Honey, I Shrunk Time's 100 Best Shows

It takes some courage to map out a pop culture galaxy with just 100 slots, but Time's James Poniewozik undertakes it boldly: "Most of all, lists are about having fun and picking fights. If you have read my list and think I am a moron, that's all the thanks I need."

What's refreshing, in this era of endless lists (thus the rubric he's adopted for some of his other tabulating exercises, "That Darn List!") is that his hundred is pretty much on the money--though not in the show-me-the-money sense, because he eschews rating giants in favor of a quick set of higher criteria ("Important: voice, originality, ideas, character and influence.")

And yet, even admiring his work, and the untidy office that I've always told my bosses marks a truly engaged journalist, I found it quick work to chain-saw through the 100 and get it down to my personal ten classics:

The Sopranos

I didn't stop believing with the admittedly nettling non-conclusion. I just wish my wife would quit saying, in her rather accurate Carmela impersonation, "I'm thinkin' about building a spec house."

60 Minutes

Not just for the gotcha, but for the deterrent effect--we will getcha. Spawned many a TV news magazine, but still the gold standard.

The Beavis and Butt-Head Show

I have no defense for this. But I think Mike Judge (in concert with his King of the Hill showrunning partner Greg Daniels, now doing The Office) is an under-recognized chronicler of our absurd moment in history.

The Ed Sullivan Show

He looked like a wax figurine of himself, like the un-Beatle, an anti-Roiling Stone, with no Elvis in him. And yet, between the plate spinners and the lounge acts, he effectively debuted all those rock gods in our national arena.

Homicide: Life on the Street

For New York comedy clubs of a certain era, Richard Belzer (Homicide's Munch) was the stand-up comic's stand-up comic. The way he distilled that bitterly funny streak into a TV detective was just one of the glories brought about by a brilliant production team who went on to do The Wire (whose spot here Homicide just stole .)

The Honeymooners

The battle of the sexes, old school edition, and as wacky in its way as a John Waters scenario--but with an underlying warmth to remind us that the city-pent proletariat is so much more fun than the people in Greenwich.

Playhouse 90

Your father's thinking man's televised drama showcase (e.g., Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight), or maybe your father's father's--never will its like be seen again.

Saturday Night Live

They shared the important and eternal lesson that authority is to be mocked, and the opera bouffe that went on behind the scenes (as in Tina Fey's savory 30 Rock, a candidate for next year's list) provided a whole extra layer of entertainment.

SportsCenter

Man can live many days without food but only a few without water. This is the water.

MTV 1981-1992

Those are the glory years, mind you. It may be that Britney has just hammered a bent 16-penny nail into the coffin of what was great about MTV, but for a few years there they danced between raindrops until following uber-scale pop, rock and rap into a kind of senescence.

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