Simpsons - 426
King of the Hill - 238
Flintstones - 166
Family Guy - 113
South Park - 177
The case can be made that any series which reaches at least 100 episodes is successful, that being the magic number needed for a show to be profitable in syndication. Even Family Guy has exceeded 100 episodes, and if it continues until 2012, it could reach 200. I count South Park separately, since due to its mature content, it’s not a prime time show, instead airing at 10 P.M. or later. But even South Park matches the description of what I would define as a successful show.
I’m not sure, but The Courtship of Eddie’s Father is the first sitcom I recall that had an asian main character (actually played by a real asian actor)
What is your cite for that? When the Monkees premiered in 1966, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork were both 24, and Davy Jones and Mickey Dolenz were 21. All four of them were legally adults, even by the standards of the 1960’s, in which 21 was considered the age of adulthood.
Since the four men in the group were playing fictionalized versions of themselves, it would be reasonable to assume the characters were the same ages as the actors themselves.
Let’s not forget two other prime time cartoons, Wait Til Your Father Gets Home and Roman Holidays. Whether they can be considered successful is a matter of not much debate.
On what sitcom was the first toilet shown? I think it was either Leave It to Beaver or The Brady Bunch.
[qwuote]On what sitcom was the first toilet shown? I think it was either Leave It to Beaver or The Brady Bunch.
[/quote]
As Snopes has pointed out, they showed the toilet tank on an episode – I think it was even the pilot episode – of Leave It To Beaver. Th boys were keeping a pet alligator in it. They have some screen aptures at the site. They maintain this isn’t exactly a toilet, since it’s just the tank, but that’s toilet enough for me.
I don’t recall a toilet in The Brady Bunch, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch that show much, so I couldn’t swear to it. I recall the sound of a flushing toilet on All In The Family, but can’t honestly recall them showing one.
Although somehow Jodi was involved with women more often than with men.
I Love Lucy had the first series star to be [del]pregant[/del] expecting. The Mary Tyler Moore Show could have been the first sitcom with a divorced protagonist, but chickened out. The Bill Cosby Show (1969) was the first sitcom to bear the name of a black actor. (Cosby had previously made history as the first black lead of a successful drama/action series - I Spy).
Roman Holidays aired on Saturday morning and only lasted a season. *Wait Til Your Father Gets Home *was syndicated and thus aired according to whenever the local stations decided to fit into their schedules. That could’ve been sometime in the hour just before network programming started (8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific or 7 p.m. Central and Mountain) or perhaps some time in the afternoon. I think that show lasted at least two seasons.
Unless you actually watched the show, and saw how unreasonable that assumption was.
They were definitely playing teenagers, although their ages were never said. It was understand by all teenagers in the audience that they weren’t adult. Besides, Davy kept getting involved with girls in high school, which would have been odd if they were supposed to be adults.
From an episode guide:
Davy could have been a 21-year-old double, but viewers obviously were to take them for *exact *doubles, including age.
The real point, of course, has nothing to do with their ages, but with the fact that they had no adult supervision. There wasn’t a wise adult figure in the house. They didn’t have a manager like the Brady Bunch. No caretaker. Nobody to get them out of scrapes except themselves. They were a bunch of kids living on their own with no parents or parental stand-ins. Everybody in the teenage audience got that. It was huge. It was unprecedented. I’m trying to think of more recent examples and none come to mind. That’s how bizarre it was for 1966.
I remember one episode where they were having a rent party and Mickey was washing the paper plates then putting them back into a box labled: “used paper plates” (obviously for re-use later.) BECAUSE THERE WERE NO GROWN-UPS TO TELL THEM NOT TO! Oh those nutty Monkees!
OK, I admit I haven’t watched the Monkees in some years. And I’ll accept your cite. I guess since Comcast On Demand has episodes available for watching, I should take advantage of it.
According to TV Acres, which is a goldmine of such information,
Note the caveat that there is no actual video evidence for this. Also note the show is called ‘the first sitcom ever’. I’m not sure how accurate that is either.
Sammee Tong played a similar role in Bachelor Father starting in 1957, five years before Eddie’s Father aired. Jack Soo also appeared as a regular in Valentine’s Day a year before Eddie. Soo, Tong, and Umeki all played the lead’s domestic and confidant.
MAS*H might be the first sitcom to actually portray one of the lead actors dying.
How about the Burns & Allen Show being the first to breach the "fourth wall’? I.e., George Burns would routinely look straight at the camera and address the audience, generally acknowledging that he was performing on a set rather than being in a real home?
Re abortion- I think ALL IN THE FAMILY technically dealt with it before MAUDE. Gloria thought she was pregnant & was wondering whether she & Mike were ready to bring a child into the world, with all its problems & so was considering abortion. She confided to the Catholic neighbor lady who persuaded her to choose life, but it turned out that either Gloria wasn’t pregnant or that she miscarried.
So it was dealt with technically. It just was not done until MAUDE.
