Brandon’s 100 Greatest Television Shows of All Time

Recently, Variety released their 100 greatest television shows of all time. And let me tell you…it was asssssssssssss. It was bad enough that i’ve come out of semi-retirement to write about it. If you do something so egregious as to make I Love Lucy as the greatest show of all time, you had better believe i’m going to write about it.

I’ve decided that I, and I exclusively I, am uniquely qualified to write my own list of the greatest shows of all time. What credentials do I have? Go to Hell! Those are my credentials!

Before I get into my list, a few ground rules:
*This is my list. I truly don’t give a damn how groundbreaking Lucille Ball’s physical humor was. Physical humor peaked on MTV in 2001 and won’t be topped unless we actually start killing people…in a funny way.
*I am willing to put shows on the list that I haven’t seen. I’ve never seen Game of Thrones because I was usually out drinking on Sunday nights, and dragons and orcs and Lord of the Rings prequels or whatever this is don’t interest me. But I do understand the cultural relevance.
*If a show caters mostly to sexually frustrated middle aged white women, then it’s out. Sorry Survivor, the Bachelor, the Masked Singer, anything with Steve Harvey, etc.
*I’m going to go ahead and punt on reality tv, because it’s hard to gauge what is and isn’t real. As much as Flavor of Love deserves to make this list, i’m going to have to omit so nobody has to question me why I didn’t put the ultra-contrived dealings of Real World on the list.
*Spin offs are allowed, but only within reason. If the show is just a blatant cash grab (looking in your direction, Cleveland Show) then it can’t be in consideration.
*Late night television shows are out. Johnny Carson and David Letterman are G.O.A.T.’ed. We all know this. But it’s too arbitrary to try to judge them generationally, and even though i’m definitely going to be completely and totally arbitrary with the entirety of this list, I have too much respect for Johnny, David, Conan and the others to rank them.
*If there is a show that you think should be on the list that isn’t on the list, I did it on purpose because I don’t like you. It doesn’t matter that i’ve never spoken to you about television before and actively avoid your social media account so I can know as little about you as possible, i’m DEFINITELY doing it on purpose. Sucks to suck.

Now onto the list!

1,007,823: I Love Lucy

People (mostly bitter and elderly) seem to think we, as a society, owe this show something. Every time the “greatness” of the show is mentioned, it is explained in the same way people explain why jazz is good. “It’s the notes they aren’t playing” is the musical equivalent of “Lucille Ball did all of this before most of the technology was available.” Pundits seem to view technological advancements in a harsh light against the past. The same thing is said in sports. Oh, you should see what Babe Ruth could do with modern technology. Babe Ruth drank enough to make me seem like a teetotaler and spent the entirety of his career hitting home runs off of guys who worked as coal miners in the offseason in an era where only white people were allowed to play. Get off your shit. Babe Ruth is prehistoric Matt Stairs, and Lucille Ball is Eric Andre with less charisma.

1,007,822: 3 South

This is a cartoon that didn’t even last a full season on MTV back in 2002. It was voiced by Brian Posehn and Brian Dunkelman, who is best remembered for co-hosting season one of American Idol before Ryan Seacrest took the show over himself. I put it one spot ahead of I Love Lucy to prove a point, but in truth, this woebegone memory of a show is about a million times funnier than the show directly before it on the list.

100: Band of Brothers

This show is fantastic but only existed for one season and most people have only ever seen it in the heavily homogenized version that airs around patriotic holidays on History Channel. It could have definitely gone on further, but HBO probably cancelled it for Entourage.

99: Wonder Years

Remember growing up hearing the rumor that Marilyn Manson was actually Paul from The Wonder Years? This was around the same time that rumors came out that Marilyn Manson had also removed his bottom ribs so he could fellate himself? Simpler days, my friends. Simpler days.

98: Greys Anatomy

I guess this show makes it due to longevity or whatever. I don’t know. This feels like one of those shows where it doesn’t get enough credit down the road because it wasn’t critically acclaimed in it’s time, but the show has been on for 20 seasons. That’s not an accident.

