Rankings Week: Best Sitcoms
(It’s Rankings Week on The Kelley Black Book. I need content. Lists are easy. All week, I’ll offer up some thoughts on weird lists sure to make people mad at me.)
Hey, so yesterday I explained how my Fat Kid bona fides made be qualified to rank candy bars. Also factoring into the Fat Kid stuff is being sedentary. And so … here are TV shows!
Today, I’m ranking the best sitcoms of all time. The ones below are a cross-section of the longest-running shows and just ones I had a particular affinity for (because it would have been weird to rank sitcoms without including Arrested Development despite relatively few episodes). I haven’t necessarily seen every episode of all the shows below (but I have seen every episode of a probably depressing number of them), but I’ve definitely seen enough of them to classify them.
The list below is not necessarily in order of what I would consider objective quality. Sometimes a show has a personal connection or what have you that makes it rank higher or lower than it otherwise might based strictly on quality of show. So it’s really just Daniel’s Favorites. If I don’t list your favorite below, it’s either because I hate it and it’s terrible, I never watched it because I’m terrible, or I forgot it because the internet is terrible. One of those.
First, the honorable mentions, shows that I know will be notable in their absence. I’ve seen a combined three episodes of the following five shows, which is probably a failing on my part, but I can’t really rank them. Sorry, friends:
King of the Hill, 259 episodes
The Office, 201 episodes
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, 154 episodes
Parks & Recreation, 125 episodes
Veep, 65 episodes
Feel free to yell at me for not having seen these shows. I apologize. I have personal failings. But now, the top 40 sitcoms in history:
1. Community, 110 episodes
Season 4 was obviously a quasi-disaster for the show, and Seasons 5-6 weren’t exactly at the show’s old level. But Seasons 1-3 were as good as a sitcom has ever been, and I will brook no dissent.
Best episode: “Epidemiology”
2. Perfect Strangers, 150 episodes
The beauty of Perfect Strangers is that it actually played with expectation in a surprising way. On most shows, there’s a straight man and a wild card — Urkel and Carl Winslow, Leonard and Sheldon, Joey and Jesse, whatever. But Larry and Balki took turns being the straight man depending on the scenario. Balki didn’t understand America. Larry was obsessive. The beauty of the show was it made sense to go either direction every week. And I’ve already thought more about Perfect Strangers just in this paragraph than anyone else has thought about it in 20 years, but that’s fine!
Best episode: “Hunks Like Us”
3. The Good Place, 53 episodes
My wife literally cried when the last episode aired a few weeks ago. She literally cried at the end of a 53-episode run of a sitcom where they said “holy forking shirtballs.” But it was totally deserved. This show reimagined what is possible with a sitcom and a philosophical treatise at the same time, and it did so with a dude who threw Molotov cocktails and said “Bortles!” It was amazing.
Best episode: “Michael’s Gambit”
4. Arrested Development, 84 episodes
If they had never brought this show back from cancellation on Netflix, it would be #2 on this list and pushing for #1. But the fourth season was rough, and the fifth season didn’t get better — I haven’t even watched the back half of that season, which if you had told me would be the case a few years ago I’d have laughed at you. Early AD was amazing. Recent AD was a disappointment, and it has made the earlier parts of the show less enjoyable as a result. Stop dredging up the past, y’all.
Best episode: “Pier Pressure”
5. How I Met Your Mother, 208 episodes
My opinion on the How I Met Your Mother finale is already on the record, and the reason I thought so much about the finale is that I thought so much about the whole series. There were parts of it that became extremely problematic almost as soon as it aired, to be sure (Barney is so canceled), but it featured what I would argue is the best friendship TV has had outside of Larry and Balki or Cory and Shawn.
Best episode: “Last Words”
6. NewsRadio, 97 episodes
Every so often, outside forces impact TV shows in weird ways. And who knows how long NewsRadio would have lasted if Phil Hartman had survived — it was never exactly a ratings champion to begin with — but his death robbed us of what I would argue was a top-five all-time TV character, and while Jon Lovitz was an absolute champion as a replacement, and Lauren Graham and Patrick Warburton did their level best as well, the show was never the same without Bill McNeal.
