Foreign Adversary?  Shouldn't that be foreign adversarIES?

jmyrlefuller...
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

I read this, and this is one of those FUN CATEGORIES one can spend hours recollecting all the sitcoms/comedy through the years one enjoyed.  So I did.  And in keeping with your approach to attempt to list one show per decade, and reviewing countless lists of the TOP 100+, I was surprised how many shows through time existed that I never heard of.

So here is my list:

The Radio Era
I also enjoyed Amos & Andy.  Your other show was before my time, so clearly, you are a few years older than me.  But my choice for this era, which you did not mention, hands down The Three Stooges.  As a child, they were on every day Monday through Friday, week in and week out for all the years of my youth.  My mother hated them.  My father, he would sit there and laugh with me at almost everything they did.  No question, The Three Stooges was a guy's show.  Even my present wife, she doesn't get them, at all!

The 1950s
Hands down, a classic.  I Love Lucy.  No competition for me, and in a league all its own. Honorable mention for George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.  Burns was a hoot for me in just about everything he did.

The 1960s
While there were light hearted comedies in the 60s, I recall Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie.  If I had to pick, I suppose Bewitched would get the slight edge.  Honorable mention for Hogan's Heroes.  I was never a fan of the shows you had listed for the 60s with the exception of The Dick Van Dyke Show, which had its moments.

The  1970s
I thought MTM was on the boring side.  Happy Days was ok.  At the top of my list were All in the Family.  Honorable mentions would include MASH, WKRP, and Mork & Mindy.

The 1980s
Another true classic, The Golden Girls.  Excellent show.  Never cared for Bill Cosby, always thought there was something peculiar about him.  And Cheers, it was ok. 

The 1990s
No doubt the 90s had some HUGE comedies, but I did not care for a one of the ones you mentioned with the exception of Married with Children.  And it had its yuks.  But Friends, Seinfeld, etc, major yawn for me.  I never considered Seinfeld funny.  Crammer, sure.  And Murphy Brown, double major yawn.  It was super boring for me.

For me, something not on your list, but near and dear to me.  Home Improvement, with Tim Allen, who had me on the floor laughing hard, and it was perhaps the one show I enjoyed with my wife and children sitting there laughing heartily too.

The 21st Century
Office was boring for me.  Watched a few episodes and never saw the humor.  This period would include two shows I enjoyed.  Last Man Standing, once again with Tim Allen, and merely a reversal from a group of sons to a pair of daughters mostly.  Another I enjoyed was Two and a Half Men.  I enjoyed both equally and it would be difficult for me to pick one over the other.

Top Candidates

The Three Stooges
I Love Lucy
Bewitched
All in the Family
The Golden Girls
Home Improvement
Last Man Standing
Two and a Half Men

My Mt Rushmore

All in the Family
The Golden Girls
Home Improvement
Two and a Half Men (since I selected Home Improvement as a finalist, I chose Two and a Half Men, but it could have easily been Last Man Standing.  I think Tim Allen is one of the best comedians of my lifetime)  And as luck would have it, he is conservative, and provided what I consider light political humor, and not the crap of an idiot like Bill Maher, whose humor is NOT humor any longer.  That fool hasn't made me laugh in a decade!

That is what I want, a doctor who was unqualified to be in medical school to begin with, and pushed through with sub-par grades to meet a quota so I can virtue signal that I agree with the program.

With all the money being spent on illegals, the government could give a voter ID card to every American CITIZEN!  But that is something democrats and rinos oppose.

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