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10 MeTV shows make Rolling Stone list of 50 Best Sitcoms of All Time
Andy and Lucy made it — but which is higher?
Rolling Stone has ranked the 50 Best Sitcoms of All Time in its May 2021 issue. Well, in print. Online, the pop culture magazine expanded the list to a full 100. You can find the list here.
The rankings pull from all across television history, from the early 1950s to shows still airing. We're going to focus on the Top 50, as 20% of that list is MeTV content, shows either currently on the schedule or shows we have aired in the past. Six of the top 11 are "MeTV shows." We'll take that, honestly.
Though, unsurprisingly, there is a recency bias. Of all the titles, 13 of them are began in the 2010s, nine of them began in the 2000s, and ten began in the 1990s (six are from the 1980s, eight are from the 1970s, while only two come from both the 1960s and 1950s). Six are animated. Two of them star Danny DeVito. Two of them are The Office.
Nothing gets a debate stirred quite like arbitrary rankings online. So let's take a look.
First, here are the 10 series in the Top 50 that are either airing on MeTV or have aired on MeTV.
2. Cheers
4. I Love Lucy
6. M*A*S*H
7. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
8. The Honeymooners
11. The Dick Van Dyke Show
14. The Andy Griffith Show
17. Taxi
26. The Bob Newhart Show
48. The Jeffersons
Now, let's contextualize those. Here is the full Rolling Stone list of the 50 Best Sitcoms of All Time.
1. The Simpsons
2. Cheers
3. Seinfeld
4. I Love Lucy
5. All in the Family
6. M*A*S*H
7. The Mary Tyler Moore Show
8. The Honeymooners
9. Parks and Recreation
10. The Larry Sanders Show
11. The Dick Van Dyke Show
12. Curb Your Enthusiasm
13. Frasier
14. The Andy Griffith Show
15. Arrested Development
16. The Cosby Show
17. Taxi
18. 30 Rock
19. Roseanne
20. BoJack Horseman
21. Fleabag
22. South Park
23. The Office (U.S.)
24. Community
25. Atlanta
26. The Bob Newhart Show
27. Louie
28. Malcolm in the Middle
29. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
30. The Office (U.K.)
31. Fawlty Towers
32. The Golden Girls
33. Better Things
34. SpongeBob SquarePants
35. Everybody Loves Raymond
36. Sex and the City
37. Bob's Burgers
38. Friends
39. Black-ish
40. Review
41. King of the Hill
42. Brockmire
43. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
44. Veep
45. Broad City
46. The Good Place
47. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
48. The Jeffersons
49. Barney Miller
50. Newsradio
What is too low? What is too high? What is missing? Tell us what you think!
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113 Comments
I appreciate the inclusion of SpongeBob, BoJack, South Park, The Simpsons, & even King of the Hill, but considering animated sitcoms opens it up to...ugh, any of my favorite toons that could be called one. And I'm an animation freak with loads of favorite cartoons...plus it gets tough to tell what's eligible since live-action tends to come to mind when you say "sitcom." AND some excellent ones are kid-aimed, which tend not to be considered even when they're live-action.
Overall there are a lot of great ones in there, but a bunch I surely do disagree with, especially in the latter half...let's face it, you can easily toss most of the more recent ones and fit more classics in. That'd be a huge improvement. A few I'm not familiar enough with to say.
1. The Andy Griffith Show
2. Seinfeld
And no particular order
Beverly Hillbillies, The Munsters, All in the Family, King of the Hill, King of Queens, Last Man Standing, Married with Children, Two and a Half Men, Rules of Engagement, 3rd Rock From The Sun, Leave it to Beaver, News Radio, Just Shoot Me, Gilligan's Island, Silicon Valley.
1. I Love Lucy 2. Leave it to Beaver 3. Hazel 4. Newhart 5. The Partridge Family 6. The Brady Bunch
7. Home Improvement 8. The Ed Sullivan Show 9. The Lawrence Welk Show 10. The Monkees
