Best / Worst Sitcoms

[CajunCenturion]

Comments anyone?


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[addy]

Best Sitcoms:

Porridge
Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister
Only Fools and Horses
I'm Alan Partridge
Blackadder
Men Behaving Badly


Worst Sitcoms:

Gimme Gimme Gimme
My Hero

 

[BJCooperIT]

Although it had its serious side, it remains listed as a comedy in syndication: M*A*S*H.

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant Developer/Analyst Oracle, Forms, Reports & PL/SQL (Windows)
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[Sympology]

Am I right in beliving MASH was the longest running sitcom, until the Simpsons?



Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[mjldba]

In no particular order (most are old school) but all featured talented ensemble casts with strong individual characters who could individually carry an episode:

Mary Tyler Moore
Barney Miller
All In The Family
Seinfeld
Cheers
Fraiser
M.A.S.H.
Rosanne
Bob Newhart
Wings

 

[sleipnir214]

Although I agree that most of the suggestions so far are funny (the exceptions being those which feature precocious children [I find television childhood precocity creepy, not funny] and overused catchphrases [ditto]), I have to go with the original "WKRP in Cinncinnati" series from the late 70s.

If for no other reason the Thanksgiving episode which in its entirety improbably builds to the unforgetable line, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."



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[chrissie1]

I forgot about cheers and Rosanne (except the last season witch was a waste).

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

"My new site" - Me

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Besides all the good ones already mentioned I would add:

Night Court
Taxi







To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[mjldba]

forgot about Taxi

Turkbear, thanks for that memory

 

[Stella740pl]

My favorites would be
Seinfeld
Friends
Simpsons.

Worst? I don't know. I stop watching them and forget their names.

 

[BJCooperIT]

Oldies but...

Best: All In The Family
Worst: My Mother The Car

 

[gbaughma]

Hmmm... Best...

M*A*S*H
Hogan's Heros

Worst...
Three's Company <LOL>



Just my 2¢

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify its owner." --Me
--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[mjldba]

Agree with "Three's Company" as one of the worst.

I never cared for Suzanne Somers (what's the fuss?), and with John Ritter & Norman Feel (landlord) shamelessly mugging for the camera, I don't know which I disliked more.

 

[sbudzynski]

Best - Seinfeld
2nd - South Park
Honorable Mention - Friends

Worst - Sex and the City*


*My girlfriend would have to rank this as the best therefore making it my worst

----------

Steve Budzynski


"So, pass another round around for the kids. Who have nothing left to lose and for those souls old and sold out by the soles of my shoes"

 

[SantaMufasa]

I can't believe that no one has mention the moronic genius of Monty Python, the Gold Standard for Humour (in my book).

Best (no particular order):
-------------------------------
Laugh-In (not necessarily "sit-com", but best fun for its time)
Cosby
Leave It To Beaver (for classic childhood reminiscence)
M.A.S.H.
Simpsons
Taxi
Cheers
All in the Family
Barney Miller

Worst (no particular order):
---------------------------------
I Love Lucy (sacrilege, I know. Especially the "Lucy Show" years.)
The Honeymooners (again, sacrilege)
Gilligan's Island
According to Jim
Still Standing (but amazingly good American accent by Brit, Mark Addy.)
The "Fats" of Life
Mama's Family
Diff'rent Strokes
Any sit-(no)com on the Disney Channel

Schizophrenic Award:
"Best" (in their prime)/"Worst" (at their demise/now):
--------------------------------------------------------
Saturday Night, Live!
Roseanne
Mork and Mindy



Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
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[RCorrigan]

SantaMufasa Does Monty Python really fall into the Sitcom definition ???

BTW AS humour, absolutely brilliant !!!

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[mjldba]

SantaMufasa: I detested the "Lucy" character. She was, on a very popular show, showing a generation of women that's it's acceptable to be a cunning,deceitful, lying spouse.

Yeah, it was only a sitcom but the Lucy character, as Lucielle Ball played the role, rubbed me the wrong way and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance) wasn't far behind. I'm pretty sure that Vivian Vance & William Frawley didn't care much for each other so their characterizations were probably right-on.

 

[Lunatic]

@SantaMufasa

Unless my friends have decieved me, it should really be

Multiple Personality Disorder/Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Award (or something much more clever than I can think of).
not
Schizophrenic Award

While schizophrenia still has a definition of "contradictory or antagonistic qualities or attitudes" (m-w.com) this is the result of people mis-diagnosing Multiple Personality Disorder and lumping it in with people who hear things (schizophrenia).

So by using, even if accurate, the 2nd dictionary defintion of schizophrenia, you are reinforcing the mis-information surrounding schizophrenia and MPD.

Just a friendly warning... all the psycho-people (psychology majors, psychologists, and psychiatrists) can, in my experience, be a little edgy on this subject. Being on the recieving end of a lashing after using lazy language I try to help others avoid that same fate

 

[mjldba]

I'd like to add "The Wonder years" to my list, perhaps not a true sitcom but but very entertaining as it depicted a young boy (Fred Savage), his family & friends, and the common, painful experiences he endured that everyone could relate to.

 

[SantaMufasa]

I don't want to hijack this thread and carry it off into the weeds with a psychological discussion, so if we want to discuss this topic further, I recommend that we initiate another thread.

Given that disclaimer, Lunatic (no pun intended), I actually considered both terms ("schizophrenic" and "Multiple-Personality Disordered") before choosing the appellation in my post, and I used "schizophrenic" advisedly: not to convey the common misinterpretation, "split personality", but rather to convey the classic, clinically accepted definition of "schizophrenic":

a psychotic disorder characterized by loss of contact with the environment, by noticeable deterioration in the level of functioning in everyday life, and by disintegration of personality expressed as disorder of feeling, thought (as delusions), perception (as hallucinations), and behavior -- called also 'dementia praecox'.

Certainly, the shows that I mentioned in that category had become psychotically disordered, had lost contact with the environment, had noticeably deteriorated in their level of functioning, and had disintegrated with disorders of feeling, thought, perception, and behaviour.


Conversely, characterising those shows with a diagnosis of Muliple-Personality Disorder (MPD) would be a wholly inappropriate diagnosis: 1) multiple personalities are co-resident chronologically (not the case with those shows), and 2) Virtually every MPD sufferer was a victim of childhood physical/sexual abuse/trauma (which is a whole 'nuther' topic of discussion in the case of those shows).

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I can provide you with low-cost, remote Database Administration services: see our website and contact me via www.dasages.com]

 

[donbott]

Northern Exposure, Strangers with Candy, are among my favorites.

I've tried to watch Seinfeld a few times and could not stand it.

DonBott