Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Happy 50th Anniversary TV Guide!!!

Since this is TVGuide’s 50th Anniversary, They decided to put out their own "Top 50 Greatest Shows Of All Time"!

Here’s What They Came Up With!

41. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Buffy is sixteen years old and is the "chosen one" . She gets to kill vampires because it is her destiny to do so. She had a bad reputation at her old school in Los Angeles because she had burned the gym down. The principal at her new school at first rips up her records, and then tapes her records back together again. Buffy tries to explain that the gym at her old school had to be burned down because it was full of vampires! Buffy and her mom just want a fresh start in their new, suburban California home, where the good part of town is half a block away from the bad part of town. In her new high school, Buffy meets an eccentric librarian who knows that Buffy is the "chosen one". At first, the librarian scares her away by showing her a book about vampires, but then she returns to the library, knowing that the librarian can help her out with fighting off vampires and other supernatural things.

1. Seinfeld - Jerry Seinfeld stars in this television comedy series as himself, a comedian. The premise of this sitcom is Jerry and his friends going through everyday life, discussing various quirky situations that we can all relate to (especially if we live in New York). The eccentric personalities of the offbeat characters who make up Jerry’s social circle contribute to the fun.

2. I Love Lucy - Cuban Bandleader Ricky Ricardo would be happy if his wife Lucy would just be a housewife. Instead she tries constantly to perform at the Tropicana where he works, and make life comically frantic in the apartment building they share with landlords Fred and Ethel Mertz. The first major show to be put on film rather than kinescope.

3. The Honeymooners - Ralph Kramden is a New York bus driver who dreams of a better life. With his eccentric good friend, Ed Norton the sewer worker, he constantly tries crackpot schemes to strike it rich. All the while, his exasperated wife, Alice, is always there to bring him down to earth or to pick him up if he beats her to it. For as much as they fight, even dunderhead Ralph knows that she is the greatest and vice versa.

4. All in the Family - Television was changed forever the night of Jan. 12, 1971, with the premiere episode of "All in the Family." The show’s central character, Archie Bunker, was a working-class family man who held bigoted, conservative views of the world. His viewpoints clash with nearly everyone he comes into contact with especially his liberal son-in-law Mike Stivic (or, as Archie delights in calling him, "Meathead"). The two disagree about nearly everything politics, minorities, sex, religion, economics, war, gun control, crime, free speech, women’s rights, morality, philosophy and (so it seemed) life in general. Archie’s daughter, Gloria, often (but not always) sided with Mike, while his saintly wife, Edith, was the rock that held the family together. Edith was as friendly, reserved, considerate and open-minded as Archie was bigoted, loud, rude and closed-minded; however, the love and faithfulness between them was undeniable.

5. The Sopranos - An innovative look at the life of fictional Mafia Capo Tony Soprano, this serial is presented largely first person, but additional perspective is conveyed by the intimate conversations Tony has with his psychotherapist. We see Tony at work, at home, and in therapy. Moments of black comedy intersperse this aggressive, adult drama, with adult language, and extreme violence.

6. 60 Minutes - This series set the pattern for the TV news magazine. Each episode consists of several stories, each presented by a different reporter. Stories have included investigative pieces, celebrity profiles, background pieces on current events, and general human interest stories. The series has also featured "Point-Counterpoint" debates and humorous commentaries by Andy Rooney.

7. The Late Show with David Letterman - David Letterman’s comedic talk-show after moving to a new television network. He retains largely the same format as the previous ’Late Night with David Letterman.’

8. The Simpsons - The Simpsons are a very politically incorrect family. Homer works with pride in a nuclear power plant run with more regard for profit that safety. His wife is Marge, a kind of supermom. They have three kids: Bart, an underachiever ("and proud of it"), Lisa (who is as serious and responsible as Bart isn’t), and Maggie.

9. The Andy Griffith Show - Widower Sheriff Andy and his son Opie live with Andy’s Aunt Bea in Mayberry NC. With virtually no crimes to solve, most of Andy’s time is spent philosophizing and calming down his cousin Deputy Barney.

