© 2021 Paste Media Group. Most of the individual sketches are likewise timeless, not bound to pop culture or whatever was in the news. It’s a paean to the lazy, the slackers, the cynical and the sarcastic, as Daria and her friend Jane bemoaned the plight of a broken society by watching tabloid shows with titles like Sick, Sad World. A truly ensemble cast was one of the selling points for the large and ambitious HBO series, which showed that an adult-content drama could still turn great ratings. By contrast, there were only two white actors on In Living Color, but its legacy as an important show in black culture was somewhat mitigated by the fact that one of those white actors was a young Jim Carrey, then credited as “James,” who went on to become the show’s biggest star before using it as a springboard to feature film fame. Sometimes, a show is doomed from the very start to play second fiddle, and when you’re a medical drama premiering within a day of the first episode of ER, you are that second fiddle. Here, then, is a ranking of the top 90 shows of the 1990s. It’s sort of hard to make Wings sound thrilling, but that’s okay because it was always a gentle, sort of stuffy sitcom, albeit one with good performances. Fox, of course, was as charming as he was always capable of being. And with the launch of the new “Simpsons World” app in late August as the show’s reruns move to FXX, there’s never been an easier time to finally revisit the best portions of the show’s absurd 552 episodes. Stacker compiled data on all 1990s TV shows in English with over 7,500 votes on the Internet Movie Database, and ranked the top 100 according to IMDb user score (as of … Years: 1991-2004 Like many long-running sitcoms, the Cheers of 1992 was really a fundamentally different show than it was in 1982, less about the dating life of Ted Danson’s Sam and much more of an ensemble device, full of characters who were by this point beloved by all. This show was a playground for character actors to run wild, such as Stephen Root as station owner Jimmy James and Phil Hartman in one of his best and final roles before his shocking 1998 murder. Years: 1984-1996 Its frightening imagery, harsh language, toilet humor and out-of-nowhere sexual innuendo sent parents into fits, but its influence was equally pervasive. Every teen who ever shrugged their shoulders and sighed in frustration after being asked how their day at school was by Mom was clearly thinking, ‘My life is just like Daria.’. Many of the plots revolve around the hapless hero’s dating life, and the show just sort of manages to coast by on the likability of Carey and a few strong supporting performances by actors like Ryan Stiles and Diedrich Bader. Sure, they could be a little crude at times, but who isn’t? It’s pretty over-the-top stuff. It depicts police and detective work as bleak, often repetitive and mentally exhausting, which certainly takes a toll over time on its breakout character, homicide detective Frank Pembleton, played by Andre Braugher. Years: 1993-1997 Its satire of both animated children’s TV shows and comic book superheroes came totally out of left field—the one similar parody from the time period I can think of is the occasional character “Really Really Big Man” from Rocko’s Modern Life. But for all the wholesome hijinks it filled its episodes with, the show's set was more than a … Methods of demise included shooting, decapitation and spontaneous human combustion. Despite the silly premise, though, the series actually had a surprising amount of heart as well, largely motivated by Beckett’s unfailing resolve to return to his own time and body and reclaim his own life and identity. The reach of Friends extends to every end of pop culture, even fashion. The show soon became an off-hand representation of the idea of “smart comedy” on TV, but it was also still a sitcom full of relationship humor. Years: 1998-2004 How many of us can recite entire passages or episodes? No one has ever described Home Improvement as a smart or cleverly written show, but we all watched it at some point. A great political comedy, it skewered the city politics of New York, with Fox playing the city’s deputy mayor, the guy with all the “real power.” Veteran character actor Richard Kind got serious time to shine as antagonistic press secretary Paul Lassiter, and the show even featured a gay black character, certainly a rarity in just about any decade. This is the quintessentially dumb, cheesy but somehow entertaining sitcom of the 1990s. His musical segments are still among the weirder pieces of material Adult Swim has ever aired, which is saying something. The adventures of Tommy, Chuckie and the rest were dependent on some spectacular voice acting and a unique, instantly recognizable animation style full of comically exaggerated, bizarrely shaped characters. As the show progressed to a second season, the sci-fi elements grew stronger with the discovery of aliens and various “monster of the week” episodes in the vein of those types of Star Trek or X-Files episodes. The ’90s were a crazy, transitional period for Cartoon Network, which came into the decade showing classic Hannah Barbera and Warner Brothers cartoons as their main content blocks and left it with their flagship evening program, Adult Swim, more or less fully formed. Bruce Campbell is an actor who never truly received a chance at the starring roles he deserved, and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. is some of the better evidence that we all missed