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I Love Lucy
I Love Lucy revolutionised the television industry, and its innovations were many. It was the first television program based in California instead of New York. It was the first program to be done on film rather than live and kine scoped from a television screen. It was the first dramatic program ever to be done before a live studio audience and to be filmed in sequence, using the three camera technique. And it set the pattern for situation comedies for years to come. -
Father knows Best
Jim Anderson copes with the everyday problems of his growing family. The real success of the series was mostly due to character interaction and development. Despite the shows title, Jim Anderson wasn't really like a "Father" - he was more like a "Dad", and the TV audience connected. He was a responsible parent who loved his wife and kids. Father Knows best is a classic example of American Pop Culture at its best -
Leave it to Beaver
Leave it to Beaver is a sitcom about an inquisitive and often naïve boy, Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver. This sitcom defines the "golly gee" wholesomeness of 1950s and `60s TV, where dad Ward Cleaver always gets home in time for dinner, mom June cleans the house wearing a dress and pearls, and kids Wally and the Beav always learn a lesson by the end of the episode. -
Addams family
The Addams Family are a fictional family that .are seemingly unaware or don't care that other people find them bizarre or frightening. -
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American television sitcom fantasy series. The show is about a witch who marries an ordinary mortal man, and vows to lead the life of a typical suburban housewife. Bewitched enjoyed great popularity, finishing as the number two show in America during its debut season, and becoming the longest-running supernatural-themed sitcom of the 1960s–1970s. The show continues to be seen throughout the world in syndication and on recorded media -
Get Smart
Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. -
M*A*S*H
The series follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the "4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" in Uijeongbu, South Korea during the Korean War -
Happy days
Set in 1950s and 1960s Milwaukee, this series tells the story of the Cunningham family. Characters like Richie Cunningham, Potsie, Ralph Malph and The Fonz made viewers long for the days of letter jackets, malt shops and jukeboxes. And if "Happy Days" didn't make you nostalgic for the late '50s or early '60s, at least it gave you a good chuckle every week -
Laverne and Shirley
The classic sitcom about two working-class BFFs making their dreams come true. The show was so popular in the late 70s that on any given Tuesday night, almost half of everyone watching TV were tuned into see what Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams) were up to. Best friends, roommates and polar opposites Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney work together and keep each other's spirits up at home. -
Family Ties
One of the best family sitcoms of our time, Family Ties gave us the Keatons; they were our family. Liberal working parents Steven and Elyse raised their three children—smart and conservative older brother Alex, flighty and fashionable middle child Mallory and sarcastic younger sister Jennifer. Fox, whose career was launched with the series, made Alex’s Republicanism funny yet not cliched. Today family comedies continue to try to capture the magic that was Family Ties. -
The cosby Show
The Cosby Show gave the nation a more relatable glimpse of the growing middle-class among African Americans, dealing with race, but much more often, dealing with the trials that we all faced. Inspired by Cosby’s own family experiences which had been a staple of his stand-up routine, the show dominated the second half of the ’80s -
Seinfield
Larry David and company were committed to telling stories of everyday, casual misanthropy from people who viewed themselves as “generally decent” or average, but were in reality pretty terrible individuals. Without even going into depth about the show’s transformative effect on the cultural lexicon, known as “Seinlanguage,” it’s easy to see how Seinfeld uniquely stood out from every one of its peers. -
The Simpsons
At its creative peak in the mid-’90s, there was no better-written show on TV. Go back and watch an episode like part one of “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” and the thing one can’t help but notice is how insanely fast everything moves—there’s literally a joke every few seconds, most of them brilliant. Every type of humour is present, from the ubiquitous pop culture references to self-referential parody, slapstick, wordplay and simply silly, iconic characters. -
The fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The fish-out-of-water story of Fresh Prince became popular immediately and survives in syndication to this day. Most beloved opening theme song of the 1990s? Could very well be, judging from the response this one will get at literally any bar karaoke night. -
Frasier
Frasier was the odd show that made cultural elites and eggheads somehow seem like lovable characters to a mass audience. Both Frasier and his brother Niles can be infuriatingly snobbish, but audiences soon found that when their petty jealousies were directed at each other, they could also be hilarious. The show soon became an off-hand representation of the idea of “smart comedy” on TV, but it was also still a sitcom full of relationship humor. -
Friends
Its success may be the ultimate reminder that sitcoms are all about the characters and not necessarily the storylines. Friends simply had the best-defined characters: Nebbish Ross, prickly Chandler, air-headed Joey, domineering Monica, bubbly Phoebe and “I’m very attractive” Rachel. The writing was just clever enough to become archetypes that have been echoed in dozens of sitcoms in the decade since the show’s finale. The reach of Friends extends to every end of pop culture, even fashion. -
Everybody Loves Raymond
Everybody Loves Raymond was the quintessential “family/marriage sitcom” of its decade, never genre-bending but generally solid, always dependable. The insecurities of its characters were certainly relatable, from Ray’s struggles to assert himself in any facet of his life to the general concerns of age and sexual inadequacy. Between them, Ray and Debra seemed like people who could easily be living across the street from you, which was the whole idea. -
Sex and the City
Indeed, this was an infuriating show to experience sometimes, and that’s partly why we loved it. It remains a phenomenon, and as cliché as it may sound, it opened the door for more complex narratives about women and sex. And if Samantha was too much for you, Charlotte York and Miranda Hobbes offered up their own unique perspectives, giving the foursome an original, entertaining, and important balance of personalities and feminist (or anti-feminist) outlooks. -
That 70s Show
Beyond highlighting the immense talent of its cast with sharp, punchy writing, the show also set itself apart by experimenting with visual structure, implementing split screens, dream sequences, drug-induced hallucinations and the show’s patented tableside panning for when the young teens found themselves “self-medicating. -
Family Guy
MacFarlane created a family that’s easy to relate to despite the fact that it includes a talking dog and an inexplicably British, bloodthirsty infant. Combine the characters’ eccentricities with jokes that (sometimes literally) won’t quit, and you’ve got one of the most important cartoons to grace the small screen. -
The office UK
The comedy is heartbreaking, dark, brutal and oppressive—it stares into the deadening abyss of modern capitalism, which for so many people takes the form of dreary office jobs that eat up our time and slowly kill our souls, and it viciously attacks the entire structure. At its heart is David Brent, the incompetent, pompous narcissist who is one of the least lovable, most insecure leads in sitcom history. -
Peep Show
Although Peep Show has a similar sense of humour to other British sitcoms that came in the wake of The Office, it uses the same sort of awkward comedy for a very different purpose. The show’s title comes from the peek we’re offered into its leads’ brains, as throughout the show we’re offered running monologues of their thoughts in a way that almost no other sitcom has tried. The show has a deep memory and an equally deep sense of morality, so its characters are never let off the hook. -
The Flight of the Concords
the show is the story of an awful two-man band from New Zealand who have an incompetent manager and literally one fan (the hilarious, obsessive Kristen Schaal) as they try to make it big in New York. Despite their repeated failures, there’s something both sincere and casual about their approach, which stands in stark contrast to the tense, cynical neuroses you might expect. -
The Big Bang theory
Big Bang Theory is the last of the blockbuster sitcoms. It’s the last sitcom to get massive ratings, to build a huge, devoted audience who will absolutely watch the show whenever it’s on. It has that broad, populist appeal that shows rarely have these days.The actors involved are all talented, and for every dumb joke delivered, the show provides at least one sharp one. -
Modern family
When Modern Family premiered in 2009, it was coming off the heels of two shows that helped enforce its style: Arrested Development’s interconnected family comedy and The Office’s handheld, documentary-style approach. But despite being quite hilarious, Modern Family’s success comes from way we see the American family. Modern Family’s warmth and humour brings light to the types of relationships that rarely get the attention they deserve on television.