
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        And I agree with Phill that popularity alone is not a determination in quality. The Big Bang Theory is wildly popular but I don’t hear anyone arguing that it is an all-time great sitcom.

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        • January 14, 2016 at 6:32 pm
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          Popularity is not the only deciding factor, and since only three shows, after significant time on the air, go off the air at the top of the ratings it would be a huge consideration. I love Lucy was not only funny, but set the standard that sitcoms strive for. And yes, the Smithsonian does not impact whether a show is good or not, but does show the impact a show has had on American culture, which is also worthy of note.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 5:09 pm
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    Good post, Aaron. With 15 people voting we may have seen a few changes. Happy Days and ILL would be on my Top 10. Seinfeld is #1 to me and the next 9 in no order would be Happy Days, Growing Pains, Who’s the Boss?, Scrubs, KoQ, The Office, Arrested Development, I Love Lucy and Family Ties.

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    • January 14, 2016 at 9:50 am
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      This is almost impossible for anyone to accomplish. It would be very difficult for me to narrow a list down to 10. My list would be, in no particular order, Seinfeld, I Love Lucy, Mash, The Office, All In The Family, Arrested Development, The Cosby Show, The Andy Griffith Show, The Simpsons, Happy Days, Cheers, and Frasier, wait that is more than ten. You guys embarked on an impossible task.

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      • January 14, 2016 at 12:01 pm
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        That’s 12 Aaron so you’re close. In case this isn’t obvious yet we didn’t set out with a Top Ten in mind. We set out to determine a champion and looked back on the results to rank them.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 7:30 pm
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    I think everyone’s individual lists have many more older shows, but the ones we agreed the most on happened to be newer (or at least a large percentage of them).
    The way they were chosen (bracket) contributed to the outcome, but there is no perfect way to do it. All that matters is that Seinfeld is number 1 and friends isn’t on the list.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 8:06 pm
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    So there wasn’t consensus on older shows so by default the newer shows trumped the classics which make this such a flawed list…

    Happy Days, Laverge & Shirley, Hogans Heroes

    Not addressed yet: the spinoff of Frasier over Cheers.
    And why is Gilligan’s Island and Brady Bruch dismissed so decidedly by the judges?

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    • January 13, 2016 at 9:03 pm
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      Why would the newer shows trump the older shows by default?

      Many of the older “classics” are really not very good. Nostalgia is great and everything, but it cannot overcome poor writing, bad acting, and stilted, conventional plotlines.

      Frasier over Cheers. As far as I remember, they never went head to head. Cheers faced a tough draw and ended up losing out to two shows that did make our top 10. Personally, I believe Frasier was a more complete show than Cheers, but I don’t know if all the other voters feel that way.

      I simply don’t care fo Giligan’s Island or The Brady Bunch. I did not like them when I was younger and I like them even less now. Not sure what else to say about them.

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  • January 13, 2016 at 8:23 pm
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    There are no flaws in an opinion based list. And things cannot be addressed perfectly because this was a tournament. Not a group that got together and hashed it out 27th discussion. There was voting. Only 2-3 of the 9 voters are actively responding to the comments so you’re not going to get a thorough explanation of the votes.

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  • January 14, 2016 at 12:03 am
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    My argument is that a group of guys is naturally going to like the same group of current shows–it’s what you are talking about now, interacting with, and what is popular. And don’t take this argument too far–it’s in comparison to my next point.

    Conversely, you can’t interact with each other over old shows like you can the newer ones. So by default, there is going to be a more diverse group of older shows that you are all interested in. Because of that diversity, the older shows will on average get fewer votes than the current shows.

    And when I say you “can’t” the assumption is this exercise did not involve screening sessions. But again, EVEN if it did, the older shows are not going to affect the viewer today the same it did 20 years ago. The political humor from Family Ties was perfect at the time–it’s a different political picture today.

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    • January 14, 2016 at 8:34 am
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      I agree that we can’t interact with the older shows like we can with the newer ones. But here’s the thing: Very few of us watch the same stuff – at the same time. Virtually no one in our group watches anything in real time. Just an example: No one in our group watched Arrested Development when it originally aired in 2003 (12 years ago). We all came to it at different times. Some of us on DVD. Some of us using an online service like Netflix. And we all watched it independent from each other. So, our interacting with that show, and with each other over that show happened pretty much the same as it did for many older shows. No one in our group watched The Andy Griffith Show when it aired…obviously. We all watched it either on reruns or in some other manner. Independent from each other. But it still was voted as the number 5 show in our bracket. Which tells me we are capable of fairly evaluating older shows even if they were from a different time.

