A few years back, Jerry Seinfeld was being interviewed by an American newspaper and mentioned that he was disappointed that no sitcom had come along to replace Seinfeld. I found that an easy comment to agree with, but that was because I was a late comer to Modern Family. I’ve spent the last year or so catching up. During this time, I’ve found my opinion changing from “This is the US sitcom since Seinfeld” to “You know, this actually might be better than Seinfeld” and now it’s the reached the point where I think it’s time to ask “Is Modern Family the best US sitcom ever?”
If you’re unfamiliar with the show, it involves the adventures of the extended Pritchett family (three couples) in Los Angeles. The characters include a gay couple, an adopted Vietnamese child, a nerd-bimbo sister pairing and a loud Columbian. And while this makes it sound like Friends after a Diversity Workshop, it’s way more fun than that. It’s pacy, well-plotted and acted, breaks the fourth wall in a novel way, and most important of all is full of laugh-out loud lines. It’s starting to show its age just a little bit, but it still delivers.
So I put it to this blog that Modern Family is the best US sitcom ever. It has more heart than Seinfeld, better jokes than Cheers, and unlike Friends, it can also be enjoyed by males. Have I offended the Simpsons / Bilko fans? Have the Frasier devotees spat out their soy lattes in disgust? Am I right?
H.P. Saucecraft says
Er … better jokes than Cheers?
I’ll seek it out. Anyway.
Hawkfall says
Hmm, now you’ve made me stop and think. I do love Cheers, and it does have great lines (“What colour is the sky in your world, Cliff?” – Frasier).
But no, I’m prepared to stand by it. And yes, it is worth checking out.
*stands tall, wavering slightly*
Junior Wells says
The Young Uns would surely opt for Friends
Sewer Robot says
Depends what you’re looking for, I s’pose. Of those currently in production I would say Archer and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia are funnier. But they emphatically do not have likeable characters whose problems you give a sh*t about like MF. Mind, neither did Seinfeld. Of that type, I thought the best was Frasier.
Junglejim says
MF is very, very good but not the best ever IMO.
I rate it up there with Arrested Development & just behind The Big Bang Theory, which despite being on a permanent TV loop these days still crackles with properly good laughs at an incredible rate.
I think Frasier still tops it, with Cheers just behind & honourable mentions for Bilko & Curb Your Enthusiasm.
On the Larry David tip, I’m still mystified that I love Curb but, Seinfeld can barely raise a titter for me. It leaves me utterly cold. Something on a gut level screams to me it thinks it is utter genius & therein is part of the problem. Very few shows turn me right off, but this is one.
Honourable mention also for MASH, but having bought the box set, a lot of it hasn’t aged well & the wisecracking I thought was so fantastic as a youngster is so obviously a ‘tribute’ to Groucho at al that it can make your toes curl at times.
Hawkfall says
I’m the opposite with Curb and Seinfeld. Love the latter, but to my great surprise, couldn’t get on with the former. I think the difference may be that Jason Alexander makes George – despite everything – a sympathetic character. Larry David plays the supposedly the same character in Curb, but, to me at least ,he doesn’t pull off that trick.
Rec Room says
I agree Hawkfall. In many ways, they’re the same show, with Curb being the “edgier” pg-13 version. Though I think Seinfeld is sharper than Curb and has far, far better bit players.
IanP says
Agree with everything you say about the brilliance of MF, and a new series is certainly one if the televisual highlights of the week, but what I think stops it from being the very best is the great life lesson someone learns at the end of most episodes.
It seems like the writers feel obliged leave us with a lovely warm glow, safe in the knowledge that whatever conflict or problem that has driven the show as been resolved, won’t trouble anyone again, and at least one character has grown as a person.
And the last series didn’t seem to have quite the sparkle of what went before, hopefully that’s the not the start of a drawn out decline.
RedLemon says
i have been recommending Modern Family to friends since series one, but now it’s catching on, i’d have top say that the current series is lacking a bit somehow.
Big Bang Theory is better though.
JustB says
Big Bang Theory is, quite simply, not in the least bit funny.
Have you seen those videos on YouTube where they take its laugh track off, and let the “jokes” stand alone? There’s nothing there. And it hasn’t got anything to say about anything, at all. The point of comedy is the same as the point of poetry: to recast things we didn’t know were true in a new way so that we see their truth revealed. Except with added jokes. BBT has neither truth, nor jokes, and – as someone else said recently – is nerd humour written by people who aren’t nerds and don’t know any nerds.