97: Orange Is The New Black

OITNB doesn’t get the same level of credit as Bojack Horseman for jump starting Netflix’s streaming services, but it probably should. It’s a show that wouldn’t have felt out of place on HBO or FX. It garnered respect before mainstream critics were willing to take streaming services seriously.

96: Brockmire

There are not enough good sports television shows out there, so this show helmed by Simpsons alum Hank Azaria gets a spot. The show was incredibly funny, had some of the worst baseball acting ever, and reminded us that Amanda Peet is a gem.

95: Living Single

I actually saw this show fairly regularly when I was 9-10 years old. When I rewatched it 30 years later, it is stunningly obvious that I had no idea what my prepubescent brain was laughing at back then. That said, it definitely explains the crush I still have on Maxine to this day.

94: Homeland

I don’t know. It’s good I guess. Better to put Homeland on the list rather than Shasta McNasty (yes, it’s a real show).

93: 1000 LB Sisters

This is truly the nadir of television and, quite possibly, human history. For those of you blissfully unaware. This show follows the adventures of the Slaton family, and most specifically Tammy and Amy, the namesake sisters of show. If you are looking for any type of nuance to that name, you know, like “Naked Lunch,” then you are in the wrong spot. The show is called that because the sisters, for the near entirety of the show, have weighed over a half ton.

The show is both an exploration into their day to day lives and struggles with losing weight, while also being a horrifying indictment of the rural Kentucky school systems. There is also an inspiring aspect to it in the sense that people who have had school fail them like this are millionaires on the back almost exclusively of Cameo, not to mention the show itself and all of the rest of the money they are making off of being themselves.

This show is trainwreck television. Slow motion trainwreck television. But also kind of great.

92: What We Do In The Shadows

One of the absolute smartest written shows on television, and it brings me sadness to know that the next season will be it’s last. Laszlo is my favorite character on television right now, and quite possibly in my top 10 of all time.

91: Nash Bridges

My grandma lived to be 91. She goddamn loved Nash Bridges. So it makes the list.

90: Letterkenny

While the patter of the dialogue can hover on repetitive, the show has done a better job of building it’s characters than almost any show nowadays, even as irreverent as the characters might be. The show has never cut that deep, and it doesn’t necessarily need to. Sometimes television can just be a respite from thought.

89: Trailer Park Boys

Trailer Park Boys crawled so Letterkenny could run. I have never been to Canada, but i’ve spent years thinking that all of Canada was just like Sunnyvale Trailer Park.

88: Rick and Morty

I actually like this show. A lot! But the show’s fans are the type of people who would SWAT my house if I speak ill of the show, so i’m just going to leave it here.

87: China Beach

Good show, but with a god tier opening credit.

86: The Kids In The Hall

The show doesn’t really hold up, but the cast are all first ballot “Hey I’ve seen that guy before” hall of famers.

85: Monty Python’s Flying Circus

This show doesn’t really hold up, but has a more zealous fanbase, so it gets to be ahead of Kids In The Hall.

84: Columbo

It was the gritty crime show that would go on to spawn every other gritty crime show that would come later. Watching back, Columbo actually holds up better than many shows of the era.

83: NewsRadio

Would be ranked higher, but it helped build the celebrity of Joe Rogan, so it gets stuck on the back end of the list. Because Rogan is the back end of an equine. Joe Rogan is a horses ass.

82: Scrubs

This is the case of a show not knowing when to end a good thing. Scrubs had a very devoted following, and there was a thought process that they could “Family Guy” the show back into existence. And they did! But it wasn’t the same show at that point. It had lost momentum. When ABC decided to bring on the show for a final eighth season, it felt like a logical, albeit drawn out, finale. Then, NBC brought the show back for a ninth season, with new cast members shotgunned into place without enough character development to make people care. Sometimes it’s better to leave the fans wanting more.

