Should have been #86.
It’s the Shout Factory version where they got licensing for most of the original music: Hot Blooded for Les’ toupee, Fly Me to the Moon for Jennifer’s door chime, no “Terrible Dresser” cringe, etc. It’s not a music issue (again, first season is golden, second has its charms) it’s just a change in tone from station hijinks to “Let’s explore [character’s] family life and what really makes them tick as a person…”
Pleased to see Bluey made the list, even if it’s up in the 90s. Probably no other show does a better job depicting parenting little kids.
I remember seeing that version with ‘mostly restored music’, but holy crap at the time I think it was something like $300 for a three-season box set on Amazon.ca. Not even Blu-Ray, as I recall.
Anyway… I guess I liked more episodes than you did, but you’re right about the third season. Was that the season with the Who concert where the kids got trampled because of general admission seating? And the stuff with Venus and prison? It’s actually been quite a long time since I saw the entire show. Maybe if I re-watched it I’d be more in line with your opinion.
You’re right… but there was so much gold for a three season show. Besides the turkeys…
- The baseball game with WPIG.
- Johnny Fever getting faster in reflexes as he drinks more in the sobriety test
- “We’re scum of the earth”
- The holdup in the record store by the unemployed DJ during a location bit.
- The old protesters demanding the old format back.
- Christmas at Jennifer’s
But yeah… enough about the show. Can we talk about why Archer isn’t on the list? Wait, I had something for that…
All of those were from Season 1. Season 2 had the Who concert episode (which was well done) and Americanization of Ivan (Tiny Dancer) which are the most notable non-S1 episodes. I definitely think WKRP deserves to be on the list but I understand why it didn’t rate higher.
Agreed about Archer though!
It would have been better if they’d outright called it the best US sitcoms, or possibly North American. Two of them - the Mary Tyler Moore Show and the Honeymooners - were barely shown outside North America, and, apart from the Simpsons and possibly Parks and Rec, the others were far, far more influential on US comedy than on comedy in other countries.
There’s nothing wrong with focusing on US comedies - I mean, there are enough of them to fill up the whole 100 without getting down to the dregs. But it’s weird to pretend it’s an international list.
It would have been better had Howard Hesseman actually said that line, but I can’t think of anything else that Richard Sanders was in. (Looking at IMDB, I see that he’s had a prolific career, though nothing as prominent as his iconic role as the turkey dropper.
The music licensing issues were mostly addressed in the DVD release of the series which Shout! Factory put out in 2014; they were able to secure licenses for about 85% of the original music (they indicated that, in some cases, they simply could not secure licensing).
But, I don’t think that the show has been widely shown in syndication for years, nor do I think that any of the retro cable channels, like MeTV, show it; I suspect that many younger viewers just aren’t familiar with it, and a lot of people who watched it originally may not remember it as well, due to its lack of recent showings.
I watched all of the first two seasons a couple of years ago on DVD, and I think that, for the most part, it does hold up pretty well.
The episode about the bomb threat gave me nightmares. The cliffhanger at the end of the first episode when the gang figures out that the bomb is at the transmitter and the camera zooms in on Johnny drumming on an old toolbox gave me chills. I must have been about eleven years old when that episode aired, but I can still feel the dread that image burned into my mind.
Must be. I wish this stuff could have been worked out. There is an episode of Cheers that heavily relies on repeating “Monster Mash” throughout. When I last saw it on Hulu, it had been replaced by some original generic sounding Halloween song.
(See post #69. 
)
That was actually the Big Guy’s line.
There’s a lot of stuff there that I would not even call sitcom, like SpongeBob or Big Mouth.
And the top ten list is just pants. Only one thing there I’d even have in my top 20, never mind 10.
Also pants is the ridiculous position of many worthier entries, like Spaced or Brooklyn 99
pants?
There are a lot of shows on that list I have never heard of.
But then, if it was my list, I would have littered it with stuff like Red Dwarf, ALF, and Mr Merlin just for fun.
Jeez, that’s a blast from the past.
thanks!
I kinda assumed that’s what it meant from context, just never heard it before.
Dinosaurs has just dropped on Disney+ and I’ve started rewatching it for the first time since it originally aired. Yes, it’s a standard Honeymooners/Flintstones setup but damn, it still holds up remarkably well (apart from some of the production values) and is actually funnier than I remember.
Definitely a contender.
Other shows I could’ve listed include: Love Sidney; It’s A Living; The Duck Factory; THROB; Duet; We Got It Made; or Aliens In The Family.