The Top 50 TV Shows of All-Time: #s 40-36
Down to only the magical 40. Hold on to the handrails...#50- "Just Shoot Me"
#49- "L.A. Law"
#48- "The Carol Burnett Show"
#47- "That 70s Show"
#46- "The Rockford Files"
#45- "The Big Bang Theory"
#44- "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour"
#43- "Night Court"
#42- "The Dick Van Dyke Show"
#41- "NYPD Blue"
#40- "BARNEY MILLER" ABC 1975-1982
--------------------------------------
I count 4 of what one could classify as "cop show" on the CM Top 50 list, and "Barney Miller" was on the air during a period in TV history when you couldn't swing a dead cat on the prime-time schedule without hitting one, but Danny Arnold's situation comedy didn't feature any car chases, and-- true to real life-- guns were rarely drawn. What it did have was human stories and comedy grounded in everyday foibles. It ushered in a golden era for a certain type of atmospheric, realistic, occasionally heavy-themed urban sitcom, and it did its thing so well, it wound up impacting television's evolution of drama series as well. ("Hill Street Blues" was pitched to network executives as "Barney Miller- Outdoors.") Today, the series, which took place in New York City's Greenwich Village, is a time machine back to an era in that city before everything was sanitized, that is "Disney-fied," or "Giuliani'd." Consider the theme song the steering column on the time machine.
#39- "FRANK'S PLACE" CBS 1987-1988
-------------------------------------
Television producer Hugh Wilson's second-greatest series was cancelled due to low ratings before it had a chance to stretch its legs, but its presence on a list like this has to be assured. "Frank's Place," co-driven by and starring Tim Reid, was filming with a single camera, and without a laugh track, almost two decades before it became almost universal on television. Set in a fictional fine-dining restaurant, Chez Louisiane, in New Orleans' French Quarter, the show tackled the issues of race and class in a way that hadn't been done before, or really since. From viewing during my childhood, I recall one of the series' 22 episodes dealing drolly with the distrust that still exists in pockets of that unique region of the country between light-skin blacks-- descendents of French Creole settlers and their black mistresses, usually free women of color-- and the dark-skin descendents of black slaves. American TV viewers would have to wait another 14 years for another series to present such a diversity in African-American life, and even that one displayed it through the well-worn prism of the criminal justice system. Sadly, we may never have "Frank's Place" to relive on DVD exactly the way we remember it. "Cost-prohibitive" music licensing rights, we're told, make that almost assured (a depressing and recurring theme for Hugh Wilson-helmed series). Reid has said, quite heroically, that there will be efforts made to "recreate the mood of the music" on any forthcoming DVD release, but how can you measure up if you're missing this?
#38- "THE KING OF QUEENS" CBS 1998-2007
---------------------------------------------
This show was often categorized as "a staple"-- considered solid, if not somehow unspectacular, but I find this series to be knee-breakingly funny. A modern-day update on "The Honeymooners" formula-- well-meaning, work-a-day schmoe marries pretty, sarcastic wife-- gives creedence instead to the proposition "If it ain't broke...". The series boasted a virtuoso performance by supporting player Jerry Stiller, who had departed the blockbuster "Seinfeld" for pastures greener than they would wind up being for anybody else from the series, save Larry David. Typical line-reading by Jerry Stiller's "Arthur" character: (Staring intently at the television) "I'm watching this very interesting program. Seems this young fellow Screech has painted himself into quite a corner."
Here's more "Arthur."
#37- "THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW" CBS 1955-1959
---------------------------------------------
TV scribe and superblogger Ken Levine calls "The Phil Silvers Show" his second-favorite of all-time (behind only "The Honeymooners.") The series perhaps more commonly known as "Sgt. Bilko," the name of Silvers' character, fit its generation of TV viewers perfectly. Times were flush in post-war middle-class America, and Bilko was a conniving Master Sergeant of a platoon at a peacetime Kansas Army base more concerned with poker games and money-making schemes than with military discipline. The comedic plot usually involved Bilko hustling an innocent victim out of some sort of financial windfall, then burdened by conscience, manuevering in his fast-talking style to right his wrongs. The show won the Emmy for Best Comedy Series three of its four years on the air, provided first national exposure to-- among others, Alan Alda, Dick Van Dyke, Fred Gwynne, and Charlotte Rae, and featured one of television's first thought-provoking send-offs. On the final episode, Bilko's superior had cameras installed in every corner of the base to police Bilko's hijinks (the floating crap games). The sergeant looked into the lens of the security camera and said, "It's a wonderful show, and as long as I'm the sponsor, it will never be cancelled."
This is a scene from the episode featuring Dick Van Dyke as a Southern-fried soldier. Several other guest stars also appear.
#36- "IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA" FX 2005-PRESENT
--------------------------------------------------------------
This cult-favorite cable comedy series has the infectious anarchy of a Marx Brothers film combined with the "bad boy" energy of a Richard Pryor concert performance. "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is that good. The show has it all-- serial killers, sex offenders, man-whores, bang-maids, dumpster babies, and Danny DeVito. The series that appear on this Top 50 list, as a rule, have a singular, uncompromising creative vision, and "It's Always Sunny's" presence on the schedule of the flying-under-the-radar FX network surely helps give its creative team their almost unprecented free reign. The makers claim that the pilot, shot on a digital camcorder, cost them only $85 to produce. The characters, inhabitants of a not-particularly-successful Irish bar in South Philly (the show is shot on location), are self-absorbed and almost morally-void. I would be willing to concede that they're even an acquired taste. But the show never commits the only impardonable sin of television, which is being boring, and veteran improv performer, Kaitlyn Olson, as "Dee," is the most electric comedic actor to come along on television for some time.
"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia"-- television's anti-"Friends"-- cut this promo in tribute to the hit NBC series before the start of their 3rd season.
posted by CM @ 12:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home