WatchTVSitcoms

The sitcom by setting

WatchTVSitcoms is an English guide to 156 sitcoms, the situation comedies of television, shelved by the place where they happen. A sitcom is first of all a set: a living room with a sofa facing the camera, a shared apartment with a door that is always open, a bar, an office, a classroom, a police station, a hospital ward. The guide gathers twelve of those places on twelve shelves of thirteen, in three families: home and school; work; and other voices, for the British sitcoms, the animated sitcoms, the mockumentaries and the comedies whose creator plays the lead. Every series has an English synopsis, its seasons and episodes, the cast and a Watch now button that opens it on JustWatch, which shows where it can be watched in your country.

The guide runs from 1960, the year of The Flintstones and The Andy Griffith Show, to 2022, the year of The Bear and Our Flag Means Death. Its 156 series hold 18,770 episodes and carry about 188,000 votes on TMDB, with an average rating of 7.56, and 42 of them reach a rating of 8 or more. The most voted sitcom of the guide is The Big Bang Theory, with about 12,900 votes, ahead of Rick and Morty, with about 11,500, and The Simpsons; the best rated is Rick and Morty, with an 8.7, followed by The Office of NBC, with an 8.6, and Malcolm in the Middle and BoJack Horseman, with an 8.5 each. The guide Start with WatchTVSitcoms picks one sitcom from each family for a first evening, and the guide How the sitcoms were shelved sets out the rules.

The old site, Watch TV Sitcoms.Com, was a portal of the late 2000s built with tables, with a menu of sky-blue cells and small numbered lists of the top five episodes of the week. Its name promised sitcoms above all, and this guide keeps the promise: almost every series here is a comedy of half an hour, and the few hour-long ones, from Ally McBeal and Boston Legal to Glee, Freaks and Geeks and Sex Education, are comedies that critics often grouped with the sitcoms of their time.

The three families

The first family, Home and school, holds the sitcoms of private life: The living room, for the family sitcom; The apartment, for friends, couples and roommates; The school, from high school to community college; and Magic at home, for the households of witches, aliens, monsters and ghosts. Its 52 series carry about 82,500 votes, the most of the three families, and the guide Home and school sums it up.

The second family, Work, holds the sitcoms of the job: The office floor; Precincts, courts and hospitals; Bars, diners and shops; and Barracks and history, for the soldiers, sailors and courtiers of the past. The guide Work sums it up.

The third family, Other voices, holds the sitcoms that tell their stories in another way: British sitcoms, short series of six or so episodes a season; Animated sitcoms; Mockumentaries, filmed as if by a documentary crew; and Creators in their own shows, comedies written by the comedians who star in them. The guide Other voices sums it up.

Three more lists cut across the settings. Before 1980 gathers the 25 sitcoms that began before 1980, oldest first, from The Flintstones to Mork & Mindy and WKRP in Cincinnati; 200 episodes or more gathers the 28 longest, from The Simpsons down; and Rated 8 or more gathers the 42 sitcoms with a rating of 8 or more, best first.

How the sitcoms were shelved

Every sitcom of the guide was chosen by hand and placed on the shelf of the setting where most of its scenes happen. Friends belongs to the apartment, though its friends spend many hours at the coffee house; Cheers belongs to the bar; Scrubs to the hospital; and M*A*S*H to the barracks, since its field hospital is a military camp. The four shelves of other voices take precedence over the settings: an animated family, such as the Simpsons, goes to the animated shelf, a British office, such as the original The Office, goes to the British shelf, and a family filmed as a documentary, such as Modern Family, goes to the mockumentaries. Each shelf kept its thirteen most voted series on TMDB.

Two titles of the guide appear twice, because two different sitcoms share them. The Office is both the British original of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, of 2001, on the British shelf, and its American version of 2005, on the office shelf; Ghosts is both the British series of 2019, set in a country house full of spirits from every century, on the history shelf, and its American remake of 2021, on the shelf of magic at home. Each card carries the channel or service that TMDB lists first for the series and the year of its first episode. The guide The creators lists the creators who appear most often, and the guide The casts does the same for the actors.