Best episode: “The Cane”
7. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, 140 episodes
Do you guys have any idea how sad I would have been if the FOX cancellation of B99 had been it? Just a week ago, we got Andre Braugher dropping a “William Wonka,” and it was wonderful. I mentioned Bill McNeal as an all-timer character, but the best sitcom character that has ever existed is Raymond Holt, and every extra episode we get of his existence is a good thing. (Andre Braugher is the best TV actor of all time as well.)
Best episode: “The Box”
8. Dinosaurs, 65 episodes
I recently introduced our daughter to Dinosaurs, because she loves dinosaurs, and she loves silliness, and that is enough. And it totally holds up. In so many ways this show was years ahead of its time. I could totally get behind some form of a reboot here.
Best episode: “Changing Nature”
9. You're the Worst, 62 episodes
I got my buddy Kevin to jump in on You’re the Worst in the middle of its run and he became as die-hard a fan as anyone. It’s a hard-to-explain conceit, starting just from the position of the title straight-up explaining that it’s a show about terrible people. But every character had enormous growth over the show — but not too much — and it was one of the greatest love stories we’ve ever seen.
Best episode: “Fix Me, Dummy”
10. Superstore, 97 episodes
Real talk: I hated Superstore through most of the first season. I thought it was average drivel that had no business being on the air. I really want sitcoms to succeed, because writing funny is hard and I want to support it, but I spent every week telling myself “Okay, I’m done,” before coming back the next week, mostly out of inertia. But man, it got better, to the point that it’s gotten through five seasons, is renewed for a sixth, and I can’t wait for its return. TV show pilots are so hard, and overall Seasons 1 are difficult too. This is one to stick with and keep waiting for.
Best episode: “Employee Appreciation Day”
11. New Girl, 146 episodes
Like Superstore, this show didn’t click with me right away, to the point that I actually stopped watching it for a bit. But I came back, and they found their stride, and for the rest of the way it was a home run. The addition of Megan Fox, filling in for a pregnant Zooey Deschanel, was a rough patch, but there’s never been a show with better chemistry throughout its main cast.
Best episode: “Injured”
12. Friends, 236 episodes
I wrote earlier about why Friends is a fine-but-flawed show. That’s fine! Every show doesn’t have to be a paradigm-shifter. I would never hold Friends up as the example for aspiring writers to emulate. But I do a lot of idle work, and there just ain’t nothing better for background noise. Friends isn’t great! But Friends definitely has a place.
Best episode: “The One with the Embryos”
13. The Big Bang Theory, 279 episodes
How I Met Your Mother is considered the spiritual successor to Friends inasmuch as they had similar conceits, but man, TBBT is really the right answer there from the perspective of mindless background noise. It wasn’t great. It wasn’t as good as its ratings suggested. But it definitely had jokes, and if you throw a thousand jokes at the wall in an episode and only 20 hit, well, that’s a 2% success rate, but that’s also 20 successful jokes in a half-hour.
Best episode: “The Adhesive Duck Deficiency”
14. Boy Meets World, 158 episodes
This show doesn’t hold up as well as some of the others here, probably because it was geared more for high-schoolers and younger than adults. But as I foreshadowed earlier, the only TV friendship that can rival Cory and Shawn’s was Larry and Balki’s, and an all-timer friendship does a lot. For kids, Ben Savage and Rider Strong just had legendary chemistry.
Best episode: “And Then There Was Shawn”
15. Mom, 151 episodes
Yet another show that took a while to find its real voice, Mom has basically become a completely different show. In the first season, the main characters were Christy, her mom, her daughter (no longer on the show), her son (no longer on the show), her ex-husband (no longer on the show), her daughter’s boyfriend (no longer on the show), her restaurant manager (no longer on the show), her restaurant head chef (only on the show a few episodes a year), and her estranged father (no longer on the show). Now, the show is Christy, her mom, her mom’s husband, and her four AA friends. It’s a show that literally wrote out the children of the main character (including one who is still school-aged) and figured itself out.