      I would also like to submit that the shows we voted for – many of the shows in our top 10 – were not that popular even in their own time. Community, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation were all low rated shows. Arrested Development only lasted 3 seasons originally – and built a cult following years later. So, it wasn’t a matter of us naturally gravitating towards what was/is popular. If so, we would have had shows like Everybody Loves Raymond, Two and a Half Men, Modern Family, and The Big Bang Theory on our list.

      Reply
  • January 14, 2016 at 12:14 am
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    So which was it?

    Most websites would throw a few names in a hat and come up with some ridiculous list. That was simply not an option for us. We had to go above and beyond.

    Arguing is our SECOND favorite thing to do.

    We spent months voting. Friendships were severely tested, unkind words were spoken that can never be taken back,

    OR

    Not a group that got together and hashed it out 27th discussion. There was voting.

    Reply
    • January 14, 2016 at 8:25 am
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      It can be both of those things. They are not mutually exclusive. I think there is a misunderstanding of what Gowdy said. “Not a group that got together and hashed it out 27th discussion. There was voting.” We didn’t “get together” and hash it out. We conversed online and voted. There was some discussion, but only to defend our votes and to make fun of each other’s votes. We didn’t sit in a room and go over each show – its merits, its flaws, etc… We did spend an inordinate amount of time voting – over 3 months.

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  • January 14, 2016 at 9:56 am
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    Any top ten list is going to be hotly debated, which I suppose is the point. These lists are always opinion based, which is ok. Top ten lists are subjective by nature. I love it though, debate makes things interesting. Bring on ranking lists. I look forward to breaking out my Smithsonian argument in future lists.

    Reply
  • January 14, 2016 at 10:36 am
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    Gilligan’s Island, The Brady Bunch, and Happy Days aren’t funny. Its as simple as that.

    Reply
  • January 26, 2016 at 8:01 pm
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    I quoted from 6 different people in a sermon two weeks ago – The writer of Hebrews, Jesus, St. Paul, St. Peter, Cicero, and…Jerry Seinfeld. I thought the ramblingeveron crew would approve. Cicero and Seinfeld, two for the ages!

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    • January 26, 2016 at 8:51 pm
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      Which Jerry quote was it?

      Reply
      • December 7, 2016 at 9:55 am
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        Charles never answered my question I see.

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        • December 7, 2016 at 10:04 am
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          Charles has failed us all.

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  • December 7, 2016 at 9:55 am
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    Since it’s been so much time since we wrote this, I”ve watched other shows and my Top would change a bit and look very similar to this: I would put Seinfeld and AD first and second for sure, probably Parks and Rec 3rd and the Office in the Top 5. The rest would be different but the REO staff has definitely had an effect on me over the years.

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  • December 7, 2016 at 3:09 pm
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    I think our top 5 is about as good as you can get. Those shows are all great. I think I should have fought harder for M.A.S.H.

    I’m so happy The Brady Bunch didn’t make the cut. So insanely happy.

    Reply
  • August 7, 2017 at 10:18 pm
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    Wait a second. Two and a Half Men was on the bracket? How did that abomination get on there?

    Reply
  • Pingback: Streets Ahead: Five Community Episodes That Make It The Funniest Show Since Seinfeld – Rambling Ever On

  • January 23, 2019 at 4:05 am
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    I don’t know how I stumbled onto this(I should be studying for a test). However two of the greatest sitcoms ever should be on any top 10 list.

    Futurama and Married with Children.

    Seinfeld and Arrested developed are on there and should be.

    The office, I haven’t seen it all but from what I can tell it is probably worthy.

    that leaves 5 other spots. adjust according to personal taste.

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    • January 23, 2019 at 2:56 pm
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      I love Futurama. I fought for it but it didn’t have enough support from our other voters. Bender is an all-time great sitcom character.

      Reply
  • April 13, 2023 at 2:23 pm
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    Where is Big Bang Theory?

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    • April 14, 2023 at 11:37 am
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      Right where it belongs: Not on this list.

      Reply

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