Robert David Sullivan

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 24: "The Beast in the Cage," One Foot in the Grave

24. "The Beast in the Cage," One Foot in the Grave (1992)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here (and on Pinterest), and an introduction to the project is here.

As I've pointed out elsewhere on this list, the sitcom is generally an optimistic art form. It teaches that we can count on our family, that our co-workers can become our family, and that strangers usually turn out to be decent people once we've all sorted out our misunderstandings. But there is a sitcom subset that's all about the frustration we feel when our lives don't seem to be going anywhere. Some episodes, and the occasional entire series, have a "no exit" theme, in which hell means being stuck for eternity with people who bug you.

This theme usually shows up in little-watched American sitcoms (such as Curb Your Enthusiasm) and in very popular British sitcoms (such as One Foot in the Grave). In "The Beast in the Cage," hell is a long-weekend traffic jam that becomes a prison for Victor Meldrew and the two main women in his life.

Victor Meldrew: Mirror image of your life really, isn't it? Car journey on a bank holiday. First fifty-odd miles on the go all the way — a sense of direction — bowling along. Get past sixty, everything slows down to a sudden crawl, and you realize you're not going anywhere any more. All the things you thought you were going to do that never came to anything. And you can't turn the clock back. One-way traffic just gradually grinding to a complete halt.

Ten episodes that show how All In The Family changed television

My first essay for The Onion's A.V. Club is on 10 must-see episodes of All in the Family; several of the entries are also on my Top 100 list. They are not necessarily the most famous episodes, so you may be surprised.

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 25: "Death Be My Destiny," The Bob Newhart Show

25. "Death Be My Destiny," The Bob Newhart Show (1977)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here (and on Pinterest), and an introduction to the project is here.

Unlike The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which preceded it on Saturday nights for five of its six seasons, The Bob Newhart Show isn't terribly concerned with storytelling. Like Newhart's stand-up act, it's primary aim seems to be skewing reality just enough to induce a kind of nervous euphoria.

Newhart always seems to be thinking, "Wait, am I dreaming this?" On his comedy albums, that thought might occur to the security guard watching King Kong scale the Empire State Building. On The Bob Newhart Show, psychologist Robert Hartley seems to be questioning reality whenever he sees his patients, who only seem to get more neurotic — or when he tries to be inconspicuous at a kiddie ice-cream parlor by ordering a small dish of vanilla, only to be assaulted by the entire staff singing "Single scooper, single scooper, this man is a party pooper!" This tone continues into the star's next sitcom, Newhart, which is revealed to be an eight-season-long dream of... Robert Hartley.

Bob: Just remember, Mr. Hurd. The only thing you have to fear is fear itself.
Mr. Herd: That’s my worst fear!*

*Mr. Herd has much in common with Charlie Brown.

Dog day update

There are more Top 100 Sitcom Episodes on the way. I've been sidetracked by editing/writing assignments, energy-sapping hot weather (I can't wait to retire in Montreal), and family stuff. In the meantime, check out my first contribution to the A.V. Club in "Paging Dr. Melfi: 29 characters on serialized TV shows who outlived their usefulness."

I put in my six cents about Big Love, Friends, and M*A*S*H.

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 26: "Bitch Session," NewsRadio

26. "Bitch Session," NewsRadio (1996)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here (and on Pinterest), and an introduction to the project is here.

"Thank you for being my family," Mary Richards tells her co-workers on the last episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her WJM colleagues, she says, had made her "feel less alone" and "really loved."

But both real and surrogate family members can do something else: shatter your self-esteem with some well-aimed ridicule.

Beth: Presenting "Dave the Insane Maniac," a play in one act, by Beth and Bill. (Bill walks in on his knees, holding a coffee mug) Hello, Dave!
Bill: (in a cartoonish voice) Hello, employee! You look miserable and oppressed.
Beth: I am! We can't take taxicabs home anymore.
Bill: Excellent! That's good news to me. You see, I'm from Wis-cahhhn-sin, where taxicabs are feared and hunted for the delicious meat under their hoods!

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 27: "The Architect," Barney Miller

27. "The Architect," Barney Miller (1980)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here (and on Pinterest), and an introduction to the project is here.

"The Architect" is the only sitcom episode I can think of that borrows a plot from the irrepressible Ayn Rand, but that's not the main reason it's on my list. My favorite aspect of the episode is the relationship between Barney and Wojo, who often seem more like father and son than supervisor and subordinate. During a chaotic Sunday that includes a hostage situation and a time bomb, the most shocking development is Wojo's bald-faced lie to his mentor. The boy is finally growing up.

