I apologize. I know I left some of your favorite shows off this list. How do I know that? Because I left some of my favorite shows off this list. The happy and unfortunate fact is that there are far more than 100 great shows, and more created every year. Lists are incredibly important: they are how we define what matters to us, what we want entertainment and art to do, what we expect of our culture.” —TIME TV critic James Poniewozi
SANFORD AND SON
Never was a more unlikely comic adapted so effectively to a sitcom as Redd Foxx. Foxx, whose stage act liberally employed words and references that you still can’t use on broadcast TV, was cleaned up, but not smoothed over, as junkyard proprietor, serial over-actor, widower and ornery cuss Fred Sanford. But Foxx’s transition to TV wouldn’t have worked without the understated work of Demond Wilson as his son Lamont. Lamont was the suffering grown-up, dreaming of building up the family business (or ditching it and moving out) and chafing at having to keep Fred out of trouble. Fred was the manipulative child, having another in a series of “heart attacks”—”I’m coming to join you, Elizabeth!”—when he needed sympathy. Sanford and Son may not have played to the champagne crowd, but it went down like a smooth glass of champipple
