must be one o dem hot dog carts done burned it down (and TV list)

So I finally figured out how to put pictures in blogger.... and it's so easy a crippled lemur, or better yet, FDR, could do it (too soon?). Thanks to my wonderful girlfriend for showing me. It was really easy, although I said earlier I wasn't gonna mess with pictures. And I won't that much. But she did so much for me in her post, and I love her for all her support, that I had to show you all what a beautiful girl she is. Also, you get to see me in full beardo mode.

We got a treat on the 4th when the Rose Bowl, which we were sitting in for festivities, caught on fire (Fire at the Disco! Fire at the Rose Bowl! Fire at the TACO BELL!!!) from fireworks, naturally. It made our night... honestly. If only it could burn down certain parts of California. And on the way home we witnessed a strange celebration that could have been a party gone bad or a Satanic ritual. In LA, who knows?

A few days ago she posed me the question of making a list, since I like making lists so much, about my favorite TV shows ever. This is a fairly obvious list but I don't know if any of us have tackled it before. As someone who's trying to write for TV, it should be an important one for me. I named 300 movies that were great... shouldn't I be able to come up with a few good series?

.... maybe.

I had to think back to the cartoons of my youth to fill it out. Hmmm. Myabe I should just stick to animation, as it dominates the list. I'd like to, for sure, but not kids' stuff. Not quite. After doing this list, you may wonder why I'm going to start off as a lowly dreg for a sitcom that I will undoubtedly have no respect for. And... yeah me too. But that's the business, as they say.

I decided to break it down into two groups. Comedy and drama? No, scripted and unscripted, since that's a real difference for me. I hate 90 % of dramas anyway. In fact, I hate 90 % of television. Hire me now!

But yes, it was hard to sort out all the different kinds of shows there are.
A while ago on myspace I tried to come up with a sketch show list, but I hadn't seen much of UCB or Mr. Show then. Now I know much better. So I split up my list into scripted shows and sketch / variety shows. I think that works much better. I'm going with pure favoritism, not just what's more acclaimed, because TV is mostly not like film where I can appreciate the art of it. Soemtimes I can. But usually, either it's entertaining or it's not. And, like my music list, I'm grouping it, since I see a tough time choosing.

The top scripted / fictional shows of all time:

01
Simpsons
02
Family Guy

These go on a pedestal by themselves, and it shouldn't be that surprising if you know me. They've been a huge part of different stages of my life. Nothing can really compare to the Simpsons; they've been my show for years, since I was a kid. I grew up with them. I know they've sunk the past few years, but most of the shows on this list only lasted a short while. They still had at least seven great years and many good ones. That's unmatchable. And since FG is the new Simpsons, the torch has been passed, and they are almost one the same level. Don't know if they can or should make it to season 17, though.

This next group was the toughest to sort out. The top two were easy, but the battle for number three is impossible. At times, all sorts of shows have held that ranking. These ten could be nearly interchangable; they're all great, but they either lasted too short, or I haven't seen enough of them (and some are still going).


03
Gilmore Girls
04
Freaks and Geeks
05
Arrested Development
06
Home Movies
07
The Office BRITISH
08
Reno 911
09
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
10
Harvey Birdman
11
Stella
12
Six Feet Under

Watch out for Six Feet Under... that could be number three some day. It's fantastic, and I need to see more. By the way, I'm including Stella and Reno in this list, despite their sketch comedy bases, because they involve stable fictional characters in a continous story arc, however crazy it may be.

The next group includes some recent discoveries as well as some sentimental favorites. Note that the D would be much higher if they did more than six episodes. But what power those six had....

13
Tenacious D
14
Futurama
15
Eerie, Indiana
16
The Critic
17
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
18
Garfield and Friends
19
Animaniacs
20
South Park
21
Seinfeld
22
Adventures of Pete and Pete

And finally, to close out with all the scripted shows that deserve to be on a list, I give you the rest of my top 40, which is again a mix of recent faves and nostaliga crisises (read: cartoons).


23
X Men: the animated series
24
Curb Your Enthusiasm
25
News Radio
26
Batman: the animated series
27
Freakazoid
28
Entourage
29
The Job
30
Boston Public
31
Space Ghost
32
the Cosby Show
33
Twilight Zone
34
Tom Goes to the Mayor
35
The Office NBC
36
The Tick
37
Sopranos
38
Lost
39
H. R. Pufnstuff
40
Law & Order

I can't go to 50 without choosing things I liek purely for Unintentional Comedy and datedness (well, Pufnstuff does, but that's on another level... seriosuly, how did this get on air? How did it make it past censors? How could they NOT see the drug imagery? If you tried to air this show today, 200 Republican congressmen would have a fit and have the Kroft brothers tarred and feathered... unbelievable....). So I'm stopping this list at 40. Here were some honorable mentions, mostly out of nostalgic glee:


Tazmania
Life with Louie
Sonic the Hedgehog
Beetlejuice
Tiny Toons
Duck Tales
Rescue Rangers
all Nintendo related cartoons
Twin Peaks
Family Matters
Perfect Strangers
Family Ties
Good Times
The Jeffersons
What's Happening?
Taxi
basically anything from the late 70's

And there you go. Perhaps Hal Hartley was right.

