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I love a good sit-com. Always have, always will. I like that most of the characters lack complexity and seldom grow or change. I like that I can get as comfortable with them as I can with old friends. If Sam Malone of Cheers is a hound week after week, that's fine with me--provided that he's a hound in a different, interesting way each time. I like that each episode is similar but slightly different--a theme with variations. And I like that a sit-com's conflicts get resolved, or at least run their course, in the span of 30 minutes. I like things to move along; I'm way too old to sit through a Gone With the Wind or a Lawrence of Arabia. Sit-coms in 30 minutes, TV dramas in 60, movies in 90--now that's entertainment! Anything longer becomes work.
I started listening to radio sit-coms with my parents and brother in the late 40s and early 50s: Henry Aldrich, The Life of Riley, Our Miss Brooks, Meet Corliss Archer. When my family finally purchased a TV, I watched Ozzie and Harriet, I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, FatherKnows Best, and The Donna Reid Show. Then from the late 60s to the mid-80s there was a long hiatus in my sit-com watching because I was busy teaching, coaching, raising kids, raising animals, raising fruit, raising vegetables, chopping firewood, and making household repairs. Besides, there was no cable service down where we lived, at the end of the Norma Beach Road. Not only that, but half the time there was a serious problem with our antenna, which was located 400 feet from us at the top of a wooded hillside, or with our fragile coaxial connection to it. But when the kids grew up and left and Judy and I moved to an Edmonds condo, the blackout was lifted and I proceeded to make up for lost time. Now, some 25 years later, I have fashioned my own Sit-Com Hit Parade of the 25 shows that have given me the most pleasure. Let the countdown begin.
25, Just Shoot Me--Interesting dynamics between magazine owner father and staff writer daughter, with self-obsessed staffer Nina Van Horn and the owner's randy assistant Dennis Finch thrown in for good measure. Finch is played as a David Spade--by David Spade.
24, Bored to Death--Comedy noir. Inspired by a Raymond Chandler novel, a writer wannabe who's going nowhere hires himself out as an unlicensed private eye, gets involved with a number of absurd characters, and somehow manages to solve their bizarre problems. Ted Danson as a drug-addled magazine editor is a treat.
23, Murphy Brown--Incisive female journalist and later single mother prevails in her many conflicts with colleagues who are either pretentious or naive.
22, Dharma and Greg--Structured, conformist lawyer and flower-child wife. They and their parents experience mutual cultural shock. Jenna Elfman shines as Dharma, the wife with the Buddhist name.
21, Parks and Recreation--Do-gooders, ne'erdowells, and libertarians clash over the mission, policies, and initiatives of the Pawnee Park and Recreation Department. Nick Offerman and Aubrey Plaza contribute a bracing negativity.
20, Buffalo Bill--Egotistical talk show host with few redeeming qualities runs roughshod over the show's guests and production staff. Dabney Coleman is outstanding in the title role.
19, Everybody Loves Raymond--Manipulating Marie and fulminating Frank Barone make life miserable for sons Ray and Robert and Ray's wife Debra. Contrasts between the elder Barones and Debra's parents and the parents of Robert's girlfriend/wife Amy are delectable.
18, The Middle--A lower middle class family would be happy if only they could rise to the level of mediocrity. Each week they battle a world that is just a little too much for them. Deep down they realize that they lack the talent and ambition to make much of a mark on the world. At the end of most episodes, they are content to "settle"--and that's all right, I say.
17, The Office (American version)--Michael Scott, well-meaning but almost as clueless about people as Larry David (more on him later) is, mismanages a paper company's branch office which is staffed with remarkably ordinary-looking people. There are many inner-office conflicts and misunderstandings, most of which involve power-hungry suckup Dwight Schrute. Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson stand out.
16, Better Off Ted--Ted, the director of research and development, tries to humanize a large, soulless corporation that is more powerful than all but three governments in the world. Icy Veronica, his immediate superior, leads the effort to stymie him. Lab scientists Lem and Phil, alternately appalled by the corporation and frightened to death by it, vacillate between trying to appease Ted and trying to appease Veronica.