Home and school

The first family of the guide holds 52 sitcoms of private life, with about 82,500 votes and an average rating of 7.58. Its four shelves follow the oldest promise of the sitcom: a small world of people who love and annoy each other, and who return to the same rooms every week. The family shelf and the apartment shelf hold most of the great network successes of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s; the school shelf and the shelf of magic at home add the teenagers and the strange households.

The living room

The shelf The living room gathers thirteen family sitcoms from 1984 to 2015 with about 15,800 votes and 2,376 episodes; six of them are from ABC, the network that built its evenings on the family comedy. The most voted and the best rated is Malcolm in the Middle, of 2000, by Linwood Boomer, with an 8.5 and seven seasons: a gifted boy in a loud working-class family speaks to the camera while his brothers, his mother Lois, played by Jane Kaczmarek, and his father Hal, played by Bryan Cranston, turn the house upside down. The oldest is The Cosby Show, of 1984, eight seasons of the Huxtables of Brooklyn, a doctor and a lawyer and their five children.

The working-class families of the shelf are some of the most famous of television. Married... with Children, of 1987, eleven seasons and 258 episodes, the most of the shelf, follows the shoe salesman Al Bundy, played by Ed O'Neill, and his family of Chicago; Roseanne, of 1988, ten seasons, gives Roseanne Barr and John Goodman a house of Illinois where money is always short; Home Improvement, of 1991, puts Tim Allen in the role of the host of a show about tools; and The Middle, of 2009, nine seasons in Indiana, gives Patricia Heaton the role of a tired mother of three. Everybody Loves Raymond, of 1996, by Phil Rosenthal, nine seasons, puts Ray Romano across the street from his overbearing parents on Long Island.

The rest of the shelf widens the family. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, of 1990, with a 7.9, sends Will Smith from West Philadelphia to the mansion of his rich uncle and aunt; Full House, of 1987, eight seasons in San Francisco, raises three girls among three men; Everybody Hates Chris, of 2005, with an 8.1, the only UPN series of the guide, tells the childhood of Chris Rock in the Brooklyn of the 1980s, narrated by Rock himself; The Goldbergs, of 2013, ten seasons, follows a family of the 1980s through the home videos of its youngest son; and black-ish, of 2014, by Kenya Barris, follows an advertising executive, played by Anthony Anderson, who worries that his children are losing their roots. Schitt's Creek, of 2015, by Eugene and Dan Levy, the newest of the shelf and one of three Canadian series of the guide, sends a ruined rich family to live in a motel of the small town they once bought as a joke. The guide The living room sums it up.

The apartment

The shelf The apartment gathers thirteen sitcoms from 1970 to 2011 with about 39,500 votes, the most of the first family. The most voted is The Big Bang Theory, of 2007, by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, with a 7.9, twelve seasons and 279 episodes, the most of the shelf, two physicists of Caltech and the aspiring actress who lives across the hall; the best rated is Friends, of 1994, by Marta Kauffman and David Crane, with an 8.4, six friends of Manhattan, their two apartments and the coffee house below. Seinfeld, of 1989, by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, with an 8.3, the comedy of small talk and smaller problems, follows Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer through the small troubles of the Upper West Side.

How I Met Your Mother, of 2005, with an 8.1, is told by Ted Mosby to his children in 2030, the story of his friends in New York and of how he met their mother; New Girl, of 2011, puts Zooey Deschanel in a loft with three men; Will & Grace, of 1998, with Eric McCormack and Debra Messing as two best friends sharing an apartment, was one of the first sitcoms with a gay lead, with Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes as their friends; and Mad About You, of 1992, follows a young married couple of New York, played by Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt. Frasier, of 1993, eleven seasons and 264 episodes, gives Kelsey Grammer, the psychiatrist of Cheers, an apartment in Seattle that he shares with his father, his dog and a live-in physiotherapist.

The older and the newer apartments complete the shelf. The Odd Couple, of 1970, the oldest of the shelf, made a sitcom from the play of Neil Simon, with Tony Randall as the fussy Felix and Jack Klugman as the sloppy Oscar; Three's Company, of 1977, puts John Ritter in an apartment of Santa Monica with two women; and Two and a Half Men, of 2003, twelve seasons, a beach house of Malibu shared by two brothers and a boy. The King of Queens, of 1998, with Kevin James and Leah Remini, adds a father-in-law in the basement, and Happy Endings, of 2011, a group of six friends in Chicago, closes the shelf. The guide The apartment sums it up.

