Mon
Feb 20 2006
12:51 pm
By: R. Neal
With Winter Olympics and Law and Order pretty much dominating the airwaves at the moment, I was thinking about what makes good TV. In no particular order, here are what I think are some of the greatest TV shows of all time:
- Seinfeld
- Andy of Mayberry
- The Twilight Zone
- Ed Sullivan
- The Sopranos
- Our Gang
- The Dick Van Dyke Show
- All in the Family
- West Wing
- American Dreams
Yeah, M*A*S*H should probably be on the list, but I think it was a little overrated. As for the greatest, it would be a tossup between the first two for me. Looking at the list, the things most seem to have in common are great writing, great characters, and a message that entertains while communicating values. What do you think are the greatest TV shows of all time?
P.S. I forgot Bonanza. It should be on the list, too.
P.P.S. And of course, The Beverly Hillbillies
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Sesame Street and Mr.
Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's.
;-)
and for a serious answer:
tv
You forgot Price is Right,
You forgot Price is Right, the longest running game show of all time. Bob Barker, well into his 80's, is still host. The show distributes huge prizes to winners, and is very entertaining, as well.
Homicide: Life on the Streets
Here here on Homer
Probably Ed Sullivan, All in the Family, and MASH would round out my top ten. I'm sure I've overlooked a gem or two, though.
I haven't watched Seinfeld or HBO shows.
How could you forget
How could you forget Northern Exposure? How?
My list (not current favorites, but all-time favorites):
Alice
Taxi
Homicide: Life on the Street
Northern Exposure
Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In
Ed
China Beach
Barney Miller
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Monty Python's Flying Circus
***I am leaving out talk shows and educational shows. They each deserve their own categories.***
Second on Barney Miller.
Second on Barney Miller.
Anyone who thinks Family Guy deserves mention in an "all time" list probably has such a poor conception of time as to think the Grand Canyon formed when Noah's flood dried up.
Yeah, Barney Miller should
Yeah, Barney Miller should probably be on the list. Ed and Northern Exposure were pretty good, too.
(And Northern Exposure featured South Knox guy John Cullum. My Mom used to do his Mom's hair. And David Keith's Mom's. Mom's beauty shop was apparently a nexus of South Knox acting success.)
Monty Python and Laugh In are great picks, too.
And sorry about the reference to Andy of Mayberry. I knew the original and best was "The Andy Griffith Show" but it was as much about Mayberry for me, so they are inseperable in my mind.
As for the Beverly Hillbillies, good point about Southern kin advising Jed to "move away from there." But I liked how Jed always got the best of the scheming Mr. Drysdale and various shysters trying to take advantage of him by using his common sense and taking the moral high ground. And the sexual tension and unrequited love between Miss Jane and Jethro, and Jethro's skirt chasing, and his hare-brained entrepreneurial schemes, and how he protected Ellie Mae, and, oh, Ellie Mae, in her swim suit, out by the cement pond (with a chimp?), and Granny's folk wisdom, a lot of which rang true from my memories of Grandma. There were (and still are) similar characters in my extended family. So maybe that's why I relate. Somebody could write a dissertation, and probably has.
I thought The Beverly
I thought The Beverly Hillbillies used stereotypes that were too far over the top to be offensive. Though, I can't explain your family, skb! Also, as you point out, the city folk would turn out more embarrassing and got embarrassed by the hillbillies.
So now it's over there? A&E had it for a while. Redmondkr, you're right about Suchet, who was as good as Brett's Holmes. It's funny they both had sidekicks who basically were there to constantly make remarks like "REALLY, [insert Holmes/Poirot]!!" or the previously referenced "Good Heavens!".
aka FC aka volvosnlattes (still working on a new name)
Cheers!
Cheers -- hard to believe no one's mentioned it yet.
The Simpsons -- created and sustained by Cheers alums
Mary Tyler Moore -- the "Chuckles the Clown" episode is still the funniest TV show ever
Homicide -- Great writing and acting, long story arcs, lots of soul
Saturday Night Live -- despite its ups and downs, it remains a cultural barometer
As a southerner, I always hated "Beverly Hillbillies" and found it demeaning and insulting. If you had a show about a black family moving to wealthy suburban Detroit, would you call it "Negrosse Point"? I think not. Besides, the fundamental premise of BH is erroneous -- kinfolks from any part of the South would never encourage anyone to leave, much less for California.
Others to
Others to mention:
Sopranos
Simpsons
Family Guy
Deadwood
Battlestar Galactica (the new one rules)
---
SayUncle
Can't we all just get a long gun?
Lucy , Carol Burnett
I Love Lucy
The Carol Burnett Show
Absolutely Fabulous
any episode of In Living Color with a "Men of Film" segment
The Waltons
Bob Newhart Show
Voting Sopranos for my
Rikki's right
Best broadcast show in my lifetime was Homicide.
Best cable: Sopranos.
What's On the TV?
I could invest a lot of thought in this, or I could just type a quick list of the shows that meet my definition of "greatest of all time." I'm trying to list shows that have some sort of consistency in quality or showed steady improvement as they aged. (A few tried to carry on a bit past their point of usefulness, but hey, don't we all?) In the end, my basic list is based on the question, "If it's on and I know I've seen it before, am I willing to watch it again?"
So my favorites of all time are (in no particular order):
The top TEN of all time
The top TEN of all time are:
Monty Python and his Flying cirCUS
The Smothers Brothers Show
Monty Python and his Flying cirCUS
Twilight Zone
Four!
Four!
The top Four of all time.....
I'm surprised nobody
The Prisoner
Rumpole of the Bailey (the only law-oriented show ever made that was worth watching).
I concur with all the mentions of Monty Python's Flying Circus.
The Sopranos Fawlty
The Sopranos
Fawlty Towers
The Office (UK)
Chapelle's Show
Law & Order
The Simpsons
Taxi
M*A*S*H
Sex & the City
WKRP in Cincinatti
____________________________
If we heard mortar shells, we'd cuss more in our songs and cut down on guitar solos
Umm, I'd have to think too
Umm, I'd have to think too hard.
But yes on Dobie Gillis, and yes on WKRP. The episode with the turkeys a la Hindenburg is possibly the funniest television show of all time.
The first season of Picket Fences was pretty good, too.
And The Avengers. Especially Diana Rigg.
The scarecrow thing on
Gino Says . . .
The Andy Griffith Show was definitely among the best, but I didn’t care for Andy of Mayberry because I missed Barney.
I have grown fond of Last of the Summer Wine on PBS as well. A&E ran early episodes of it years ago. It ran in the UK from 1973 to 2005.
I loved Northern Exposure so much, I wanted to call Maggie O’Connell and see if she could find me a house in Cicely.
And, of course, there’s Rumpole with Hilda - “She who must be obeyed”.
nill illigitimi carborundum
I've thought of another:
I've thought of another: PBS Mystery!. Especially Poirot and the Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett. Good Heavens, old boy!
Ah! The little grey cells
I have been recording the Hercule Poirot adventures from the Biography Channel to DVD's. David Suchet is the Poirot. Once all the diet pill ads and such are edited out, this is some good stuff.
nill illigitimi carborundum