15, Two and a Half Men--The ingredients are simple: one handsome brother who makes tons of money creating advertising jingles and has one-night stands with an extraordinary number of beautiful women half his age, one loser brother tossed out of his home by his ex-wife, one self-indulgent mother who neglected the brothers and scarred them for life, one Greek chorus housekeeper who deflates all of them with her wisecracks. Amazing how creator Chuck Lorre keeps finding new and funny ways to milk this old cash cow.
14, Corner Gas--Charming, low-key look at the very limited life of some archetypal characters in Dog River, a small town on a Canadian prairie.
13, Mad About You--Attractive, likeable NYC couple with an IQ-challenged dog have minor conflicts with each other, larger conflicts with parents and siblings.
12, Spin City--Fatuous, oblivious mayor of NYC is actually under the thumb of the deputy mayor, who cleverly spins all gaffes and problems and dupes the mayor's constituency into believing that the administration has everything under control.
11, Will and Grace--Ground-breaking exploration of gay relationships and NYC hipness, plus the just plain cool craziness of Karen and Jack.
10, News Radio--Wacky WNYX owner Jimmy James and smug on-air talent Bill McNeill cleverly manipulate the office manager, Dave, and the other station personnel. Excellent acting by Stephen Root as the owner.
9, Arrested Development--One squared-away son struggles valiantly to keep his neurotic, dysfunctional family together while his psycho father serves a prison term for illegal dealings with the Iraquis.
8, Seinfeld--The acting skills of Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Michael Richards more than make up for Jerry Seinfeld's lack of them. Though the characters are unable to see beyond themselves in their narrow world, seemingly trivial incidents take on a meaning that a wide variety of viewers can appreciate. In a sit-com structural innovation, often motifs from three separate story lines merge at the end.
7, Frasier--Verbal, situational, and dramatic irony abound as fussy, snobbish Frasier and brother Niles explore new dimensions of their sibling rivalry and wrangle with low-brow family patriarch Martin. Workplace characters Roz, Bulldog, and Kenny often help to bring Frasier back to earth.
6, Cheers--Some of the early episodes were clinkers, but what brings you back time and again is the wonderfully humorous tension in all of the many love relationships--Sam-Diane, Sam-Rebecca, Diane-Frasier, Frasier-Lilith, Carla-Nick, and Woody-Kelly-Kelly-Kelly-Kelly-Kelly.
5, Scrubs--Fast-paced, sardonic treatment of the medical profession with a little sentiment thrown in now and then. Sarah Chalke's infinite variety of facial expressions alone is worth the price of your cable bill. Voice-over narration ties up loose ends. Episodes called "Scrubs the Musical" and "The Game Show" are very innovative.
4, Fawlty Towers--Pretentious, priggish Basil Fawlty goes to any extreme to deny his many lapses, failures, and shortcomings. Anyone who will in a frustrated rage thrash a broken-down car with a tree branch is eminently worth watching, in my book.
3, Curb Your Enthusiasm--The edgiest sit-com yet. Larry David--narcissistic, insensitive, tactless, pusillanimous, a blustering coward at heart--offends a multitude each episode, in the process violating taboos and exposing cultural quirks before meeting his show-closing comeuppance. Quite often, just hilarious. All 25 of my favorite sit-coms can make me smile, snort, chuckle, titter, and tee-hee, but for me Curb is the one most likely to elicit a big LOL guffaw.
2, Yes, Minister--The Rt. Hon. Jim Hacker, Minister of the Department of Administrative Affairs, battles with the bureaucracy in the form of his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby (played by Nigel Hawthorne, who absolutely owns the role).
1, Yes, Prime Minister--Hacker ascends to the office of Prime Minister and, while both series are brilliant, in this one the comedy gets even better. Demonstrating a great knowledge of the ins and outs of British politics, each episode is erudite and literate. Satire and irony abound, and Sir Humphrey's obfuscatory speeches are rhetorical marvels. Truly something to savor.
A Stop-and-Chat with Larry David
Hey, aren't you Larry David?
What's it to you who I am? You trying to force me into a stop-and-chat? I don't know you from @#$%^&* Mel Gibson.