81: The Good Place

The good place was a spiritual successor to the great NBC comedies of the mid to late 2000’s, helmed by Michael Schur, whose credits include The Office, Parks and Rec, and Brooklyn Nine Nine. The show didn’t have the same cultural impact that the others did, but the show had the same writing chops as the others, and put into more original situations than simple workplace comedies of the era.

80: Baseball/The Civil War/Prohibition

Just going to go ahead and bunch these Ken Burns documentaries together. He is legendary for making these documentaries at his own pace, which often lets the doc breath, and lets the people on the episodes really explain the situations. You tend to walk away from his documentaries as a smarter person on the subject. Not ranked higher because of some white washing in both Baseball and The Civil War.

79: Silicon Valley

Lead by Mike Judge (his first of three appearances on this list) Silicon Valley can sometimes feel very insiderish when it comes to the tech community. That said, when the show hits, it flows perfectly and is able to keep the seasons very in tune to the overarching plots of the show. It also shows that there are different versions of happy endings, and that satisfaction sometimes lies in the eyes of the characters themselves.

78: Better Call Saul

This is one of those shows that I never really watched, but don’t really feel like getting bitched at for leaving it out, so 78 feels about right.

77: Ted Lasso

Great show that had the common sense to end when they realized they were about to find themselves boxed in by the story.

76: House Of Cards

It’s easy to forget how good this show was, as long as you can wash off some of the Kevin Spacey slime.

75: Fargo

An up and down show that gives better drama on a season to season basis than it is usually given credit for. When it’s good, it’s really good, and when it’s great, it’s still the kind of show that you go out of your way to tell people about. One of the great shows for the steaming era, because Hulu allows you to play catchup and, as every season is standalone, you can talk about large portions of the show without ruining the viewing experience.

74: Eastbound and Down

Wayyyy too many lists of greatest tv shows have come out that haven’t included Kenny Powers. It is infinitely quotable. The show didn’t overstay it’s welcome. It was so absurdly obvious that the people involved had no idea how to play baseball that it felt like a part of the bit. This was the cool show to watch when a million shows at the time just dreamed of being the cool show to watch.

73: Mystery Science Theater 3000

Quite possibly my first favorite show of all time. Just talking and cracking jokes about things that they thought were lame. The show was completely ahead of it’s time in that it basically was just what the internet would turn into a couple decades later.

72: Atlanta

Cool. Weird. Unpredictable. Everyone kind of already knew that Donald Glover was a genius. This show cemented it.

71: Full House

Everyone between the age of 30-45 was tangentially raised by Danny Tanner. He was the moral barometer for a generation.

70: The Bear

Yea, there have only been two seasons. But the Feast of the Seven Fishes episode is one of the best episodes of any tv show in any form in a very long time.

69: Louie

Separate the art from the artist a little bit. The show has been off of the air for years, and I haven’t watched an episode in nearly that long. But I still have episodes that pop into my head. The Joan Rivers episode. The episode where Chris Rock had to come get Louie. But what I think of the most is an episode that was basically just Louis CK and Robin Williams. A mutual acquaintance passed. They were the only ones who showed up to the funeral. They commiserated about how bad of a person the deceased was. Then as a joke, they went to a strip club he frequented with an unexpected ending.

The episode felt real in the moment, made even more so with Robin Williams passing shortly after the episode aired. It hit close to the soul. It reminded the viewer that all anyone really wants in life is to know that there is somebody out there who cares for them. It really is a powerful, wonderful episode of a show that has been mostly scraped from history.

68: Futurama

I’m somewhat sure they are actually still making episodes of this show, which means it has now surpassed King of the Hill for “Simpsons lead out with the longest longevity.”

67: Cobra Kai

Proved that when done right, you can take a great movie, and make something new and exciting out of it. Too often, these attempts are just edgy rehashings of classics. Cobra Kai takes the framework of the movies, then builds it’s own universe.

