The Rush Forum's Top 200 TV Shows

[New_World_Man]

You guys want to hear something wild? I was actually thinking of adding "Joanie loves Chachi" as a joke but it looks like someone beat me to it. LOL.

[Lucas]

1) Star Trek (KenJennings)

2) The Wire ( Maverick )

3) Kung Fu ( Johnny Blaze )

4) Mad Men ( Rushian King )

5) All In The Family ( Narps )

6) The Twilight Zone ( Lucas )

7) Six Feet Under (custom55)

8) 30 Rock (Segue Myles)

9) Taxi (thesweetscience)

10) The Ren and Stimpy Show (hemibeers)

11) The Venture Bros. (ReRushed)

12) Green Acres ( Narps )

13) X Files ( Permanent Rush )

14) The Odd Couple ( Lucas )

15) Monty Python's Flying Circus (goose)

16) Seinfeld (Rushian King)

17) Twin Peaks (original)(hemibeers)

18) M*A*S*H (Narps)

19) Cheers (Johnny Blaze)

20) Leave it to Beaver (LABT)

21) Columbo ( Lucas )

22) SCTV (Russian King)

23) Night Gallery (goose)

24) Coach (thesweetscience)

25) The Rockford Files (ReRushed)

26) The Big Bang Theory (New_World_Man)

27) Curb You Enthusiasm (Russian King)

28) The Simpsons (KenJennings)

29) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Stormtron)

30) Friends (Permanent-Rush)

31) Breaking Bad (thesweetscience)

32) Happy Days (hemibeers)

33) The Mary Tyler Moore Show ( Lucas )

34) Joanie Loves Chachi (LABT)

35) The Equalizer (Toymaker)

36) Battlestar Galactica (2003) (Rushian King)

37) The A-Team (KenJennings)

38) NYPD Blue (thesweetscience)

39) Firefly (toymaker)

40) In Search Of..(johnnyblaze)

41) The Munsters (hemibeers)

42) WKRP in Cincinnati ( Toymaker )

43) Trailer Park Boys ( Rushian King )

44) Arrested Development ( Rushian King )

45) The Avengers ( 1960s ) ( Lucas )

46) The Dick Van Dyke Show (LABT)

47) Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (KenJennings)

48) South Park (Rutlefan)

49) Barney Miller (thesweetscience)

 

50) Sanford and Son (toymaker)

51) Star Trek: The Next Generation ( New World Man )

52) Hockey Night In Canada ( Rushian King )

 

 

53) The Prisoner ( Lucas )

 

Only 17 episodes, but you can only watch one thing at a time, and when I'm watching The Prisoner, I'm loving it ... All kinds of paranoia, conspiracy, Geroge Orwell and 1960s style

[KenJennings]

51) Star Trek: The Next Generation

 

I never got into most of the ST shows(other than the original)but I was a big fan of this show back in the 90's. It's a toss up for me between this one and the original.

 

Truly, my favorite show ever. TNG was my church service and my guide to humanity as a kid. It meant so much more to me than just a TV show... I posted the original at #1 because it's the alpha and omega of the Star Trek universe, and of the cultural impact from the franchise, but it was TNG and Picard and Data that really meant something to me personally.

 

I would literally not be the man I am today without the lessons and influences from TNG. I was exposed to so many wonderful moral challenges, I was motivated to emulate figures that stood as paradigms of human decency, and I was encouraged to embrace the tenets of curiosity and thoughtfulness and compassion and kindness.

 

I can think of no more ideal television for a young mind to absorb. TNG was lightning in a bottle.

Edited September 22, 2017 by KenJennings

[Rushian King]

 

53) The Prisoner ( Lucas )

 

Only 17 episodes, but you can only watch one thing at a time, and when I'm watching The Prisoner, I'm loving it ... All kinds of paranoia, conspiracy, Geroge Orwell and 1960s style

I am not a number. I am a free man!

[Lucas]

 

53) The Prisoner ( Lucas )

 

Only 17 episodes, but you can only watch one thing at a time, and when I'm watching The Prisoner, I'm loving it ... All kinds of paranoia, conspiracy, Geroge Orwell and 1960s style

I am not a number. I am a free man!

