10 Wings

Deride me for this selection all you want, Green Acres fan. In its prime, Wings was one of those shows with no weak links. Top notch comedy. Give me the nod on this or I’ll throw a goose in your wing flap.

 

9 Married with Children

Few other shows would prompt wild applause merely by having a dumpy, large-nosed man flush a toilet. Or a curvy blond appearing in a slutty outfit. Or a buxom redhead ridiculing her husband’s sexual prowess. Or a scrawny teen alluding to the sacred act of self-pleasure. The bonus: that blow-dried teacher from the latter episodes of Happy Days is finally funny.

8 Happy Days

I talked with some of your childhood friends and they all report that you slicked back your hair, produced a battered leather jacket, and started growling “Aaayyy!” every time you found something pleasing. You wanted to be Fonzie, I’m told, but were pure Joanie, instead.

7 Scrubs

It’s the new MASH, with comedy morphing into poignant drama at the drop of a scalpel. The secondary characters are better than the stars of most other sitcoms. Janitor, Ted the perennial loser, The Todd and his banana hammock... Better still, Scrubs is MASH with T & A. And the T is particularly pleasing.

6 Seinfeld

If you don’t like it, why do you go around claiming to be the master of your domain when we all know full well you are not? In its heyday, it became annoying because everyone went around talking about last night’s episode. Now that it’s in syndication, we can enjoy it without hearing every show rehashed by office workers who still live with their mothers.

5 Family Guy

I’ll say it again. Lois is the hottest thing on television and I don’t care if she’s a six-inch tall cartoon chick. You’d hit that, admit it. But the show thrives because the writers attack everybody without compunction and they do so with a blend of cleverness and raunch. “Just don't forget our deal, Lois. I sit through this and later tonight I get anal. You hear me? No matter how neat I want the house you have to clean it.”

4 Cheers

Every time you walk into a bar and see your fat friend sitting on his stool, you yell “Norm!” And you still think that’s funny. And it is, in a way, because everybody you know is like one of the characters on Cheers. The way I hear it, you’re an annoying mix of pompous Diane and pathetically lonely Paul. It’s no wonder you have every episode on tape.

3All in the Family

I have a friend who is like Archie Bunker without the prejudice. He doesn’t hate everybody, but man does he messpronounce every word over two syllables long. This shit is still funny three decades later. Too bad what happened to Sally Struthers, though.

2MASH

My favorite episode: the one where Col. Henry Blake goes down in flames. Ribald hilarity for 29 minutes and then abject sorrow and horror at the end. Classic MASH. “Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Blake's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors.”

I... I gotta go.

1The Simpsons

You know all the words to the “Mr. Plow” song. Every time you fail to satisfy your wife in the sack, you yell “Doh!” and go off to sulk on the living room couch. You kick your entire family out of the house every Sunday so they will not distract you while you’re trying to read what Bart wrote on the chalkboard this time. And who can blame you? The Simpsons cram more comedy into a single scene than most shows manage in an entire season of episodes. Took me no time at all to declare this the number one sitcom of them all. If you disagree, kiss my hairy yellow ass.