And I had no use for SNL after I saw this bit. I figured they’d peaked.
Job interview with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor - no link provided - the curious can search YouTube.
Another - qualified - vote for Cheers. I re-watched it a few years back. It’s still good but it does feel slightly dated.
I would strongly recommend Scrubs. It has a clear narrative arc from beginning to end covering three doctors from their first day at a hospital to fully qualified. It is very funny (in my opinion) but it also includes a lot of drama. It never drags, though, and laughs are never far away.
TCM4-2L
I almost forgot about this. I don’t remember what I was actually looking for on YouTube when I stumbled on it. Collection of “Sally Solomon” moments to the song “I Feel Like a Woman.” It cracks me up.
I don’t know about all of these newfangled sitcoms. The Honeymooners is the archetypal sitcom that is still funny to this day.
This is the scene from 3rd Rock I remember best; Tommy and Harry feed a baby (I think the landlady’s grandchild).
King of the Hill was great, and definitely worth watching.
There’s a British sitcom called As Time Goes By with Judy Dench and Geoffrey Palmer that was done in the late 80 to the mid-90. Is absolutely brilliant, clean and wholesome yet funnier than anything else I’ve ever seen. Its available on Brit Box, which is an Amazon Prime channel that you can subscribe to with a free trial.
*
Fawlty Towers* is also great. Also available on Brit Box.
Not necessarily a sitcom, but Northern Exposure was (and probably remains) the best TV show ever broadcast on American TV. Unfortunately, it is not available on any streaming platform that I am aware of, which sucks mightily. However, you can find the seasons on DVD cheap on Amazon. If you’ve never seen it do yourself a HUGE favor and watch the first season. Hopefully you’ll be hooked. And it only gets better.
Brooklyn 99. Andre Braugher is a national treasure.
The Good Place.
Doesn’t look like ‘My name is Earl’ has been mentioned yet, but it’s great.
I’ve never seen Northern Exposure, but I still feel obligated to suggest that Twin Peaks was better.
I swear that at the meeting where Twin Peaks was pitched someone said “And if that’s too dark for you, we’ve got a comedy! Also has quirky characters, but this time they’re funny.”
Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks were both filmed in the same area east of Seattle. We did a road trip and felt like we were in both shows at once… surreal.
There are currently only a couple mini seasons but Miracle Worker with Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi as God (in the first season, Edward Shitshoveler in the second) is a fun watch. On Hulu.
Derry Girls or Gavin and Stacey, if you’re a bit of an Anglophile.
A sweet show that’s hard to find, and I can’t guarantee everyone will like, because not every script is a winner, is the late 70s UK show No, Honestly. Personally, I love this show. I love it, because two of the writers from Upstairs, Downstairs wrote it specifically for the real-life married couple Pauline Collins & John Alderton. Collins had a major role in the first season of Upstairs, Downstairs, as the underhouse-parlourmaid, Sarah, one of the best roles for an actress, ever.
No, Honestly is a love story in episodes, and also a comedy. If you give yourself over to the story, then the comedy is really, really funny, and the real couple have fantastic chemistry on-screen, which you can enjoy if you let yourself.
I loved No, Honestly, but I love Pauline Collins. My sister is watching Shirley Valentine in the other room as we speak.
We found a series (only two seasons) on Acorn that we loved – Raised by Wolves. You might need to turn on captions for the Midlands accent, but it’s hilarious.
Like I said, I’ve never seen NE. However, Twin Peaks is one of my favorite shows any TP and NE tend to show up on a lot of the same lists and both tend to get mentioned in the same breath on any documentary type shows about 90’s TV or 90’s pop culture.
The entirety of my knowledge of Northern Exposure was a two second clip of a parody version of it called Northern Overexposure in the movie Stay Tuned.
I have just started re-watching The IT Crowd, a ridiculous and very funny British comedy from a few years ago. About 25 episodes in all over several seasons.
I’ll second IT Crowd. Really funny, but some people (my parents) can’t get past the British. Sigh.
Superstore currently has 5 free seasons on OnDemand and it is consistently laugh out loud funny with a great cast. Almost like Friends meets The Office. I’ve watched every episode twice in the past week and there is so much good stuff I don’t know why I’ve never heard ANYONE talk about it. Not in person, not on social media - nothing. But I can’t recommend it highly enough.
There is no better tv show than Northern Exposure. (drops mic).
There is supposed to be a reboot coming , no idea if it is, or is not, it seems to be either a done deal or just a rumour.
:eek::eek:
:(
I could never get into Twin Peaks. Both my kids liked it, so I gave it a couple of tries but just couldn’t do it. I gave up after 3 or 4 episodes. I could never understand the appeal of Lynch’ work – Mulholland Drive was the most pointless movie I’ve ever seen. Fundamentally, I feel like Twin Peaks concentrated on the worst aspects of small town people, and Northern Exposure concentrated on the best. In TP everyone was a jerk or a creep or some sort of victim, and in NE everyone was the opposite. Fleishman could be a conceited blowhard, but that was part of the show’s charm: the rest of the townspeople spent 6 years teaching how how to appreciate life – and Fleischman was a good person. It was a very character-driven show. The final season, after Rob Morrow left, was pretty shitty but the rest was absolutely brilliant. Do yourself a favor and try to find the first few episodes and watch them. I suspect you won’t be disappointed.
The original airings made brilliant use of music. Unfortunately the DVD’s in the US don’t have the original soundtrack, which do detract some from the show – but only if you saw it in its original run, which I did. If you get into it, find the Blu-Ray B/2 (non-US) set, which has the original music.
Two of the main cast – Peg Phillips and Moultrie Patten – have passed away and Cynthia Geary (Shelly) hasn’t acted in years. I suspect that, rumor or not, it’ll never happen. But that’s ok. It was so brilliantly done it would be hard to improve on it. Plus, it was a fish-out-of-water story. What would they do, have Fleishman move back to Alaska for his midlife crisis? The way the show ended, there really wasn’t much left to say.
“Joel goes back to attend the funeral of a major character”. (I bet I know which one, he was just in a current tv show last week)… Since Darren Burrows (Ed Chigliak) has been behind this remake, I’m sure he’ll be in it, too… Don’t know about Janine Turner. John Cullum (Holling) might still be around, if Shelly isn’t in it, it would be interesting to find out what became of her… I dunno, a lot has changed since the show was on. Climate change, trashy people with guns and meth, cell phones and computers, not much whimsey.