The school

The shelf The school gathers thirteen sitcoms from 1975 to 2019 with about 16,400 votes and an average rating of 7.63, and six of them reach 8, the most of the first family. The most voted is Sex Education, of 2019, by Laurie Nunn, with an 8.2, in which the shy son of a sex therapist, played by Asa Butterfield, runs a secret clinic of advice at his school in the Welsh countryside. The best rated is Boy Meets World, of 1993, with an 8.3 and seven seasons, which follows Cory Matthews, played by Ben Savage, from middle school to college, with his teacher and neighbour Mr. Feeny always nearby.

The American high school of the shelf goes back to Welcome Back, Kotter, of 1975, the oldest series of the shelf, with Gabe Kaplan as a teacher who returns to his old school of Brooklyn to teach a class of misfits, among them a young John Travolta. Saved by the Bell, of 1989, follows Zack Morris and his friends at Bayside High; Freaks and Geeks, of 1999, by Paul Feig, with an 8.2, a single season of 18 episodes about the outcasts of a Michigan high school in 1980, launched the careers of James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel and Linda Cardellini; Glee, of 2009, gathers a glee club of Ohio; and A Different World, of 1987, a spin-off of The Cosby Show, takes the second Huxtable daughter to a historically black college.

The newer school comedies are bolder. Community, of 2009, by Dan Harmon, with an 8.0, gathers a study group of misfits at a community college of Colorado, with Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Donald Glover and Chevy Chase; PEN15, of 2019, with an 8.2, casts its creators Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle as thirteen-year-old versions of themselves among real teenagers; Big Mouth, of 2017, eight seasons, is the animated comedy of puberty; and Dear White People, of 2017, follows black students at an elite university. Britain and Ireland give the shelf The Inbetweeners, of 2008, four awkward boys of a suburban comprehensive, and Derry Girls, of 2018, with an 8.1, by Lisa McGee, a group of Catholic schoolgirls in Northern Ireland during the Troubles of the 1990s. The guide The school sums it up.

Magic at home

The shelf Magic at home gathers thirteen sitcoms from 1963 to 2021 with about 10,700 votes, sitcoms in which the family next door is anything but ordinary. Five of them began in the 1960s, the golden age of the fantasy sitcom. Bewitched, of 1964, eight seasons and 254 episodes, the most of the shelf, marries a witch, played by Elizabeth Montgomery, to an advertising man who wants her to live as a suburban housewife; I Dream of Jeannie, of 1965, frees a genie, played by Barbara Eden, from her bottle on a beach and sends her home with an astronaut played by Larry Hagman; and The Addams Family, of 1964, with an 8.0, and The Munsters, of 1964, with a 7.9, both from that same autumn, give television two families of gentle monsters. My Favorite Martian, of 1963, the oldest of the shelf, hides a Martian in the house of a reporter.

The aliens and witches of later decades carry on. ALF, of 1986, four seasons, hides an alien puppet from the planet Melmac in a suburban family; Mork & Mindy, of 1978, by Garry Marshall, made a star of Robin Williams as an alien from Ork; 3rd Rock from the Sun, of 1996, sends a team of aliens, led by John Lithgow, to study Earth as an ordinary family of Ohio; and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, of 1996, with Melissa Joan Hart, lives with her two witch aunts. Dinosaurs, of 1991, from the company of Jim Henson, tells a family sitcom with puppet dinosaurs, and Resident Alien, of 2021, with Alan Tudyk as an alien posing as a doctor of a small town of Colorado, is the newest of the shelf with the American Ghosts.

The most voted series of the shelf is The Good Place, of 2016, by Michael Schur, with an 8.0, in which a selfish woman, played by Kristen Bell, wakes up in a heavenly neighbourhood run by an architect played by Ted Danson and realises that she was sent there by mistake. The best rated is the American Ghosts, of 2021, with an 8.1, in which a young couple inherits a country house of New York full of the spirits of those who died there, from a Viking to a hippie, and only the wife can see them. The guide Magic at home sums it up.