out on a guy who could have been much more than just a cult favorite in movies like The Evil Dead. Years: 1994-1997 Just hearing him talk about the sentient worm in his “abdominal pouch” made for some great, icky sci-fi moments. Ultimately though, Chicago Hope is remembered as a good drama that was just the second best hospital show of the ’90s. But in the end, Hank always fundamentally does the right thing, even if that does involve threats to “kick your ass” on a disturbingly regular basis. Years: 1994-1998 Truly committed to the absurd, it relied much less on the formats of bigger shows such as SNL, with its celebrity impersonations and direct pop culture parodies. As a launching pad alone, it remains one of the most significant sketch shows of the ’90s. Years: 1988-1993 The Stargate movie was really a perfect choice to spin off into a sci-fi series because the Stargate itself is quite the piece of deus ex machina—it can transport people all over the galaxy to different planets, so there was always somewhere new and strange to visit, even over the course of 10 seasons and 214 episodes. There were prior examples on radio, but the first television sitcom is said to be Pinwright's Progress, ten episodes being broadcast on the BBC in the United Kingdom between 1946 and 1947. Of all potential talking points, the series generated controversy about its nudity content (and Sipowicz’ butt), but to dwell on that was ignoring its incredible characterizations. Critics were not kind at all to Conan when the inexperienced writer of many a classic Simpsons episodes succeeded Dave Letterman as the host of Late Night in 1993, calling him awkward, geeky and untrained. Years: 1988-1999 Years: 1990-2010 Law & Order, the show that ran for 456 episodes and spawned no fewer than four additional spin-offs in its wake. So many of the sitcoms on this list are paeans to blue-collar family life, but Frasier was the odd show that made cultural elites and eggheads somehow seem like lovable characters to a mass audience. The concept of a two-parent household with both parents working was unique enough in the world of sitcoms, but even with both Roseanne and Dan both working full-time jobs, this show was a portrait of a family just struggling and scraping to get by, all while keeping their good humor and basic decency intact. Very much based around the idea of cohesive seasons, the show was blessed with great “big bads” as long-term villains and a colorful cast of returning good guys in its “Scooby Gang.” Prior to Buffy, nobody had really blended horror and comedy elements in a way that was so accessible to a young, geeky audience. Unfortunately, it went up directly against ER in its first season timeslot and lost in the ratings pretty handily. It looked absolutely gorgeous, evoking a whole new aesthetic for the Gotham universe that merged art deco and gothic architecture into a macabre whole. The fact that it was on a premium network was essential, allowing a much deeper (and more realistic) depiction of the horrors of incarceration in the United States. There are all of the early Ellen episodes from the first few seasons, which simply deal with her life as a quirky bookstore owner with goofy friends … and then there’s everything after “The Puppy Episode.” It was so named because network execs were frustrated at the lack of progress in the character’s dating life and suggested maybe she should “get a puppy.” That’s exactly when Ellen DeGeneres dropped her big bombshell—she wanted to come out of the closet as a lesbian, both in real life and as her character, Ellen Morgan. Years: 1993-1998 Grace Under Fire offered so much deeper a character and background than almost any other female-fronted sitcom of its decade: Brett Butler’s Grace was a true outlier among sitcom characters. Never did they even learn from their mistakes! A lot of people, Martin Lawrence included, probably thought this would be the peak of the former stand-up’s career in comedy, but they were simply unaware that he would one day make Big Momma’s House. In terms of pure marketability, Friends was a juggernaut. On any given weekday, the likelihood is high that I watch a Seinfeld rerun that I’ve seen at least 20 times before, and I’m not alone in that habit. Al Bundy is a simple man, and he has few redeeming characteristics: He’s cheap, he’s a loser, he’s a depressed would-be philanderer, but damn if people couldn’t identify with the sad sack and his quest to simply put meals on the table with enough money left over for beer. The series even led into a surprisingly funny feature film, Beavis and Butt-head Do America, which I’ve seen more times than I care to admit. Lucy Lawless was the main reason why, a certifiable badass with an awesome, chakram-like weapon that seemed to delight in defying every known law of motion. Ah, Hercules. Roy Scheider of Jaws fame starred as the captain of a research and diplomatic envoy vessel in a future where depletion of the Earth’s resources has led to the only cities remaining underwater, where they harvest the bounty of the ocean. The writers clearly didn’t care whatsoever about long-term plots or even keeping their mythologies straight—every other episode would lift random fixtures of Egyptian, Asian and European mythology right alongside the “Greek stuff.” None of that mattered—it was understood you were watching simply for the bromance between Kevin Sorbo as Hercules and Michael Hurst as his nephew/sidekick Iolaus.
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