Hm, The Simpsons... imo they kind of deserve their place for all their previous episodes, but since 1-3 seasons the quality and originality of the episodes is decreasing intensely :(
how could they not deserve their place? Even if the show was terrible, and it's never been terrible, they still have a commanding lead over everybody else in terms of the number of episodes produced. Quite an accomplishment, especially given that it's an animated show.
A lot of people would disagree with you on the "it's never been terrible " claim. I used to LOVE The Simpsons, but everything I've seen from it from the past 10 years just makes me cringe.
We tend to remember the good things and forget the bad, boring things. Then we compare the new episodes with the idealized pictures we have in our head.
I don't know. I'm not a huge fan. Sister's husband is and he still watches and loves the show. I never watched it regularly but every time I see an episode it's at least fairly funny. Never terrible. Same with Futurama. I'm surprised that one's not on here.
Simpsons doesn't have the edge and relevance that it once had, but, it's still never been as bad as, say... 2 1/2 Men, or The Big Bang Theory, or other laugh-track shows that are like them.
I'm a pretty hardcore Simpsons fan, and you are definitely the first person I've ever heard suggest that Seasons 1-3 are the best. It's a largely settled question that Seasons 3-9 are the prime years, and if you're the kind of fan who really gets into it (which, admittedly, I am), the first "great" episode is generally agreed to be "Homer at the Bat" from Season 3 (when Mr. Burns hires the ringers for the company softball team), and the end of the Golden Age was "the Principal and the Pauper" (when we discover, bizarrely, that Principal Skinner is not really Principal Skinner). Nonetheless, I think people are too hard on everything post-Season 9. There were some down years, but it's still reliably funny and clever, and it's still better than most comedy currently on TV.
Agreed. The ones I usually hear are seasons 2-8, though 9 and 1 still have some pretty great moments. Anyone who thinks they were better in season one than 4, 5 or 8 isn't paying attention.
I love the Simpsons, but season 1 was downright bad. "Primitive" is the most accurate term for it. They're still churning out great episodes, but the high point was probably in around season 8.
South Park peaked around the same time. Season 1 was brilliant. Seasons 3-6 were brillianter. But seasons 7-11 or so were simply some of the best stuff that's ever been on TV. They still do good work sometimes and I know there are people who think it's better than ever but last season was probably the weakest in the show's history IMO.
I sort of wish they had ended the show with the poignant and bittersweet two-parter "You're Getting Old" and "Assburgers"... which felt so much like an ending that many fans after watching it thought that the show was over and Matt & Trey had decided to pull the plug without warning us. They could have gone out while they were still near the top of their game back then. In the five years since they've only made 6 or 7 brilliant episodes and it often feels like they're just phoning it in.
You should go watch the Tracy Ullman show and watch the primitive animation they were during it. Many do not realize the Simpsons actually started two years before as short stories on the Tracy Ullman show.
Season 1 and other early seasons of South Park could also be described as primitive or simplistic by the show's current standards, but to be honest I often miss the show's previous simplicity. There was a certain elegance in it.
Actually the Simpsons started in 1987 on the Tracy Ullman show. Wonder how many people know that. Go watch those shows and see how far the animation has come.
I think it's just really hard to think of them with only the dates. The slightest clue would trigger 80% of these with me (like a single character name) but it's tough with a blank slate.
Awesome quiz! I'm kind of kicking myself for forgetting the Beverly Hillbillies, M*A*S*H, and That 70's Show... I only got 28. And just an idea, but if you make it to be the longest running NORTH American sitcoms, The Red Green Show (300 episodes, 1990-2005) could also be included!
I typed in 'The Danny Thomas Show' several times, not believing that it wasn't on the list. After I finished the quiz I went and looked it up. If 11 seasons and 351 episodes over 11 years (1953-1964) doesn't make the grade there's something wrong here! I remembered afterward that it was also known as 'Make Room for Daddy' but I don't see that on the list either.
That's the one thing I was going to comment on. Danny DeVito, Tony Danza, Andy Kaufman, Christopher Lloyd were all household names for years afterward. It seemed a huge show, hard to think it came and went so quickly.
The Flintstones were a prime-time show, and deliberately designed to appeal to adult audiences. I grew up watching it in the 70s as an after-school show, so I thought for a long time that it was a kids show, but it really is suitable to consider it a sitcom.
Actually looking at the main cast of the Simpsons, Hank Azaria's been in a lot more live-action stuff than I realized and probably has the most recognizable face out of all of them.