66: Married…With Children

The show mattered for a couple reasons. For one, it was a show that pushed the limits of good taste on network television, often to amazing results. But secondly, when the Fox network was essentially a fledgling Simpsons and almost nothing else, Married…With Children became the show the network could lean on during the week to go up against the big three of CBS, NBC, and ABC.

65: Reservation Dogs

I understand that they were ready to move on. But man, what I would give for one more season of this show. I don’t care that the final season was flawless. I already miss it.

64: Yellowstone

Probably put this too high on the list, but I don’t feel like changing it. Show is awesome. It made a whole lot of middle aged white people want to move to the Big Sky country.

63: Schitt’s Creek

The best comedies find their stride by season three. Schitt’s Creek didn’t even wait that long. They had the voices of the characters figured out so well going into season two that everything felt so tight and composed and the writing made every episode feel like it didn’t have a weakness.

62: Dr. Who

Credit for longevity and a devoted fan base. And also as a reminder that it’s definitely at least 20 spots better than Monty Python.

61: Sanford and Son

Red Foxx was one of the most legendary loose cannons in the history of Holywood. He was probably about one generation early from being an even bigger star, and while the entire show doesn’t still hold up, the framework definitely still does and the jokes still hit.

60: Black Mirror

I think my wife might get mad at me if I don’t include this show. I actually might be wrong. I could be thinking of a different show, but at this point i’m afraid to ask.

59: NYPD Blue

Gritty. Real. Dennis Franz’s bare ass.

58: The Mary Tyler Moore Show

I don’t know. I heard it’s good. I’m not gonna watch. Just be lucky I put this show in instead of Mama’s Family.

57: Fresh Prince of Bel Air

If this show got made today, idiots would decry it as woke for taking on topics like racism, absentee parentism, and police brutality. In the early 90’s, this was considered a mostly light hearted comedy.

56: Family Matters

The true G.O.A.T. of T.G.I.F. And I.D.G.A.F. what you think.

55: Beavis and Butthead

Proof that shows can evolve. Watching back on the older episodes (1991-1993) the most rewatchable part of the episodes is the music videos. Slowly, the actual stories kept getting better. Then they made their movie and disappeared for a decade. When they came back, they were making fun of Teen Mom and Jersey Shore. Then they disappeared for another decade and came back lampooning tik tok and Youtube stars. The stories kept getting better though, as the show explored the inner depth’s of the main character’s stupidity.

54: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I haven’t watched this show in at least five years. Pretty impressive it’s still going, though.

53: Twin Peaks

I barely understood what the shit was going on, so i’m just going to assume it was good.

52: The Cosby Show

Take all of the stuff I said about Fresh Prince, but include a lead actor who got CANCELLED FOR REAL.

51: Veep

The first season or so was uneven, but when it caught it’s stride, there was nothing better. Julia Luis Dreyfus was an absolute genius in her maniacal portrayal of a cut throat political hopeful and the quest thinking they would find happiness and what happens when you get what you really want.

50: I Think You Should Leave

The new cool kids comedy. I didn’t include it on the list, but i’m lumping Detroiters in here as well, because that show was so damn good, too. Tim Robinson was a secondary player on Saturday Night Live but has proven that he is one of the best sketch comedy artists alive since he left.

49: Monday Night Raw

Joke all you want, but this show has put out a new episode every Monday for the past 30 years. That is over 10k episodes. There is nothing quite like it in terms of longevity and prowess.

48: General Hospital

This show has been on television since 1963. Nothing that isn’t the news has existed that long.

47: Archer

At various points, this show was the best comedy going. The first three seasons went so hard that you couldn’t deny how good it was. Then it got stale. Then it got reinvented. Then it got reinvented, again. Then it got reinvented, again. Then it kind of went back to the beginning. But if you rewatch those shows that were reimagining themselves, they were still good. Not as good as the first run. But still good.

