TV Guides 50 Greatest (US) Shows of All Time!

[Sharpe]

The list was ridiculous in many ways.

- MASH should have at least been in the top 10.
- Seinfeld should not be #1 - probably I Love Lucy should be there instead.
- St. Elsewhere - hmm, good for a couple of years, but hardly top 50 material and ahead of ER, which was better for longer (though it is deteriorating now that almost all of the stars have left).
- As much as l loathed it , Dallas should definitely be on the list.
- Oprah should be ahead of Donahue.
- Twin Peaks should be nowhere near this list - it was a brief flash in the pan. If this is on the list, Survivor should be on the list.
- Whoever made up the list clearly loves comedies and hates dramas. The Sopranos while good is not the best drama ever - maybe top 10 of dramas.
- Letterman and thirtysomething should be toward the middle of the list at best.

Look at the list of best dramas:
Sopranos, Hill Street Blues, thirtysomething, St. Elsewhere, ER, Law & Order, & MASH in that order in the top 25. That's ridiculous.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Sharpe
Look at the list of best dramas:
Sopranos, Hill Street Blues, thirtysomething, St. Elsewhere, ER, Law & Order, & MASH in that order in the top 25.

M*A*S*H... a drama...

[Zkribbler]

Re: TV Guides 50 Greatest (US) Shows of All Time!

MrWhereItsAt, here's some thumbnail synopsi
(Maybe you haven't heard of a lot of these because they were before your time):

1. Seinfeld - 90's show. NY stand-up comedian and his friends poke fun at everything.

2. I Love Lucy - 50's show. Lucy's husband Ricky has a nightclub show; she wants to break into show business. He tells her not to do something; she does it.

3. The Honeymooners - 50's show. Bickering working class family in NY, starring Jackie Gleason.

4. All in the Family - 60's show. American version of "Till Death Do Us Part" Racist father, cowed but sweet mother, liberal daughter and her Polish husband.

5. The Sopranos - current gangster family show.

6. 60 Minutes - decades-running evening news magazine.

7. The Late Show with David Letterman - late night talk show.

8. The Simpsons - current cartoon show about disfunctional family.

9. The Andy Griffith Show - 50's sitcom set in rural America; kid is Ron Howard, now the director of "Beautiful Mind."

10. Saturday Night Live - irreverant skits. Launching pad for most current movie comedians.

11. The Mary Tyler Moore Show - 60's show about a sweet single woman working in a Minneapolis TV news room.

12. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson - late night talk show. Johnny retired and was replaced by Leno.

13. The **** Van **** Show - 60's sitcom created by Carl Reiner, one of Sid Caesar's writers. D1ck Van Dyk3 (Rob Petry) is a comedy writer for a TV show. Mary Tyler Moore is his wife.

14. Hill Street Blues - 70's cop drama.

15. The Ed Sullivan Show - 50's & 60's variety show. Introduced the Beatles to America.

16. The Carol Burnett Show - 70's skit comedy.

17. Today Show - long-running "news" morning show on NBC.

18. Cheers - 70's sitcom set in a Boston bar.

19. thirtysomething [never saw it]

20. St. Elsewhere [never saw it, but it was about a hospital]

21. Friends - current sitcom about 6 young people in NY.

22. ER - 90's hospital drama.

23. Nightline - late night in-depth news show.

24. Law & Order - current drama [never saw it]

25. M*A*S*H - 60's tragicomedy set in a Korean War field hospital.

26. The Twilight Zone - 50's or 60's occult/horror/grostesque show. Rod Serling host, but each episode completely different.

27. Sesame Street - morning kiddies show. Introduced the muppets.

28. The Cosby Show - 80's show about an African-American upper middle-class family.

29. Donahue - Afternoon talk show.

30. Your Show of Shows - 50's skit comedies starring the great Sid Caesar. Writers included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Carl Reiner.

31. The Defenders - 60's courtroom drama.

32. American Family [never heard of it]

33. Playhouse 90 -50's quality drama. Each episode different

34. Frasier - current sitcom about a Seattle psychiatrist.

35. Roseanne - 90's show about a midwest lower-class family.

36. The Fugitive - 60's drama. Doctor, convicted of killing his wife, escapes and searches for the real killer.

37. The X-Files - current occult thriller.

38. The Larry Sanders Show [never saw it - comedy]

39. The Rockford Files - 70's private dectective show with James Gardner

40. Gunsmoke - 50's Western based upon long-running radio drama.

41. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - current sitcom about a teenage vampire slayer.

42. Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In - 60's machinegun-paced skit comedy. Stole a lot of great ideas from Your Show of Shows.

