The ol liberal 'misinformation' tag raises its ugly head...

Funny how partisanship only applies when the left gets their way.

I'll remember to ping you to all of Mia's observations in the future... @AllThatJazzZ

@mystery-ak

Actually, I think all those celebs who think they need to weigh in on everything because of their notoriety should start a website for just that purpose so that it can be easily found by the public who were breathlessly awaiting their pearls of wisdom. Either that or they just refrain from opining on stuff. I vote for the 2nd option. Could they possibly be more full of themselves? 

The Democommunists have gone full blown support for islamic terrorism.

The Biden Idiocracy is destroying any credibility the USA has in the world.  No mystery it is Obama running this islamic terrorist support nonsense and running this clown show.

An interesting discussion came across my social media feed today, from Outkick, the site owned by Fox Corporation and managed by Clay Travis. Outkick mentioned the idea of a "sitcom Mount Rushmore," the idea of four monumentally influential situation comedies. Outkick mentioned their sitcom Mount Rushmore as consisting of The Office, Seinfeld, Friends and The Simpsons. Now, my first thought was that "this is engagement bait." But the idea got me thinking... as my head often does. What would my sitcom Mount Rushmore be? I've watched sitcoms much of my life. I love the form. What would be the four most influential sitcoms I would choose?

So I started breaking down my list. The major flaw I noted in Outkick's list was that every single one of their choices debuted in or after 1989. I'll discuss that later, but that actually ignores decades of far better and more influential material. So, when coming up with my list, I decided to set the window as wide as I could chronologically—covering almost 100 years, all the way back to the radio era.

In compiling my list, first I decided that I would limit my list to one show that predominantly flourished in any given decade. Second, given that Mount Rushmore is in the United States, I decided that my list would likewise be restricted to American sitcoms (as much as The Red Green Show makes me smile and that I'm sure there are a few great British sitcoms that could make the list). Third, the shows—at least the television ones—had to be live action, disqualifying The Simpsons. (The animated sitcom feels more like a separate genre in its own right, which would have its own Mount Rushmore: for the record, that one, if it were up to me, would include The Simpsons, The Flintstones, King of the Hill and South Park. That one was much easier to do, with apologies to Family Guy.)

In making my selection, I decided to factor in longevity in its original form, longevity in reruns, and cultural impact. This, obviously, favors older sitcoms, but part of that is that the sitcom form has been in decline for a while now anyway, so it evens out. With my criteria set, my mind went to work.

First, with a limit of one show per decade, I decided to break down each decade. The early sitcom era tended to have longer running shows, and with fewer elite sitcoms being produced now, I decided to make the most recent and the oldest eras longer than ten years. A few did bridge the eras but I decided to limit a show to one era, based on when it flourished.

The Radio Era
1926 to 1950. Stemming from the old variety show format, these were the earliest sitcoms. There were two forms: the live audience shows, and the in-studio, more low-key sitcoms. The latter was typified by Vic and Sade, the influential domestic sitcom of the 1930s and early 1940s. Two leading candidates came to mind for this era, Amos 'n' Andy and Fibber McGee and Molly. After some deliberation, and noting how badly Amos 'n' Andy has aged, I chose Fibber McGee and Molly as the candidate for the pre-television category.

The 1950s
As much as the 1950s is considered a golden age of television, there was a surprisingly wide chasm between a select few incredibly well-received shows and many, many short-lived lesser-known ones. I decided to include The Jack Benny Program in this category to give his show a better chance, but this only ended up putting him against two juggernauts: I Love Lucy and Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners. The winner? I Love Lucy. It's still in reruns seven decades later.

