Breaking Bad (finally watched some past episodes.) The only ones who say it’s better than MASH were too young or too tired to appreciate the latter.
Back in the old days it was Baywatch.
Yeah, Breaking Bad really wasn’t that funny. I don’t know why everyone thinks it’s the best sitcom ever.
Diceman I was thinking about “Seinfeld” before opening your thread. But honestly I can’t really nominate one objectively. I will pitch in “Modern Family”.
Eh, I think that the ratings for Baywatch were pretty accurate. Everyone knew that the appeal of that show was primarily in watching women with surgically-enhanced bosoms running in slow motion, and nobody ever really pretended otherwise.
I don’t know why anybody would ever think it’s a sitcom. It has some amusing moments, but it’s not meant to be a comedy.
Or was I just whooshed (again)?
***Cosby
Wings
Friends
Seinfeld
Sex in the City
All in the Family
Roseanne***
Could never sit through more than two episodes of any of them (and frequently, no more than one).
Married … with Children, on the other hand, is pure gold! :o
I know this is not a sitcom but the Today Show !
Friends. In a New York minute!
I know. It is too close to a documentary. 
So you’re saying Cheers predicted the internet?
Breaking Bad isn’t even a sitcom. Its a DRAMA. Gees.
Could nobody in 2005 remember Murphy Brown? It was on for ten seasons and won 19 Emmy’s. And was the least interesting sitcom I ever saw.
Especially with that annoying, over-the-top laugh track.
mmm
Looking at the Emmy Award winners for best comedy, which mainly consists of sitcoms after around 1962…(aside from I Love Lucy, variety shows dominated earlier).
“Get Smart” was a quirky little show, but I don’t know if it was good enough for two Emmy wins in the late 1960s. It beat Bewitched twice, though that was during the later years of that show. In general, the late 1960s seemed to be a lackluster period for sitcoms, with many earlier shows lingering past their prime, and few sitcoms with the social or cultural impact that the best sitcoms of the 1970s had. One really great one from those years that never caught on was “He and She.”
The 1970s were a golden age for sitcoms in retrospect.
The 1980s had hits and misses. I thought the Cosby Show had won more Emmys; still the hype it received in its heyday and its high ratings now seem far out of proportion to its relevance.
Murphy Brown was a solid enough show, but it seemed too derivative of the Mary Tyler Moore show, and its critical success seemed to reflect how critics love shows about the television business. Aside from the Dan Quayle controversy, its hard to remember much about this show.
As it happens, I recently watched through the first couple of seasons of the Cosby Show, in order to make a video of creepy Cosby moments.
I am quite confident that this show is the winner, at least in terms of funniness. There was never anything funny that happened on this show. Regular big laughs from the audience would be when a kid said something, and Cosby repeated it. I suppose people liked it because they like to spend time with this family, rather than because of humor, but to me they just seemed sort of bland and unrealistic. Also, at one point Cosby kissed the oldest daughter on her mouth.
I’m not a big fan of Friends, or the characters in the show, but there was undeniably some humorous situations and jokes.
I have to go with Seinfeld. Although there are seasons of brilliance, I don’t think the last few seasons hold up well at all. If you take the entire run and hold it up to the light, the final 3 cash-grab seasons diminish the gloss on the whole shebang.
Frasier, on the other hand, had a slight dip in the last two seasons but not nearly as bad as what happened to Seinfeld. They still had some consistently excellent material until the very end.
Cliff Clavin didn’t predict the Internet so much as embodied it.
I watched VERY little TV during the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and early 00’s so was delighted to see that Friends and Seinfeld were over-rated – I’d completely missed out on these famous American icons.
(For the past several years I’ve been binge-watching TV series, most mediocre but some very good. I won’t bother to detail the very good ones since in most cases I acted on hints from this forum!)
Agreed, though Jackie Gleason and Art Carney are special. BTW, The Late Show with Art Carney and Lily Tomlin is a (little-known?) film in the “neonoir”(?) genre worth watching.
Just because a couple of people claim something is overrated doesn’t mean it is. After all the most overrated sitcom ever was The Daily Show. Bunch of hacks at that show.
The Middle. How is that show still on the air?
No it was second. The most over rated sitcom was This is Your Life.