11. The Tonight Show with Carson
12. Bonanza
13. Get Smart
14. Law and Order
15. Adam 12
16. Spartacus: STARZ series. Explicit
17. The Waltons
18. Nat Geo’s Explorer series
19. Monday Night Football
20. Bugs Bunny & all Looney Toons toons including Fractured Ferrytales
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But I was involved with the show from years before when we (CBS) first did it as a TV movie called “The Homecoming” (1971). Few at the network thought it had a chance as a series but it ran for nine seasons.
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But best written:

Mary Tyler Moore and many of those mentioned here are great pics. The Waltons was very well written (a rather Conservative show, Ray :-)), I thought The Outer Limits was well written, even though the low budget allowed for some hoky creatures, but the theme often followed political times, the audio (music) was fantastic and they only had one week to create each show.

So most of the shows I would mention have been spoken for. Of the newer shows I think “Dexter” (HBO) was well written in the beginning, say the first 2 or 3 years, but it seems the past couple years have gotten a little far-fetched.
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All In The Family
Cheers
60 Minutes
Meet The Press
The Twilight Zone
MIssion Impossible
The Sopranos
Deadwood
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
The Wire
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“The Defenders” (E.G. Marshall), “Perry Mason” (Raymond Burr), “Wagon Train” (Ward Bond), “Maverick” (James Garner)

“Dick Van Dyke Show”, “Taxi”, “Bob Newhart Show(s)”, Carol Burnett Show"

Playhouse 90, Kraft Theatre, Studio One.

Hard choices.
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I forgot – Saturday Night Live! That’s definitely a show that over 30+ years has translated the mood of the country for generations.

Perry Mason was a take-off of Erle Stanley Gardner’s books – but then many shows & movies are scripted from pulp fiction.

Playhouse 90 sounds good. We didn’t have a tv for years while I was growing up, so I’m not familiar with a lot that people list here. Also, there’s large gaps where I didn’t watch tv at all – mainly because I was working all the time.

Hard to leave out the special HBO series’ like John Adams and Mildred Pierce, but I guess those wouldn’t qualify.
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BTW, am I the only one who hates series shows that string you along for weeks and then get canceled & vanish without any conclusion? I think they should have to post a completion bond so there will be some kind of wrap-up ending.
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Only one comedy on my almost-final list is currently on the air (“The Big Bang Theory”) and two dramas (“Homeland” and “Person of Interest”).

I have eleven comedies on my list and one has to go, either “Get Smart” or “Taxi”. Same problem with dramas, “The Fugitive” or “Gunsmoke”?
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Then there’s the cleverness factor in the tricky plotting of shows like “Columbo”, “Murder She Wrote” and “Perry Mason”.

Finally, should extra consideration be given to long-running shows like “Gunsmoke”, which ran for twenty years?
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How many shows did you love that you thought were poorly written?
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Unfortunately, the shows weren’t particularly well-written.
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Trivia: What was the Lone Ranger’s real name?

We remember his horse was named Silver, as in “Hi-yo, Silver. Away!” But what was Tonto’s horse named?
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Lone Ranger on radio? Primarily, Brace Beemer

Dale Evans’ horse? Buttermilk.

Sidekick Pat Brady’s jeep? Nellybelle

Hoppalong Cassidy’s horse? Topper

The Cisco Kid’s horse? Diablo

Pancho’s? Loco

Original voice of Superman on radio? Bud Collyer (“To Tell The Truth”).
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In no particular order (since that doesn’t matter):

The Twilight Zone
Star Trek
The Fugitive
The West Wing
The Waltons
Columbo
L.A. Law
E.R.
Person of Interest
Homeland

I Love Lucy
The Dick Van Dyke Show
Mary Tyler Moore
The Carol Burnett Show
M*A*S*H
All In The Family
Cheers
Taxi
The Bob Newhart Show(s)
The Big Bang Theory
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One show that will soon be a classis, “SOUTHLAND.”. Probably the best cop show evere!
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Then there were the forgotten shows: “East Side/West Side”, Hong Kong", “Mr. Peepers”, “The Untouchables”, “Peter Gunn”, “Sea Hunt”, “I Spy”, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”, “The Prisoner” (all largely lost because they were shot in b&w).

Ernie Kovacs, George & Gracie, Dobie Gillis, Ozzie & Harriet, Sgt. Bilko, Our Miss Brooks, The Beverly Hillbillies, Get Smart, Andy of Mayberry, Car 54, Where are You?, I Dream of Jeanne.

And the stupid but funny: My Mother, the Car, Mister Ed, Hogan’s Heroes, The Munsters, The Addams Family, The Flying Nun.

