Well, with sports leagues dropping like flies lately, I guess we’ll have to spend time with our loved ones and reconnect with our family… Ok, that was enough of that, now what? While most of us have been insanely bored the past few weeks, we have all turned to America’s past time: television. As a huge fan of television, I figured I would rank my greatest sitcoms of all time. Partially as a creative outlet, and partially to avoid looking like this.
Disclaimer: Not Actually the Greatest Sitcoms
This is not an all-encompassing, perfect list. I am not using rating numbers, or awards won. These are the greatest sitcoms of my life, according to me. This cuts down the range to 20 or 25 years, leaving out some of the older sitcoms, such as M*A*S*H*, which I love. Also, I have seen it on a few lists, but let me get it out of the way now: The Simpsons is not a sitcom. Spoiler warning for some shows as well. I’ll let you know.
5. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
This may be a bit of a hot take, but I love the Nine-Nine. The silliness of Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) against the deadpan humor of Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher) works perfectly. The ability to show Jake continue to mature throughout the series without getting overly serious fits the tone of the show perfectly.
4. Community
In my mind, Community has some of the best writing of any show. Community colleges are an underused setting for a comedy, and the cast is amazing. It combines an old comedic legend such as Chevy Chase with the next great entertainer in Donald Glover. While the show by the end got a little silly, and the quality declined after Donald Glover left, it’s still a much watch. It was also created by Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon
3. The Office
You heard me! The Office is not the best sitcom ever. Liking it is also not a personality regardless of what that girl’s Tinder profile says. There is one big reason why The Office isn’t higher: it heavily relied on one character and couldn’t accept when he was gone. When Steve Carrell left towards the end of season seven, the show’s quality decreased. This is expected, but the following two seasons didn’t exactly instill confidence in the rest of the cast.
With that being said, The Office is definitely a good show. The main four (in my mind) of Michael, Jim, Pam, and Dwight work perfectly together, and the secondary characters play well off of them. Michael leaving doesn’t make it a bad show, it just lost that spark that made it great.
2. How I Met Your Mother (*Spoiler Warning*)
Seasons one through eight of How I Met Your Mother might be in my top five greatest sitcoms ever, not just of my lifetime. How I Met Your Mother is one of the best at mixing hilarious, happy moments one second, and then serious, gut-wrenching scenes the next. Yes, I know Ted is annoying, whiny, and self-centered. Given the rest of the characters though, I think Ted has to be this way.
He is in his early to mid-’20s, single, and in New York with his friends. This is not out of the question for someone in that situation to think everything is about them. Having him be as horrible as he is is also a necessity for the show. Ted needed to be able to develop alongside Barney, Robin, Lily, and Marshall to get to the point to meet his wife.
And once Ted met his wife, Craig Thomas and Carter Bays slapped us all in the face. I hated all of season nine and almost felt like it was the worst season. However, I think a good finale could have left us with a good taste in our mouth, and ended on a high note. NOPE! After almost a decade of Ted looking for his future wife, he finally met her.
AND THEN THEY KILLED HER! Nine years to have him get back together with Robin?!?! The writers not only undid their whole show, but they also undid all of season nine by having Robin and Barney get divorced. They even had an alternate ending to go with!
I’m ranting. Long story short: most of How I Met Your Mother is great, season nine makes me want to vomit.
1. Scrubs
This is a bit of a hot take, probably attributed to the fact I have watched the series a few times since everything shut down. Hear me out though: Scrubs is the perfect combination of situational comedy, absurd humor, and serious moments. Being set in a hospital, it would be ridiculous to think it doesn’t deal with death. It does this perfectly, going from the ridiculous comedy I love, immediately moving on to the cast trying to save multiple lives after a botched transplant.
The show also managed to get silly by using J.D.’s daydreams, such as floating head doctor, where J.D. says he would research how to separate his from his body to “literally be in two places at once.” Scrubs went for nine seasons but honestly should have ended after season eight, which had the perfect ending for a TV show.
The plan was for the show to end after season eight, but Hollywood execs got the money signs in their eyes, and decided to make a ninth season with some new characters, and keeping a few of the old. While I hated season nine, I don’t hate it as much as season nine of number two on this list, as it doesn’t undo everything that happened throughout the show.
One Final Note
There are some obvious omissions you may see on some other lists: Friends and Seinfeld. I never really liked Seinfeld, and Friends is just not funny to me. The show uses a laugh track so people think it’s funny when it isn’t. Take away the laugh track and it’s just uncomfortable.
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