Now, to the sketch / variety list. Hard to grade the sketch shows with the late night talk and variety shows, but I think I represented them all well. Like my scripted shows, two of the variety stand out to me... and like before, this ought to be very obvious.


01
the Daily Show
02
the Colbert Report

Yeah. No question. These guys bring great comedy and satire and really, more information than you could get from "real" news sources... and they do it four times a week. That's tough.

Now, the list moves on for the best sketch shows of all time. Note that I broke up Saturday Night Live into different eras, because every other show had a stable main cast. I can't include it as a whole when absolutely every cast member changes every six years or so.


03
Saturday Night Live ('90-'95)
04
Upright Citizens Brigade
05
Mr. Show
06
the State
07
Kids in the Hall
08
Monty Python's Flying Circus
09
the Dana Carvey Show
10
Chapelle's Show
11
Saturday Night Live ('75-'79)

Yeah, I feel a little sad for giving in and going with SNL, a show that has really dredged itself lately (save for the channel 101 people) and has become a terrible monopoly of sketch comedy now. Seriously, there's nothing else. From 87-00 we had different outlets like Kids, State, Mr. Show, and UCB. Now nothing. I wanted to go with the upstart State, my favorite memory of middle school (not a hard task, believe me), but I haven't seen a large deal of it in so long. So I guess I'll go with the early nineties SNL.

But, it's first for a reason, because you just can't beat that cast, which performed every time and had great people like Conan O'Brien, Bob Odenkirk, and Robert Smigel writing for them. They weren't afraid to try things or be crazy and go strange directions. Toonces the driving cat was the dumbest sketch idea ever, so predictable every time... and it still makes me laugh my arse off.

I could switch UCB and Mr. Show each time I make this. That's just too close to call. And once I FINALLY get some State stuff on DVD, I'll be free to judge it correctly, and see if it was just an exaggeration of my teenage mind or if it was that good (okay, I know it is, I've seen stuff on youtube, and all their future projects were great). And Kids is a fantastic comedy, still today. I could live off the DVD's of just these shows and never be bored.

The next ones I feel like mentioning, a mix of variety and sketch:


12
Da Ali G Show
13
TV Nation
14
Conan O' Brien
15
TV Funhouse
16
Robot Chicken
17
Trigger Happy TV
18
Real Time with Bill Maher
19
In Living Color
20
Letterman

You might not remember TV Nation. It was a half hour show on NBC, on Friday nights, that didn't last very long. It had a format strangely similar to what the Daily Show does now... very similar... with Stephen Lynch as a correspondent, no less. And who was the host of that show? NBC gave it to a young filmmaker who had just begun making waves with his politcal satire.... one Michael Moore.

Yup, Michael Moore had a show on NBC. Hard to believe now, isn't it? And yes, he tackled corporations and right wingers and so forth. But he did it with a self-deprecating wit that he seems to be losing now. It was hialrious in a very Daily Show type way, and it got results too. He got things to change. Too bad no one watched it.

Honorable mention goes to Whose Line is it Anyway?, both the British and American versions, and the Will Ferrell- Molly Shannon led SNL. And also, I need to give a special prize to Unsolved Mysteries. I don't know what to define it as, but those reenactments are better than any sketch.

So there's my 60 TV shows that matter. It doesn't deaden the inner core of my being all the time. The dream for me is landing a spot on something that would make this list. Then I would be very happy. Will it happen? Uhhh.. I hope so...

If you'd like to help me out in this quest, you can do me a favor. I have specs of my top three scripted shows (Simp, FG, Gilmore) and I'd love to hear comments on them. Let me know and I'll hit you up.

And to end, since I spoke of youtube.....

I didn't get into the list of music videos because I haven't seen many, but I've been watching the ones Stevkitis put down on their lists incessantly. I swore off MTV and videos when I was 14 because Phish wasn't on them. In retrospect, this was a dumb move, although I still hate MTV and everything it stands for. I missed out on a lot of stuff and a lot of great directors. But now, with the internet and DVD's and such, I can pick and choose. And I will.

Here's a quick list of ones I do know are good:

Gondry's White Stripes & Beck - mulitple videos

Gonry's Bjork - mulitple videos

(okay, let's just say Gondry rules)

Sabotage (those sideburns still kill me)

Jo Jo's Jacket (just saw it and nearly nated myself... Malkmus, you are offically one of my rock Gods)

Everybody Have Fun Tonight (so much seizuring!)

Down with Disease (alright, it's lame, and you can see why they never made another one)

Thriller (shut up)

Heart Shaped Box (last of my MTV days)

Radiohead's entire collection (esp. Just)

Sweater Song (Jonze is great)

Weapon of Choice (come on, how can you not love Walken dancing)

Gay Bar (my choice for number one.... insane genius)