The "guest collar" in this episode is Howard Speer*, the architect of a building going up across the street from the 12th Precinct — played by David Clennon, later the similarly creepy Miles Drentell on Thirtysomething and Once and Again. He's brought in for vandalizing the building out of frustration at the changes made to his design. After he drops some allusions to Rand's The Fountainhead, Dietrich figures out that he intends to follow the novel's plot and blow up his compromised creation. (Barney is momentarily distracted by memories of "that gown with the fur" that Patricia Neal wore in the film version of the novel.)

*Presumably a (gratuitous) reference to Nazi architect Albert Speer.

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 28: "Bully," Louie

28. "Bully," Louie (2010)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here (and on Pinterest), and an introduction to the project is here.

I'm in my 40s, and I still get nightmares about being an adolescent — not being prepared for a test at school, getting "ditched" by other kids going somewhere fun, getting in trouble with my parents, and so on. When I wake up, there's a split second of relief that I'm not, in fact, about to get an "F" in French class. But then I think about my adult problems, and I wish that a bad report card were still my biggest worry in life.

Louie is all about this feeling. Each episode includes scenes of Louis C.K. doing his stand-up act, and this is from the third episode ("Dr. Ben/Nick"):

Louie: There's never going to be another year of my life that is better than the year before. That's never going to happen again! [...] Every day starts with, like, my eyes open and I reload the program of misery. I just open my eyes, remember who I am, what I'm like, and I go, "Ughhhh...."

This is not a show that could begin with "You're gonna make it after all" (which I just played to get myself off the floor after watching Louie).

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 29: "Rosemary's Baby," 30 Rock

29. "Rosemary's Baby," 30 Rock (2007)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here (and on Pinterest), and an introduction to the project is here.

In "Rosemary's Baby," Liz Lemon learns to accept her fate as an artistically compromised but financially secure TV writer. I hope that 30 Rock creator Tina Fey also follows her destiny, which is to create a comic rejoinder to Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom. (30 Rock fans: Also see "Greenzo," at No. 88.)

30 Rock premiered in 2006, the same year that Sorkin created his own series set backstage at a TV sketch comedy, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Sorkin's high-minded drama was supposed to be about a comedy show that was good, so it was a problem when critics pointed out that the show-within-a-show seemed pretentious and unfunny. But The Girly Show with Tracy Jordan, where Liz Lemon is the head writer, has always been presented on 30 Rock as terrible, which is both easier to depict and more relatable for most viewers. How many of you leave work feeling like LIz Lemon, and how many feel like an Aaron Sorkin hero?

Liz: Rosemary said that women become obsolete in this business when there's no one left that wants to see them naked.
Jack: You make enough money, you can pay people to look at you naked.

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time, No. 30: "Hollywood at Last," I Love Lucy

30. "Hollywood at Last" (aka "LA at Last"), I Love Lucy (1955)

Welcome to the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time,” a countdown for 2012. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here (and on Pinterest), and an introduction to the project is here.

The A.V. Club recently asked its staff and readers, "What kind of things most get in the way of your enjoyment of a story, or are most likely to boot you out of one?" I can understand several of the responses, such as clumsy exposition ad overused sound effects and music cues. But my biggest peeve is a celebrity playing himself. Instead of adding realism to a story, I find that Nancy Grace on Raising Hope, for example, punctures a TV show's imagined universe. I can overlook a boom mike dropping into a shot, but when Chris Matthews or Lou Dobbs drops into The Good Wife, I feel cheated. I watch only scripted television precisely to avoid the likes of Chris Matthews and Lou Dobbs!

As with so many other things, I Love Lucy was a pioneer in the use of celebrity guests, and "Hollywood at Last" was the first of dozens of Lucille Ball sitcom episodes with film and TV stars appearing as themselves. (Journalists weren't such camera whores yet.) They make for a strange dynamic in that Ball, one of the most powerful women in Hollywood and a no-nonsense perfectionist on the set, almost invariably played her character as a starstruck "ordinary person" bowing and scraping before Charles Boyer, Orson Welles, John Wayne, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, etc. "You touched her!" Lucy exclaims in awe after Ethel taps the shoulder of Eve Arden, one of the many 1950s sitcom stars in Ball's shadow.