I thought Gilligan’s Island was the funniest thing on the air; never missed an episode, and it kept me in stitches, every time. I was also fond of The Beverly Hillbillies.
…of course, I was something like five years old at the time, as well. I’ve watched it since then, and have found that my tastes have kind of left it behind.
Friends is all right; I always kind of thought of it as “Lowest Common Denominator Television.” It doesn’t send me screaming from the room or anything. Seinfeld, on the other hand… well, Jerry Seinfeld’s stand up routine is funny. His show, on the other hand… I never understood why so many people seemed to think it was genius, although I will admit it had its moments.
In the original time period of this thread, I would have gone along with Friends. Just awful.
In the current time period, mos def Modern Family. I adore Julie Bowen, but don’t like any of the rest of the characters and why is Sophia Vergara so darn LOUD???
Because the average male viewer needs a reason not to want to fuck her. Duh!
And in response to some points made ten years ago: Seinfeld is brilliant because it presents selfishness and narcissism as attractive traits. And Will & Grace is awful because it keeps congratulating itself for breaking ground that hasn’t been unbroken in decades.
Everyone saying Seinfeld is flat out wrong. The only way they could be wronger is they were the ones saying I Love Lucy.
Anyway, 30 Rock never should have gotten on the air, it was terminally not funny, but that’s what one should expect with Tina Fay as the lead.
I tried to watch this once, because everyone was talking about how funny it was. Well, I could tell where I was supposed to laugh (although the Laff-Trak helped), but the lines just weren’t funny.
The main character is a sociopath who believes ALL other people exist just to serve him, while the other “geniuses” kiss his butt.
I guess that I will start to get the hate once this is posted, but I have to have my say.
30 Rock was touch-and-go for the first few seasons–Remember the very weird episode where Liz had to take sensitivity training for sexually harassing men?–but it became great TV eventually. It was kind of understood early on that Tina Fey has a Great American Sitcom in her, 30 Rock wasn’t it, and it was something we all would have to endure while she figured out her learning curve. Sadly, that goes double for Kimmy Schmidt.
Friends in my opinion is really well made, its just that its very safe, mellow and mainstream that I assume annoys people who dislike it.
I’d ahve to go with YogSosoth and say Everyone Loves Raymond. That show just recycled the same old, slowwwww joke over and over again. Mind dumbilngly boring.
I’m bummed to see how many have mentioned Roseanne. That was one of my favorites growing up. It always seemed to me like one of the only shows at that time that was actually about a family like mine… kinda dysfunctional, lower middle class, lots of sarcastic humor, flawed…
Friends, on the other hand, while I liked it well enough at the time, it just seems so unwatchably dated to me now.
There was one show where Vanessa lied to her parents and snuck out with her friends to go see a concert. Their car was stolen, their tickets to the concert were stolen by an “usher” and by the time they got home Claire and Cliff were righteously pissed.
The scene where Claire rips her a new one still makes me shake in my boots.
I really dislike The Big Bang Theory, it was mildly diverting when it started, but:
it just isn’t that funny
Once the humour is stripped away you have a completely unrealistic with paint-by-numbers plots (yes I realize that sitcoms can be completely unrealistic or have clever plots, for example two of my favourite Father Ted and Bottom, but if the humour isn’t hitting the mark a lot of the time you need something else to divert you).
I’ll also agree with Vicar of Dibley, why do the BBC try to insists that this Dawn French-vehicle is a classic? I used to love Last of the Summer Wine when I was about 10 years old, but if I watch it now I think you’d have to be as easily pleased as a 10 year old to find it funny. It is what it is, but Reeves and Mortimer pastiched it brilliantly as “Three Blokes in a Bath”.