Work

The second family of the guide holds 52 sitcoms of the job, with about 30,100 votes and an average rating of 7.37. The workplace sitcom replaces the family with colleagues: a boss, a rival, a friend at the next desk, a customer who comes back every week. Its four shelves run from the offices of newspapers and paper companies to police stations, courts and hospitals, from bars and diners to taxi garages and airports, and from the army camps of the 1960s to the courts of the eighteenth century.

The office floor

The shelf The office floor gathers thirteen sitcoms from 1988 to 2021 with about 12,200 votes. The most voted and the best rated is The Office of NBC, of 2005, adapted by Greg Daniels from the British original, with an 8.6 and nine seasons: Steve Carell plays Michael Scott, the regional manager of the Dunder Mifflin paper company of Scranton, Pennsylvania, filmed by a documentary crew, with Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski and Jenna Fischer. Silicon Valley, of 2014, by Mike Judge, with an 8.1, follows the founders of a small start-up of compression software through the absurdities of the technology industry.

The newsrooms and the political offices of the shelf come next. Murphy Brown, of 1988, the oldest of the shelf, gives Candice Bergen the role of a sharp television journalist; NewsRadio, of 1995, puts Dave Foley at the head of a radio newsroom of New York, with Phil Hartman; 30 Rock, of 2006, by Tina Fey, with Fey as the head writer of a sketch show and Alec Baldwin as her boss; Spin City, of 1996, sets Michael J. Fox in the office of the mayor of New York; and Veep, of 2012, by Armando Iannucci, with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a vice president of the United States, seven seasons of political humiliation.

The rest of the shelf is the work of the shop floor and the studio. Superstore, of 2015, follows the staff of a big-box store of St. Louis, with America Ferrera; Workaholics, of 2011, three slackers in a telemarketing office; Party Down, of 2009, a team of caterers in Los Angeles, with Adam Scott and Megan Mullally; Just Shoot Me!, of 1997, the staff of a fashion magazine; and Mythic Quest, of 2020, the developers of a video game studio. Hacks, of 2021, the newest of the shelf, with Jean Smart as a veteran comedian of Las Vegas and Hannah Einbinder as her young writer, closes the office with five seasons of a working friendship. The guide The office floor sums it up.

Precincts, courts and hospitals

The shelf Precincts, courts and hospitals gathers thirteen sitcoms from 1960 to 2013 with about 6,600 votes. The most voted is Brooklyn Nine-Nine, of 2013, by Daniel J. Goor and Michael Schur, with an 8.2 and eight seasons: Andy Samberg plays the childish detective Jake Peralta under the strict captain Raymond Holt, played by Andre Braugher. It shares the best rating of the shelf with Scrubs, of 2001, by Bill Lawrence, with an 8.2 and nine seasons, in which the daydreaming young doctor J.D., played by Zach Braff, grows up at the Sacred Heart hospital with his best friend Turk and his mentor Dr. Cox.

The oldest series of the shelf is The Andy Griffith Show, of 1960, eight seasons and 249 episodes, the most of the shelf, in which Andy Griffith plays the kind sheriff of the small town of Mayberry, North Carolina, with Don Knotts as his nervous deputy. The police comedy continues with Barney Miller, of 1975, a precinct of Greenwich Village where the detectives spend more time with their odd suspects than on the street; The Thin Blue Line, of 1995, by Ben Elton, with Rowan Atkinson as a pompous police inspector of England; and Night Court, of 1984, nine seasons in a night court of Manhattan with Harry Anderson as the judge.

The doctors and lawyers of the shelf complete it. David E. Kelley has three series here: Doogie Howser, M.D., of 1989, with Neil Patrick Harris as a teenage genius doctor; Ally McBeal, of 1997, with Calista Flockhart as a young lawyer of Boston who daydreams in song; and Boston Legal, of 2004, with a 7.9, with James Spader and William Shatner as two eccentric lawyers. Becker, of 1998, gives Ted Danson the role of a grumpy doctor of the Bronx; The Mindy Project, of 2012, created by and starring Mindy Kaling as an obstetrician; Nurse Jackie, of 2009, with Edie Falco as an emergency nurse of New York; and Childrens Hospital, of 2008, a parody of hospital dramas, with Rob Corddry and Megan Mullally, close the shelf. The guide Precincts, courts and hospitals sums it up.

