Obviously, some of these are more associated with decades other than what's listed here, but I wanted to be fair and list them all. When picking a favorite, try to pick based on how good the show was in that decade.

 

Invision Free won't let me go unlimited on the options, hence the A-G.

Without a doubt, it was Cheers. It was well written and had great characters. A conservative (Rob Long) actually wrote a lot of the scripts.

 

Even though it started in the late 80s, I would also include Married With Children. It was absolutly freaking hilarious, and besides, Al Bundy scored 4 touchdowns in a single game!

I go with Cheers as well. That show was casted perfectly, which is amazing considering the amount of characters they had on the show at any given time. Also, being able to give everyone a fair amount of screen time on a 30 minute sitcom is another accomplishment. It's hard to find an episode of Cheers that isn't entertaining, the same can't be said for most other shows.

I'm going with Cheers, just because of the shows listed that I've seen more than a handful of episodes, that's the only one that isn't dated. Cheers could probably still be part of a primetime lineup and it wouldn't seem out of place.

 

The Cosbys is a close second, but it got real repetitive, as ironic as it may seem for me to say, since I went with a show that was confined to a bar most of the time.

 

I've come to the conclusion that Full House would've actually been consistently funny if the girls had been phased out and the male leads and Kimmy Gibbler had been left. Those characters were (and still are) good for some laughs, but having to sit through the insanely corny storylines and dialogue that usually involved the three girls makes it easy to miss that.

I don't know -- late-era Full House where they made Stephanie Tanner a bad girl and gave her a skanky best friend who smoked and shoplifted was strangely enticing. That storyline was weird, because they pushed it like Stephanie was changing her friend into a better person, but the underlying message was that Stephanie was enjoying the dark side and was secretly just dying to take her top off.

 

But yeah, the "talks" with Michelle and Donna where music would magically start playing in the background sucked. And Uncle Jesse getting his big time opportunity to make a music video and doing nothing but showing his soft side with his children sucked. And Rebecca Donaldson crying when Papouli died, even though she had only known him for five minutes or so - that sucked too. Stephanie was cool though - she also had the second best catchphrase on the show. Then again, I'm a mark for the middle child.

 

Hard to watch Full House these days, knowing that "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette is supposedly about Dave Coulier. She went down on him in a theater. Ewwwwww.

As for Cosby, I loved the show and still enjoy the re-runs at times, but it sometimes comes across as the best PBS show ever instead of a formidable primetime powerhouse. Lots of 80s shows are like that though. I guess it just shows how much television has changed in the past 15-20 years.

 

Overall, I'd say 70s sitcoms have aged better than 80s sitcoms. All In The Family, 30+ years later, is still socially relevant.

Stephanie had her moments, but that's more about her overcoming the lame material she was working with and just having the great presence to make it entertaining. I guess it also helps she had the fewest dramatics in the series in comparison to her sisters. Seems like every episode from the first three or four seasons involved D.J. blowing up about something retarded.

 

Michelle ceased being of any worth once she was getting regular lines. She worked well as the adorable character with the occasional line, but once she matured, she annoyed the hell out of me.

 

The later seasons were when I started watching the show, so certain episodes have some sentimental attachment to them. As a whole, those seasons were really terrible and marked the turning point where the series went from being able to produce some interesting storylines to having laughably bad plots regularly.

 

I shouldn't be discussing Full House this in-depth.

I agree that Cheers is really the only one on the list that has held up through the test of time, though I am DYING to see Alf reruns on TV again (yes, I know they're on DVD).

 

A lot of shows in the 80s were more about popular characters and catchprases than really good storytelling. Just look at the shows on the list:

 

ALF - ALF himself

A Different World - The one with the glasses that flipped up and the "Southern Belle" character

Blossom - Joey's "Whoa!"

Diff'rent Strokes - Arnold "Whatchu talkin' about Willis?"

Family Matters - Urkel

 

Cheers also turned Diane leaving and Coach dying into positives by replacing Shelly Long and Nicholas Colasanto with Kirstie Alley and Woody Harrleson and rolling along without much difficulty.

Who's the Boss?? Now that's a real sitcom. Seriously, I think it's waaay underrated as a sitcom.

 

 

 

Memoarble starting theme? Check

 

Charasmatic stars? Check

 

Funny situations? Check

 

Everything else? Check

WTB had its moments for sure. Judith Light is weird, but she can act really well, and Mona Robinson was one sexy old hag.

I like the Cosby Show, especially the later episodes with Olivia, but it still pales in comparison to Cheers.

I'd say the first 5 seasons of Cheers were the best but it became average once Coach and Diane were gone. The impact Coach had as a character is very underrated on that show.

 

I'd say second place goes to Golden Girls. There was a certain brutality in the humor that I still find to be very funny.

Golden Girls was great! Really holds up well too.

Another great show was "Get a Life" with Chris Elliot as a psychotic paperboy.

 

My favorite episode was when he was exposed to toxic waste and got the amazing powers of spelling. "I could never spell the word, 'pants'. I always had trouble with the silent H."

And Rebecca Donaldson crying when Papouli died, even though she had only known him for five minutes or so - that sucked too.

This was on tonight. I found it funnier how tough Michelle took the death, since the guy was there for all a day before kicking it. "I was his little Michelle." Uh, yeah, for like a day.

Cheers was great but they clearly had run out of ideas the last few years. The last couple of seasons had no real storyline arcs. The one big one, Sam and Rebecca trying to have a baby, was abruptly dropped and was quickly forgotten. There were tons of random episodes the last couple of years that didn't build to anything. Looking back I have to say the Woody character really was annoying. Coach ruled.

 

 

Cosby was killed by repetitive storylines and Bill trying to have a Jazz singer he liked in every other episode. Rudy lost her charisma when she grew up.

 

It's weird about Full House. I HATE the early episodes. Very corny. DJ was Becky Connor before Becky Connor. The last season seemed to have a change in writing as the humor was much more sarcastic and included a lot of pop culture references. I think they wanted to have the show have a rougher edge with the kids growing up but obviously it wasn't to be as the show was cancelled.

 

Who's the Boss was always a favorite. Judith Light, although lacking in charisma, was a very fine actor and got the best out of Tony Danza.

 

Golden Girls is great simply for the one liners. I never liked it when they tried to get serious. As a side note, just how many times was Rose going to move out before changing her mind at the last second? I remember at least 3 episodes of that kind. The show featured old time comedy writers when that style of writing was being phased out and it holds up really well.

 

Alan Thicke is criminally underrated on Growing Pains. He carried it.

 

Head of the Class was great until Howard Hessman left.

 

Wonder Years was great. That show should have lasted way longer than 4 years.