43. Bonanza - 60's western. I think, this was the first color series in the U.S.

44. The Bob Newhart Show - 60's or maybe 70's sitcom about a Chicago psychiatrist.

45. Twin Peaks [never saw it]

46. Star Trek: The Next Generation - sci-fi

47. Rocky and His Friends - 60's cartoon show, very tongue in cheek.

48. Taxi - 80's sitcom about a taxi company.

49. The Oprah Winfrey Show - afternoon talk show.

50. Bewitched - 60's or 70's sitcom about a witch who marries a human.

[The Mad Monk]

A few corrections on Zkribbler's post:

Hill Street Blues and Cheers were 80s shows, and shared a Thurday night lineup with The Cosby Show on NBC.
Frasier was a spinoff of Cheers, which should give you some idea of the longevity of the shows involved.
I think All in the Family started...1972? Give or take a few years.
It isn't a stretch to say that The X Files has some of its roots in Twin Peaks.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Aye, Zkribbler. Most of the ones I don't know are the '50s and '60s ones. And is Rocky and His Friends the same as Rocky and Bullwinkle? I have heard of that but never seen it - I hear it's too blindly patriotic American for overseas, and something about some stereotypical East European villains.

[Kropotkin]

American TV seems really baaaaaaad....

[drake]

MTVs top 100 videos of all time.
Radio Stations top 100 Songs of all time.
Emmys
Oscars
Tonys
And TV Guides top 100 shows of all time.

All of this crap bores me to death. Why should I care about what a bunch of yuppie movie critics think about Movies. Or what a bunch of faceless couch potatoes think the best TV shows are?

[JohnT]

Originally posted by drake


MTVs top 100 videos of all time.
Radio Stations top 100 Songs of all time.
Emmys
Oscars
Tonys
And TV Guides top 100 shows of all time.

All of this crap bores me to death. Why should I care about what a bunch of yuppie movie critics think about Movies. Or what a bunch of faceless couch potatoes think the best TV shows are?

So why post if you are so wise in the ways of uncaring?

[drake]

Was hoping for an explanation of why people value things like these lists perhaps...........maybe you can explain why you find such lists useful John??

I value people on this boards opinions and enjoy hearing those. I just have little value for any sort of "expert" opinion.

[rah]

Originally posted by drake
Was hoping for an explanation of why people value things like these lists perhaps...........maybe you can explain why you find such lists useful John??

I value people on this boards opinions and enjoy hearing those. I just have little value for any sort of "expert" opinion.

Nostalgia mostly.

Their only true value is their use as the starting point for discussions like this thread. Which many people seem to be enjoying the pros and cons. I don't think most people take them too seriously.

RAH

[drake]

Thanks Rah. Good explanation.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
...Rocky and His Friends the same as Rocky and Bullwinkle? I have heard of that but never seen it - I hear it's too blindly patriotic American for overseas, and something about some stereotypical East European villains.

Yep, same show.

The show isn't blindly patiotic at all. It does have two reoccuring villians--Boris Badinov and Natasha Fatale--who are send-ups of Soviet spies, but they're trying to do things like steal the Kirwood Derby (a hat that, if you put it on, makes you the smartest person in the world).

The lure of the show was the fast-paced jokes which are not only aimed at kids (Bullwinkle warning a bank of an impending robbery by Boris and Natasha by shouting, "Hey everybody! It's a stick up!") but also at adults (Kirwood Derby playing on the name of Candid Camera's co-host Dirwood Kerby).

The show also featured "Fractured Fairy Tales" which, you guessed it, parodied famous fairy tales. And "Sherman & Peabody"--Peabody being a dog-scientist who's invented a time machine and who has a pet boy named Sherman.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Sten Sture
Man from U.N.C.L.E. rules!!

The best thing about "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (United Network Command for Law & Enforcement) was the Mad Magazine parody "The Man for A.U.N.T.I.E." (Association for Unbelievably Nausiating Television and Idiotic Entertainment).

[Rex Little]

A couple more corrections to Zkribbler's list:

Twilight Zone had the occasional occult/horror episode, but mostly it was science fiction. Many episodes were based on published short stories by recognized SF authors.

Buffy is a drama, not a sitcom.

MrWhereItsAt: Rocky and his Friends is indeed the same as Rocky and Bullwinkle. Anyone who says it's "blindly patriotic American" is seriously humor-impaired; that kind of "patriotism" is one of the many things the show makes fun of. Boris Badenov and Natasha Nogoodnik are indeed stereotypical East European villains, but that's an intentional part of the humor.

Edit: cross-posted with Zkribbler's post above. I think he's correct about Natasha's last name, and I'm wrong.

[JohnT]

The point for me in discussing these lists is not only for nostalgia, but things like this also tell me about the people who are debating them - who are fanboys, who couldn't care because they pay no attention to the medium, who likes a particular show/type of show, etc.

You are right though: most lists of this type are pretty much useless - there were a few good "greatest of the past millennium" lists a few years ago that were done by (gasp!) actual historians that were pretty "right" in their listings (Printing press # 1, JFK's assassination not even mentioned), but you are correct in ascribing the true worth of these things as being nil.

For example, this list here. Can you believe that a list of the 50 greatest TV shows of all time did NOT mention

American Bandstand?
Star Trek?
Meet the Press?
Sesame Street?
The Price is Right? (or any game show for that matter?)

I could've done a better job and I'm not even employed by TV Guide.