30. The Office (UK) [2001 - 2003]
One of the greatest cringe-comedies of all time, and a perfect vehicle for Ricky Gervais at his most embarrassing. With a total of 12 episodes (and a two-part Christmas special), The Office never overstayed its welcome like its US counterpart. The result is a tight, funny, and very rewatchable British comedy that helped change the face of sitcoms with its documentary-style approach and talking head interviews.
29. Cheers [1982 - 1993]
One of the coziest sitcoms ever aired, Cheers stayed solid through 11 seasons and multiple major casting changes, never dipping to the lows of most shows that run over 200 episodes. With its familiar setting, iconic theme song, and (mostly) lovable ensemble cast, Cheers still holds up as the kind of show that you can return to any time and feel right at home. Maybe not hysterical, but impossible not to enjoy.
28. Frasier [1993 - 2004]
And here comes one of the greatest spinoff shows ever made, and a complete 180 from the simple-minded charms of Cheers. This show revels in its uppity attitude and never shies away from finding humor in clever wordplay and intellectual debates. While it sounds alienating, the show offers plenty of opportunities to laugh at these characters and their snobbiness. It had a wide appeal but never feels dumbed down to achieve this.
27. The Honeymooners [1955 - 1956]
One of the single most influential sitcoms ever, in spite of only running for one (very long) season. Since I didn't grow up watching Jackie Gleason, I went into this show with fairly low expectations and walked away a pretty big fan. This show holds up really well, and the tropes it helped establish are still being milked today. And no, Ralph Kramden doesn't beat his wife. His fist-wagging is an over-the-top exaggeration of his frustration. In other words, a "joke".
26. King Of The Hill [1997 - 2010]
A funny and stripped-down animated sitcom that has a surprisingly conservative viewpoint that the show itself doesn't condemn. It's weird to me that this could happen with a show that's actually good, but it's far more interesting than for just that one simple reason. With a great cast and lots of heart, this is one of the most quietly entertaining sitcoms I've ever seen. It ran 14 seasons and never sucked. That's kind of impressive.
25. The IT Crowd [2006 - 2013]
Laugh tracks in the 2000s aren't something I generally approve of, but they don't bother me when inserted in a show that's funny enough to make me laugh hard enough I can't really notice them. At only 24 episodes and an elongated finale, The IT Crowd has a small main cast and uses each of its characters perfectly. While it's definitely similar to Black Books, I still prefer this one -- a sitcom wonderful enough to give Richard Ayoade a starring role.
24. Scrubs [2001 - 2009]
Around the beginning of the 2000s, we started to see a handful of sitcoms with more surreal jokes and an absence of canned laughter, and Scrubs is one of the best of them. While I'm not usually a fan of hospital shows, finding humor in this depressing setting made this a memorable show, and the fast-paced editing and absurd set-ups and characters also helped it stand out even more. And no, I'm not counting the 9th season, as the show had already found its official finale in season 8. Also, season 9 was terrible.
23. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace [2004]
With only 6 episodes, this show plays out like a miniseries, which would make it the funniest miniseries ever made. An ultra self-aware comedy with tons of unmet potential -- that was only unmet due to the show not lasting as long as it should have. With a fun cast and wonderfully stilted acting, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is one of the all-time best shows to be cancelled after just one season. If you like self-aware genre parodies, give this show a look.
22. The League [2009 - 2015]
I was relatively uncertain about this show going into it, as I don't care at all about football (I'm a fantasy baseball guy), but luckily the show doesn't rely on sports knowledge to be funny. It has a hilarious cast, tons of wonderful recurring jokes and one of the single most hilariously terrifying sitcom characters ever conceived: Rafi. It's nothing mindblowing, but the show made me laugh. A LOT. And sometimes that's all I need in a show.