46: Barry

Bill Hader always felt like he would be a star. Even when he was just getting going on Saturday Night Live, he was getting roles on television shows and movies. There was always going to be an opportunity for Hader to show who he was. Barry seems so completely different than what the majority of people would have expected him to break out in. It works, though. He is brilliant. The show is great. It’s dark. It’s deeply funny. And like many shows of the era, it’s going to end long before fans are ready.

45: SCTV

Deserves it’s spot simply for launching John Candy’s career. Oh, and it also gave us Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, and Martin Short.

44: Family Guy

This show parallels The Simpsons in the sense that it has shone brightly and now overstayed it’s welcome by a long time. It’s also the show that was so great during it’s original run that by fan force of nature, it was brought back, and has now stayed back for two decades.

43: Parks and Recreation

It operated in the shadow of The Office for a large part of it’s run, and it never quite had the home run hitting ability of Steve Carell and crew, but it was such a consistently good show for an extended period of time, that when the show ended, it felt like the perfect end point. Ron Swanson is on the short list of most memorable television characters of all time.

42: Yo! MTV Raps

I remember waking up for school in the morning and a lot of times, this was what was playing. The show that introduced hip hop to white kids in the suburbs, it helped to break rap music to a larger audience and make it the prevailing genre of music. Usually does not get the credit it deserves.

41: Star Trek

The show that helped develop what nerd culture would become. The upsides to this show are known, as well as the downsides. Hardcore Star Trek fans will acknowledge it’s greatness while also being quick to say…

40: Star Trek: The Next Generation

…was the better show.

39: In Living Color

There is a wierdly zealous amount of people who now claim that Mad TV was actually the best sketch comedy show. Those people are idiots who only watch certain clips they remember and not the entire, brutally unfunny episodes. Also, it wasn’t even the best sketch comedy to be on the FOX network. In Living Color was more than just funny. It was a launching pad show for some of the funniest people of a generation. It also was responsible for an entire generation of comedy that would come later that didn’t feel like it had to make a joke to the lowest common denominator. It could be funny in it’s own skin. It could be itself.

38: Succession

This was a spectacular show like so many other HBO shows, but it pissed off after three seasons, so it doesn’t get ranked as high as it could have.

37: WKRP in Cincinnati

Very few shows that have a singular scene that is remembered forever. ln fact, many of the shows below don’t have that. BUT, every Thanksgiving, you will inevitably barrel through numerous social media posts from this very show. And it’s deserved. The scene is perfect.

36: Friday Night Lights

Unbelievably good show that somehow felt like it went off the rails rather than bite the bullet and try to build new characters properly.

35: The Shield

Everything I said about Columbo. But this show was better.

34: Golden Girls

The show absolutely still holds up. Some of the most clever writing in television at the time. The show won an outstanding writing Emmy in it’s first season. Writers on the show would go on to create Arrested Development and Modern Family. Betty White would go on to be the last surviving member of the show, somehow becoming even more legendary in the next 30 years after the cancellation.

33: Frasier

It was the show you watched when you thought you were clever. It’s still too clever for most people. Apparently it got rebooted on Paramount Plus or something. Haven’t watched it. Maybe I will. Who knows.

32: Roseanne

The unrest over the reboot notwithstanding, Roseanne was a spectacular show that took on tough topics with a brevity and freshness not seen on television. It was a powerhouse show, and this ranking definitely reflects me pretending the final season didn’t exist.

31: Comedy Central Presents

Other than the occasional HBO special, there were not a lot of avenues to break big in comedy. You pretty much had to ply your trade forever and hope you got on Leno or Letterman. Comedy Central Presents brought great comics to the forefront, by giving us their best hour sets, pruned down into half hour shows. Patton Oswalt, Lewis Black, Greg Proops, and Dave Attell all had great sets during the early seasons. Oh, and it was also the show that gave Mitch Hedberg to the world.

30: The Jeffersons

Take a guess on how many episodes of this show happened? No, too low. No, guess higher. No, a little bit higher than that. Give up? 253. Eleven seasons, 253 episodes. This show was an All In The Family spinoff that ended up outlasting the original by nearly 50 episodes! Bonus points for having one of the most iconic theme songs of all time.

