JPTV: Rating Sitcoms, NCAA Bracket-Style

By James Poniewozik | @poniewozik | March 11, 2010 | +

Who’s the TV critic you’d vote least likely to ever appear on an ESPN network? Me! Who’s going to be on ESPN2′s First Take today around 11:30 a.m. (ET)? Me!

Not talking sports though, not exactly. The show’s having me on to judge a greatest-sitcoms-of-all-time battle, bracket-style. (Brackets are the tournament groupings they use in NCAA basketball. Where you throw the basketball through the basketball ring.) Update: They’ve also booked Cheers’ George Wendt to offer his picks, so now you have an actual reason to watch.

ESPN picked the shows to go in the bracket, not me (though I added a couple requests), so these aren’t my 16 favorite sitcoms of all time, nor did I seed them. (If I did, there wouldn’t be any upsets!) And I can’t say I gave my picks exhaustive, serious consideration–the process basically involved five minutes on the phone with a producer.

But it’s a fun exercise and a neat twist on the old best-of list: Is this one thing better than that one thing? (Hulu, by the way, is doing the same thing, but for currently running TV shows.) Some shows I love got a bad draw, and others went farther than they would if I were writing up a straight list. Such is the majesty of sport!

But the final winner is my all-time favorite; you’ll have to watch to see what it is. Or after the show airs, I’ll post the bracket and my picks here, if I can figure out how to format it.

In the meantime, you can play along at home. First Take’s four “divisions” are New School, Syndicated, ’80s and Classic. (Basically, everything before the ’80s. They skew young.) What are the first seeds in your bracket?

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katy93

Of all time? The Dick Van Dyke show (after its shaky first season) was brilliant. It played to the strengths of its core cast, balanced Rob’s work and home life with great stories about both spheres, and understood that pain is funny (Rob coming home from skiing–priceless). And it named a great band (the Mel Cooleys).

Frasier did many of the same things, although I’d never really put the two shows together before–I guess I like them for very similar reasons. The visual gags with the recording room window were always a treat. The comedy was character-driven, which I love.

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http://twitter.com/poniewozik James Poniewozik

OK: Here were my picks. Keep in mind that I didn’t choose the 16 shows (except to ask that Arrested Development be included). Don’t ask me why The Simpsons was in the New School bracket.

NEW SCHOOL BRACKET
1 Simpsons
4 Family Guy
3 Arrested Development
2 The Office

Simpsons over FG, AD over Office, Simpsons over AD

SYNDICATED
1 Seinfeld
4 Home Improvement
3 Everybody Loves Raymond
2 Friends

Seinfeld over HI, Friends over Raymond, Seinfeld over Friends

’80S
1 Cosby Show
4 Golden Girls
3 Taxi
2 Cheers

Cosby over GG, Cheers over Taxi, Cosby over Cheers

CLASSIC
1 I Love Lucy
4 The Honeymooners
3 MASH
2 All in the Family
Lucy over Honeymooners, MASH over Family, MASH over Lucy

FINAL FOUR
Simpsons over M*A*S*H, Seinfeld over Cosby, Simpsons over Seinfeld
archstanton68

James, at what point do you downgrade a series that declines in it’s later years? With both The Simpsons and The Office, they were once funny, innovative shows that are currently only the 3rd or 4th funniest shows of the night on their respective networks. Does the early body of work stand by itself, or can later, painfully unfunny seasons skew your opinion of the entire series?
http://twitter.com/poniewozik James Poniewozik

Great question! Don’t totally have an answer for it!

Generally I lean toward having the early years stand by themselves. I don’t think there are seven years of any sitcom that touch the first seven of The Simpsons. It could have turned into According to Jim after that, but it’s not like that retroactively makes the first seven any worse. Roseanne had an awful last season, but otherwise it’s one of the best sitcoms of the ’90s. No one says I have to watch the last season. If you hated Seinfeld’s finale, I doubt that retroactively makes the other episodes less enjoyable.

Conversely Arrested Development was nigh perfect for three years. Would it have stayed that way? We’ll never know. I judge it by what it was. Likewise Freaks and Geeks. But nor would I want to reward them for being cancelled early, in practice, by penalizing shows that were kept alive long enough to suck.

I tend to prefer shows that swing for the fences and have big highs and big lows, anyway, over shows that are consistently good. So that’s partly my bias.

And I guess the *number* of great seasons is a factor. 24, IMHO, was great season 1 and season 2. (I know others differ, just run with it as an example.) Considering what came after, that’s not enough for me to say it’s one of the handful of greatest dramas ever.

But finally these are gut, subjective decisions. Don’t trust anyone who follows rules consistently.
anon76

Ugh, AD did get a tough draw. I’d have a hard time choosing between Simpsons and AD. For breadth of greatness, I’d certainly agree that The Simpsons is the Best. Show. Ever.
However, I don’t think anything has ever outshone the brilliance of that first season of Arrested Development.