21. Curb Your Enthusiasm [2000 - present]
One of the most cringe-inducing shows ever made, but also one of the most embarrassingly funny I've seen. While it's maybe not as consistently funny or timeless as Seinfeld, at its best this show is probably better. But, well, you'll see in a minute. Larry David is such a hard character to like, but the petty situations and passive-aggressive interactions he has with his fellow celebrity friends are more than enough reason to love the show. It hurts, but in a good way.
20. Seinfeld [1989 - 1998]
I didn't plan to put this show right next to Curb Your Enthusiasm, but fate always finds a way to make me look like an ass. Probably the most acclaimed sitcom ever (maybe The Simpsons), and for good reason. A show that finds humor in the smallest of everyday occurrences, with the power of a group of funny and totally unlikable lead characters. This show has inspired tons of comedies since, but the main thing that sticks out about it to me is season 4, which is some truly amazing TV.
19. Veep [2012 - present]
And yet again, I find a way to connect the previous show to the next one on the list. I don't know how this happened. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a hilarious actress, and this is easily the best work of her career. I'm generally a little cold on political shows and movies, but the snark, wit, and rapid-fire dialogue of this show more than makes up for the subject not being right up my alley. All that, tons of great characters, and a refreshing lack of political-correctness...it's wonderful.
18. 30 Rock [2006 - 2013]
Tina Fey can be pretty hit-or-miss with her corny, ridiculous sense of humor, but in this show she (mostly) found the perfect level of absurdity to make for one of the most awarded comedies of all-time. With her and Alec Baldwin as the two main leads, the show found the perfect platonic duo to anchor this ridiculous series. Though there are some less-than-effective jokes and characters (KENNETH), there are still a ton of jokes in each episode, and some crazy ideas that grab your attention and lead to some genuine belly laughs.
17. Taxi [1978 - 1983]
One of the great workplace comedies, Taxi is a classic show I knew all about long before I ever sat down to watch it. Though the first and final seasons are a bit rocky - due to some cast issues - once the show brought in Christopher Lloyd it was good as gold. Tackling some genuinely tricky themes, this wasn't the kind of show afraid to go to dark places and always knew when to let a dramatic moment really land. It was also very, very funny. Lots of heart, some great characters, and one of my favorite theme songs ever. Good stuff.
16. Home Movies [1999 - 2004]
A crudely drawn and subtly hilarious animated adult show that truly shocked me with how much I enjoyed it. The writing, unlike the drawing, is super sharp, finding humor in surprising places, reverse-engineering punchlines, and even utilizing Emo Phillips in a way that actually works. Of course H. Jon Benjamin stands out as the most entertaining character in the show, but there isn't a single weak point in the main cast. The animation is pretty awful, but that only adds to its quirky charm and personality.
15. Fawlty Towers [1975 - 1979]
One of the most flawlessly executed sitcoms ever made, Fawlty Towers is so much more than just a Cleese vehicle -- and even if that's all that it was, it would still be fun. There are so many wonderful forms of comedy at play here, and from everything I hear about how long it took for them to make the scripts for each episode, it all makes sense. This is John Cleese's best role, and that's including everything he did in Month Python. A classic British comedy, and one that has aged remarkably well.
14. Archer [2009 - present]
Although I haven't seen the most recent season yet and I haven't been a huge fan of the past couple, but the first 4 seasons (especially) are some of the funniest and most clever on TV. I particularly love the way this show uses cuts to deliver punchlines, seamlessly blending dialogue exchanges from conversation to conversation, allowing characters from a different scene entirely to complete a joke from the other scene and have it flow perfectly and naturally. There's a great cast of characters, loads of running gags, and some very interesting and unexpected narrative turns.
13. Maron [2013 - 2016]
By only a few episodes in and ever since, I've found myself asking why this show is less popular than Louie. In fact, I genuinely can't understand why this show isn't popular at all. It only ran all handful of seasons and doesn't break any new ground, but the quality of the material is so great and the development of this fictionalized version of Marc Maron is so captivating, it more than makes up for these few points against it. Balancing comedy, drama, and most of all truth, Maron is a well-crafted show from beginning to end, and worthy of a much larger fanbase.
