Your 5 All-Time Favorite Sit-Coms

Cafe Society
41
  1. Mary Tyler Moore Show
  2. I Love Lucy
  3. Soap
  4. All in the Family
  5. MAS*H

My goodness, apparently time stopped for me around 1981.

42
  1. The Larry Sanders Show
  2. Scrubs
  3. Seinfeld
  4. NewsRadio
  5. Grounded for Life

Okay, I don’t know how Grounded snuck in there either. But I really enjoyed it during its first run, taping it because I was never home on Friday nights. Then ABC Family started airing it during the afternoon, so I started to tape it when nothing else was on just so I had something to watch at night. It’s even better than I remember. Of note is that I think Lilly is one of the better portrayals of a teen girl ever put on television, in any genre. Plus, Donal Logue and Kevin Corrigan; both those guys are pure gold.

43

I’m not so sure about that. Ricky Gervais created a character for the ages with David Brent, but I think Steve Carell and the U.S. writers have worked wonders in making Michael Scott a fascinating character too. You hate him, you’re embarrassed by him, then you’re embarrassed FOR him, then you just pity him, then that pity leads to hate, then he does something to make you think he’s not such a bad guy after all, then he surprises you by doing something extremely competent, then you just shake your head in disgust at his stupidity or tactlessness all over again.

After that, I prefer the U.S. version for the following reasons:

  1. Dwight is more malevolent than Gareth, and smarter as well. At first he was very much like Gareth-lite until he stole that big sale out from under Jim, which made him a force to be reckoned with, albeit a mostly-pathetic one. His secret hook-up with Angela gives him another whole dimension, and his asides to the camera are just classics.

  2. Pam is spunkier, cooler, and funnier than Dawn. Dawn seemed so sweet, sad, and understated, but I totally see what Jim sees in Pam. Plus Jenna Fischer is gorgeous, and not in an overdone Hollywood starlet sort of way. She really looks like an office receptionist, a very pretty girl whose fella hasn’t told her nearly enough how pretty or how terrific she is.

  3. Jim is more charming than Tim. I like Tim a lot, don’t get me wrong, but Tim seemed so resigned to his fate – still living at home, a university dropout, still at the office three years later after passing over a promotion. He’ll very likely be there forever. Jim is set in his ways too, but he’s trying to move on – the Pam/Roy triangle has done a lot to help him see he needs to get a life. It seems clear he is college-educated and could do better in every aspect of his life, but mostly I like him because he seems like a good, upstanding guy (sticking up for Michael, driving Dwight to the hospital, counseling Kelly, and so on). It helps that I relate to him a lot, and not just because of the Pam situation.

  4. The American supporting cast has really come into their own. It’s hard to watch a few times and not really love Kelly, Stanley, Creed, Angela, Phyllis, Meredith, Oscar, Kevin, and Toby. You see, I know them all as distinct characters with their own personalities and quirks, and they interact constantly. Aside from Keith, the big weird guy, you never got to know the other workers in the UK Office the same way.

44

Waaaaay out in first place:

I Love Lucy

Then:
Who’s Line Is It, Anyway?
MAS*H
Red Dwarf
Are You Being Served?
For radio:

Fibber McGee and Molly

45

The US version is funny and real. The British is mostly just painful.