I’m sure this isn’t true of you, RL, but all the guys I know who like BBT would’ve been wearers of Red Dwarf t-shirts 20 years ago.
(I’m not keen.)
Bingo Little says
Here’s an example.
(I’m not keen either).
Diddley Farquar says
It’s unbearable.
(I’m not keen either).
Jeff says
Unwatchable.
As is Modern Family.
Actually, it may just be that I find the gay couple in MF unwatchably camp, and so have never got past them into the show itself. Should I persevere? Is it really ‘the best US sitcom ever’? Is it even ‘very very good’?
Junglejim says
No, Bob you are completely wrong.
It’s a funny show, beloved by millions. It ain’t the greatest & is obviously the product of a writer’s team, but it’s still good.
The no- laugh tracks on YouTube are the exact opposite of adding laughs where they don’t exist – they are actively edited out, as can clearly heard, thus giving the ‘airless’ & flat impression such clips create.
BBT is recorded live in front of an audience & like virtually all such shows it employs a ‘ sweetener’ laughter mix that heightens the impression & pace the TV audience gets. Hardly crime of the century.
As for the purpose of comedy? Primarily to make people laugh, oddly enough, which BBT does. It’s not aiming to be a slice of life doc, but rather uses one of the oldest devices in existence – the juxtopositioning of opposites.
So: 3 highly intelligent, very well paid individuals who live together & are highly competitive have one thing in common: they can’t talk to girls – & whaddya know? A pretty girl lives opposite who is not as IQ smart but is grounded in the real world & throws their little goldfish bowl into spasm.
Very simple premise which plays on the lazy archtype that the uber intelligent are often socially awkward & thus they are ‘no better’ than us regular folks who fixate on more mundane stuff.
Like most archetypes, it does of course contain a kernel of truth.
Bingo Little says
It’s a matter of taste, isn’t it? I’m not sure you can objectively demonstrate anything to be funny.
I’ve sat in on a taping of BBT and it was profoundly unamusing from where I was sat, but you’re right that a lot of people do love it. That said, if we’re going to use audience volume as a measure, BBT gets about 20m US viewers on a good night. Not sure what Modern Family gets. The final Seinfeld got 76m, the last Cheers got about 95m and M.A.S.H knocks the spots of all of em with a whopping 125m. Even adjusting for the decline in TV audiences, BBT is small time compared to those shows.
Sewer Robot says
As well as questions of personal taste, it’s just a fact that some sitcoms (presumably with an eye on lengthening their natural lifespan) have a greater emphasis on the “sit-“. So I kind of agree and disagree with Bob. A show like 30 Rock is all pyrotechnics and relies on zingers and keeping the laughs coming. BBT seems to have as many “Awww” moments as laughs, as we are asked to invest in the characters. It’s only in episodes such as those when the imperious Bob Newhart appears that we are treated to machine gun gags..
JustB says
I’m not wrong. I’m right.
Junglejim says
Great answer DB
Have an up!
?
JustB says
I like to bring my famous Socratic debating techniques to the table at times such as this.
Dave Ross says
Nope, Frasier is the best. MF is good, sometimes brilliant but Frasier was wonderful all the time (except for the Manchester accents)
Clive says
Which in the case of Daffers brother was a cockney accent.
bang em in bingham says
Well the best North American laughgrab is Corner Gas…but everyone knew that anyways
davidks says
Its always Frasier for me, still makes me laugh out loud after many viewings. There is no finer sitcom character than Niles Crane.
I really liked Modern Family in the first few seasons, but the quality has dropped off recently and doesn’t have the same appeal. It is following the well known American trait of sitcoms still running well after their appropriate finish date (which Frasier was probably guilty of too).
Bingo Little says
Seinfeld, for me. It pretty much wrote the rule book that sitcoms have played to (for better and worse) ever since. It’s also the funniest, which helps.
ratbiter says
No.
In order:
1. Frasier
2. Arrested Development
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm
4. Cheers
5. Friends (it has lost its impact through constant repeats, but at the time, it was excellent).
6. How I Met Your Mother
Modern Family comes somewhere below there, ranking with (old) Simpsons and Family Guy. Seinfield isn’t funny. Neither is Big Bang Theory.
count jim moriarty says
The correct answer is M*A*S*H.
ianess says
As has already been pointed out, Modern Family follows the well-trodden path of delivering a cosy little morality lesson. All very emetic. One of the many glories of Seinfeld was that it purposely avoided these, plus having a ‘no hugs’ rule and rather unpleasant, therefore believable, characters.
Bingo Little says
“No hugging, no learning”.
