Thread: They don't write like that anymore.

Show us some sitcoms you recall on your way up.

Bilko named best ever comedy.

Martin Wainwright



The snappiest minds in modern TV comedy surrendered gracefully yesterday to a crafty, bespectacled 1950s conman who created chaos in an American army base.

Despite the powerful claims of Fawlty Towers, Yes Minister and the Simpsons, the endlessly inventive scams of Master Sergeant Ernie Bilko have been named the best sit-com of all time.

Bestowed by the definitive Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy, the title was awarded yesterday to Sergeant Bilko as the high point in the American programme the Phil Silvers Show, which ran for four years from 1955.



"Sgt Bilko is sitcom's high-water mark," said Mark Lewisohn, the television historian who started the guide's million words of erudition on funny TV five years ago.

"By the year after next it'll be 50 years old and yet it's still hilarious - with great scripts and magnificent performances week after week by Phil Silvers."

The workshy sergeant's scams in an army motor pool in Kansas were a mixture of slapstick and the sort of warped military logic made famous by the novel Catch 22.

Organising poker tournaments, rides in tanks and underhand deals with civilian garages, Bilko's shrewd command of his gang also inspired the cartoon series Top Cat, retitled Boss Cat for British audiences.

The series has, however, proved again the adage that prophets tend not to be honoured in their own country.

Mr Lewisohn said: "The crazy thing is, the show has been buried and forgotten in America, while in Britain it is still revered." Bilko episodes have regularly been rescreened by the BBC.

The guide puts another American sitcom, Seinfeld, in second place but offers particular laurels to the third placed Fawlty Towers. John Cleese's dreadful hotelier, his wife and their persecuted waiter, Manuel, were "sublime," said Mr Lewisohn, "but there were only 12 episodes, while Seinfeld sustained its excellence for most of its 176 half-hours.

The guide also publishes a long list of television's worst sitcoms, dire results of desperate brainstorming sessions by tired scriptwriters.

The uncoveted title of worst-ever in Britain goes to a forgotten pseudo-medieval series called Sir Yellow starring Jimmy Edwards and Melvyn Hayes.

It appeared briefly in 1973 before being consigned by most ITV regions to the graveyard hours.

Top British and US sitcoms

1 The Phil Silvers Show (US)
2 Seinfeld (US)
3 Fawlty Towers (UK)
4 Porridge (UK)
5 Yes, Minister (UK)
6 Frasier ( US)
7 M*A*S*H (US)
8 Till Death Us Do Part (UK)
9 Hancock's Half-Hour/ Hancock (UK)
10 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (UK)
11 The Larry Sanders Show (US)
12 The Mary Tyler Moore Show (US)
13 The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (UK)
14 The Good Life (UK)
15 Steptoe and Son (UK)
16 Only Fools and Horses (UK)
17 Cheers (UK)
18 The Dick Van Dyke Show (US)
19 Dad's Army (UK)
20 The Simpsons (US)

It can be said that the sitcom not only defines but shapes the generation, you are American of course Mr Fish, and sure we had our fair dose of US sitcoms in the UK, but did you ever watch any classic British stuff?

It's mostly rather grim, full of double entendre and very un-pc... but the UK was mostly like that in the 70's

Rising Damp

Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter) is a tight arse, cynical landlord that rents rooms out in his house to the target of his affections, the very proper Miss Jones, a very hip young white guy (Richard Beckinsdale) and a rather smooth black fella.



Porridge

Ronnie Barker (Fletcher) and Richard Beckinsdale (Godber) share a prison cell. The dynamic between the seasoned prison veteran Barker and the young and naiive Beckinsdale, with the comedy writing of Barker makes for hilarious comedy.







It Aint Half Hot Mum

Its an Army entertainment troupe out in India, it's a bit Catch 22, very camp over the top characters and very un-pc Indian caricatures that you wouldn't get away with these days.



Some Mother Do 'Ave 'Em

The disaster prone and very annoying Frank Spencer (Michael Crawford) and his long suffering wife Betty (Michelle Dotrice). Crawford wrote the book on cunning stunts that inspired the likes of Mr Bean.



I guess the US really created the genre, a lot of their classics come from the 60's but that golden period in the UK was in the 70's. There's many other memorable series that were part of my childhood, Citizen Smith, The Good Life, Man About The House, Steptoe and Son.. the list goes on.