10. Saturday Night Live - A late-night comedy show featuring several short skits, parodies of television commercials, a live guest band, and a pop-cultural guest host each week. Many of the SNL players have spun off successful independent comedy and/or movie careers from here.

11. The Mary Tyler Moore Show - Mary Richards moves to Minneapolis after a relationship goes bad. She finds work as an associate producer in a small television newsroom where the characters include Lou Grant, her gruff boss, Murray Slaughter the humorous writer, and Ted Baxter the Anchor Man who spends his time mispronouncing country names. Mary continues to hope for romance, but finds that her friends are more dependable.

12. The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson - Host Johnny Carson performs comedy routines and chats with various celebrities.

13. The Dick Van Dyke Show - Rob, Buddy and Sally write for the Alan Brady TV show under the thumb of Brady’s brother-in-law Mel. Rob and Laura live in new Rochelle next-door to Jerry and Millie.

14. Hill Street Blues - The original "ensemble drama," this is the story of an overworked, under-staffed police precinct in an anonymous inner city patterned after Chicago. We follow the lives of many characters, from the lowly beat and traffic cops to the captain of the precinct himself. This is the show that blazed the trail followed later by such notable ensemble dramas as "St. Elsewhere" and "L.A. Law."

15. The Ed Sullivan Show - Ed Sullivan’s show was straight out of old vaudeville; brief acts of every description, from slapstick comedy to operatic arias. At least once, he showed a film, the only known film of Anna Pavlova (doing her Swan Dance). The Muppets’ first TV appearance was on Ed Sullivan. Stiff and expressionless, with a peculiar voice and a talent for mispronunciation, Sullivan was at least as recognizable as Cronkite to early 60’s viewers.

16. The Carol Burnett Show - Television show featuring skits by Carol Burnett and her comedy troupe.

17. Today Show - The Today Show premiered on the NBC Television Network on January 14, 1952, and since then, the show has gone through many changes. The show, which offers the latest in news, sports, entertainment, and weather, broadcasts from Rockefeller Center each and every morning in a glass enclosed window studio, where people can come by and be on television.

18. Cheers - Sam Malone, a former baseball star, is the head of a nice little bar where Norm, Cliff, Dr. Frasier and all the other regular customers spend together a few hours every day, talking about their problems, laughing at each other’s flaws, trying to be there when someone else needs them. "Cheers" is the place where everybody knows your name...

19. thirtysomething - Hope and Michael are a married couple in their thirties, living in Philadelphia, and struggling with everyday adult angst. Michael runs an ad agency with his friend Elliot, whose marriage to Nancy is beginning to show the cracks of age, as is the friendship between Hope and her best friend Ellyn. Michael’s best friend, Gary, on the other hand, is trying to get on with his womanizing life, and get over the mutually-destructive affair he had with Michael’s cousin, Melissa. It all sounds like just another soap, but is given a unique atmosphere by the production team (the Bedford Falls company, also responsible for ’My So Called Life’) whose intelligent scripts, believable characters and frequent dips into the slightly surreal world of the character’s minds places the series as one of the highlights of the late 1980s.

20. St. Elsewhere - This hour-long dramatic series featured life at St. Eligius Hospital, headed by Drs. Donald Westphall and Daniel Auschlander. Every year, new residents would walk down the halls of St. Eligius; learning to deal with perfectionist Cardiovascular Surgeon Mark Craig was only the beginning of the way the hospital and its interesting patients would change their lives forever.

21. Friends - Six young people, on their own and struggling to survive in the real world, find the companionship, comfort and support they get from each other to be the perfect antidote to the pressures of life.

22. ER - Michael Crichton has created a medical drama that chronicles life and death in a Chicago hospital emergency room. Each episode tells the tale of another day in the ER, from the exciting to the mundane, and the joyous to the heart-rending. Frenetic pacing, interwoven plot lines, and emotional roller-coastering is used to attempt to accurately depict the stressful environment found there. This show even portrays the plight of medical students in their quest to become physicians.

