The Monkees
Remember, this is not a musical top-100 list—see the entry on American Idol. But whatever contributions the Prefab Four didn’t make to music, their show was a form-breaking tribute to video chaos. This sitcom-cum-marketing-platform was surrealistic, experimental, self-referential and as trippy as a network show of the time could reasonably be. (It’s funny to think that it was on the same network that was airing the drug-paranoid Dragnet ’67.) Davy, Micky, Mike and Peter made up what they lacked in musical cred with real acting chops, using improv in a way that foreshadowed shows like Reno 911! while the show’s psychedelic wackiness presaged the hallucinatory Saturday-morning shows of Sid and Marty Krofft. And as for its show of TV’s power to fabricate pop sensations? Again… see American Idol.
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
