top five 90s sitcoms

1. The Simpsons (first ten seasons)
2. Seinfeld
3. Married...with Children (pre-Ted Mcginley)
4. Newsradio
5. Frasier (pre-Daphne & Niles sex)

hon mention: Everybody Loves Raymond, Just Shoot Me

Obviously these fall into two categories: the classic family sitcom and the "ensemble" sitcom.

It is hard to look back now--after Friends ruined everything for everyone, and when Sex and The City, The Office, and Arrested Development (none of which I've seen) have evidently changed sitcoms (again) forever--and see how revolutionary Seinfeld must have been. Like a few other cultural vocabularies, Seinfeld's has been completely reabsorbed into our lives, and in its wake, so many shows took after its template that it is hard to spot its innovations from its 90s-isms and conventions.

Which is to say, of course there were ensemble sitcoms before. Three's Company and The Golden Girls come to mind. What I think is secretly revolutionary about Seinfeld is that there is NO PREMISE. In Three's Company and The Golden Girls (for example--or for a family example, The Jeffersons), the premise is, "these people now have to live together, and maybe they don't want to, and their personalities will be brought into close contact." This is also 2/3rds of the logic behind Friends (Monica and Rachel live together, Joey and Chandler live together). On Seinfeld, there is no premise. George and Jerry have always been friends, Elaine is Jerry's ex-girlfriend but this is not a new development, no one lives together, there is no reason why the first episode should be the first episode and not the twelfth... Kramer is not in the first episode, but he is not "structurally" new-- he is not a premise. And, up until the last episode, Seinfeld resists premises: George's fiance dies, Jerry and George's pilot is a bust, Elaine and George are always getting new jobs, Kramer's schemes don't go anywhere, no one has a consistent romantic partner, etc. All the reasons that a show might "jump the shark" are new, usually permanent developments (Daphne & Niles having sex changes everything and is irreversible, Ted McGinley as the neighbor's new husband), and Seinfeld never makes anything permanent (Newman is kept to a minor character, for instance) while successfully spinning its own mythologies and sagas.

As far as family comedies go, The Simpsons follows a dysfunctional line from All in the Family through Mama's Family, but really is rooted in animated sitcom The Flintstones and its forebearer, The Honeymooners. In a way, The Simpsons is less interesting to talk about than Seinfeld, because it is so much more of a universe, and because, unlike Jerry Seinfeld, Matt Groening does not know when to quit (or does not care to), and the show has declined irrevocably for no reason other than the writing no longer produces winning jokes. But if Seinfeld is "situational", The Simpsons' strengths are in its immense quotability and the unrivaled nuances of its characterizations. Edmund White writes about Proust that he combines the Dickensian and Jamesian methods of characterization-- you only get one "catchy" bit at a time, but the sheer volume of these bits adds up to an extremely shaded and memorable "round" character. Has anyone read an American novel from the last 30 years with any character that could stand up in characterliness to Homer Simpson, to all of his shames, nobilities, weaknesses, memories, repressions, aims, principles, loves, and secrets?

As far as the honorable mentions, Everybody Loves Raymond is probably the best traditional sitcom since The Cosby Show, but I haven't seen more than 1/2 of its episodes, and Just Shoot Me is hon. mention for the David Spade character alone. South Park is not a sitcom, and probably Dr. Katz is not, either, although both those shows are great.