 

[toymaker]

53) The Prisoner ( Lucas )

 

Only 17 episodes, but you can only watch one thing at a time, and when I'm watching The Prisoner, I'm loving it ... All kinds of paranoia, conspiracy, Geroge Orwell and 1960s style

I am not a number. I am a free man!

 

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[Rushian King]

54-- Time Team (1994-2014). This is a show about 3 day archeological digs around Britain hosted by Tony Robinson (Blackadder). Sometimes they don't find much and sometimes they find more than they expected. Fascinating to watch as they uncover centuries and even millennia worth of history.

[HemiBeers]

1) Star Trek (KenJennings)

2) The Wire ( Maverick )

3) Kung Fu ( Johnny Blaze )

4) Mad Men ( Rushian King )

5) All In The Family ( Narps )

6) The Twilight Zone ( Lucas )

7) Six Feet Under (custom55)

8) 30 Rock (Segue Myles)

9) Taxi (thesweetscience)

10) The Ren and Stimpy Show (hemibeers)

11) The Venture Bros. (ReRushed)

12) Green Acres ( Narps )

13) X Files ( Permanent Rush )

14) The Odd Couple ( Lucas )

15) Monty Python's Flying Circus (goose)

16) Seinfeld (Rushian King)

17) Twin Peaks (original)(hemibeers)

18) M*A*S*H (Narps)

19) Cheers (Johnny Blaze)

20) Leave it to Beaver (LABT)

21) Columbo ( Lucas )

22) SCTV (Russian King)

23) Night Gallery (goose)

24) Coach (thesweetscience)

25) The Rockford Files (ReRushed)

26) The Big Bang Theory (New_World_Man)

27) Curb You Enthusiasm (Russian King)

28) The Simpsons (KenJennings)

29) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Stormtron)

30) Friends (Permanent-Rush)

31) Breaking Bad (thesweetscience)

32) Happy Days (hemibeers)

33) The Mary Tyler Moore Show ( Lucas )

34) Joanie Loves Chachi (LABT)

35) The Equalizer (Toymaker)

36) Battlestar Galactica (2003) (Rushian King)

37) The A-Team (KenJennings)

38) NYPD Blue (thesweetscience)

39) Firefly (toymaker)

40) In Search Of..(johnnyblaze)

41) The Munsters (hemibeers)

42) WKRP in Cincinnati ( Toymaker )

43) Trailer Park Boys ( Rushian King )

44) Arrested Development ( Rushian King )

45) The Avengers ( 1960s ) ( Lucas )

46) The Dick Van Dyke Show (LABT)

47) Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (KenJennings)

48) South Park (Rutlefan)

49) Barney Miller (thesweetscience)

50) Sanford and Son (toymaker)

51) Star Trek: The Next Generation ( New World Man )

52) Hockey Night In Canada ( Rushian King )

53) The Prisoner ( Lucas )

54) Time Team (Rushian King)

 

55) Get Smart

 

Barbara Feldon always gave me a special feeling but I was too young at 5 or 6 years old to understand what it was at the time. She was much hotter than Ginger or Maryanne (oh darn I gave away one that hasn't been listed).

Edited September 23, 2017 by HemiBeers

[KenJennings]

56) Newsradio (KenJennings)

 

Amazingly underrated sitcom with a fantastic ensemble cast. Phil Hartman was one of the best comic Actors ever, and Dave Foley's straight man was simply amazing. Newsradio was always a bit zanier, a bit more ridiculous, and a bit more slapstick than you might expect. I don't know that any live action sitcom ever elicited as many good belly laughs from me.

Edited September 23, 2017 by KenJennings

[thesweetscience]

56) Newsradio (KenJennings)

 

Amazingly underrated sitcom with a fantastic ensemble cast. Phil Hartman was one of the best comic Actors ever, and Dave Foley's straight man was simply amazing. Newsradio was always a bit zanier, a bit more ridiculous, and a bit more slapstick than you might expect. I don't know that any live action sitcom ever elicited as many good belly laughs from me.

Good call. The episode when Jimmy lost Bill in the poker game was hysterical.

[laughedatbytime]

57) Hogan's Heroes

 

Incompetent blustering idiot Nazis? Say no more.