Geez, take it easy. I'm no Mel Gibson. I'm neither anti-semitic nor anti-semantic. Call me Ecurb. I'm a huge fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm--never miss it.
So? Why should I care? There's always some sychophant like you trying to suck up to me. First you lavish praise on me. Next you try to wheedle an autograph or get a passerby to take a @#$%^&* picture of the two of us. And then you start with the "Having said that" criticisms and the "suggestions" on how to improve my show. Like "Instructing that Girl Scout on how to use a tampon when she unexpectedly got her first period in your house while selling cookies to you was like holding a funhouse mirror up to our culture, combining a certain real concern for a fellow 'victim' (you're Jewish and bald, she's a vulnerable female in a patriarchal society) with a monomaniacal focus on solving a problem that was totally inappropriate for you to be dealing with in the first place, was brilliant. Your show is a virtual Rosetta Stone for America's upper middle class, allowing it to interpret itself. You make manifest the latent content of the American dream. You show how an insufferable ego (everything is all about you, isn't it?) can run amuck at the prompting of a raging id. You take a pleasant social situation and make it excruciatingly painful; you take an awkward situation and make it absolutely unbearable. That's your gift. Nobody does it better. Having said that, I think that, in this latest series of yours, Season 8, your Larry David character has become almost a characature of himself. Whereas in previous seasons the conflicts he got into seemed to emanate and then escalate naturally from the kind of person he is, the current Larry seems to be on a mission-creep to cross boundaries and violate taboos with every step he takes. It's as if instead of trying to enjoy his life and wishing to be affable but having that fail on him with the result that ultimately he is hoist on his own petard, he's now spoiling for trouble and bent on irritating and offending as often as he can."
Oh, no, not at all. I don't want to deconstruct your comedy, I don't want to evaluate it, I simply want to enjoy it. Take this season's Episode 6, for example. Saying that you find it disgusting to eat at an outside restaurant table, an activity that Susie Essman seems to feel gains cachet when termed al fresco; putting your feet up on your psychiatrist's coffee table, then asking permission to do so, receiving the permission, then deciding you don't want to after all; pointing out that white people "revere" black people who wear glasses and that an idiotic remark sounds less idiotic if made by a person wearing glasses; expressing your hope to a group gathered to pray for a dead person that there is an afterlife, then after being expelled from the group shouting "I hope there is no afterlife!"; confessing that you use the act of watching TV as a "sleight of hand" tactic to work your way into lovemaking; being astonished when your psychiatrist calls you a "narrcissist"--these are all the sorts of quintessential Larry David tidbits for which we eagerly turn on your show. But since you've raised the subject, I must say that this latest series is not as well-crafted as your earlier ones. In Episode 6, the traumatic strip-poker scene in the back of the Mr. Softee ice cream truck seems forced. A boy and a girl are going to strip while her dad drives around and sells ice cream? Doubtful. Moreover, you're not the type to be traumatized; you're the type to produce traumas in others. Here you jumped the clam.
Heyyyy! Whoa! You comparing my show to Happy Days? Nobody but you thinks I jumped the clam, genius, and nobody but you thinks I'm pushing too hard in this series. Believe me, I'm no Fonzee. Sure, it's true that I'm kind of a rebel and a bit of a tough guy and I have a certain way with the women, but the Fonz was a Republican. He liked Ike, for @#$%^&* sake.
L.D., relax.
Hey, who are you to call me L.D.? You think you're Jason Alexander or Jerry Seinfeld or my best buddy, Richard Lewis? Don't call me L.D.--you haven't earned the @#$%^&* right!
Okay. Okay. Sorry, Larry. But let me just continue my analysis. The captain of your softball team, who is also your sponsor and the owner of a car-rapair shop, likens himself to George Steinbrenner and delivers a ranting, threatening, obscene pre-game speech that no unskilled, co-ed, mixed-age group of social-recreational players like yours would ever tolerate. Here you jumped the flounder.
What? You're going on with this metaphor? You're really on a @#$%^&* fishing expedition now. This whole critique is so @#$%^&* forced!