The 1960s
Ah, the 1960s, perhaps a golden age of the sitcom. Ranging from the silly like Gilligan's Island to the rural and folksy The Andy Griffith Show, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction to the pop-friendly but refreshingly experimental The Monkees, among other strong shows like That Girl and The Dick Van Dyke Show, the 1960s had no shortage of candidates. After much deliberation, The Andy Griffith Show emerged as the candidate from the 1960s. Not only did it run for eight seasons (11 if you count the last three without Griffith as Mayberry RFD) but Mayberry has etched itself into American lore as the quintessential American small town, and the show, like Lucy, has been in reruns forever.

The 1970s
The decade where the sitcom form, like much of television, matured. Four major candidates emerged in my head. The Mary Tyler Moore Show, All in the Family, Happy Days and M*A*S*H. This one was a brutal decision. Each had such strong cases for inclusion: MTM being a breakthrough depiction of a woman in the workplace, All in the Family for its social commentary and for Norman Lear's amazing achievement of making a blatantly conservative character like Archie Bunker a likable icon, M*A*S*H for its deft balancing of dry comedy and war drama (side note: the later years were far stronger IMO, in that it needed a strong authority figure like Harry Morgan's Col. Sherman Potter to balance out the goofball antics and egos of the rest of the cast), and Happy Days for its embrace of the 1950s greaser revival. I also considered WKRP in Cincinnati, which rose above its male-led MTM knockoff reputation to be one of the funniest sitcoms of the era for its satirical depiction of the radio industry.

Ultimately, it came down to a very difficult decision between All in the Family and Happy Days. The former ran 12 years (counting its retooling as Archie Bunker's Place for its final few seasons), the latter ran 11. Both were incredibly influential in pop culture. Both have had long lives in reruns, though I recall Happy Days and its companion series Laverne & Shirley (a show with some of the best physical comedy gags since Lucy) much more widely. The winner? By a nose, Happy Days.

The 1980s
The 1980s were much like the 1950s in that you had a few knockout-good sitcoms, a lot of stinkers like Small Wonder and Joanie Loves Chachi, and some that were just OK but were syndication mainstays like Mama's Family and Who's the Boss?. So the candidates that emerged from this era were Cheers, The Cosby Show and The Golden Girls. Cosby obviously has aged very poorly. The obvious winner of this decade was The Golden Girls, which ran eight seasons (counting the final season as The Golden Palace) and remains both a rerun staple and an iconic series. The idea of four old ladies bickering with each other was and is comedy gold.

The 1990s
This is the year that I began paying attention to shows in their first run. The main candidates I considered were Seinfeld, Friends, Family Matters, Boy Meets World, Full House, Murphy Brown and Married... with Children. I didn't like Friends or Married... Full House had a strong syndication afterlife but feels hamfisted in retrospect, as crushworthy as Jodie Sweetin was. I loved Family Matters growing up, and it never occurred to me that it was out of the ordinary for a nerd character like Steve Urkel to be black. Ultimately I settled on Seinfeld: an endlessly quotable and surprisingly relevant sitcom that thrived when it found ways to poke fun at the everyday life around us. Even if you didn't find Jerry Seinfeld funny himself, that wasn't really the point: it was the world around him that drew the jokes. There's a reason it remains one of television's best-performing shows in reruns.

The 21st century
The genre started to die out in the late 1990s. After that, things began to splinter. You had some more conventional sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother Last Man Standing and That 70s Show, you had the mockumentaries like The Office, 30 Rock, Modern Family and Arrested Development, thinly veiled reality shows that were really sitcoms in disguise (Duck Dynasty, I'm looking at you) and cringe material like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (which I cannot, for the life of me, understand why it's survived this long—as much as Danny DeVito is a comic weapon unto himself). Unlike the previous decades, this one was tough because the dais was so weak. But if I had to pick one that left a lasting mark on the culture, it would have to be The Office.

Narrowing it down to four
So, we have our candidates: Fibber McGee and Molly, I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days, The Golden Girls, Seinfeld and The Office. That's seven. Which four of those go on this sitcom Mount Rushmore?

• I Love Lucy
• Happy Days
• The Golden Girls
• Seinfeld

Your results may vary.