That’s exactly what makes Seinfeld special. It’s bleak, and nasty – we’re not supposed to like the four main characters, they’re all horrible people. That’s why the final episode ends (Spoilers for a show that ended nearly 20 years ago) with them all on trial.
Friends, arguably the most commercially successful sitcom of all time, literally took Seinfeld and inverted the “no hugging, no learning” rule, to enormous success.
Diddley Farquar says
I didn’t think they were horrible at all. They were on a par with characters in shows like Cheers. In fact quite conventional for a US sitcom. Two good looking, rounded, relatively ‘normal’ people for the audience to identify with and two less attractive, messed up, oddball but loveable types to laugh at with their inability to operate successfully in the real World. Although I note they all surprisingly managed to get dates with attractive people (even if, in the case of George and Kramer, these were short-lived) – I guess this was useful for story lines.
Bingo Little says
They’re all deliberately self absorbed and callous. Both Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David are on record acknowledging this.
Take, for example, one of the show’s very earliest truly classic episodes – season 2’s “The Pony Remark”. The main storyline is about Jerry being annoyed he has to attend the funeral of a recently deceased relative (whose death he suspects he may have indirectly caused) thereby missing a softball game he wants to play in.
In “The Finale”, the gang watch a man being carjacked, and instead of helping him they crack jokes about the event and videotape it. They end up on trial because of a local law which requires bystanders to assist victims of crime, and the rest of the episode consists of old characters appearing to testify to their horrible callousness.
None of this should be confused with the characters being dislikeable. Seinfeld wouldn’t have been so popular if they were dislikeable. But the misanthropic tendency described above, coupled with “no hugging, no learning” totally marked the show out from what went before.
Here’s an article which elaborates:
http://www.vulture.com/2014/06/how-seinfeld-paved-the-way-for-tony-soprano.html
Junglejim says
Sat & watched a bit of Seinfeld online last night in an attempt to do a bit of ‘is it me?’ . I recommended classic episode was The Betrayal & then a 15 min segment of ‘best bits’.
Sorry to report stony silence throughout – definitely not a single laugh, possibly one or two half hearted smirks at most.
Conclusion: just not funny.
Curious though, cos I’m a v big comedy fan & there’s little I don’t like.
I can see all the comedic ‘cues’ & why it should be funny, but it’s on a parr with Mrs Brown’s Boys for me.
My loss, obviously but I can’t think of a more stark example of the ‘one man’s meat’ thing for comedy.
Bingo Little says
I suspect that the show’s simply not for you, but an episode from the final season and 15 mins of clips wasn’t your best hope of getting it.
I’d suggest any of The Contest, The Yadda Yadda, The Marine Biologist, The Soup Nazi or The Limo, in case you fancy giving it another shot.
Junglejim says
Cheers, Bingo.
I remember watching The Contest many years back & finding it ‘amusing’ rather than funny – surely the worst kind of damning with faint praise – I kind I’m increasingly curious about trying to discern what are the mechanisms that ‘work’ for some people but not others.
Seinfeld for me is just a very clear example of the Marmite principle & I continue to be perplexed as to why it just leaves me cold.
Some folks just have a tin ear for comedy & won’t laugh at anything – with me, nearly anything raises a chuckle.
Hancock (TV or radio) is something I can’t laugh with due to the sense of foreboding that hangs over TH, & I find it too sad. Seinfeld is lauded as up there with the very best & has been plausibly intellectualised but fails to connect in any meaningful way.
Obviously it would be a v dull world if we all felt identically.
Bingo Little says
Absolutely!
I think once we start explaining why something is funny, that’s generally the point at which any hope of a laugh is entirely lost.
What I will say for Seinfeld is I know quite a few people who didn’t get on with it at all, and then suddenly had a eureka moment after a certain number of episodes. But then I know others for whom the eureka never came – as you say, entirely a matter of taste.
Diddley Farquar says
I think that article rather exaggerates and overstates the elements that were novel and original, and comes close to being a candidate for Pseud’s Corner. Much comedy comes out of dark, bleak situations and characters behaving badly. Look at Fawlty Towers. It’s hardly a new thing. Seinfeld did break new ground, of course, but I think the author of that article is reading too much into it.