Best episode: “Dropped Soap and a Big Guy on a Throne”
16. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, 148 episodes
Just saying, if James Avery hadn’t died in 2013, we’d already have a Netflix reboot of this show, featuring Uncle Phil sending Baby Nicky to live with his cousin Will or something. And it would be amazing.
Best episode: “Day Damn One”
17. Family Guy, 320 episodes
When Family Guy is bad, it’s very bad, but when it’s good, it is a damn revelation, and I won’t let you argue on that. The problem is, the good is admittedly not that common. In 320 episodes, I’d say about 25% at best is definitely good. Still, it can be very good.
Best episode: “Brian and Stewie”
18. Everybody Loves Raymond, 210 episodes
The typical ceiling of ELR was about a B, B+. But the thing about it is that it has aged wonderfully. Friends looks dated. Seinfeld (we’ll get to it) started rough and now is tough to even watch. ELR? It was never great, but it’s exactly as good-to-pretty-good as it ever was.
Best episode: “The Ride-Along”
19. Scrubs, 182 episodes
I didn’t even watch my first Scrubs episode until a couple years ago, but when the boys were super small and couldn’t be annoying during TV (just sayin’), the show was in regular rotation on Comedy Central mornings, and it was good. Like Family Guy, when it struggled it struggled a lot, but when it was good, it was a damn home run.
Best episode: “My Finale”
20. The Goldbergs, 159 episodes
I feel like Goldbergs has stayed on a little too long at this point, and it’s still going. There are only a couple of episode themes — “Beverly wants to hang out with her family and they don’t want to,” “The kids want money for something and their dad says no.” — and that gets a bit tedious after the 60th or 70th time. But the early seasons of this show were really good.
Best episode: “Livin’ on a Prayer”
21. 30 Rock, 138 episodes
This was a show made for memes and gifs. The plotlines were sometimes too silly to work, and ultimately you remember moments and clips from the show, not episodes. But man, it was good at the clips.
Best episode: “Dealbreakers Talk Show #0001”
22. Simpsons, 672 episodes
Respect for the show for lasting so damn long (with no end in sight). Had a friend recently ask me, if I could only watch one show for the rest of my life, what show it would be, and I picked this. Not because it’s the best or even that close, but because (a) there are so damn many episodes, and (b) there are so damn many hidden jokes that I would have the least risk of getting tired of it. You don’t have to be the best if you’re so often decent.
Best episode: “Home at the Bat” (this can’t possibly surprise you)
23. The Andy Griffith Show, 249 episodes
The only show on this list from earlier than the ‘80s (I think), but it deserves its spot. Considering what it was, the fact that it’s still watchable, has still aged pretty well, is a dang miracle
Best episode: “The Pickle Story”
24. Modern Family, 220 episodes
Like Goldbergs, this one has lasted a few seasons longer than it should have, but at least it’s wrapping up now. Still, Ty Burrell and Ed O’Neill and Ariel Winter were all home runs in this show, even if it was a bit annoying at times.
Best episode: “Connection Lost”
25. The Cosby Show, 201 episodes
So, a weird thing is that it’s easier to find Cosby Show reruns on TV these days than Roseanne reruns. Like, Roseanne is an awful person and her show was worse than Cosby’s, but what he did is orders of magnitude worse. She’s just a racist; he’s a damn rapist. I don’t get it. Still, the show itself was endearing.
Best episode: “Pilot Presentation”
26. Cheers, 275 episodes
I confess here that, while I’ve watched a lot of Cheers, I probably come in at less than half of the total episodes. So I might not be fully qualified to grade the whole run. Still, when it was good it was real good. It was essentially a stage play in the best way, because the episodes rarely needed a second set (or didn’t need much beyond bar/pool room/office).
Best episode: “The Heart is a Lonely Snipe Hunter”
27. Frasier, 264 episodes
I’m genuinely curious how this show has aged, but it’s not on syndication on any cable channels I’m aware of, and I still haven’t cut the cord. I feel like it’s either unwatchable now or brilliant now, with no in between, but I don’t know which.