Bars, diners and shops

The shelf Bars, diners and shops gathers thirteen sitcoms from 1974 to 2022 with about 7,300 votes and 2,129 episodes, sitcoms set behind a counter or a bar, at a taxi garage or a small airport, where the regulars come back every week. The most voted is The Bear, of 2022, by Christopher Storer, with an 8.2, the newest of the shelf, in which a young chef of fine dining, played by Jeremy Allen White, takes over the sandwich shop of his late brother in Chicago. The best rated is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, of 2005, with an 8.3, eighteen seasons, still returning, in which four terrible friends and the father of two of them, played by Danny DeVito, run an Irish bar into the ground.

The classic bar of television is Cheers, of 1982, eleven seasons and 269 episodes, the most of the shelf: a basement bar of Boston, its owner and former baseball pitcher Sam Malone, played by Ted Danson, the know-it-all mailman Cliff, the beer-loving accountant Norm and the waitresses Diane and Carla. Its success gave NBC the spin-off Frasier, on the apartment shelf. Happy Days, of 1974, the oldest of the shelf, by Garry Marshall, eleven seasons of the 1950s in Milwaukee with Ron Howard and Henry Winkler as the Fonz, spends many of its evenings at the diner Arnold's, and its spin-off Laverne & Shirley, of 1976, follows two friends who work at a brewery of the same city.

The rest of the shelf is the comedy of the small business. Taxi, of 1978, follows the drivers of a New York cab company, with Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Andy Kaufman and Tony Danza; WKRP in Cincinnati, of 1978, the staff of a failing radio station; Alice, of 1976, a widow who waits tables at a roadside diner of Arizona; Wings, of 1990, two brothers who run a small airline on the island of Nantucket; The Drew Carey Show, of 1995, a personnel manager of a department store of Cleveland; and Newhart, of 1982, with Bob Newhart as a writer who runs an inn of Vermont. 2 Broke Girls, of 2011, puts two waitresses of a diner of Brooklyn to work on a cupcake business, and Kim's Convenience, of 2016, from Canada, follows a Korean family and its convenience store of Toronto. The guide Bars, diners and shops sums it up.

Barracks and history

The shelf Barracks and history gathers thirteen sitcoms from 1962 to 2022 with about 4,000 votes, sitcoms of soldiers, sailors, kings and ghosts of the past. Its most famous series is M*A*S*H, of 1972, by Larry Gelbart, eleven seasons and 251 episodes, the most of the shelf, in which the surgeons of a mobile army hospital of the Korean War, led by Hawkeye Pierce, played by Alan Alda, fight the war and the army with jokes; its final episode, in 1983, was the most watched broadcast in American history for nearly three decades.

The army sitcoms of the 1960s follow. McHale's Navy, of 1962, the oldest of the shelf, sets Ernest Borgnine at the head of a crew of misfits on a Pacific island of the Second World War; Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., of 1964, follows a naive Marine; Hogan's Heroes, of 1965, six seasons, a band of Allied prisoners who run a secret operation from inside a German camp; and F Troop, of 1965, a cavalry fort of the Wild West after the Civil War. Britain answers with Dad's Army, of 1968, the Home Guard of a seaside town during the war, and Blackadder, of 1983, with an 8.0, by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson, four series that follow the cunning Edmund Blackadder from the Middle Ages to the trenches of the First World War.

The newer history comedies are just as bold. The most voted and the best rated of the shelf is The Great, of 2020, by Tony McNamara, with an 8.1, the rise of Catherine the Great, played by Elle Fanning, at the court of the emperor Peter, played by Nicholas Hoult; Our Flag Means Death, of 2022, the newest of the shelf, follows the gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard; Catch-22, of 2019, six episodes from the novel of Joseph Heller; and Upstart Crow, of 2016, by Ben Elton, sets William Shakespeare at home in Stratford. The British Ghosts, of 2019, puts the spirits of a country house from the Stone Age to the 1990s around a young couple who inherit it, and Another Period, of 2015, parodies the reality shows of the rich in a mansion of Newport in 1902. The guide Barracks and history sums it up.

Other voices

The third family of the guide holds 52 sitcoms that tell their stories in another way, with about 75,500 votes and an average rating of 7.73, the best of the three families. Its four shelves leave the American network sitcom behind: the short and sharp series of British television, the animated families of FOX and cable, the comedies filmed as fake documentaries, and the personal comedies of performers who write, direct and star in their own shows.

