Time Magazine’s Top 100 TV Shows

So apparently some dude over at Time Magazine has come out with his list of it’s Top 100 tv shows of all time. He freely admits that it’s HIS list, not anyone else’s, and that as such doesn’t contain all the truly great shows out there. Having said that, what follows is HIS complete list, followed by my own comments in bold about some his choices:

24
60 Minutes
The Abbott and Costello Show
ABC’s Wide World of Sports
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
All in the Family
An American Family
American Idol
Arrested Development
Battlestar Galactica
The Beavis and Butt-Head Show – seriously? Top 100?
The Bob Newhart Show
Brideshead Revisited
Buffalo Bill
Buffy the Vampire Slayer – YES. Absolutely!
The Carol Burnett Show – LOVE this show and it still holds up all these years later as a brilliantly funny comedy sketch show.
The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite
A Charlie Brown Christmas – nothing but love for this one over here.
Cheers
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show
Dallas
The Day After
Deadwood
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Dragnet
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ernie Kovacs Show
Felicity
Freaks and Geeks – so happy to see this on the list! One of my favorite tv writers just “reviewed” this whole series during summer hiatus and I took the time to bring out my own DVDs and watch along with him. Such a GREAT series that deserved to be on the air longer than 3/4 of a season.
The French Chef
Friends
General Hospital – if I had to pick a soap, I’d have to go with my own choice – Days of Our Lives. That poor Marlena has been through a LOT.
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
Gilmore Girls
Gunsmoke
Hill Street Blues
Homicide: Life on the Street
The Honeymooners
I, Claudius – I LOVED this miniseries when I saw it on Trio Network a few years ago. LOVE LOVE LOVE.
I Love Lucy
King of the Hill
The Larry Sanders Show – I actually would pick “The Garry Shandling Show” over this one – that show was AWESOME and while not as snarky, there was still something about TGSS that was much more interesting because it DID have to deal with being on a regular network.
Late Night with David Letterman (NBC)
Leave It to Beaver
Lost
Married… With Children
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
M*A*S*H
The Monkees – YAY! *lol* I was OBSESSED with this show (and the band) in high school (that was during their SECOND round of popularity). I still quote a few lines from the show.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
Moonlighting
MTV 1981-1992
My So-Called Life
Mystery Science Theater 3000 – hee. My whole family would get together and watch new episodes of this when it was on. A friend of mine from college was introduced to this show when he came home with me one weekend. LOVED IT. Joel Hodgson rules.
The Odd Couple
The Office [American] – of course! No brainer! HavE I mentioned that the Season 3 extras are AWESOME?
The Office [British] – Ditto! Ricky Gervais is a comedy genius.
The Oprah Winfrey Show
Pee Wee’s Playhouse – Aw, this show was great too. It was probably one of the first times that a children’s show actually catered to an adult comedic audience.
Playhouse 90
The Price Is Right – This show will always have a fond place in my heart. Denis and I went to a live taping during our honeymoon in 1997. FUN FUN FUN and Bob Barker rocks.
Prime Suspect
The Prisoner
The Real World – my favorite season? Season Two – LA. Puck in Season 3 ruined it for everyone.
Rocky and His Friends
Roots
Roseanne
Sanford and Son
Saturday Night Live – the shocking thing? I loved the show in the early 90s. There, I said it. I love anything Alec Baldwin does on that show.
Second City Television
See It Now
Seinfeld – Still so quotable even though it’s been off the air for a while now. Just the other day some co-workers and I were quoting the indian giver episode.
Sesame Street
Sex and the City
The Shield
The Simpsons
The Singing Detective
Six Feet Under
Soap
The Sopranos
South Park
SpongeBob SquarePants
SportsCenter
Star Trek
St. Elsewhere – Denzel in the early days. The thing I remember most from this show is a scene where one of the doctors is talking to a sick teenager who is going to die, but has absolute peace that he’s going to heaven. The elderly doctor, a non-religious type, says, “I don’t believe in anything I can’t see” and the kid replies, “you can’t see anything until you believe it.”
The Super Bowl (and the Ads)
Survivor
Taxi
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson – I remember in high school listening to the two-record set that my parents owned featuring various appearances from the show in the 1960s and 1970s. My favorites: Groucho Marx singing about Father’s Day, Lenny Bruce talking about airplane glue, George Carlin talking about Morningside Heights, Bette Midler’s first appearance singing “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and Pearl Bailey singing a duet with Johnny.
The Twilight Zone
Twin Peaks
The West Wing
What’s My Line?
WKRP in Cincinnati – another show I remember quite fondly. I used to watch it after school when I lived in Washington with my best friend Kathy. Her dad was a fisherman and he’d pay us a quarter to wrap netting for him. Kathy and I would do a few dozen while watching WKRP.
The Wire
Wiseguy
The X-Files
Your Show of Shows

I can’t think of any other shows off the top of my head that deserve to be on a Top 100 list. I’m sure you guys will come up with some, though.