The phrase “They don’t make ‘em like they used to” usually refers to movies, but it could just as easily be applied to sitcoms. The multi-camera sitcom is a thing of the past, and the writing and acting in the genre is much less sharp than it was in years gone by.
Classic sitcoms like The Golden Girls and All in the Family were a lot more daring, groundbreaking, and subversive than anything being made today.
10
Taxi
Set at the dilapidated dispatch center of a New York cab company, Taxi was one of the forerunners of the workplace sitcom as we know it today. The ensemble is full of actors who have gone on to become screen legends, from Judd Hirsch to Danny DeVito to Carol Kane to Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, and Andy Kaufman — talk about a stacked cast.
What makes Taxi an enduring classic is that, underneath all the biting humor, there’s a real sweetness. Even the meanest characters have a vulnerable side. The humor in Taxi hasn’t aged perfectly well — there are some gags and joke targets that wouldn’t fly today — but that underlying warmth has aged like a fine wine.
9
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Carried by the innate warmth and Laurel-esque comedic prowess of its title star, The Dick Van Dyke Show is part workplace sitcom and part family sitcom. It splits its time between Rob Petrie’s home life as a husband and father, and his professional life as the head writer of a popular variety series called The Alan Brady Show.
The Dick Van Dyke Show never misses an opportunity for a laugh, because Rob’s job is to come up with jokes and sketches with his best friends, so even the characters themselves are funny. Rob and his wife Laura, played by Mary Tyler Moore, have one of the healthiest and most well-matched marriages on television.
8
Blackadder
Before he was known for playing Mr. Bean and Johnny English, Rowan Atkinson was identified as a different bumbling buffoon: Edmund Blackadder. Atkinson played four different generations of Blackadders across four seasons of Blackadder, each set in a different period of British history: seasons 1 through 3 take place during various monarchies, and season 4 is set in the trenches of the Great War.
Today, Atkinson is most commonly associated with the physical comedy of Bean and English, but Blackadder was a more sophisticated satire. It perfectly blends Atkinson’s signature brand of silliness into a razor-sharp, well-informed comedic look at British history. Atkinson is just one of many great actors in this show; it also has turns by Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and Miranda Richardson.
7
The Golden Girls
There are so many sitcoms from the 20th century that have aged poorly, from Step by Step to Home Improvement to Everybody Loves Raymond (even some shows from the 21st century have already aged badly, like How I Met Your Mother). But The Golden Girls is a shining example of an old sitcom that actually aged well.
Hollywood tends to disregard women of a certain age, or at least limit them to certain types of roles, but The Golden Girls proved that older actresses like Bea Arthur and Betty White still have a lot to offer. This show about two widows and a divorcee finding companionship with each other is as inspiring as it is hilarious.
6
M*A*S*H
War and comedy are two very strange bedfellows, but M*A*S*H blended them together seamlessly. This sitcom about a team of war medics, based on the Robert Altman blockbuster of the same name, is a powerful look at humanity’s ability to use humor to get through hard times.
Despite taking place in the Korean War, a fraught period of history that most contemporary viewers could still remember, M*A*S*H became a household staple for more than a decade. Audiences welcomed these characters in their homes with open arms. The series outlasted the war itself by eight years, and ended with one of the greatest finale episodes in TV history.
5
Cheers
From Friends to The Office, every great ensemble sitcom since the 1980s has been an effort to recapture what made Cheers so special, and Cheers remains the gold standard of those kinds of shows. It has some of the strongest writing in television history — both situational humor and standalone one-liners — in the hands of one of the most iconic casts in television history.
From the biting wit of Carla to the academic pretentiousness of Diane to the aw-shucks naivety of Woody, everyone in this ensemble brings something unique to the table, and there isn’t an ounce of dead weight among them. A lot of now-ubiquitous sitcom tropes — namely the “will they or won’t they?” couple — originated in Cheers.
4
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
After playing second fiddle to Dick Van Dyke for five seasons, Mary Tyler Moore got her own sitcom vehicle, and it became every bit the classic that her star-making series was. In The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore had proven she could do it all — comedy, drama, singing, dancing — and in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, she added another feather to her cap: feminist icon.
In The Dick Van Dyke Show, Moore played a very traditional housewife. But in The Mary Tyler Moore Show, she played an unmarried, career-driven woman and opened the door for more progressive, more inclusive roles for women on television. And on top of that, the show pioneered the trope of the workplace family with a cast of lovable supporting characters.
3
All In The Family
Half a century later, the political humor of All in the Family still rings true. The central conflict of the series sees conservative bigot Archie Bunker and his bleeding-heart liberal son-in-law Mike Stivic being forced to live under the same roof. Archie and Mike disagree on just about every subject, and they’re not afraid to make their opinions known.
As is typical for series creator Norman Lear, All in the Family didn’t shy away from addressing the touchiest social and political issues of its time. That division of the right and the left is just as relevant today as it was back then — maybe even more so — and the satire is more on-point than anything being made today.
2
I Love Lucy
At a time when women were mostly relegated to playing wives and secretaries on the periphery, Lucille Ball burst onto the scene and proved that female comedians could be just as hilarious as their male counterparts. I Love Lucy pioneered a whole new kind of comedic storytelling built around an elaborate series of lies that the characters have to keep up.
In traditional sitcoms, the husband was the wacky comic personality and the wife was the straight foil rolling her eyes in the background. I Love Lucy flipped that; Lucy was the zany one and her husband Ricky was the straight man. Ball’s on-screen chemistry with her real-life husband Desi Arnaz created one of TV’s most perfect marriages.
1
Fawlty Towers
After co-writing and co-starring in one of the greatest and most influential sketch comedy shows of all time with Monty Python’s Flying Circus, John Cleese co-wrote and co-starred in one of the greatest and most influential sitcoms ever made. Fawlty Towers revolves around the fussy manager of a seaside hotel in Torquay, his long-suffering wife, his put-upon staff, and his eccentric guests.
Fawlty Towers set the standard for British sitcoms to last two seasons, so there isn’t a single bad episode (or even a less-than-great episode) in its 12-episode run. Basil Fawlty became the template for every cringe-inducing yet endearing British comedy character from David Brent to Alan Partridge, and Cleese’s performance in the role sees a legendary comedian at the height of his powers.
