The Beavis and Butt-Head Show
To those who would call this MTV cartoon the boob tube at its most puerile, I have but one rejoinder: You said “boob.” This show’s fart-knocking, frog-smashing anarchy might have put it on the list alone, but B&B was so much more. It was a surreal comedy (“I am the great Cornholio!”). It was one of TV’s great inside critiques, peeling back the MTV fantasy of unattainable cool and personifying the sugar-buzzed idiot-children who paid the channel’s bills. Like creator Mike Judge’s later King of the Hill, Office Space and Idiocracy, it was an unsparing, minutely observed and surprisingly good-hearted picture of consumer America. And to the list of great philosophical dialectics—good/evil, yin/yang—it added another: “That’s cool” / “That sucks.” B&B was on the right side of that one.
A - F
- The Abbott and Costello Show
- ABC's Wide World of Sports
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents
- All in the Family
- An American Family
- American Idol
- Arrested Development
- Battlestar Galactica
- The Beavis and Butt-Head Show
- The Bob Newhart Show
- Brideshead Revisited
- Buffalo Bill
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- The Carol Burnett Show
- The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite
- A Charlie Brown Christmas
- Cheers
- The Cosby Show
- The Daily Show
- Dallas
- The Day After
- Deadwood
- The Dick Van Dyke Show
- Dragnet
- The Ed Sullivan Show
- The Ernie Kovacs Show
- Felicity
- Freaks and Geeks
- The French Chef
- Friends
G - M
- General Hospital
- The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
- Gilmore Girls
- Gunsmoke
- Hill Street Blues
- Homicide: Life on the Street
- The Honeymooners
- I, Claudius
- I Love Lucy
- King of the Hill
- The Larry Sanders Show
- Late Night with David Letterman (NBC)
- Leave It to Beaver
- Lost
- Married... with Children
- Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- M*A*S*H
- The Monkees
- Monty Python's Flying Circus
- Moonlighting
- MTV 1981-1992
- My So-Called Life
- Mystery Science Theater 3000
N - S
- The Odd Couple
- The Office [American]
- The Office [British]
- The Oprah Winfrey Show
- Pee Wee's Playhouse
- Playhouse 90
- The Price Is Right
- Prime Suspect
- The Prisoner
- The Real World
- Rocky and His Friends
- Roots
- Roseanne
- Sanford and Son
- Saturday Night Live
- Second City Television
- See It Now
- Seinfeld
- Sesame Street
- Sex and the City
- The Shield
- The Simpsons
- The Singing Detective
- Six Feet Under
- 60 Minutes
- Soap
- The Sopranos
- South Park
- SpongeBob SquarePants
- SportsCenter
- Star Trek
- St. Elsewhere
- The Super Bowl (and the Ads)
- Survivor
T - Z
- Taxi
- The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
- 24
- The Twilight Zone
- Twin Peaks
- The West Wing
- What's My Line?
- WKRP in Cincinnati
- The Wire
- Wiseguy
- The X-Files
- Your Show of Shows
