Rolling Stone's Top 100 sitcoms of all-time

Those are a couple of notable omissions, all right. IMO they leaned a little heavy on the current streaming shows as part of the effort to pretend young people still read Rolling Stone. One thing about all-time lists, you need time to see how shows or anything else shake out.

 

Interesting you mention that episode. The actor who played the rapist said in interviews that he had death threats and angry people coming up to him for years afterward.

 

Friends was a mediocre show. I really didn’t and don’t get the appeal.

 

I think it's one of those shows that REALLY hits home for a certain portion of the population - white, in their teens to early 30s when the show started, and women more than men. I'd guess it would skew more popular for urban and suburb populations instead of rural ones, as well. My wife has watched the whole run of it multiple times, and because of her and previous girlfriends, I think I've seen just about every episode too. It's... fine. (And that's probably part of its appeal too - There aren't a ton of growing pains or decaying seasons, like S1 of "The Seinfeld Chronicles" or the Carrell-less "Office" years.)

 

Truly believe All in the Family should be number one. Brilliant show. Absolutely brilliant.

 

Unless there have only been 100 sitcoms ever, I don't see how a Different World could be 89. I haven't watched since it was on, but I don't think it was ever funny.

 

I liked it but was was nothing but fluff. Shouldn’t sniff the list.

 

I was a 25 year old professional living in a city when the show started. Most people I knew loved it from the start and I just didn’t get why everyone thought it was so great. It was hang outwith good looking people show, but the jokes were never very funny or certainly smart and the acting was meh.

 

I heard a term today that I think sums up "Friends" well -- "comfort content."

You know what you're getting. Rachel is always going to be pretty, there's never any real drama, the jokes will be easy and obvious. Every episode is pretty much the same.

It's a lot like "The Brady Bunch." My wife has seen every single episode multiple times. There isn't a single funny joke in the entire run of the show, but that's not why anyone watched.

 

Agree with those who think "All In The Family" is still underrated after all these years. Also, Trey Parker and Matt Stone had Archie Bunker in mind when they created the character of Eric Cartman and "South Park."

Never understood the appeal of "Friends," and "Cheers" can be funny. Both are rated too high for my taste.

"M*A*S*H" is always a sticky spot for these sorts of lists because of the war, the drama, etc. It's No. 1 with me and it's not even close, but isn't a sitcom in the purest sense.

 

Comedy writer Ken Levine, who has major credits from three of the shows on the list, MASH, Cheers and Frasier, taught a writing class at USC in the aughts and wrote in his blog that the show his students always laughed the hardest at when he showed it was The Phil Silvers Show.