Life can be stressful, and finding ways to take the mind off all that stress can be hard. Thankfully, mankind has entered a golden age of distractions and streaming services help give audiences hundreds, if not thousands, of choices when it comes to avoiding tension headaches.
For many, there’s nothing better than a good old-fashioned sitcom to help melt away the daily stresses we all face. Getting a few laughs in every thirty minutes or so is great, but being able to binge some classic sitcoms is where it’s really at. And thanks to Paramount Plus, some of the best sitcoms of all time are ready to make us laugh again.
10 Cheers Still Knows Your Name
There are only a handful of sitcoms that were as culturally important as Cheers. Cheers, initially centered around the budding romance of bartender Sam and waitress Diane, evolved into a sitcom about people rarely seen on TV before – leading the way for a generation of shows that followed it by perfecting the will they/won’t they format of storytelling and creating some of the most beloved characters in television history. The theme song to Cheers promised that every viewer would be welcomed like an old friend, and for two-hundred and seventy-five episodes, that promise was kept.
9 I Love Lucy Is Still One Of The Best
One of the most loved sitcoms of all time, I Love Lucy continues to make people laugh seventy years after it debuted. Starring Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, Lucy remains one of the most recognizable icons of television, be it from the time she crushed grapes with her feet or when she worked on the conveyor line for a chocolate company, shoving candies into her mouth with wild abandon.
With an upcoming movie starring Nicole Kidman and written and directed by The West Wing‘s Aaron Sorkin, now is the perfect time to revisit I Love Lucy and remember why it still stands out after all these years.
8 Happy Days Keeps It Simple
Another long-running series that outlived its initial premise about a high school kid and his friends growing up in 1950’s Wisconsin, Happy Days continues to make people laugh to this day. Along with introducing the world to the Fonz, one of the greatest comedic characters to ever grace the small screen, Happy Days introduced the world to Robin Williams when he guest-starred as Mork from Ork, later going on to get his own series, Mork and Mindy. These days, Fonz’s famous leather jacket hangs in the Smithsonian in Washington DC, but every episode of his story can be seen on Paramount Plus.
7 Sister, Sister Brings That ’90s Feel
Running for six seasons as part of ABC’s famous TGIF lineup, and starring real-life twin sisters Tia and Tamera Mowry, Sister, Sister was a 1990’s classic that never gets the attention of shows like Friends and Seinfeld because it was aimed at a younger audience. Telling the tale of two sisters who couldn’t be more different if they tried, Sister, Sister never pushed the boundaries of the family sitcom genre, but it continues to be a series that the whole family can get together and enjoy.
6 The Odd Couple Built A Format
Based on the 1965 Neil Simon play that was turned into a hit film in 1968, The Odd Couple took the basic concept of Simon’s work – two divorced men move in together and drive one another crazy – and took it to the next level. Starring the perfectly cast Tony Randall and Jack Klugman as the anal-retentive Felix Unger and the overly messy Oscar Madison, The Odd Couple was not a hit TV series when it originally aired – it never broke into the top 30 in the Nielsen ratings – but it became a beloved series in syndication years later.
5 Taxi Will Take You To The Laughs
The forefather to shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Party Down, Taxi centered on the employees of the Sunshine Cab Company, who seemed to spend more time sitting in their garage than actually picking up fares in Manhattan. Famous for introducing the world to the likes of Tony Danza, Andy Kaufman, Christopher Lloyd, and Danny DeVito, Taxi still has a grimy edge that is rarely seen in sitcoms today.
While most workplace sitcoms focus on blue-collar jobs and clean-cut employees, Taxi‘s rough and tumble characters helped create new types of sitcom characters that continue to challenge the basic sitcom format to this day. It’s impossible to see Christopher Lloyd’s Reverend Jim and not notice how much of the Reverend can be seen in Michael Richards’ Kramer.
4 Wings Flew Over The Competition
Created by three veteran writers from Cheers and set in the same universe, Wings focused on the Hackett brothers as they tried to keep their small single-plane airline company Sandpiper Air off the ground. In between flying vacationers from the mainland to Nantucket Island, the brothers and everyone else out of Tom Nevers Field would often find themselves mixed up in the usual sitcom concepts, but the characters made everything feel fresh and new. While Wings was never as popular as other NBC sitcoms of the time, the series managed to run for eight seasons and continues to find new fans to this day.
3 Family Ties Brought The Love
Mostly remembered for turning Michael J. Fox into a household name, Family Ties was a revolutionary series when it first began. Family Ties, which saw liberal parents Elyse and Steven butting heads with their Ronald Reagan loving son, played by Fox, was one of the first shows to focus on a family where the parents were baby boomers.
Family Ties ran for seven seasons, during which time it won five Emmys and a Golden Globe. Most recently, the show was used as the inspiration for the WandaVision episode “A Very Special Episode…” which perfectly copied the opening credits of Family Ties.
2 Sabrina The Teenage Witch Is Magically Fun
While The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina may be a darker version of the famous comic book character created for today’s TV landscape, Sabrina the Teenage Witch was about as family-friendly as a sitcom could get in the 1990s and early 2000s
Another member of ABC’s TGIF programming before it moved to the WB for its final three seasons, Sabrina the Teenage Witch starred Melissa Joan Hart as the titular character and kept things pretty light. While today’s Sabrina could be a little too much for younger viewers, this version would fit them perfectly.
1 The Brady Bunch Just Feels Nice
One of the most milquetoast sitcoms to ever exist, The Brady Bunch ruled over the first half of the 1970s by painting a picture of the perfect middle-income family. The titular family – perfectly split between a mom, and dad, three daughters, and three sons – never faced any major problems, unless you consider Marcia’s broken nose a shocking event. While many of the jokes on The Brady Bunch may not work today, its influence can still be felt in many of today’s popular but bland sitcoms.
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