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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36040 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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What is your list of top sitcoms? I just finished How I met your Mother with my partner and it was remarkably anti-feminist for so recent and so popular a show.

That is a good question. Personally my favourite sitcoms are of the "sitcoms are for comedy, get your drama out of here" philosophy, so my tops are Seinfeld, It's always sunny, 30 Rock, Arrested Development and Newsradio. But I think it would be crazy to make a list of top sitcoms that didn't include himym or Friends or Scrubs or The Office, all of which had hilarious moments and episodes, and much broader appeal than my first picks. And even now my list is being unfair to older sitcoms - I think sitcoms evolved pretty significantly over time though (not to mention the effect on comedy of the backlash against pcness that cim mentioned below), and it's hard for me to tell what jokes in say All in the family or The Jeffersons or Taxi or Cheers* I am biased by nostalgia to appreciate - they definitely don't get as many laughs from younger friends as newer shows do.

*Special mention for Frasier, which did an amazing job for four seasons of relying heavily on farce and still managing to find humour and surprises. Pity it went on for seven seasons.

Edit: ffs as I hit post I realised I was being geographically biased too - I've left out Blackadder, Linehan's shows, Extras, The League of gentlemen, Darkplace and The mighty boosh! For the Aussies, I didn't include Hey Dad for obvious reasons, and I never watched Kath and Kim, which is basically the extent of Aussie sitcoms. Welcher and Welcher? Aussie comedy seems to work better in sketch shows anyway.

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