I’m gonna nominate Car 54 Where Are You. If that show had taken place anywhere but New York, it wouldn’t have lasted 13 weeks.
I think most of you are letting your personal preferences creep in. Seinfeld was funny. Friends was purported to be, but I never watched it.
Your criteria should be something like: “Is the laff track so loud that I can’t think? Would I even consider laughing if I were watching it live?”
I nominate Yes, Dear, Full House, and any number of wretched shows on WB/UPN that I wouldn’t know existed if they weren’t on the big-screen at the pizza buffet joint.
I’m so glad to see Seinfeld so hated . . . and somewhat disappointed to see Sex and the City on so many lists.
I’ve mostly caught SatC on TBS reruns rather than HBO originals but have enjoyed it immensely. I don’t find it particularly funny but the writing and acting is excellent even if Sarah Jessica Parker is a bit grating.
Soon, just like MASH ran longer than the Korean War, That 70s Show will outlast the 70s. The show was good, though. Unlike most sitcoms which follow the “these people are so mean to each other, how can they be friends?” style, I found it consistently funny if not exactly inventive.
As others have said, “Night Court” was pretty good. (On the other hand, that was so long ago I barely remember it. I remember liking it though.)
Also, the first few seasons of “The Drew Carrey Show” were pretty good.
If we count animated shows, then “King of the Hill”, “Family Guy”, and “The Simpsons” have all been very entertaining at times.
Excuse me, what other than my personal preferrence should I use to decide whether something is funny? Seinfeld may have been more funny than having a toothache… but not by much.
The question was not “is it funny regionally” or " do you think it’s funny". Some people are answering the second question, yes.
The question was: “are they overrated?” And Seinfeld sure is overrated. Like I said, it’s funny sometimes but not as great as people thought it was.
Friends- It shouldn’t even be called a sitcom. It should be called a Soap Opera
The Big Bang Theory- Tried watching an episode , I thought it was boring. I’d rather learn about the actual Big Bang Theory, than watch this.
Seinfeld- LOVE the show, but I just think it’s overrated. That’s all.
All In The Family- Again, extremely overrated.
The Vicar of Dibley made it to #3 on a “Best British Sitcoms of all time” list a few years ago. I have absolutely no idea why.
I think jimmmy nailed it on July 11, 2005 – Frasier won 37 Emmy awards (!) and it was nothing particularly special for a sitcom (IMO) other than having a high-brow main character.
There is zero chance that I would watch a rerun of Frasier nowadays, whereas I’d be perfectly willing to watch an old Seinfeld or Friends episode if I had nothing better to do.
Friends. By a country mile.
It is overrated, but I would not base that on the finale, which was widely panned. So much so that Larry David made a “new” one on his Enthusiasm show.
I get that the masses like simple sitcoms, but if this show is widely viewed as a great show, then it is definitely overrated. Is it? I thought it was kind of mass-produced garbage, like that 2 1/2 Men show.
Cheers. a bunch of mentally retarded people hang around a bar, pick their noses, and tell lousy jokes.
I would have voted for Roseanne at the time this thread was going on in 2005. I’ll still vote for Roseanne today. It was to depressing to be a good sitcom. It seems like every other episode was about one of the daughters or Roseanne’s sister having trouble with a no good boyfriend. The other episodes seemed like they were about Dan drinking to much because of problems at work or DJ getting in trouble at school because he didn’t get enough attention at home. It was just depressing with the focus on major real world issues like those.
I’m a huge fan, and even I found the finale terrible. Plus, the only appeal was that it was a collection of references to past episodes, so it’s basically the worst place to start.
My vote for most overrated goes to Friends.
All In The Family is in the same boat as I Love Lucy. Both shows were extremely influential and ground-breaking. If you think that All In The Family is overrated, it’s because you don’t understand what TV was like before then.
I noticed that the Dick van Dyke Show, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the Andy Griffith Show are all apparently NOT overrated.
Are you out of your mind? I love that show.
I’ll contribute to a zombie:
Married With Children
Sex and the City
Girls
More recent contenders:
Vicious, a truly vacuous show starring two of the best actors the UK has produced.
Transparent, which I’m sure will earn me some “Whaaa?” comments. Could not get into it and gave up after a few episodes of watching truly self-absorbed people behaving viciously to people they supposedly loved.
I like biting comedy, but people yelling at each other just gets on my nerves.
None of what I ever saw of Friends was particularly funny, but I suppose that the show did have some merit as a soap opera, if that’s the sort of thing you’re interested in. Definitely overrated, but not the most overrated.
Seinfeld, on the other hand, was not only consistently unfunny, but it didn’t have anything else to recommend it, either. And while I’ll grant that there are probably even worse shows out there that I’ve mercifully never seen, none of them has gotten nearly as much acclaim as Seinfeld, so I stand by the assessment that it’s definitely the most overrated.
On another note, while I personally love The Big Bang Theory, I never cease to be amazed at how popular it is. It appears to be targeted at nerds (hence it’s not surprising that I like it), but most people aren’t nerds. What does everyone else see in it?