29: Law and Order

The absolute hitlist for this show is off the charts. Between it and it’s spin offs, it has created enough television to circle the earth roughly 2.8 times.

28: The Bob Newhart Show

Another one of those shows where if I don’t list it, i’ll hear all about it from my more geriatric readership.

27: Community

I weighed whether to put the show higher, but the show starts to feel repetitive in it’s randomness the further the show goes on. That said, it’s a show I wish more people watched. I think there is an intersection of Schitts Creek and Community viewers that should be larger.

26: Friends

I always kind of felt like this show was Seinfeld Lite. The overarching stakes of the story lines were much larger, but it just never hit the jokes that Seinfeld did, and it never felt as clever. That being said, this show was a cultural capstone during the mid to late 90’s. This show was, and I mean this in the best way possible, the tv version of Hootie and the Blowfish.

25: Happy Days

So I really loved that one episode where everyone was dancing to the band at Arnold’s Diner and then the Fonz came in and he started dancing and everyone lost their minds. Wait, that was the Buddy Holly video by Weezer….

24: Jackass

Four movies. Influenced an entire generation of social media. And did you ever see Lucille Ball put a race car up her butt just to see what it would look like on an X-Ray? I think not.

23: Lost

It’s worth wondering whether this was the last true water cooler show, where people had to wait every week to talk about what had happened. And in it’s time,the show was HUGE. It hit it’s peak right before streaming started catching on like it did. It was a buzz show. It was a hype show. It was a show you felt like you should be watching because you didn’t want to be left out of the conversation.

22: ER

Dr. Green dying. The Christmas episode. No more explanation needed.

21: Mad Men

I’m making a slow hand jacking motion rather than trying to write about this show. People seemed to like it, though.

20: Arrested Development

I’m going to just go ahead and ignore the Netflix seasons, even though I recently rewatched the first Netflix season again and was shocked that it was much better than I thought during my initial run. I think part of the problem with the Netflix reboot was that the fans of this show were TRUE fans. They quoted it relentlessly. It was never going to live up to the initial three season run. The three season run was so damn good. They never bowed down or changed to be more palatable to a larger audience. They chose to be the smartest comedy on TV and television as a whole ended up better off for it.

19: The Office

I mean, what more is there to say about this show? Brian Bumgartner, who was never a main star of the show, makes a million dollars on Cameo each year due to being on the show. Jon Krasinski became a star from it. Steve Carell had a rocket strapped to his back after the show. Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsey created a hugely popular podcast based on the show. Rainn Wilson….well Rainn Wilson deserved better. It still boggles me to this day that the spin-off The Farm never got made.

18: Stranger Things

The show grew up with it’s actors. A lot of shows wouldn’t have leaned into the characters growing up and the city and surroundings growing up around them. One of the pinnacle shows to binge watch because it was written so well that you never felt like you could stop watching. You ALWAYS needed to watch that next episode.

17: Game of Thrones

I’m pretty sure this is based on Dungeons and Dragons, so I rolled a 20 sided dice to determine which spot on the list this show should end up at.

16: King of the Hill

The most underrated show in television history. At some point i’m going to tackle the ranking of every episode of all time. I don’t think people realize how iconic some aspects of this show are. There is a large amount of people that know exactly what you mean when you say “pocket sand” or “that’s my purse.” The show never went over the top. The show never strayed off the path it had created for itself. No show survives for as long as a show like KOTH did without having to pivot. This is the exception. It just stayed the same with essentially the exact same characters. And it worked right up until the end.

15: Curb Your Enthusiasm

I know it. You know it. The greatness of this show is well known. Nothing i’m going to opine about this show will do it justice.

14: The Larry Sanders Show

This show came along a generation or two early. If this show, in it’s exact same form, debuted now, it would be a massive hit. An absolute supernova of a show. I say that to say this: it deserves a chance now. Garry Shandling was one of the most respected comedians ever to have a mic in his hand. This show is at an absolute heavyweight.