British sitcoms

The shelf British sitcoms gathers thirteen series from 1975 to 2006 with an average rating of 8.02, the best of any shelf of the guide, and nine of them reach 8. British sitcoms are short: a season often holds six episodes, and the whole of the shelf holds only 385 episodes. Two series share its best rating, an 8.3: Fawlty Towers, of 1975, the oldest of the shelf, written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, twelve episodes in all, with Cleese as Basil Fawlty, the furious owner of a small hotel of Torquay; and Yes Minister, of 1980, by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, the comedy of a government minister, played by Paul Eddington, and the civil servant, played by Nigel Hawthorne, who really runs his department.

The most voted is The IT Crowd, of 2006, the newest of the shelf, by Graham Linehan, with an 8.2, the two technicians and the clueless manager of an IT department in the basement of a London company. Linehan has two more series on the shelf: Father Ted, of 1995, with an 8.2, three priests exiled to a parish on a remote island off the coast of Ireland, and Black Books, of 2000, with Dylan Moran as the rude owner of a bookshop. Rowan Atkinson stars in Mr. Bean, of 1990, a nearly silent comedy of fourteen episodes about a man-child who solves every problem in the most complicated way, and the original The Office, of 2001, by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, twelve episodes and a two-part Christmas special about the regional manager David Brent of a paper company of Slough, inspired the American version.

The rest of the shelf covers three decades. Only Fools and Horses, of 1981, by John Sullivan, follows two brothers who trade dodgy goods in south London; Red Dwarf, of 1988, a mining ship lost in deep space with the last human alive; Keeping Up Appearances, of 1990, the snobbish Hyacinth Bucket; Absolutely Fabulous, of 1992, by Jennifer Saunders, with Saunders and Joanna Lumley as two women of the fashion world; Spaced, of 1999, by Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes, two young Londoners who pretend to be a couple to rent a flat; and Peep Show, of 2003, nine seasons in which we hear the thoughts of two mismatched flatmates. The guide British sitcoms sums it up.

Animated sitcoms

The shelf Animated sitcoms gathers thirteen series from 1960 to 2014 with about 47,700 votes, the most voted shelf of the guide, and 3,523 episodes, the longest. The most voted is Rick and Morty, of 2013, by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, with an 8.7 and about 11,500 votes, the best rated series of the guide, the adventures across universes of a drunken genius scientist and his anxious grandson. The Simpsons, of 1989, by Matt Groening, with 38 seasons and 808 episodes, still returning, the longest series of the guide, follows the yellow family of Springfield, and Groening's Futurama, of 1999, with an 8.4, sends a pizza delivery boy a thousand years into the future.

The adult animation of cable is strong here. South Park, of 1997, by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, with an 8.3 and 29 seasons, four boys of a small town of Colorado; BoJack Horseman, of 2014, the newest of the shelf, with an 8.5, the washed-up horse star of a 1990s sitcom; Archer, of 2009, fourteen seasons of a vain spy; and Beavis and Butt-Head, of 1993, by Mike Judge, two teenage morons who watch music videos. Judge also co-created King of the Hill, of 1997, with Greg Daniels, the propane salesman Hank Hill of Texas. Seth MacFarlane has Family Guy, of 1999, 24 seasons, and American Dad!, of 2005, and Bob's Burgers, of 2011, sixteen seasons, follows a family and its burger restaurant. The oldest of the shelf are The Flintstones, of 1960, and The Jetsons, of 1962, the Stone Age and the Space Age families of Hanna-Barbera. The guide Animated sitcoms sums it up.

Mockumentaries

The shelf Mockumentaries gathers thirteen series from 2001 to 2021 with about 10,200 votes, sitcoms filmed as if by a documentary crew, with characters who look at the camera and speak to it in interviews. The most voted is Modern Family, of 2009, by Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, with a 7.9, eleven seasons and 250 episodes, the most of the shelf: three related households of Los Angeles, led by Jay Pritchett, played by Ed O'Neill, his young wife Gloria, his daughter Claire and his son Mitchell. Two series share the best rating, an 8.0: Parks and Recreation, of 2009, by Michael Schur and Greg Daniels, with Amy Poehler as the tireless Leslie Knope of the parks department of Pawnee, Indiana, and What We Do in the Shadows, of 2019, by Jemaine Clement, a house of old vampires on Staten Island.