12. All In The Family [1971 - 1979]
I never really knew much about this show for the longest time, writing it off as yet another in a long line of family based sitcoms with a really popular dumb dad character and a naggy wife. But my god, I don't know if I could've been further off. From the very first episode, I was hooked, drawn in to the loud, angry social and political debates between two hot-headed characters who are never quite smart or open-minded enough to see when they're in the wrong -- Archie more often than not being "wrong", but in incredibly entertaining ways. Though it faded by the end, the first handful of seasons are some amazing TV, and I loved it without reservation.
11. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia [2005 - present]
Sort of like the extreme version of Seinfeld, It's Always Sunny has basked in some of the most staggeringly immoral lead characters in TV history, going from scheme to scheme, learning nothing, and walking away often even more awful than they were beforehand. With 5 distinct and hilarious lead characters, there isn't a weak link in the bunch, and the result is a finely tuned comic machine that can work with any combination of characters in virtually any scenario. Yeah, the last couple seasons have gotten bizarre, but then again, when hasn't the show been a total trip, anyway?
10. Bojack Horseman [2014 - present]
I often take issue with comedy shows that feel the need to become dramas as they go along, like M*A*S*H or even Archer (to a lesser degree), but with Bojack you have a sitcom wherein the entire purpose is to highlight the dark underbelly of cheery sitcoms as a whole, never attempting to pass itself off as anything but a very darkly funny and tragic series. And with its titular character, you have the perfect lead for this show. It's hard to talk about this show without getting into very upsetting, uncomfortable, and shocking material. And if you're one of the many people who tuned out after the first episode or two, you really don't know what you're missing, as this is arguably the most consistently great show on TV.
9. Bob's Burgers [2011 - present]
But while I enjoy the soul-crushing darkness of Bojack, there's a simple sort of pleasure I get from watching Bob's Burgers (the first 6 seasons in particular) that reminds me of everything there is to love about more traditional sitcoms. There are a lot of wonderful things to say about this show, but in the end I think my love for it comes down to how great of a lead Bob Belcher is. He's not the clichéd dumb dad character, and he's actually a really good person who loves his job and family, all of which without ever being boring to watch. It's a simple show in many ways, but filled with crazy side characters, musical numbers, and other flashy things to help set it apart.
8. The Office (U.S.) [2005 - 2013]
As much as I enjoy the precise and consistent nature of the British original, there's an unhinged madness to this reimagining that makes it incredibly entertaining, even if just to observe the huge changes it undertakes and the directions it goes. While some of the later are deeply flawed following the departure of Michael Scott (season 8 in particular suffers from his absence, like a lost puppy), a large part of the cast remains intact throughout, and many of the character additions work well with the rest of them. Highly improvised, full of hilarious moments, and packed with enough heart to get you really engaged in these crazy peoples' lives.
7. The Simpsons [1989 - present]
A show so classic, so imitated, and so long-running it's a surprise it can even be considered a show anymore and not just some ever-present pop culture deity. But it's in 7th for the simple fact that, even while some of the newer material isn't horrible, the drop-off in quality following the first 10 seasons was so sudden, it felt like watching a parody of itself instead of the real thing. But damn, those first 200~ episodes were so wonderful I will gladly just rewatch those again and again, skipping the weaker stuff and still having enough funny material to fill a handful of other, lesser shows.
6. Parks And Recreation [2009 - 2015]
For a show that basically started off as a weaker version of The Office, Parks seemed pretty much doomed to fail from the very beginning. The cast had a few obvious highlights (Ron Swanson is one of the greatest TV characters ever), but the characters were mostly dull and derivative, the presentation was the same, and the stories were pretty standard. But by seasons 2 & 3, with the removal of Mark and addition of Ben and Chris, the show took over as one of the best on TV. And it remained that way through the finale. Unlike The Office, it ended at the right time, and the time it took to build up steam didn't wind up feeling like a detriment as much as a template to prove how far the show moved from its unimaginative roots.
