10 in 25

The Top 10 Sitcoms Over the Last 25 Years

Frasier: This 1990’s Cheers spinoff about an overly intellectual, sometimes arrogant, Seattle psychiatrist won a record 37 Emmy awards during its 11-year run. The complicated relationships between the recently divorced title character, Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammar), his elitist brother, Niles (David Hyde Pierce), and his live-in father, Martin (John Mahoney), provided for outstanding comedy moments. However, it was Niles’s constant longing for and eventual union with Frasier’s live-in housekeeper, Daphne (Jane Leeves), that gave the show its heart.

Spin City: Easily the most underrated sitcom of the past quarter century, this was the rare show that excelled even after the loss of its biggest star. Long before The Office captured the attention of Americans, Spin City offered a parody of the ineptness of mayoral office employees. Many thought that when the deputy mayor and main character of the show, Michael Flaherty, played by the energetic Michael J. Fox, left after the show’s fourth season that the show would seriously decline in quality. Instead, the arrival of the new deputy mayor, Charlie Crawford (Charlie Sheen), took the show to new comedic heights. The presence of a number of beautiful actresses, including the outstanding Heather Locklear, did nothing to detract from the show’s greatness.

Home Improvement: The vehicle that launched the careers of Tim Allen and Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a must-see family program for eight seasons in the 1990s. The show revolved around the relationships between the Taylors (Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson), their three sons, and Tim’s best friend and co-host of the fictional building show, "Tool Time," Al Borland (Richard Karn). Tim Taylor’s zany antics and subsequent apologies to wife, Jill, was the primary focus of many humorous episodes. This show was a ratings success throughout its run.

Everybody Loves Raymond: A show very much like Home Improvement in its star-with-a-family emphasis, but much different in its focus on meddling parents and relationship struggles. While Ray and Debra Barone (Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton) labor to raise their kids and have an active sex life, the primary comedic characters of many of the show’s episodes are the other adult family members, Ray’s intrusive parents (Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts and gloomy brother (Brad Garrett). While the show maintained a certain edginess in its familial relationships, focusing many jokes on the family’s dysfunction, the Barone family members were quick to support one another when troubles arose. The show twice won the Emmy award for Outstanding Comedy Series.

The Simpsons: The first and best animated comedy series is now in its 19th season on Fox, having won 23 Emmy Awards. Taking place in fictional Springfield, the Simpson family, particularly father Homer, engages in hilarious and sometimes bizarre behavior, which usually have severe ramifications. The show’s continued success is largely due to two factors: its writing, which often takes on smart, political overtones and its frequent guest voiceover appearances, which run the gauntlet from music and Hollywood to politics.

Family Ties: The successful NBC sitcom that made Michael J. Fox a household name peaked at #2 in the Nielsen ratings at the height of its popularity in the mid-1980s. The show was based on political and cultural conflicts within the Keaton family. The liberal suburbanite parents (Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter) were often humorously pitted against their conservative son (Fox).

The Cosby Show: The best and perhaps, most revolutionary, family sitcom of the last 25 years, The Cosby Show, finished as the highest rated show on television for five consecutive years from 1986 to 1990. The show about an upper-middle class African American family living in Brooklyn was one of the first shows on television to portray an African American family as wealthy upper class citizens. Heathcliff and Claire Huxtable’s (Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad) struggles to raise their five kids provided weekly enjoyment for millions of Americans each Thursday night.

Friends: My personal favorite sitcom ever, featuring one of the greatest ensemble casts in the history of television, was “must-see” television for millions of twenty and thirty-somethings for a decade in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The on-again, off-again relationship between Ross Geller and Rachel Green (David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston) carried the show through its early seasons. Eventually the focus of the show shifted away from Ross and Rachel to the blossoming romance of best friends, Chandler Bing and Monica Geller, (Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox). All the while, the show smartly maintained enough quality storylines for Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and Joey (Matt LeBlanc).

Seinfeld: This show about nothing was called the greatest American TV show of all time by TV Guide. Starring comedian Jerry Seinfeld as himself, this show about four self-absorbed New Yorkers focused entire episodes on the minutia of life, injecting humor into small things, such as waiting for a table at a restaurant or a poofy shirt. While Seinfeld was responsible for much of the show’s humor, it was the three supporting characters, Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss), Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards), and especially, the neurotic George Costanza (Jason Alexander) that kept viewers coming back to Seinfeld each week. None of the four characters were even remotely lovable, but their weekly travails, such as a famous contest to determine who was the “master of their domain,” provided some of the funniest TV moments of the last 25 years.

Cheers: The smartest and best comedy of the last quarter century was focused on the regular comings and goings amongst friends in a Boston bar, where “everybody knows your name.” Though the show was largely an ensemble featuring the bar regulars, the show focused much of the first half of its run on the relationship between retired baseball player and bar owner, Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and graduate student and waitress, Diane Chambers (Shelley Long). Though the show remained great for most of its 11-year run, it peaked in the early years when the on-again, off-again romance between the everyman Sam and the pretentious Diane captivated America before Long prematurely left the show in 1987. Despite Long’s absence, the NBC show’s ratings continued to thrive until it finished its run in 1993.

Honorable Mention:
1. Murphy Brown
2. The Office
3. The Golden Girls
4. Married With Children