Image Credit: Michael Yarish/CBS/ Everett Collection The fact that it only lasted two seasons is an injustice that still inspires Bettinger-level tantrums in fans. A critical hit from the get-go, this was one of the rare sitcoms of the time to truly revel in its lead character’s bad behavior the pilot concerns Bill finding out that his best friend has just died… and then desperately trying to get the guy’s job at 60 Minutes. He’s also a quick-tempered hypocrite, a nightmare of a boss, a selfish bastard, and a womanizing, sexist pig. Coleman’s Bill Bittinger is the Number One-rated daytime talk-show host in Buffalo, New York, railing against the smut peddlers and immoral businessmen tainting our great nation. Nobody played irascible, chauvinistic sons of bitches in the early 1980s better than Dabney Coleman - and instead of trying to soft-pedal the Texas character actor’s toxic-caveman persona for primetime audiences, this NBC sitcom doubled down on it. Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Everett Collection Bonus points to Siobhan Sweeney as the deadly-dry Sister Michael, beleaguered headmistress of the girls’ school, and Game of Thrones ’ Ian McElhinney as curmudgeonly Granda Joe. These are characters full of heart but devoid of sentimentality, as only people who’ve been getting on with their lives amid generations of conflict can be. Creator Lisa McGee wrote the show based on her own experiences growing up in Derry, which explains its earthy charm and gimlet-eyed nostalgia. D.F.Īgainst the backdrop of the Troubles in 1990s Northern Ireland, headstrong Erin (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), her kooky cousin Orla (Louisa Harland), uptight Clare (Nicola Coughlan), and party girl Michelle (Jamie-Lee O’Donnell) - plus her cousin, “wee English fella” James (Dylan Llewellyn) - stumble through teenage antics from burning down the local chip-shop owner’s flat to clogging the toilet at a funeral repast with weed-infused scones. By the time Dan pulled the plug after six seasons, he’d already given the world a modern TV classic - one that swept the comedy categories at last year’s Emmys. Catherine O’Hara’s Moira Rose is the diva to end all divas Annie Murphy’s Alexis completely updates the ditzy-socialite type for the 21 st century ( her theme song is priceless) and if eye-rolling were an Olympic sport, both the older and younger Levys would be gold medalists. What starts out as a fish-out-of-water comedy turns into an ode to community and kindness, and it’s to the credit of co-creators and co-stars Eugene and Dan Levy that the series finds the perfect balance between genuine sweetness and side-splitting snark. Having lost his fortune after being bled dry by a business manager, video-store mogul John Rose and his family find themselves relocating to Schitt’s Creek - a small backwoods town that John once bought for his son David as a joke. Then we considered not just how much these series made us laugh, but also how much they influenced the shows that followed, how well they reflected the world around them, and, on occasion, how deeply they made us feel emotions beyond mirth. Mostly, though, we were looking for a consistent group of characters and settings. This list is also composed entirely of English-language comedies, primarily American ones, with a handful of British and Canadian shows making the cut. Half-hour dramedies presented a blurrier picture we took those on a case-by-case basis, applying our own version of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous definition of obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” Where Enlightened and The Wonder Years seemed to fall just too far over the drama side of the line, for example, Atlanta and Better Things had enough comedy to qualify. Ditto comedy-drama hybrids that ran around an hour - Freaks and Geeks, say, or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Sketch comedies were out, from the explicit, like Saturday Night Live and The Muppet Show, to the more ambiguous, such as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. To choose the 100 greatest sitcoms ever, we first had to decide how to define the term. From Rob Petrie tripping over his ottoman on The Dick Van Dyke Show to Ilana face-planting on a Broad City subway car from The Honeymooners ’ Ralph Kramden barely containing his frustration with Ed Norton to Atlanta ’s Paper Boi doing the same with his cousin Earn from Lucy Ricardo getting drunk on Vitameatavegamin to Fleabag enjoying Gin in a Tin with the hot priest, the genre’s most beloved characters have been by our sides. For more than eight decades, the sitcom has both marked the times and provided a balm against them.
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