I was gonna say the same thing. Dan Castellaneta is actually in a ton of stuff, but his natural voice sounds nothing like his cartoon voices, so I doubt most people realize they're watching the voice of Homer Simpson. A lot more people can probably recognize Hank Azaria when they see him.
I remember what a landmark it was (even in the UK) for the 200th episodes of M*A*S*H, Cheers, The Simpsons and Frasier. What? They made more than 200 of King of Queens?!
I think it's time to update this quiz. Some of the shows that are still running would be further up the list now and Two and a Half Men has since been cancelled.
Like a lot of people before me, I missed a lot of shows that I knew and have watched. Also, for 'Mary Tyler Moore', I wrote 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and it wasn't accepted, but this is the correct full title. Maybe this can be changed?
The people who brag about their ignorance on this site as some kind of badge of honor is ridiculous. Being aware of something doesn't need to mean a personal endorsement of it. There's a lot more to pop culture than it gets credit for.
Was hoping to score with 'Alf', 'Third rock from the sun' and 'Saved by the bell' but apparently they never made it into that high a number of episodes... #ninetiesteenager
Every girl I've ever dated would disagree with you. I even have one friend who credits the show for her fluency in English. It's definitely not a favorite show of mine but I even find myself quoting in certain situations.
I'll never forget walking the streets of Killarney in 2007 while on my honeymoon. It was about 3 o'clock and the high school let out as we were walking by.Nothing like hundreds of teenagers speaking with an Irish accent and then hearing someone say "How you doing" in a Joey Tribiani voice that Matt LeBlanc would have a hard time telling from his.
I mean, have you ever seen Small Wonder, Last Man Standing, or the later seasons of Family Matters? And that's only when considering scripted sit-coms. There's also "reality" TV, 90% of which is worse than the worst scripted shows.
The first season of Friends was very good. Then it got steadily worse, and once Chandler and Monica paired up (maybe Season Four?), it turned into an outright dumpster fire.
Interesting that the update says July 2018 after The Middle ended its run with 215 episodes and it's still not on the list. My guess is the master list for this source hasn't been updated.
The Big Bang Theory needs to be updated to 2007-2019 with 279 episodes and moved up below South Park. Also, Two and a Half Men is out of order, needs to be moved up below Frasier.
It was commented before and most people agreed that Spongebob is not a sitcom. It might be a sitcom based on a loose definition, but it's definitely not on network TV like the caveat says.
I usually say things need less time, but on this one I could have used more time, I was still dredging up new answers from the murky recesses of my brain.
Damang... if I had to guess it might be the extreme overgrowth of media lately with the proliferation of all these streaming services and online content providers. It would get confusing trying to figure out what counted and what didn't. The biggest home entertainment provider in the world right now is probably Netflix and they produce shows now all over the world not just in the USA. And then you've got other services like Hulu, Acorn, etc which have picked up tons of old American and international shows and packaged them all together. The enormous number of cable and satellite TV channels, now coupled with YouTube, Disney +, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and so on and so on.... plus the blending of genres that often takes place in shows on these more non-traditional media platforms where more quirky stuff that never would have been on network TV is given a chance. Limiting what's included to four American TV networks I guess makes it much simpler.
Always Sunny only does like ten episodes a season, so it has fewer episodes than you'd probably expect, given that it has been on the air for like 15 years.
As a Brit who took this quiz not expecting to do very well, I was still surprised at how many of the shows I had never heard of. Over 40 are new to me, and some like “I love Lucy” I had never heard of before coming on Jetpunk. I guess we don’t get as much American TV as I thought.
Also some programmes on here that are as funny as a root canal, but I guess comedy is like beauty.
If something didn't take place inside the living room of the house you grew up in you seem to not know about it and claim that it's impossible for anyone to know. This is pretty much what 80% of your comments on the site are.
Agreed that many of these shows are terrible. American network TV sitcoms usually are. Americans produce more quality TV than anyone, and on the networks some good stuff occasionally slips through, but most of it is aired different places.
South Park is still going strong after nearly 25 years... was this recently changed to only count network TV shows? I thought I remembered them being on here before.
P.S. my dad was binge watching every season of Ozzie and Harriet for several months... as blinded by nostalgia as he often is, even he eventually got tired of it. My god that show was awful. And not just because shows in general have gotten so, so much better over the years, but even for its time it just was completely terrible. I Love Lucy and Andy Griffith, for instance, were far superior. At least they had scripts.
Shows improved between the start of TV and the 90s/early 00s but have taken a nose-dive ever since. I would rather watch anything between the 50s-00 (including Ozzie and Harriet) than shows in the last 20 years. I think sitcoms reached their peak in the 70s and 80s.
