Best US Sitcom of the 1970s

Wonder if Soap holds up at all.

Three's Company is a different era, debuted in 1977

http://images-cdn.moviepilot.com/image/upload/c_fill,h_200,w_285/t_mp_quality_gif/happy-birthday-norman-fell-319247.gif

American 70s sitcoms kind of sucked, tbh.

I am challenged by this opinion

voted MTM but Newhart was just as good

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/8c/13/6f/8c136f036ea5f92e65f1e399b275fd31.jpg

Missing so many, plus the cutoff makes no sense to me. I don't get why 1976 is OK and 1977 is somehow a totally different era. These shows all coexisted in my youth along with:

Chico and the Man
What's Happening
Different Strokes
Silver Spoons
Facts of Life
One Day at a Time
Family Ties
WKRP
Taxi
Harper Valley PTA
Beverly Hillbillies
Gilligan's Island

And they were typically arranged in pairs:

Chico/Sanford
Alice/One Day
Strokes/Spoons
Good Times/What's Happening
Happy Days/Laverne
WKRP/Taxi
Hillbillies/Gilligan

And as the afternoon wore on, the one-hour shows also arrived in pairs, e.g. Love Boat/Fantasy Island

Why has Eazy posted a pic of John Stapleton?

We can do a separate poll for the late '70s crop. I feel if a show arguably peaked in the '80s (WKRP, Taxi, Facts of Life…) that's not the same vintage as the ones on the ballot.

One thing that changed was the institution of the "Family Viewing Hour" rule in the Fall of 1975, under which you could no longer put adult-oriented themes in the 8-9pm EST slot. It was legally repealed in 1977 yet the custom sort of tacitly continued, resulting in a bit of dumbing down of programming. I think if you take a broad look at it, you can see how the new shows of 1976-77 and after are of generally more frivolous nature than the more challenging ones of the prior era.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then All in the Family. I liked WKRP but don't think it measured up to those two.

apparently One Day at a Time is being rebooted w/ a Latino cast

I saw it maybe once or twice, ditto many other non-Lear or MTM Productions shows mentioned above. WKRP seemed utterly mediocre to me.

roughly speaking, the '71-76 shows (led by AiTF) attempted to bring new levels of 'real' comedy to the format -- as has been thoroughly written about, CBS didn't want Mary Richards to be single aka boyfriendless (AND by implication, occasionally having sex with dates) cuz they weren't sure there was an audience for such a character.

I feel if a show arguably peaked in the '80s (WKRP, Taxi, Facts of Life…) that's not the same vintage as the ones on the ballot.

M*A*S*H ranked No. 3 show of the 1982-83 season. No. 4 of the 1980-81 season.

Taxi

Cool that u can fp a poll tho!

yeah M*A*S*H was a habit by the early '80s, all the characters had turned into Alan Alda; boring.

70's sitcoms ruled over 80's sitcoms, IMO. the 80's stuff got watered down, milquetoast, and not very challenging, at least until Rosanne and Married with Children. For every Cheers there are a dozen Perfect Strangers.

"not sitcom per se, but i'd throw in ghost busters"

what, that awful cartoon version with the gorilla? WTF.

Perfect strangers wasn't that much better than cheers!

also, what about the Partridge Family? that started in 1970. it also sucked. Brady Bunch forever (which I guess started in 69 so doesn't count)

"Perfect strangers wasn't that much better than cheers!

― Ecomigrant gnomics (darraghmac),"

either you are being funny or you really misunderstood me

i don't buy this didactic stuff

i wanna be entertained

The first three seasons of "The Cosby Show" are as good as any '70s sitcom that isn't All in the Family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_Busters

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/91/The_Ghost_Busters_%28TV_series%29_cast_photo.jpg

need toxic cleanup funding for this thread

didn't know Neil Young was in a sitcom!

xpost

I watched most of this list regularly as a kid. Rewatching now I just can't stand Happy Days or Laverne and Shirley (or Welcome Back Kotter, 1975 and not listed here.) I also watched Odd Couple and Newhart but never really connected with them, they were just something that was on.

Tie for All in the Family and MTM for me, although most recently I've been watching a number of MASH reruns, a program I didn't watch as much when it was new, and really enjoying them.

I've seen about half of these, I think the next era of US sitcoms was better represented on UK television (subject to regional variations, i.e. the dreaded announcement, "Viewers in *insert UK region* have their own programme")

As far as I'm aware, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, Maude were never been shown on British television. Have seen the Bob Newhart Show, but only later ones. All in the Family and Laverne & Shirley were shown fitfully. Mary Tyler Moore I don't really remember, though I'm pretty sure it was on - I remember Rhoda pretty being popular though. I don't know what Good Times is.

(... and I only know about Maude and The Jeffersons from references in Family Guy tbh)

MASH was such a blind spot for me--didn't watch it very often, didn't like it when I did. My antipathy was made worse when the TV was taken over every night in residence for MASH reruns.

yeah M*A*S*H was a habit by the early '80s, all the characters had turned into Alan Alda; boring.

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, March 9, 2016 4:34 PM (30 minutes ago)

rare point of agreement

i had no idea Ghost Busters was an actual non animated show. Weird! I think my saturdays were filled with Sid and Marty Krofft things instead.

I saw a season of M*A*S*H on DVD a decade ago and didn't get it either.

the dreams episode with the amputated arms scared me as a child and still gives me nightmares

first five seasons of MASH are gen pretty funny and occasionally brilliant. I did like Harry Morgan more than McLean Stevenson.

