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The best sitcom episode of all time

What was the all-time No. 1 sitcom episode?

  • The Office: Dinner Party.

    Votes: 5 16.7%
  • Taxi: Jim Ignatowsi's drivers' license test

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Mary Tyler Moore Show: Chuckles the Clown's funeral.

    Votes: 1 3.3%
  • Seinfeld: The "shrinkage" episode.

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 12 40.0%
  • WKRP in Cincinnati: The turkey episode.

    Votes: 9 30.0%

  • Total voters
    30
"Chuckles the Clown" is brilliant.

And I was a huge "WKRP in Cincinnati" fan. Loved that show. I was one of those people who couldn't wait for it to finally come out on DVD. I bought the set immediately, put on the Thanksgiving episode, and... it sucks. The joke is brilliant. The entire show is a setup to that one joke and everything that leads up to it is boring as hell. I was crushed.

Anyway...

Best Sitcom Episode, International: Fawlty Towers, "The Germans." Fawlty Towers is the most tightly written, funny show I've ever seen. (They are rebooting it and it's going to be forking awful.) Best exchange from the episode:

German man: Will you please stop talking about the war!?!
Basil: Well you started it.
German man: No we didn't!
Basil: Yes you did, you invaded Poland.

Best Sitcom Episode, Domestic: Just Shoot Me, "Slow Donnie." Just Shoot Me was as unremarkable a sitcom as you will find, and one I rarely watched... but I somehow caught this episode and was in tears laughing. A character's brother Donnie is visiting. Donnie is played by David Cross. Donnie has a traumatic brain injury after falling out of a tree years ago and needs help doing anything. Soon we learn Donnie has been faking it the whole time because he doesn't want to get a job. It's a brilliant episode.

Best Seinfeld episode: "The Understudy." Jerry's girlfriend is Bette Midler's understudy in the Broadway version of "Rochelle, Rochelle." She injures Midler in a softball game and it turns into a Tonya Harding thing. "Everybody's calling me Gillooly!" In the subplot, George's dad recounts dating a Korean girl during the war, and how her dad took offense when Frank refused to remove his shoes because of an "odor problem." That leads to my favorite line from Seinfeld:

"Her father would look at me and say, "Eno enoa juang," which means, "This guy- This is not my kind of guy."
 
I'd also throw out the Latvian Orthodox episode of Seinfeld as a great one.

A few more less-heralded choices:

— Friends, when Joey covers for Chandler and Monica when they get careless about hiding their relationship.
— New Girl: The Schmidt-Nick cookie episode.

Does The Wonder Years count? If so, the pilot episode is right up there. So is the one when Wart comes back from Vietnam, and a few others.
 
The John Cleese episode of Cheers......the Snakehole Lounge episode of Parks and Rec.....30 Rock's "Subway Hero"...... the Sweet Sixteen episode of Party Down
 
Barney Miller: Hash brownies. The werewolf guy was a great one, too.

The final episode of Newhart is an all-timer.

Speaking of perfect payoffs, the Seinfeld marine biologist is among the greatest ever.
 
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In the animation category, I can watch the Brunchsquatch episode of Bob's Burgers over and over.
 

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