Here Are the Top 10 Classic Sitcoms That Have Aged Well

Everyone loved Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia. Four retirees living together in Miami and enjoying their lives together was how the Golden Girls rolled.

And we loved every bit of it.

This 1980s and ’90s sitcom ran for seven seasons. The Golden Girls was never afraid to take on tough topics but also always put the comedy first.

And if you watch it today, it’s as good as it ever was.

Archie Bunker is an American icon.

So is his lazy boy chair. Seriously, it’s in the Smithsonian.

Norman Lear’s sitcom masterpiece All in the Family about a grumpy, working class husband Archie, brilliantly played by Carroll O’Connor, and his wife Edith (Jean Stapleton) and daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers) might be one of the most all-American movies of all time. Lear was not afraid to topple heavy social issues and All in the Family had more than one spin off show that became classics in their own right.

And let’s not forget about Gloria’s husband “meathead,” as Archie called him. He was played by Rob Reiner.

If you’re looking for one of the best sitcoms of all time, it’s hard to go wrong with this one.

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Will is Eric McCormack. Grace is Deborah Messing.

Will is a gay lawyer. Grace is a heterosexual interior designer who is also Jewish.

And they are besties.

If that not’s a great setup for a turn or the century sitcom at the dawn of the 2000s… we don’t know what is. With sidekick Jack – also gay – this was an important show for gay acceptance in America but first and foremost, it was hilarious.

It had a long life, running from 1998 to 2006 and then was revived from 2017 to 2020.

And every bit of it still holds up today.

“Did I do that?”

Sitcoms are famous for having memorable pop icon characters with catchphrases and Steve Urkel is certainly on that list.

Running from 1989 to 1998, Family Matters focused on black middle class family the Winslows living in Chicago. But when ‘Urkel’ showed up in season 1 during the episode ‘Laura’s First Date,’ the show swiftly shifted to focusing on him.

Urkel was Family Matters‘ Fonzie, only the opposite of cool.

It was a great show and still worthy of revisiting.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is definitely funny.

It is also definitely darker than every other show on this list.

Its characters are all toxic and fatally flawed, but that’s part of what makes them funny. They are depraved and didn’t seem to mind it one bit. No matter how bad things get, they usually end up with a happy ending.

This show is also Danny DeVito at his TV best, and that’s saying something.

Good Times joined Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons as one of the most popular television shows depicting black life in America. John Amos and Ester Rolle played James and Florida Evans, who lived in a Chicago working class apartment with their three kids.

One of which was J.J. played by Jimmie Walker, best known as they guy who says “Dyn-O-Mite!”

Good Times ran for six seasons, from 1974 to 1979, and if you go back, it has certainly aged well.

The Jason Bateman-led Arrested Development became a hit on both Fox and for Netflix with its shaky cameras, fast cutaways and truly unique way of filming its subject: The hopelessly dysfunctional Bluth family.

It doesn’t feel like it, but this sitcom only lasted three seasons.

Yet the show still has a strong fanbase, and it definitely still holds up.

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A situation comedy about military surgeons, soldiers, and staff stationed in South Korea during the Korean War.

Hilarious, right?

It actually was. Though it was a commentary on America’s part in the Cold War and Vietnam, the shows characters brought the funny. Who could forget Benjamin “Hawkeye” Pierce (Alan Alda), Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Loretta Swit), and Maxwell “Max” Klinger (Jamie Farr)?

Running from 1972 to 1983, M*A*S*H is a sitcom classic.

A spin-off of All in the Family, The Jeffersons is one of the longest running sitcoms in history at 11 seasons.

From 1975 to 1985, George and Louise Jefferson portrayed an upper class black family with George being an African-American version of Archie Bunker – including all the prejudices.

Only in reverse.

One of the funniest sitcoms, The Jeffersons was one of the top shows of the 1970s and ’80s, portraying American black life with George as one of the most successful dry cleaners in the city. With a cast that included Marla Gibbs as Florence and Roxie Roker as their neighbor married to a white man – Roker is the mother of rockstar Lenny Kravitz – The Jeffersons remains a show for the ages.

Sometimes you really do just want to go where everybody knows your name.

Cheers was it.

Ted Danson served up drinks and laughs at his Boston bar for 11 seasons from 1982 to 1993, as the handsome former Red Sox-relief pitcher. As Sam Malone, he was joined by the pretty and peppy Diane (Shelley Long) and cynical Carla (Rhea Perlman), as well as regulars Norm (George Wendt) and Cliff (John Ratzenberger).

What came through that bar door for 11 years when endless entertainment as seen through the eyes of these classic characters.

Cheers would also launch the careers of future stars Woody Harrelson, Kelsey Grammer, and Kirstie Alley.

Cheers just might be the most classic sitcom of all time.

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