Best episode: “The Two Mrs. Cranes”
28. Family Matters, 215 episodes
Sure, it got too Urkel-y by the end, and his obsession with Laura was stalkery, and it cycled through secondary characters (Richie, 3J, Rachel, Grandma Winslow, the damn third kid Judy) like a temp agency, and the damn reason the show existed (Harriette) got recast in the last season, but this show was our childhood, for better or worse. And Waldo Geraldo Faldo is the best character ever.
Best episode: “Bugged”
29. Step by Step, 160 episodes
I know kid actors in TV shows often flame out or just move on, but the bust rate of the Step by Step kids is amazing. Brandon Call, Josh Byrne, and Christopher Castile never acted again after the show ended (Byrne has nigh-on disappeared from the internet), Angela Watson essentially never did (and had her parents steal most of the money she did make), Staci Keanan had been the lead in multiple TV series and then vanished, and Christine Lakin had at least a marginal career. That’s one heck of a bust rate.
Best episode: “Just for Kicks”
30. Night Court, 193 episodes
Like Cheers, I probably haven’t seen as many Night Court episodes as I should have, so instead I’ll just tell you about the meme I want to make with Markie Post and then Markie Present. It’s not fully thought out.
Best episode: “Nuts About Harry”
31. Full House, 192 episodes
This is one of those “embarrassed we even watched it” sort of shows, because really, Full House was just a “look how cute we can make kids” vehicle. And Bob Saget’s post-show stand-up routines (“I fucked Kimmy Gibbler! Nah, I just fingered her.”) are just untenable these days. But I can’t help but have positive memories in a nostalgic sense.
Best episode: “But Seriously, Folks”
32. Seinfeld, 180 episodes
This show was not good. I’m sorry. Like some others on this list, it hit some really good highs, but they were incredibly rare. And man, it is just unwatchable today. Nothing has aged worse. Don’t hate me. In your heart, you know it’s true.
Best episode: “The Contest”
33. Golden Girls, 180 episodes
I should probably like Golden Girls more than I do. In fact, I know I should. It was incredibly progressive for its time, the characters had amazing chemistry, it really should click with me, and it just never did. So I think this is probably the wrong spot in the rankings, but I can’t help it.
Best episode: “Ladies of the Evening”
34. Two and a Half Men, 262 episodes
Say what you will about the show (and there’s a lot you can say about it) and Charlie Sheen as a person (and there’s a lot you can say about him), but it was unabashedly what it was, for better or worse. And as awful a person as he was and is, Sheen was still (at least for the most part) one of our best comic actors. He’s so good at what he does. (Also, Conchata Ferrell was great.)
Best episode: “An Old Flame with a New Wick”
35. Rules of Engagement, 100 episodes
I bet no one would peg the number of seasons this show ran correctly. Go ahead, think on it. Remember the show as best you can (and I bet you can’t). Think about David Spade and Patrick Warburton and company. Remember how many times you did or didn’t watch it. Are you ready? Do you have a guess in mind? This show ran for seven seasons. Seven damn seasons of this. How is that possible?
Best episode: “A Big Bust”
36. The King of Queens, 207 episodes
This show pulled nine seasons out of “Kevin James is heavy but nimble, while Leah Remini is hot but loves him.” Plus some occasional “Jerry Stiller is old and crotchety.” That was it. But at least it gave us Patton Oswalt.
Best episode: “Lush Life”
37. That '70s Show, 200 episodes
Maybe I just never smoked enough pot for this show. It was fine. I’m not mad at it. But I also can’t really remember anything about it other than smoke circles and Ashton Kutcher screaming “Burn!”
Best episode: “Reefer Madness”
38. American Dad, 247 episodes
There are only nine U.S. prime-time scripted television series to run for more than 15 seasons. Simpsons, Law & Order: SVU, Gunsmoke, Law & Order, Lassie, Family Guy, NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy … and this. American Dad has run for 16 seasons (first on FOX and now on TBS), and it’s still going strong. That’s freaking incredible.
Best episode: “Virtual In-Stanity”
39. Home Improvement, 204 episodes
I loved Wilson. That is all.
Best episode: “Loose Lips and Freudian Slips”
40. Roseanne, 231 episodes
This show was bad. John Goodman’s great, but the show isn’t. I’m sorry. Don’t hate me.
Best episode: “Brain-Dead Poets Society”