23. Nightline - A nightly discussion of one important news event from earlier that day.

24. Law & Order - Armed with pithy quips, Detectives Logan and Briscoe catch a variety of criminals, then work with the D.A.’s office to put them away. Many plots revolve around recent sensational cases or current social issues.

25. M*A*S*H - The 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is stuck in the middle of the Korean war. With little help from the circumstances they find themselves in, they are forced to make their own fun. Fond of practical jokes and revenge, the doctors, nurses, administrators, and soldiers often find ways of making wartime life bearable. Nevertheless, the war goes on,

26. The Twilight Zone - A collection of tales which range from comic to tragic, but often have a wicked sense of humor and an unexpected twist.

27. Sesame Street - The setting is in a small street in a city where children and furry puppet monsters learn about numbers, the alphabet and other pre-school subjects taught in commercial spots, songs and games.

28. The Cosby Show - Long running popular comedy television series about the Huxtable family. Doctor Heathcliff Huxtable and Clair Huxtable, a happily married couple, are raising their children (Sondra, Denise, Theodore, Vanessa, and Rudy). The two oldest daughters eventually graduate from college and get married (Sondra to Elvin and Denise to Martin).

29. Donahue - The precursor to all the daytime talk shows that arose during the 1980’s and 90’s. Phil Donahue’s show started off similar to other shows of its day, featuring celebrities and musical acts, but he soon started pushing the envelope by discussing health and social topics previously considered taboo. Eventually, the popularity of this approach proved to be his downfall, as he was soon competing with host such as Oprah Winfrey, Sally Jesse Raphael and Geraldo Rivera, who were willing to stoop to new depths in search of sensational topics.

30. Your Show of Shows - Live, original comedy originally featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Carl Reiner and Howard Morris joined the show later. Two of the great skits on the show were "The Hickenloopers", a battling husband-and-wife team and the clock in the Bavarian town of Baverhoff which always broke when the hour was struck.

31. The Defenders - Recent law school graduate (Robert Reed) joins his father (E.G. Marshall) as the pair tackle challenging legal cases, often involving issues which were highly touchy for the times (abortion, euthanasia, "un-American" activities, movie censorship). In most the freshly minted lawyer has much to learn from his father’s extensive legal experience.

32. American Family - This was the original "Real World". The show was a weekly documentary which followed the real life travails of the Loud family, a mixed up cluster of suburbanites. The show picked up lots of interesting footage, including an on-camera divorce demand from wife Pat to her husband, and the coming-out of one of the children who was gay.

33. Playhouse 90 - An anthology series that every week brought a different 90 minute drama to viewers. The first season was live, but during the latter seasons, the number of live shows tapered off.

34. Frasier - Eminent Boston Psychiatrist, Frasier Crane, last seen gracing the bars of Cheers has left his life there to start afresh in Seattle. He now has a spot as a popular radio Psychiatrist, giving him the chance to spread words of wit and wisdom to the masses. He shares his apartment with his retired cop father, Martin, and his father’s physical care assistant, Daphne Moon. Add in brother Niles, Eddie the dog, some bizarre situations and plenty of humour and you’ve got all the ingredients for an excellent show and worthy successor to Cheers.

35. Roseanne - Roseanne and Dan Connor are a suburban working class couple trying to make ends meet. They have three kids (soon to be four): Darlene, Becky and DJ. Darlene is a smart-ass who always finds the ironic side. Becky is a dumb blonde married to the even dumber Mark Healy. And DJ is the psycho 14 year old who’s always doing something weird. Plots vary from personal problems (Roseane’s annoying mother, having your old boss be your business partner) to world issues(gay rights, race relations)

36. The Fugitive - Dr. Richard Kimble is accused to be the murder of his wife. The night before his execution, he escapes. The only chance to prove his innocence is to find the man who killed hi wife. Kimble, persecuted by the Lt. Gerard, risks his life several times when he shows his identity to help other people out of trouble.