Bingo Little says
Here’s another article saying the same thing, the style of which may be more to your liking;
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/06/how-seinfeld-invented-a-new-kind-of-sitcom.html
Fawlty Towers is a different kind of comedy to Seinfeld; Basil is a classic grotesque and the audience is invited to laugh at, rather than with, him. That’s why he’s surrounded by straight (wo)men, for contrast. The modern descendants of Fawlty Towers are the likes of Partridge and the Office, shows about warped individuals in a normal world. Seinfeld is a show about a warped world, where every single character is out for themselves and oblivious to the suffering of others – there are no knowing looks to camera, no cues to let the audience know that other characters have clocked the selfishness and are reacting to it. That’s what made Seinfeld so unusual, that misanthropic tendency, coupled with a mass audience.
OOAA
Diddley Farquar says
Stubborn aren’t you? Yes it’s a better article. I approve, which I am sure you are glad about. I’m still not convinced they are all so awful as is being made out. Vain and selfish quite a bit of the time, yes. Including Jerry and Elaine. But also they do people favours, consider others. I get that there’s no redemption but that’s refreshing rather than totally cynical. It’s more realistic, if also caricatures in some cases. Aren’t they a bit like you and me? Maybe that says something about me. I wouldn’t say that Fawlty Towers or The Office feature one grotesque either, there are others. Basil’s wife, for one, is pretty dreadful – we side with him against her at times.
Diddley Farquar says
It’s more realistic, even if they are also caricatures in some cases, I meant to say.
Bingo Little says
Not stubborn, I just hate to see someone missing the point of Seinfeld ; )
Diddley Farquar says
Must be galling for you. I watched the episode called The Pen on DVD last night funnily enough. Jerry and Elaine in Florida with his parents. Season 3. A classic.
Lando Cakes says
The answer to the OP is an emphatic ‘yes’. It makes me laugh out loud almost as much as Still Game, it’s got a good heart and the ‘camera blog’ (or whatever the name is) bits are always well done. I like the way the characters have developed over time too.
Seinfeld, on the other hand, is both unfunny and charmless. I’ve seen a few episodes and concluded that life is too short to watch any more of it.
Big Bang Theory I quite like though.
Fin59 says
The Phil Silvers Show. AKA Sgt. Bilko.
Shakespearian. Subversive. Just plain funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVEgR2l8ObI
Bingo Little says
That’s a brilliant shout.
ianess says
There’s a rumour that the reason it was cancelled was because the Pentagon were upset at its pisstaking/flouting of authority.
Oddly, I recorded a few episodes recently on Forces TV, but it seems to have been pulled from there also. Still hilariously funny.
Glittering, bravura performance from Silvers. An all-time great.
duco01 says
Re: Bilko
Recently, I finally got to see the famous Bilko episode where a chimpanzee accidentally enlists in the U.S. Army.
Subversive? Yes, definitely.
Funny? Absolutely hilarious.
Can I just give a little shout-out for Paul Ford’s portrayal of Bilko’s superior, the long-suffering Colonel Hall. Terrific!
ianess says
There’s a stunningly funny moment in the courtroom scene where the chimp wanders away and picks up a phone. Bilko improvises a line and the rest of the cast struggle to compose themselves.
Totally agree with you about Col. Hall. Magnificent.
Leedsboy says
Put simply, The Simpsons is the best sitcom ever.
Moose the Mooche says
If you are speaking from the year 1999, you are correct.
Unfortunately it’s been crap since then.
Arch Stanton says
The correct answer is Parks and Recreation.
Shame on you all for not mentioning it.
Second best is The Venture Bros. A criminally under rated cartoon about a grown up child genius that featured David Bowie as an evil assassin. (With Iggy Pop as his henchman.)
Gatz says
That’s because P+R is the less good 30 Rock. I like it a lot, and the last couple of series have just started UK screening on Sunday night on Dave, but it isn’t even the best from that stable, never mind outdoing the big hitters like Frasier and Friends.
duco01 says
The duco01 guide to Parks and Rec:
Series 1 – Didn’t see it
Series 2 and 3 – Absolutely brilliant
Series 4 and 5 – Still very good
First half of series 6 – Reasonable.
Then it jumps the shark – basically when Ann and Chris leave the series.
The rest of series 6 and – particularly – the final series are an embarrassing shambles.
Kid Dynamite says
Aaargh. We are working through Parks & Rec, and literally the most recent one we’ve watched is the one where, you guessed it, Ann & Chris leave.
Up to that point, I like it a lot, without thinking that it challenges Cheers or Frasier in the best sitcom stakes. That said, it does have one of the greatest ever sitcom characters in the shape of Ron Swanson. I would spend good money to see a crossover where some unlikely contrivance means Ron and Niles Crane are forced to spend time together.
SixDog says
No love here for The US Office?