And we haven’t even considered the variety shows: Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar, Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, George Gobel, Ed Sullivan, Arthur Godfrey, Garry Moore, Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Johnny Carson.
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Just goes to show just how talented American writers are, and how important their craft and talents are to our society, as each one contributed to what America is, and why everyone wanted to move here.
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Hopefully, the focus of this poll will show that writers in the past created amazing tv to an incredible extent where these shows are still considered the best ever.

Time for the next generation to create THEIR best ever.
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As for “Boardwalk Empire”, even though I spent summers and later went to high school in Atlantic City, I never really got into the show, partly because I didn’t think they really captured the look and feel of the actual city.

Our family had a lot of history with Atlantic City. My father and uncle (who I was named after) grew up there. My uncle Ray was a boardwalk cop and my grandfather was Chief of Detectives for the ACPD until caught up in a scandal created by the real Nucky Johnson.
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“I dropped out of school at age twelve – I don’t know how to spell regret”

and -
“A woman can get anywhere as long as she doesn’t fall in love”

Lenore Coffee, American screenwriter, playwright and novelist
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Kate Winslet got the much-deserved Emmy in 2012 – excellent series.

Yes, the Hatfields & McCoys should be interesting – I’ve heard conflicting reviews. Have it set up to record!
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“A Bridge Too Far”
“The Longest Day”
“Paths of Glory”
“Apocalypse Now”
“Platoon”
“Sink the Bismark”
“Run Silent, Run Deep”
“Zulu”
“Glory”
“Pork Chop Hill”
“Blackhawk Down”
“Courage Under Fire”
“Saving Private Ryan”

Then there are movies set during war but not about the battlefield per se:

“Inglourious Basterds”
“The Great Escape”
“The Bridge on the River Kwai”
“The Victors”
“The MacKenzie Break”
“Empire of the Sun”
“The Americanization of Emily”
“36 Hours”
“M*A*S*H”
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Gettysburg was a great movie as was Gods and Generals.
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Good day.

re: The Lone Ranger. I asked what was his real name? Clayton Moore did indeed play the role in the TV series, but the character’s real name was John Reid.

re: “Action in the Afternoon”, the TV western that aired live from outside Philadelphia, ran on CBS from February 2, 1953 to January 29, 1954.

re: “Stories of the Century” or “Matt, the Railroad Detective”. No, I was not familiar with it, as they appear to have been two titles of the same show. It was also syndicated under the title “Fast Guns”.

In 1955, “Stories of the Century” became the first western to win an Emmy Award in the then category of “Western or Adventure Series”.

Jim Davis (who later was Jock Ewing on “Dallas”) played fictitious railroad detective Matt Clark and also did the narration for each episode. Mary Castle co-starred in 26 episodes as Clark’s attractive assistant, Frankie Adams. Castle was replaced by Kristine Miller who appeared in 14 episodes as Margaret Jones, or “Jonesy”.

Neither was I familiar with “China’s Little Devils” (1945), which starred Harry Carey, Paul Kelly and ‘Ducky’ Louie. Not much information on it.

re: “The Seven Samurai”. Probably goes without saying it was re-made as the classic western “The Magnificent Seven”.
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Perhaps with this new phenomenon of more stay-at-home-Dads – there might be hope for this gender to actually learn how to compromise and ‘share’ — than relying on their immediate emotional reaction which is to kill first, ask questions later.

Ha. One could hope.
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He learns to communicate only by tapping Morse Code and counting the days as he reflects on the futility and hypocrisy of war. It was required reading in the early 1960’s but seems to have faded into history in recent years.

A very similar secondary character appears in Joseph Heller’s “Catch 22”.
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We’ve been living in a vacuum of creative restraints for the past 12 years with the popularity of ‘reality shows’ – I guess everyone’s ‘reality’ has gotten so bad, no one wants to watch ’em anymore.

Current versions of “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” is still in full-force tho, on the politico-pundit broadcasts and Access Hollywood, etc.

Sells well in Peoria.
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We’re living now in a world of ten-second sound-bites and bumper-sticker slogans, of non-grammatical texting and instant gratification takes too long.

As a society, we are becoming increasingly shallow.
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There were a lot of schlocky sci-fi’s in between but the next important one was “War of the Worlds” in 1953. If we’re going to put a list together of the best sci-fi films, we’re in for a long (and wonderful) slog…
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As with the Stanley Kubrick/Arthur C. Clarke “2001: A Space Odyssey”, we were overly optimistic about our future. Sadly. it was a future that might have been but wasn’t. We fought wars instead.
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Science Fiction, as we’ve said here before serves an important social function, usually as cautionary tales of what we might become if we’re not careful. In too many cases, we haven’t listened.
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What are your thoughts?
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