5. Arrested Development [2003 - 2006]
Notice I left out the Netflix Original season when I put this on here. This isn't me just writing around the show, I just don't consider it part of the proper show, which ended over a decade ago now and was perfect in pretty much every way. Not that I didn't enjoy "season 4" enough, but seriously, it never could have matched the genius of these 3 seasons. Clever set-ups, hidden punchlines, amazingly crafted running jokes, and more wordplay and puns than you can shake a stick at (that's a phrase, right?), this show was packed with so much material, I'm still picking up on tiny details a decade after first watching it. The characters are wonderful, the writing rivals any drama you could put forward, and the narration alone would be funny and creative enough to carry an entire show.
4. Peep Show [2003 - 2015]
It took me years of being nagged by multiple people to start watching this show, and when I first did I found it tough to watch. An entire series seen through the eyes of its characters? Seems like a fun gimmick, but ultimately a little goofy and sort of distracting. But what I didn't initially see was the genius of this, allowing the characters themselves to narrate the events they're living through, giving the audience a crystal clear insight into the literal thoughts and emotions of these characters. Shifting between the two leads, sometimes in mere seconds, this narrative device is both ridiculously simple and intricate. But all this aside, it boils down to the hilarious adventures of Mark and Jeremy and the wonderful performances and writing. The show ran on and off for over a decade, and never ran out of steam. One of the funniest and most brilliant shows of the 2000s.
3. Community [2009 - 2015]
Much like several of the past few entries on here, Community is a show that suffers from a really huge weak point that almost cripples the show entirely. Season 4 is so awful, it almost makes me wish they'd cancelled it after 3, even if that meant sacrificing all the good 5 and 6 had to offer. But regardless, the show makes my list as one of my favorites of all-time during the times when everything just clicked. A community college doesn't seem, on the surface, to be the setting you would expected for intense paintball battles, zombie outbreaks, and Civil War-esque pillow/blanket fort battles, but there you have it. This is an absurd show that plays out like a cartoon half the time, but never sacrifices emotion for cheap thrills. It's got a lot to offer, and is packed with so many little references, hidden jokes, and details, you can watch it a dozen times and still catch new things you missed the previous 11. This show is a huge part of me at this point, and I'm totally fine with that.
2. South Park [1997 - present]
While The Simpsons, King Of The Hill, and pretty much every other animated comedy that ran more than a half dozen consecutive seasons struggled to maintain freshness as the years trudged on, South Park has managed to keep its stories tight, and the humor both relevent and sharp. Even 20 seasons in (after a few welcomely semi-experimental serialized seasons) the show has kept things funny and as brilliantly satirical as it's ever been. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are two of the greatest comedic minds of the past 100 years, and South Park's continued brilliance is the finest possible example of that. There are so many amazing characters, moments, episodes, seasons, and jokes in this show, it's nearly impossible to even count them all. Simply one of the funniest shows ever made.
1. Futurama [1999 - 2003 / 2010 - 2013]
Even above Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, The Next Generation, The Outer Limits, and Twilight Zone, Futurama is what I consider the best sci-fi series ever made. While there are definitely some duds throughout the show, Futurama did what few other shows have managed to do -- go off the air, make a comeback, and still be just as good during its second wind as it was from the beginning. With a ton of amazing episodes filled with laughs and a shocking amount of emotion, Futurama is an unconventional sort of sitcom that uses its futuristic setting to deliver ridiculous jokes firmly entrenched in pop culture and loads of puns. Like many have said before me, you come for the laughs and stay for the heart. This show can be ridiculously heart-wrenching, equally as hilarious, and surprisingly clever. My favorite show ever, and the most infinitely rewatchable.
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