100 Best Sitcoms of All Time According to Rolling Stone

[up_the_hampipe]

Seinfeld is several orders of magnitude better than even peak Simpsons.

An absolutely atrocious opinion.

[selectivememory]

Seinfeld's great, but it's no It's Always Sunny, which is the actual greatest sitcom of all time.

[thecuriousorange]

Considering how broadly they've defined sitcom, they really ought to have The Sopranos on there.

Yeah Sex and the City is a bit of a stretch.

[lankyguy95]

Seinfeld's great, but it's no It's Always Sunny, which is the actual greatest sitcom of all time.

I've never seen It's Always Sunny but I'm just going to say you're wrong.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

An absolutely atrocious opinion.

Simpsons should not be in the top 15. This is science.

[up_the_hampipe]

I've never seen It's Always Sunny but I'm just going to say you're wrong.

No, he's pretty correct. They even did a better Seinfeld one time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4w4MEkZLWg

[Catalogue Trousers]

The first season didn't really count — a dull medieval Richard III parody.

Rolling Stone, your argument falls at the first fence.

Also: Police Squad! and I'm Alan Partridge below Sex And The City? Away an' throw shite at yersel'.

At least Derek didn't make the cut.

[pupshaw]

Looks like there are 69 sitcoms better than Bilko.

Anyone disagree with this?

[Famous Mortimer]

Looks like there are 69 sitcoms better than Bilko.

Anyone disagree with this?

Obviously - it's at the very least top 10 of all time, but getting annoyed about it is what Rolling Stone wants.

[wrec]

The Thick of It may be the better satire but I prefer Veep as a comedy. Found it hard to watch more than one episode of the former at a time due to the aggressiveness and intensity of it (maybe not such a criticism in itself) and was annoyed that multiple characters often seemed to be written with the same voice, with everyone making unlikely pop culture references etc. Veep suffered by dragging on and running out of plot, and reality outstripping it in grotesque absurdity, but worked better as a character-based comedy IMO.

Enraged by the absence of Rising Damp but I think good Simpsons is unbeatable - probably the most referred-to cultural artefact in my circle, and maybe only Seinfeld and Larry Sanders comparable in quality and influence. Day Today / Brass Eye and Partridge in my personal canon but wouldn't expect them SNL-damaged Yanks to give em their due.

[bgmnts]

I think Alan Partridge, The Office UK, The Simpsons, Blackadder and South Park are the greatest sitcoms ever made. So i'm way off base with what is considered good, even people here love comedy I find baffling.

Maybe Its Always Sunny would get in there too. Maybe Schitt's Creek is better than them all.

[chveik]

nice to see andy daly getting some recognition. can't be arsed to be outraged by those fucking has-beens

[Psmith]

A 100 best list by Rolling Stone.That's a sit com in itself.

[dissolute ocelot]

I thought conventional wisdom was that Cheers was a great sitcom from start to finish?

It was never bad and I was being slightly flippant based on what you're supposed to do with a list thread, but I thought conventional wisdom was that it took a series or 2 to get going and then after Shelley Long left it was never quite the same; certainly series 3 to 5 or so were the pinnacle out of its 11, and if you're judging it one of the greatest sitcoms ever it's based on that. EDIT: I see Gulftastic said something similar.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

The Thick of It may be the better satire but I prefer Veep as a comedy. Found it hard to watch more than one episode of the former at a time due to the aggressiveness and intensity of it (maybe not such a criticism in itself) and was annoyed that multiple characters often seemed to be written with the same voice, with everyone making unlikely pop culture references etc. Veep suffered by dragging on and running out of plot, and reality outstripping it in grotesque absurdity, but worked better as a character-based comedy IMO.

Definitely see where you're coming from. Thick really goes down hill for me once it starts trying to be a more 'proper' piece of television, more of a show than a programme, and has character arcs and stuff like that rather than the spontaneity and tension that was its motor in the first series and specials. It was a big disappointment to me when they got Rebecca Front and wrote her with pretty much the same voice as the others - she's hugely underused by the writing and her character was a missed opportunity to shake things up without toning down the aggression. I think the nadir is when they have her complain about language of sexual violence directly, like the script commenting on itself through her rather than writing a (funny) situation that undermines the conceit of the programmes constant aggression. They must surely be other ways to subvert a programme premised on men constantly spewing verbal violence without having the lead drop out of character and go "oh you men" practically to camera. Such a weak and noncommital way to do it.

Veep is just a more tightly engineered sitcom and written with more awareness of how to use the cast and the format. I prefer the bite of Thick early on but I def laughed more at the first few seasons of Veep than series 4 of Thick.