Once it cast off the shackles of the Gervais original, it flew very high indeed, surpassing its creator by a considerable distance.
Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica
davidks says
The quality dropped off considerably once Steve Carell left. Before then it was great, after that it was close to unwatchable.
Pessoa says
I agree with you both. Seasons 2-5 were very good indeed and often more inventive than ‘our’ Office, but it then turned into an over-acted rom-com.
Arch Stanton says
…and the first four seasons of Community did geekdom a billion times better than big bang theory.
dadwardo says
Strongly agree. Nerd Heaven. It had (what I thought) was a half-decent return to form when Harmon came back. I thought the finale was outstanding.
Overall, nothing betters Cheers. Frasier an unlucky second. Seinfeld a commendable third.
Greatly enjoyed the first couple of series of Modern Family, but somehow now I’m happy to let it fly by. And don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
Junglejim says
Community is superb & obviously very knowing.
I can’t begin to express what a Dan Harmon fan I am ( more for the podcast than his shows), & have to agree about its ‘truth’ about nerds. It’s essentially a show about misfits finding acceptance & thus has a huge heart for them, being created by a mega nerd.
I do think the comedy dynamic differs markedly from BBT theory though, in that Sheldon & co are all successful in their fields & have academic affirmation but are still failures in the field of human interaction.
The ‘inmates’ of Greendale haven’t even quite figured how they ended up at ‘ not a real college’, whereas the BBT bunch have ‘arrived’ at their goal only to discover they are profoundly dissatisfied.
Other dry comedy analyses are available.
Pessoa says
Not going to pick a fight over this, but The Larry Sanders Show is my contender for the best US sitcom, being groundbreaking ‘meta-drama’ as well as frequently very, very funny (“Hey Now! Hank Kingsley” is one of the best sitcom characters ever). And, unlike other good shows, it didn’t dip in quality by the end of the final season. Pity it was so hard to see over here.
Hawkfall says
BBC2 used to show Seinfeld and The Larry Sander Show back to back in the early 90s. I think it was in the kind of time slot where they hoped nobody would watch. Somebody in the channel must have decided that it was bad form to import popular shows from the former colonies, leaving the way free for Channel 4 to snap up North Exposure, NYPD Blue, ER and Friends.
Sewer Robot says
It wasn’t such much that they put these shows in a “graveyard” slot as that they kept moving the graveyard, and some weeks – Brigadoon-like – the entire town where the graveyards might be found just disappeared…
Diddley Farquar says
The Larry Sanders Show was where the idea of comedy as discomfort at watching characters being unaware of their appalling behaviour and comments really came to fruition. A kind of car crash comedy at times you could say. Acutely real and brilliant. Made Seinfeld look cuddly and sweet. A style Ricky Gervais blatantly copied for The Office, as he himself admits. At times too close to the bone to be funny though. Perhaps.
Junglejim says
Excellent call, Pessoa. It was the first show I ever snapped up a DVD bargain of, fearing I’d never see it again i I didn’t.
Totally agree re: Hank – a prime example being when he gets the show he’s moaned & bickered about for years only to dismally fail to make the grade. Hilarious & ‘tragic’ simultaneously.
Often had the feeling the guest stars were only too delighted to be on, as if ‘lifting the lid’ on the vile narcissism behind the veneer was almost a relief.
Ali says
Haven’t seen MF, so no opinion.
Undateable, You’re The Worst and BBT are the US ones, on at the moment, that get a belly laugh from me.
Lando Cakes says
And it would appear that I’m the only one here that has any love for Scrubs?
Arthur Cowslip says
You might be. Haven’t watched it since the first couple of series I admit, but I always found the whole style of it (the editing with musical stabs after every punch line, etc) very irritating.
On The Fence says
I´m not sure but it´s certainly up there. For me, It´s gotta Frasier although it did go slightly off the boil towards the end. The great thing about Modern Family, is that there dont appear to be any weak characters.
Giggles says
My two cents:
I enjoy MF a lot. I could never get on with Seinfeld, but I acknowledge its place in the pantheon.
I think that Frasier is the greatest American sitcom, because for all their pomposity, the brothers are very likeable.
However, none of them can hold a candle to my favourite comedy of all time, every episode of which I’ve watched, rewatched and adored with slack-jawed wonder. The sharpness of the scripts, the ensemble acting, the multi-dimensionality of the characters, the lack of a theme tune and laugh track make it just note perfect for me.
But it’s not relevant to this thread, ‘cos The Thick of It was, in every best possible sense of the term, a British production.