Abbott Elementary, of 2021, the newest of the shelf, created by and starring Quinta Brunson, follows the teachers of an underfunded public school of Philadelphia; Arrested Development, of 2003, by Mitchell Hurwitz, narrated by Ron Howard, follows the Bluth family after its patriarch is arrested; and American Vandal, of 2017, parodies true crime documentaries with the investigation of who drew obscene graffiti on the cars of a high school. The oldest of the shelf is Trailer Park Boys, of 2001, from Canada, twelve seasons with the petty criminals of a trailer park of Nova Scotia.

The rest of the shelf comes from three countries. Reno 911!, of 2003, follows the incompetent sheriff's deputies of Reno, Nevada; Summer Heights High, of 2007, from Australia, has Chris Lilley play three characters of a public school; Derek, of 2013, by Ricky Gervais, a kind care home worker; People of Earth, of 2016, a support group for people who believe they were abducted by aliens; Documentary Now!, of 2015, with Fred Armisen and Bill Hader, parodies famous documentaries episode by episode; and The Comeback, of 2005, with Lisa Kudrow as a fading sitcom actress followed by a reality crew. The guide Mockumentaries sums it up.

Creators in their own shows

The shelf Creators in their own shows gathers thirteen series from 2000 to 2019 with about 8,900 votes, six of them from HBO: comedies written by the comedians who play the lead, often a version of themselves. The most voted and the best rated is Fleabag, of 2016, by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, with an 8.3 and twelve episodes in two seasons, in which a woman of London who runs a guinea pig café speaks to the camera about her grief, her family and her love for a priest. The oldest is Curb Your Enthusiasm, of 2000, with an 8.1 and twelve seasons, in which Larry David, the co-creator of Seinfeld, plays himself in Los Angeles, unable to let any small social rule go.

Barry, of 2018, by Alec Berg and Bill Hader, with a 7.9, gives Hader the role of a hitman who discovers acting; Atlanta, of 2016, with an 8.0, by and with Donald Glover, follows a young man who manages his cousin's rap career; Insecure, of 2016, by and with Issa Rae, two friends of Los Angeles; and Broad City, of 2014, by and with Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, two friends of New York. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant made Extras, of 2005, about a background actor who tries to break into film; Flight of the Conchords, of 2007, with an 8.0, follows the New Zealand musical duo of Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie in New York; and Girls, of 2012, by and with Lena Dunham, follows four young women of Brooklyn.

The rest of the shelf is just as personal. Louie, of 2010, the life of a stand-up comedian of New York, and Better Things, of 2016, by and with Pamela Adlon as a working actress raising three daughters, both ran on FX, as Atlanta did; Russian Doll, of 2019, with Natasha Lyonne, and Ramy, of 2019, with Ramy Youssef as a young Egyptian American Muslim of New Jersey, are the newest. The guide Creators in their own shows sums it up.

The creators

Garry Marshall is the great builder of the guide, with four sitcoms of the 1970s on three shelves: The Odd Couple, of 1970, made with Neil Simon from his play; Happy Days, of 1974, and its spin-offs Laverne & Shirley, of 1976, and Mork & Mindy, of 1978, which together filled the evenings of ABC for a decade. Seven creators have three series each. Greg Daniels adapted The Office for NBC, co-created Parks and Recreation with Michael Schur and King of the Hill with Mike Judge; Schur also made Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place; Judge made Beavis and Butt-Head and Silicon Valley; Graham Linehan made Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd; Ricky Gervais made The Office, Extras and Derek; David E. Kelley made Doogie Howser, M.D., Ally McBeal and Boston Legal; and Ben Elton, who co-wrote the later series of Blackadder, created The Thin Blue Line and Upstart Crow. The guide The creators lists them.