Sanford and Son is unlikely to be shown on UK TV, I'd have thought, as it's based on Steptoe and Son.

All in the Family was based on 'Til Death Do Us Part and I saw that a couple of times.

man, apparently there have been three American remakes of Fawlty Towers

Sanford and Son is unlikely to be shown on UK TV, I'd have thought, as it's based on Steptoe and Son

The first season of Sanford and Son (actually a half-season) predominately used actual scripts from Steptoe and Son!

XP One of which starred Bea Arthur!

And one of which made Manuel Italian because making fun of a Spanish-speaker wouldn't play over here.

MTM all the way

guessing i had a babysitter who watched 'all in the family' on a night i got sick or something because while i have never seen it, the very idea of it (or god forbid the theme song) makes me want to die of depression

I love Bob Newhart and I feel kind of sad whenever I watch an episode of one of his sitcoms because I know that he's probably going to die quite soon.

I've not seen that much of All in the Family but whenever I've tried to watch it I can't get past the fact that it just seems like an inferior version of Till Death Us Do Part/In Sickness and in Health which is one of my favourite sitcoms; maybe All in the Family would make more sense to me if I were American?

Voted MTM

Wasn't alive in the seventies

i think i did an ilx poll years ago pitting steptoe and son vs. sanford and son and it didn't really work because there wasn't anybody who had actually seen both shows

i watched an episode of till death us do part on youtube once and damn, that was some dark stuff

Was Three's Company shown in the UK? Because that was based on Man About the House

http://i.imgur.com/Erp0tbX.jpg

That'd be a pretty good clickbait headline at the bottom of some spam ad.

^ That was the other big backlash of the mid '70s: crime shows like Police Woman and Kojak were forced to tone down their violence, which was getting pretty gritty. I guess M*A*S*H was subject to that too.

"Well, first, we're going to replace all of the children with chickens..."

I just realized that it's possible I've never seen a single minute of either MTM or The Bob Newhart Show. I guess they were never syndicated to the extent of some of the rest of this stuff?

I really loved AitF when i was ten.

Wow yall are old. I have never seen a single minute of any of these shows.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/91/The_Ghost_Busters_%28TV_series%29_cast_photo.jpg

― F♯ A♯ (∞), 10. maaliskuuta 2016 0:41 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

didn't know Neil Young was in a sitcom!

xpost

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), 10. maaliskuuta 2016 0:46 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me neither, but who are the two guys with hats?

Wow yall are old. I have never seen a single minute of any of these shows.

Not even Happy Days? I was born in 1979, so I'm too young to have seen any of these in the original run, and some of them were never shown in Finland, but even I haven't managed to avoid seeing bits of Happy Days reruns.

And since it was filmed one-camera style, half on the Fox ranch in Malibu i think, it had that goddamn laugh track.

It's one of those 'use other facts', but when M*A*S*H was shown on BBC2 (the 'upmarket' BBC channel at the time) they removed the laughter track entirely (I guess because canned laughter was considered too vulgar for the British middle classes)

Couldn't believe it ever had a laugh track tbh! Is M*A*S*H is the only long running US sitcom the BBC has ever shown from start of series to end of series? I can't think of any others.

The BBC didn't show a lot of US sitcoms, I suppose M*A*S*H was worthy enough for the Board of Governors.

How could I forget Kotter? That show was the bomb. Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, John Travolta.

I was born in 1971 and have seen everything listed. But since everything was still in constant syndication I couldn't tell you whether I watched a given show in 1975 or in 1980. And I'm not sure how much it matters.

Bewitched/I Dream of Jeannie felt more late 60s than 70s; they went well with Gidget/Flying Nun. Lucy and Honeymooners felt 50s-ish, just as Mork and Cheers definitely felt like 80s shows. But WKRP and Taxi had a 70s vibe and should imo be considered with the 70s shows regardless of what year they were made.

Evening shows were palatable to both adults and children circa 1978 - Burnett, Muppets, PM Magazine. One misses

I see "Soap" ran from 1977 to 1981, so misses out too.

Tough call between Sanford & Son and Jeffersons. Went S&S.

Couldn't believe it ever had a laugh track tbh! Is M*A*S*H is the only long running US sitcom the BBC has ever shown from start of series to end of series? I can't think of any others.

― A Fifth Beatle Dies (Tom D.), Thursday, March 10, 2016 11:41 AM (6 hours ago)

sgt bilko/phil silvers show is pretty popular in the uk, isn't it? it's oddly ignored and forgotten here.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Dunno why but I was perusing a list of all the TV shows that were around in 1981, and god what a dismal bunch. 2 or 3 of the shows listed above were still around though, plus Three's Company.

One cool thing I noticed was that Andy Kaufman's guest spot on Fridays was the same weekend Charles Rocket said "fuck" on SNL.

voted jeffersons

Love "The Jeffersons" for the Marla Gibbs-Helmsley repartee, unusual for being devoid of sexual tension.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Really...zero for Laverne & Shirley? I loved the first few seasons but it did get sloppy and weary once they moved.

And thank you for bringing up PM Nagazine! Flood of memories....

Sparky Marcus was a fave anytime he made an appearance in a sitcom.

As far as I'm aware, The Jeffersons, Sanford and Son, Maude were never been shown on British television

Strange, someone could have given a go at showing a re-make of Steptoe and Son