[goose]

57) Hogan's Heroes

 

Incompetent blustering idiot Nazis? Say no more.

This show is a marvel in that it made the most unlikely premise for a sitcom work. Pure genius!

[laughedatbytime]

57) Hogan's Heroes

 

Incompetent blustering idiot Nazis? Say no more.

This show is a marvel in that it made the most unlikely premise for a sitcom work. Pure genius!

Imagine achieving fame as an actor playing Nazis in America – thirty years after fleeing the Nazis to America.

 

In our dour politically correct culture, which takes comedy too seriously, it sounds like a particularly excruciating form of hell. Werner Klemperer, born in Cologne in 1920, built his career playing a Nazi criminal Emil Hahn on trial in Judgment at Nuremberg, and the mass murderer Adolf Eichmann in Operation Eichmann. Then, he was the bumbling, hyper-Teutonic, Colonel Wilhelm Klink in the TV sitcom Hogan’s Heroes from 1965 through 1971. Coming from a generation that could see art as challenging and comedy as subversion, Klemperer was proud of these roles. His outrageous star turn ridiculing Nazis week after week on CBS was downright liberating.

 

It sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit gone bad: produce a comedy about a German Prisoner of War camp just twenty years after the liberation of Auschwitz; Gomer Pyle meets Stalag 17. Then hire three German Jewish refugees as three prominent Nazis. Include among the “prisoners” a Buchenwald survivor who lost twelve siblings and parents in Auschwitz, and still bears the concentration camp number A5714 the Nazis branded onto his forearm.

 

Even in those less PC times, Jack Gould, the standard-setting New York Times critic first found Hogan's Heroes: “a little sick… an insensitive and misguided extension of Hollywood television’s all too prevalent belief that anything and everything can be converted into cheap slapstick.”

 

The Buchenwald survivor Robert Clary, who played the French prisoner LeBeau, insisted: “Stalag 13 is not a concentration camp. It's a POW camp, and that's a world of difference. You never heard of a prisoner of war being gassed or hanged.” True, captured soldiers weren’t slaughtered like Jews – but POW camps were cruel. And central to the comedy’s success was its Naziness, with recurring visits from Gestapo Major Wolfgang Hochstetter, played by another Jew, Howard Caine (originally Cohen).

 

John Banner, a Viennese-born Jew, who also lost relatives to the Nazis and played the beefy, clueless “I see Nothing” Sergeant Schultz claimed: “Schultz is not a Nazi.” He saw “Schultz as the representative of some kind of goodness in any generation.” The “Good German” stance is morally problematic, absolving the millions whose indifference enabled Hitler.

 

As the son of the famous violinist, composer and conductor Otto Klemperer, as a trained actor who spent most of his three years in the American army during World War II entertaining the troops, Werner Klemperer often called Klink “just another acting assignment.” He would say that when people tried “to overanalyze 'Hogan's Heroes' I merely tell them that it was a funny show, a wonderful show, and I'm very proud of it.”

 

It was never that simple.

 

The key here is the one condition this World War II veteran and German refugee placed when cast as the anal, violin-playing, monocle-sporting colonel. “If they ever wrote a segment whereby Colonel Klink would come out the hero, I would leave the show,” he said. In other words, this show would always be “I hate Nazis,” and resist television’s saccharine impulses to become “I Love Lucy,” the Stalag edition.

 

Remarkably, this charmingly subversive show worked. True, the sane, smooth-talking, lady-killing, wry center of Hogan’s Heroes was Bob Crane as Colonel Hogan, the highest-ranking prisoner. But Hogan’s patsies—Klink and Schultz—were the most mimicked—and memorable.

 

This was the pre-Sixties Sixties, when a mischievous “beat” sensibility reigned rather than the angrier “Hey, Hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today” approach that emerged a few years later. Back then, Americans laughed at Cold War anxieties with Get Smart. They worked through class anxieties by watching fish-out-of-water country bumpkins living in luxury during Beverly Hillbillies and spoiled aristocrats mix with regular folk in Green Acres. And every week, Americans with still-vivid nightmares from World War II, which involved 16.1 million American troops, could laugh through a controlled topsy-turvy cantata that guaranteed an Allied victory. “If you liked World War II, you’ll love Hogan’s Heroes,” the show’s over-the-top tagline proclaimed.