37. The X-Files - This television series follows the adventures and lives of FBI agents investigating those cases that involve the paranormal or previously unsolved (especially by conventional means). FBI Special Agents Mulder, Scully, Doggett and Reyes work to uncover forces within the United States of America government that would violate people’s rights, alien creatures and monsters alike that attack and other mysteries.

38. The Larry Sanders Show - HBO television sitcom about Larry Sanders, a talk-show host. This show goes ’behind-the-scenes’ to reveal Larry’s humorous interactions with the producers and guests.

39. The Rockford Files - Jim Rockford is a private investigator is this television serial. The cases he takes usually turn out to be more difficult and dangerous than he initially imagines, and he often ends up in situations over his head. Occasionally, his father shows up to help him out.

40. Gunsmoke - Marshal Matt Dillon is in charge of Dodge City, a town in the wild west where people often have no respect for the law. He deals on a daily basis with the problems associated with frontier life: cattle rustling, gunfights, brawls, standover tactics, and land fraud. Such situations call for sound judgment and brave actions: of which Marshal Dillon has plenty.

42. Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In - This show popularized a rapid style of vignette comedy show where comedy sketches, punch-lines and gags are edited together in a rapid and almost random format. Regular trademark elements included the joke wall, the dancing woman tattooed with one-liners and the fickle finger of fate award. This series would inspire such shows as Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Sesame Street.

43. Bonanza - The Cartwright’s thousand-square-mile Ponderosa Ranch is located near Virginia City, Nevada, site of the Comstock Silver Lode, during and after the Civil War. Each of the sons was born to a different wife of Ben’s; none of the mothers is still alive. Adventures are typical western ones, with lots of personal relationships/problems thrown in as well.

44. The Bob Newhart Show - Bob is a successful Chicago psychologist who shares secretary Carol with Dentist Jerry. Part of the show revolves around his (usually comic) dealings with his patients. The rest involves his school teacher wife Emily and others in their apartment building.

45. Twin Peaks - The story begins with the murder of Laura Palmer, a teen aged girl who lived in the quiet town of Twin Peaks, near the US - Canadian borders. Everyone seems surprised and devastated by the girl’s murder, and the town’s sheriff welcomes the help of FBI agent Dale Cooper, who comes to investigate the case. As Cooper begins his search for Laura’s killer, the town’s secrets are gradually exposed. This is definitely not an average quiet town, it seems as everyone has something big to hide. At nights, agent Cooper sees strange visions of Laura and other mysterious people, visions that tell him that something big is happening here, something far more evil than a single murder case...

46. Star Trek: The Next Generation - Settled in the 24th century and 78 years after the adventures of the original crew of the starship Enterprise this new series is the long awaited successor to the original Star Trek series from the 1960’s. Under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard the all new Enterprise NCC 1701-D travels out to distant planets to seek out new life and to boldly go where no one has gone before.

47. Rocky and His Friends - The animated adventures of Bullwinkle the moose and his companion Rocky the flying squirrel as they try to outwit the villainous duo of Boris and Natasha. Originally aired as Rocky and His Friends.

48. Taxi - Louie De Palma is a cantankerous, acerbic taxi dispatcher in New York City. He tries to maintain order over a collection of varied and strange characters who drive for him. As he bullies and insults them from the safety of his "cage," they form a special bond among themselves, becoming friends and supporting each other through the inevitable trials and tribulations of life.

49. The Oprah Winfrey Show - Chicago-based daytime talk-show host Oprah Winfrey invites a guest panel to discuss a topic, in front of a studio audience. The topics are often controversial or sensational.

50. Bewitched - Samantha, a powerful member of the society of witches that has lived apart from (and disdained) humanity for many centuries, falls in love with a mortal, Darrin Stephens. Much to the disgust of most of her family, she vows to give up witchcraft and become an ordinary suburban housewife, raising a family (bearing Tabitha and Adam). Never able to give up her heritage completely, the friction between the matriarchal, moneyless society of her birth and the patriarchal, capitalist society of modern advertising drives the comedy over eight seasons and 256 episodes, from 1964 to 1971.

Credits: TV Guide (Top 50 List), IMDB (Synopsis of Shows)