You think Ozzie and Harriet was a better show than Breaking Bad, Dexter, Game of Thrones, Chernobyl, Westworld, The Spy, WandaVision, South Park, The Wire, The Boys, etc etc? What are you even talking about...
or was the only time you turned on the television in the past 20 years a day when they had scheduled a Jersey Shore marathon?
Even if you're only just talking about sitcoms in the past 20 years you've got The Simpsons (didn't premiere, but still going), Arrested Development, The Office (both versions, take your pick), etc on the networks, and quirkier stuff other places like Jean Claude van Johnson, Living With Yourself, and the Santa Clarita Diet... I do lament the extreme proliferation of extremely bad "reality" television the past couple of decades, but, just flat out saying everything since 2000 is bad makes you sound like Mickey Rooney.
and I'd have to respectfully disagree that sitcoms reached their peak in the 70s and 80s. What was even good in the 70s? Three's Company and the Brady Bunch? ugh. I don't think I could even sit through a full show anymore. I used to watch stuff like Saved by the Bell and Full House or reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies or The Golden Girls when I got home from school in the 90s, and I remember our family used to love ALF, but I tried rewatching some of those shows on Hulu recently and they are just terrible. Not Ozzie and Harriet bad, but, still, terrible... I don't know how I ever could stand it.
I think Happy Days was from the 70s. That show was pretty sweet. But I agree, the sophistication of some more recent comedy sets it far above its predecessors. After Seinfeld, which is the consensus #1, I'd submit Arrested Development and 30 Rock are the next two best sitcoms ever. Parks & Rec, the Office, It's Always Sunny, You're the Worst were all just much more interesting than the rote fare being produced in the 70s and 80s. It's hard to gauge "sitcoms" now because everything is scattered among so many different platforms. Network TV sitcoms are mostly unwatchable, but there is a lot of great stuff elsewhere. I just watched Frank From Ireland on Amazon Prime. Funniest show I have discovered in years.
If people talk about sitcoms being good in the 70s, they're likely thinking of Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, Bob Newhart, M*A*S*H, Barney Miller....
South Park deserves to be on this list. I don't care that it is a cable show and technically not prime time or whatever. Come on. That makes its run even more impressive. How can you have American Dad, the Simpsons, and Family Guy on there but leave off South Park? It's one of the longest running shows EVER.
Seems like this site does not respect your authoritah. I'd say being on Comedy Central for 20 years is less impressive than being on network TV for 20 years because Comedy Central has so few major properties. They pretty much have the Daily Show and South Park, then a revolving door of weird sketch shows and vehicles for offbeat comedians that get canceled after a few seasons (with the notable and brilliant exceptions of Key & Peele and Chappelle's Show). Comedy Central will never let South Park or the Daily Show go. Season 42 of South Park would draw probably twice as many viewers as whatever the network would replace it with. That's not a knock on the show. It's one of my favorites ever. I think it's brilliant.
In a previous version of this quiz, South Park was there. I wonder if they took it off as it is a paid cable show not regular network? It has run longer than many other shows listed here.
I sort of wish they had ended the show with the poignant and bittersweet two-parter "You're Getting Old" and "Assburgers"... which felt so much like an ending that many fans after watching it thought that the show was over and Matt & Trey had decided to pull the plug without warning us. They could have gone out while they were still near the top of their game back then. In the five years since they've only made 6 or 7 brilliant episodes and it often feels like they're just phoning it in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpongeBob_SquarePants
Benson - 158
Alf - 102
3rd Rock - 139
Saved by the Bell - 120
Parks and Rec - 125
Webster - 100
Charles in Charge - 126
Mr. Belvedere - 117
Dharma and Greg - 119
I Dream of Jeannie - 139
Mama's Family - 130
Bob's Burgers now makes the list with 190 episodes
Also some programmes on here that are as funny as a root canal, but I guess comedy is like beauty.
Agreed that many of these shows are terrible. American network TV sitcoms usually are. Americans produce more quality TV than anyone, and on the networks some good stuff occasionally slips through, but most of it is aired different places.
or was the only time you turned on the television in the past 20 years a day when they had scheduled a Jersey Shore marathon?
Even if you're only just talking about sitcoms in the past 20 years you've got The Simpsons (didn't premiere, but still going), Arrested Development, The Office (both versions, take your pick), etc on the networks, and quirkier stuff other places like Jean Claude van Johnson, Living With Yourself, and the Santa Clarita Diet... I do lament the extreme proliferation of extremely bad "reality" television the past couple of decades, but, just flat out saying everything since 2000 is bad makes you sound like Mickey Rooney.
Kyle: Shenanigans