13: The Twilight Zone

It’s everything that people pretend I Love Lucy was. The Twilight Zone was truly revolutionary. They used camera angles and lighting to create an ambiance that many shows could only dream of. It wasn’t just great for it’s time. It is great, full stop.

12: The Wire

You probably haven’t watched this show. Stop what you are doing and go watch this show. Then come back and read this again and you will be, ohhh yea this show definitely deserves to be up here.

11: South Park

25 years on from debuting, the show went from crass jokes to being probably the most poignant show of what is happening in the USA in the moment. The show is a satirical mirror pointed at us as a society. It takes all of the things happening, good and bad, and spits it back out at us in a way that, we don’t realize we are learning something. We are getting smarter as a whole for watching it because the show chooses to face the problems head on.

10: Chappelles Show

Did any show burn brighter? Many good shows hope to make one or two episodes per season that either has a memorable scene or repeatable quote. Every episode had that for Chappelle’s Show. Every episode.

9: Cheers

Our parents favorite show. I did a rewatch of the show when I was sick earlier this year. Holy crap. It’s fantastic. If you live in the Midwest and are reading this, there are a lot of cold winter nights left. Knock out a few episodes a night. Woody Harrelson is great. Ted Danson is great. Rhea Perlman is great. George Wendt is great. Everyone is great. Not only is this a top show, but it spawned a top 25 all time show as well.

8: Breaking Bad

One of those shows that felt cool to watch. You cannot just hope and pray to create that buzz. It can only come when you make a show that is so good, so edgy, so smart, that it becomes this unstoppable force in the public conscious.

7: The Simpsons

The show would be the number one show of all time if it had simply quit making new episodes after, lets say, season 12. Instead, the show is now in it’s 35th season, and exists because every executive at Fox is terrified of the fake outrage that might exist if they were to take it off the air. The show has been in it’s “Willie Mays on the Mets/Joe Namath on the Rams” phase for two decades, which is stunning in and of itself.

That being said, when the show was in it’s stride, around the Conan O’Brien writing phase, that it was the funniest show on television. It is still incredibly watchable to this day. Homer at the Bat is one of the best episodes of television ever made, and it might not even be the best episode of that season!

6: All In The Family

This show operated under a very important ethos of the power of the things we say and how they impact people. Unfortunately, people have taken the very wrong message from the show. At it’s core, this show was incredibly important in the moment because of what was happening in the world around them.

5: Mash

Around 120 million people watched the final episode of Mash when it aired in 1983. For reference, 230 million people existed in the United States in 1983. More than half of the US population watched the final episode of Mash. Absolutely mind blowing.

4: Seinfeld

Everything I said about The Simpsons. Everything said about Friends. Everything said about Curb. Apply that to Seinfeld, and it still doesn’t explain just how brilliant the show was. It also had the common sense not to exist forever like some shows.

3: Saturday Night Live

It was very tough to figure out where to put this show because it’s a lot different. There is such an insane catalog of good and bad to look back on. This show debuted 13 years before the Simpsons and is still happening. At the end of the day, though, this show is absolutely legendary for being one of the funniest shows on tv for decades. The list of people that became stars because of this show is staggering. From Bill Murray to Bill Hader and everyone in between, this show was responsible for so much of what comedy is, was, and what will come.

2: The Sopranos

Nothing I will say could ever do this show justice. Entire books were written about the final episode. Just the cut to black. Books have been written analyzing that moment. The love for the show is insatiable. The fact that it walked away with so many Easter eggs yet so few answers is, in hindsight, brilliant. It was good. It stayed good. It ended being good. It will always be good.

1: 30 Rock

On a prior website that I wrote for, I spilled so many words over how wonderful this show was. Then some fat anus deleted everything and I never got to catalog anything I wrote from it. So I’ll leave you with this: 30 Rock is the funniest show in the history of television.