The Ultimate TV Comedies Bracket -- Round One, Day Five
NO TOUCHING!
Good morning, friends! We’re just one-quarter of the way through the first round of the Ultimate TV Comedies Bracket, which means…well, it means there are still lots of votes for you to get through before we whittle 128 seeds down to 64.
Including four matchups right here…so let’s go!
(2) Arrested Development vs. (63) The Brady Bunch: At some point in the bracket, we can talk about how much the two Netflix seasons of Arrested Development may have screwed with the show’s initial legacy. But for now, it’s an easy choice. Sorry, Bradys.
Arrested Development
The Brady Bunch
(31) South Park vs. (34) Girls: So, if I am being real, this is a challenging one because it brings up something that is absolutely going to weigh heavy on your votes moving forward: longevity. I don’t think it’s controversial to suggest that some of the greatest long-running sitcoms of all time are marked more specifically by great seasons within their overall run as opposed to being perfect from start to finish. Has South Park been scabrously funny during its nearly three-decade run? It has! And it’s also had a lot of misses as well, due as much to Parker and Stone’s political bent as to their intentionally rushed production process.
The flip side is Girls, which was not remotely as long-running, had a different aim, and was in its own way massively controversial. I watched Girls for…I want to say the first three seasons. Certainly the first two. There were aspects of the show I liked, and many I just didn’t…get? I don’t know. The point is, Girls is a show I watched for a while because it felt like I had to if I wanted to engage in a hot topic of pop culture.
Maybe the larger point is that this is a coin flip for me. How do you vote?
South Park
Girls
(15) The Golden Girls vs. (50) The Odd Couple: Though both of these sitcoms are iconic in one way or another, it’s likely going to be a lopsided rout in favor of Bea Arthur and company, no? I shouldn’t even have to tell you to vote for The Golden Girls.
The Golden Girls
The Odd Couple
(18) The Office (US) vs. (47) The Bernie Mac Show: The good news? A show that featured Larry Wilmore in the writers’ room will move onto the next round. But while I did like The Bernie Mac Show (America), I do think we all know that Agent Michael Scarn has yet to reach Threat Level Midnight in this bracket.
The Office (US)
The Bernie Mac Show
South Park is a strange one in that I think it’s harder to identify specific seasons where the show was at its peak- as mentioned in the poll it’s very uneven from episode to episode; and all-timer classics can be surrounded by weaker stories. Like most shows they needed a while to hit their stride, and arguably the show got better when the pop-culture fervor around Cartman died down.
For my money, the strongest episodes are the ones when you can tell the writers have been ruminating on a story for a while (unsurprisingly). Generating an entire episode in a week lets them hit current events before anyone except late-night hosts, but also means they tend to default to “take the most outrageous stance on this issue and riff on it” instead of really digging for the comedy.
I’m personally hoping for a golden girls sweep.