The casts

Counted on the cast lists of TMDB, eight actors appear in three sitcoms each. Ted Danson ran the bar of Cheers, the practice of Becker and the afterlife of The Good Place; Rowan Atkinson was Mr. Bean, Blackadder and the inspector of The Thin Blue Line; Henry Winkler went from the Fonz of Happy Days to the acting teacher of Barry, with Childrens Hospital between; Ricky Gervais played the leads of The Office, Extras and Derek; Martin Starr appears in Freaks and Geeks, Party Down and Silicon Valley; Stephen Root in NewsRadio, King of the Hill and Barry; Pamela Adlon in King of the Hill, Louie and Better Things; and Megan Mullally in Will & Grace, Party Down and Childrens Hospital. The guide The casts lists them.

The long runners

Sitcoms run long when they work. Twenty-eight sitcoms of the guide reached 200 episodes, and the collection 200 episodes or more gathers them, longest first: The Simpsons, with 808, Family Guy, with 456, American Dad!, with 401, South Park, with 337, and Bob's Burgers, with 313, lead the list, all of them animated, before The Big Bang Theory, with 279, King of the Hill, Cheers, Frasier and Two and a Half Men. At the other end, the British sitcoms of the guide hold only a dozen or two episodes each, and Catch-22, with six, is the shortest series of the guide. The guide The long runners lists them.

The sitcoms by decade

By decade of their first season, the guide holds thirteen sitcoms of the 1960s, twelve of the 1970s, eighteen of the 1980s, 31 of the 1990s, 33 of the 2000s, 41 of the 2010s and eight of the 2020s, and 25 began before 1980. The 1960s are the decade of the fantasy sitcom and the army sitcom, the 1970s of the comedies of Garry Marshall and of Taxi and M*A*S*H, the 1980s and 1990s of the great family and apartment sitcoms of the networks, and the 2000s and 2010s of the mockumentary, the single-camera comedy and the personal comedies of cable and streaming. Most of the sitcoms of the guide are American, 125 by first production country, with 27 from Britain and Ireland, three from Canada and one from Australia.

WatchTVSitcoms in figures

The 156 sitcoms of the guide hold 18,770 episodes and carry about 188,000 votes on TMDB, with an average rating of 7.56; 42 of them reach 8, led by Rick and Morty with an 8.7, The Office of NBC with an 8.6 and Malcolm in the Middle and BoJack Horseman with an 8.5. The most voted are The Big Bang Theory, Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, Friends, Sex Education and How I Met Your Mother. By shelf, the best rated is British sitcoms, with an average of 8.02, and the most voted is Animated sitcoms, with about 47,700 votes. Of the 156, 133 have ended, 13 were canceled and ten are still returning. The guide The figures gathers every number.

The look of WatchTVSitcoms

The design follows the page of watchtvsitcoms.com as the Internet Archive kept it on 2 January 2009: a portal built with tables and inline styles, with the logo and a site search at the top, a row of menu cells in sky blue, #66CCFF, with black bold capitals, one cell in mint, #CCFFCC, a grey strip, #CCCCCC, below it, and panels of new shows and numbered top five lists in small Verdana, with blue links, #0033FF. Here the twelve settings become a numbered Top Settings list in the left column, each setting sits in a panel under a sky-blue title cell, and each poster carries the channel and the year on a black band. The guide The look of WatchTVSitcoms explains each colour.

Where to begin

For a first evening, start with one sitcom from each family: Friends for home and school, Cheers for work and Fawlty Towers for the other voices. Then try the best of each setting: Malcolm in the Middle, Boy Meets World, Scrubs, The Great, Yes Minister, Rick and Morty, Parks and Recreation and Fleabag. Anyone who likes a long evening can start The Simpsons from 1989, and anyone who likes a short one can watch all twelve episodes of Fawlty Towers in a weekend.

How to use WatchTVSitcoms

The home page opens with the introduction, the numbered Top Settings list in the left column and the twelve shelves. Each entry of the list shows the family, the setting and its number of sitcoms, and leads to its panel; each panel holds twelve posters and a More link that opens the full shelf. The menu in the header leads to the three families, and the search box finds any sitcom by its title; the guide Search tips explains how. Each poster carries the channel and the year of the first episode, and under it come the title, the first genre and the number of episodes.

The series page has the English synopsis, the seasons and episodes, the cast and the genres. The Watch now button opens the series on JustWatch, which shows the services that offer it in your country, and the button Add to My List keeps it in My list, stored in your browser. The guide How to use WatchTVSitcoms explains each part, and the guide The Watch now button explains how JustWatch works.

Questions