 

Back when the cone of silence still squelched much conversation about the genocide of the Jews, when it took three years to sell the first 3,000 copies of Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night—which has now sold over 10 million copies—no reasonable person believed that Hogan’s Heroes exonerated the Nazis. But laughing made the once unspeakable more discussable.

 

Just as I Love Lucy advanced feminism by empowering women to defy their husbands, just as in a later generation, M*A*S*H mocked the military and All in the Family blasted racists and sexists, viewers loved watching the Nazis get out-smarted thanks to the underground tunnels, elaborate ruses, and spy versus spy subplot mocking the Nazis.

 

Surprisingly, Hogan Heroes became respectable. Klemperer was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Emmy, for all six seasons from 1965 through 1971—and won twice. In the highest pop culture compliment, he reprised his role as Colonel Klink on the camp classic Batman and, decades later, as Homer’s guardian angel in The Simpsons.

 

Klemperer’s Emmy six-peat suggested his true career frustration. TV’s establishment was flattered because he was slumming—with his highfalutin classical resume giving the lowest form of tv entertainment some tone. He was cultured, the son of a Highbrow icon, and one of the persecuted not the persecutors (although his Jewish-born father converted to Catholicism then back to Judaism and his soprano mother Johanna Geisler raised him Catholic).

 

Within two years, Jack Gould of the Times conceded: “the half-hour is passingly amusing as Hogan’s Heroes pulls off a coup every week and invariably foils the enemy.” And, Gould added, it’s an “ironic commentary on the uncertainties of show business” that “the primitive role of Klink” has given Klemperer “national prominence and a bulging bank account…. It is nice that such a reward should fall to a gentleman of the theatre.”

 

Now rich and famous, Klemperer returned to his—and his—father’s loves: he became a High Priest of High Culture. He performed as a concert pianist. He won a Tony nomination as Herr Schultz in Cabaret. He sang in great operas. And, using his distinctively persnickety but now almost universally recognizable voice, he narrated classical music performances, bring them to the masses.

 

When Klemperer died in 2000, his widow Kim Hamilton admitted that all the clanking about his Klink role could be demoralizing. She said, “He sometimes felt he was too identified with that character.” He would have preferred to live in a world that loved him for his classical music. Still, he was enough of a professional—and a decent enough person—to appreciate the adulation and the opportunities it provided.

 

Historians tracing America’s cultural recovery from World War II should acknowledge Hogan’s Heroes’ comic genius helped America confront the Holocaust’s hideousness.

 

Comedy should be edgy. Comedy should be triggering. By learning how to laugh at Klemperer’s “HO-gggan!” and Sergeant Schultz’s “I see nothing,” we were saying “I fear nothing”—and am hungry to learn about everything. Raising a generation of finger-pointing, cry-babying narcs is problematic. By judging everything students learn nothing, stuck in their echo chambers.

 

If refugees from Nazism could use comic Nazis to skewer Nazi evil, we can learn to love laughing lovingly at our more benign foibles, to better ourselves and our society.

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-truth-about-colonel-klink-when-americas-favorite-comedy-nazi-commandant-was-played-by-a-jewish-refugee

[goose]

^^^

 

:goodone:

[pjbear05]

58) ABC's Wide World of Sports.

[pjbear05]

The Munsters and no one has mentioned

 

59) The Addams Family?

 

YGBSM!

[Lucas]

1) Star Trek (KenJennings)

2) The Wire ( Maverick )

3) Kung Fu ( Johnny Blaze )

4) Mad Men ( Rushian King )

5) All In The Family ( Narps )

6) The Twilight Zone ( Lucas )

7) Six Feet Under (custom55)

8) 30 Rock (Segue Myles)

9) Taxi (thesweetscience)

10) The Ren and Stimpy Show (hemibeers)

11) The Venture Bros. (ReRushed)

12) Green Acres ( Narps )

13) X Files ( Permanent Rush )

14) The Odd Couple ( Lucas )

15) Monty Python's Flying Circus (goose)

16) Seinfeld (Rushian King)

17) Twin Peaks (original)(hemibeers)

18) M*A*S*H (Narps)

19) Cheers (Johnny Blaze)

