#5 FriendsI really debated over inclusion of this one in the list. I was a huge fan of the show during it's first four or five seasons, but then I had kids and they started repeating some of the stuff they heard on the show, and I had to drop it.
Friends was definitely funny. I laugh out loud at almost every episode. It also is probably the defining television show for most of my generation, thirty-somethings. But that also saddens me. If Seinfeld was a show about nothing that often had something to say, Friends at times seems to me a show about something (friendship) that has nothing to say. (I know I'll get raked over the coals for that one.)
Wait a minute, the current coffeehouse craze in America may be due in large part to the friends' gathering place, Central Perk. So, it already has done something to change the landscape of American culture. You may need to chalk this one up to guilty pleasure for me.
A show about nothing that so often had so much to say. Seinfeld was smart, cutting, sarcastic, self-effacing, and just downright silly. Seinfeld also gave us such incredibly memorable characters as Kramer, Elaine, George, Newman, the soup nazi, George's parents, and a host of others. Not to mention, Seinfeld defined the impact a television show could have on "water-cooler conversations" in the workplace.
Seinfeld is German for "field of existence," and the show really was a commentary on existence, what it means to be human, what it means to live, what it means to interact with other people. How appropriate is it that the series ends with the four main characters sitting in jail for failing to care for other people? What a perfect commentary on American life in the '90s!
M*A*S*H was a sitcom that ran for eleven years about a war that lasted three years. It is a sitcom set in the Korean War that really is a commentary on the Vietnam War. It covers the antics of a group of army surgeons in the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, and how they seek to maintain some sense of normalcy (or at times insanity) in the midst of the tragedy they encounter every day.
M*A*S*H gave us such memorable characters as "Hawkeye" Pierce, Hunnicut, Charles Emerson Winchester III, "Hot Lips" Houlihan, "Radar", and who could forget Klinger. Or what about the theme song? Suicide is Painless belied the fact that this show was not just your run of the mill comedy, but a commentary on the pain and trajedy of war.
The real impact of M*A*S*H was that it gave America an outlet to laugh at and discuss an extremely charged situation in the form of the Vietnam War. Maybe America needs a similar outlet for the current heated debates over Iraq, maybe a sitcom set in Iraq with a president named Bush, a dictator named Hussein, and a presidential hopeful named Clinton.
Over forty years later, and I still watch the folks from Mayberry whenever I run across them. The show ran from 1960 to 1968, one of the most tumultuous periods in American cultural history, but you wouldn't know it by watching the show. It appealed to America's simpler side, maybe to our desires for a more basic, loving identity.
It's not reality. Maybe it never represented reality, but who cares? Mayberry is the town we all wanted to grow up in. There is something good and wholesome and simple about the rhythms and morals and worldview of smalltown life.
So that's one take on it. At the same time, life in Mayberry serves as a foil to what happens in real life. The Andy Griffith Show was not about real life. It was an idealistic representation of real life. And if we continually try to hold society to the standards of an imaginary life or try to make people conform to thoses standards, we will be ineffective at making a real impact in the real world. It's like Ecclesiastes 7:10 says, "Don't long for 'the good old days,' for you don't know whether they were any better than today."
#1 Cheers
Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Wouldn't you like to get away? Sometimes you've gotta go where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see people are all the same. You wanna go where everybody knows your name. Is this a show about a bar or what the church ought to be? A cast of goofy misfits and failures who find family and friendship at the local bar.
I watched Cheers without failure every week. The final episode aired my sophomore year of college. My roommate and I sat and cried as Sam closed down the bar for the last time.
Cheers gave us such lovable misfits as Norm, the local barfly; Cliff, the annoying, know-it-all mailman; Karla, the cranky waitress, divorcee, and mother; Woody, the country bumkin barkeep; Frazier, the snooty psychologist who was himself a neurotic headcase; Coach, the clueless former baseball coach; and Sam, the washed-out, former baseball player and bar owner.
Cheers may not have had a social impact or a cultural commentary that impacted America, but the show, like the bar, was the place you just wanted to be.
Honorable Mention
All in the Family
The King of Queens
Everybody Loves Raymond
Frazier
Laverne and Shirley
The Jeffersons
Sanford and Son
Mork and Mindy
Alright, so there's my list. Now give me yours.
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