Larry, even if it is, I have to say that it's no more so than your Episode 6. I've got an HBO app on my iPad here and I can bring up the proof instantly for you if you wish. No? Okay. Anyway, your captain-sponsor's refusing to finish his work on your car (which all too coincidentally you had left with him before the game) just because you pulled a Bill Buckner and made a game-losing error (which was caused by your being distracted by the music from an all too coincidentally nearby Mr. Softee truck) jumped the salmon.
You're crazy! We're not in cheek-turning L.A. now. We're in New York. And cheeky New Yorkers never forgive and never forget. Just think of 9/11.
Larry, really. You're comparing losing a softball game with the atrocity of 9/11?
Okay. Okay. No, I didn't really mean that. My mistake. When I'm wrong, I admit it. I apologize.
Okay. Okay. I suppose there might be some businessmen who carry a grudge that far--but pretty, pretty, pretty few. Anyhow, I have to say that the condition of your half-repaired car--its front passenger seat rattling and vibrating like a love machine-- and your obliviousness to its effect on your girl friend jumped the trout. Your peripheral vision is so bad that you couldn't notice her bouncing up and down? Your old-man hearing is so bad that you couldn't take in the tsunami sound waves of her gasping and moaning? And another time, when you're alone with her, you're unable to perform because you suddenly hear the music of a Mr. Softee truck outside your apartment?
Hey, I'm @#$%^&* self-absorbed! I never notice what's going on with other people. That's why Cheryl left me.
Larry, there's a big difference here, like the difference between a rainbow trout and a steelhead. No matter how willing, I cannot suspend disbelief in that scene. But let me just say this--
Hey, that's another one of my @#$%^&* catch-phrases! You going to steal that one, too? I don't need this. I could be fighting with Richard Lewis or giving the finger to a guy who took up two spaces in a parking lot or insulting my date and the maitre d' and the waiter and the sommelier and most of the customers at an upscale restaurant or engaging in a @#$%^&* swearing match with Susie.
Okay. Okay. Sorry. But let me just say that the scene where a guy comes up to you on the street looking desperately for a Jewish man because one more is needed to make possible a proper Kaddish prayer for the dead, and you and Bill Buckner agreeing to go with him for the sake of a free lunch, then the irate Red Sox fan at the ceremony berating Buckner and sending the two of you packing jumped the shark.
Oh, that was the worst part? That was the old shark-jumper?
No, actually, that wasn't the worst part. The ending was the worst part. You're driving down the street when suddenly Susie dashes out of her apartment building and demands a ride from you because her cousin's building has caught fire. You reluctantly give her a ride in both senses of the word, an incident that parallels a previous one but has no connection to character development and is not followed up in any way. Then you accidentally bang into yet another Mr. Softee truck, an incident which also is not followed up in any way, and you and Susie and--guess who?--Bill Buckner join a huge crowd gathered around firemen holding out a tarp and everyone exhorts Susie's cousin to toss her baby out the window. Like they're the only two people in the building in danger? So the baby is tossed (the editing here is poor; reactions of faces in the crowd intercut with shots of the falling baby--which is so obviously a ToysRUs doll looking less real than an embalmed person in an open casket--throw the time sequence way out of whack), it bounces off the tarp, flies about 25 feet, and (we all saw this coming a mile away) Buckner makes a fielder's turn-and-go move and a falling catch to save the baby, redeeming his epic baseball failure in the process, and hands it over to the grateful mother. Now how did she get down there so fast? And why didn't she just take the baby with her instead of tossing it? Larry, this ending absolutely jumped the whale. You've lost it, man. You were so great for so long, but now you've run out of stories. It's time to go, Larry. Don't hang on too long like Ken Griffey, Jr. Quit while you're still number three on my all time Top 25 Sit-Com Parade. And stop closing in on me to peer deeply into my eyes to ascertain whether I'm giving it to you straight. It's the truth, man.
Okay. Okay. But may I just say this? Ecurb, your enthusiasm for my work gives me absolutely no @#$%^&* pleasure.
Okay. Okay. But nothing ever really does, does, it Larry? And that's why I've always loved you. Hey, buddy! Yeah, you over there waiting for the bus. Would you mind using my iPad to take a picture of me and L.D.?
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