20) Leave it to Beaver (LABT)

21) Columbo ( Lucas )

22) SCTV (Russian King)

23) Night Gallery (goose)

24) Coach (thesweetscience)

25) The Rockford Files (ReRushed)

26) The Big Bang Theory (New_World_Man)

27) Curb You Enthusiasm (Russian King)

28) The Simpsons (KenJennings)

29) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Stormtron)

30) Friends (Permanent-Rush)

31) Breaking Bad (thesweetscience)

32) Happy Days (hemibeers)

33) The Mary Tyler Moore Show ( Lucas )

34) Joanie Loves Chachi (LABT)

35) The Equalizer (Toymaker)

36) Battlestar Galactica (2003) (Rushian King)

37) The A-Team (KenJennings)

38) NYPD Blue (thesweetscience)

39) Firefly (toymaker)

40) In Search Of..(johnnyblaze)

41) The Munsters (hemibeers)

42) WKRP in Cincinnati ( Toymaker )

43) Trailer Park Boys ( Rushian King )

44) Arrested Development ( Rushian King )

45) The Avengers ( 1960s ) ( Lucas )

46) The Dick Van Dyke Show (LABT)

47) Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (KenJennings)

48) South Park (Rutlefan)

49) Barney Miller (thesweetscience)

50) Sanford and Son (toymaker)

51) Star Trek: The Next Generation ( New World Man )

52) Hockey Night In Canada ( Rushian King )

53) The Prisoner ( Lucas )

54) Time Team (Rushian King)

55) Get Smart ( HemiBeers )

56) Newsradio (KenJennings)

57) Hogan's Heroes ( LABT )

58) ABC's Wide World of Sports (pjbear05)

59) The Addams Family (pjbear05)

 

60) Alfred Hitchcock Presents ( Lucas )

 

Good evening

 

Hitch directed only 17 episodes during the show's run between 1955 - 1965, but there was no shortage of creative firepower with the likes of Ida Lupino, William Friedkin and Robert Altman behind the camera and appearances by Walter Matthau, Vera Miles, Joseph Cotton, Claude Raines, etc etc the list is almost endless ..

 

It is fitting that Hitch's TV show comes in at number 60 here ... In 1960, while on break filming this show, Hitch made the most of the opportunity with the time off, taking his television crew and making a low budget black and white film better known as Psycho ..

[goose]

^^^ excellent!!!

 

:ebert:

[New_World_Man]

61) Law and Order: SVU

 

Although I don't watch it as much as I used to it's one of the longest running shows for a reason. It's maybe a bit samey after a while but it's very compelling and entertaining. If you are into this kind of thing you can really do no wrong with it.

[goose]

62) Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

 

Some of the greatest comic moments in tv history. Johnny was a master at getting the best out of his guests.

[laughedatbytime]

62) Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

 

Some of the greatest comic moments in tv history. Johnny was a master at getting the best out of his guests.

I'll say this right now, if anyone says "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", the next pick will be "The Magic Hour" (Magic Johnson's short lived talk show)

[HemiBeers]

63) I love Lucy

 

This was well before my time but I still loved watching the black and white reruns as a kid.

 

Yooocy, I'm hooome!

Edited September 25, 2017 by HemiBeers

[goose]

63) I love Lucy

 

This was well before my time but I still loved watching the black and white reruns as a kid.

 

Yooocy, I'm hooome!

Those Lucy episode templates have been recycled by just about every sitcom since.

[Rushian King]

64-- Survivor (US version 2000-present). I've watched every season. Just when I think I'm getting bored with it, the next season pulls me back in. It's the only reality tv show I watch.

[Rushian King]

61) Law and Order: SVU

 

Although I don't watch it as much as I used to it's one of the longest running shows for a reason. It's maybe a bit samey after a while but it's very compelling and entertaining. If you are into this kind of thing you can really do no wrong with it.

Police/doctor/lawyer shows are a staple of television yet I've rarely watched any of them with any regularity. Off the top of my head I've seen a semi-decent amount of..... Police: Barney Miller and Starsky And Hutch in reruns after school and Hill Street Blues and Hunter semi-regularly when they were on. Doctor: uh, none. Lawyer: L.A. Law and Night Court.