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The 20 best TV sitcoms of all time – readers' choice

What did Monitor readers choose as the best sitcom in the history of television?

1. 'Seinfeld'

NBC/AP

  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

NBC's program ran from 1989 and 1998 and starred Jerry Seinfeld as a character of the same name, a stand-up comedian living in New York, who spends time with his friends George (Jason Alexander), his ex-girlfriend Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and his neighbor Kramer (Michael Richards).

The show is famous for its unsympathetic characters, and the producers made the phrase "No hugging, no learning" a rule when crafting storylines, wanting to differentiate themselves from previous TV shows. The cast reunited on the HBO show "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in 2009, which was created by and starred "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David. True to the nature of "Curb," which mixed fiction with real life, the episodes consisted of David trying to organize a "Seinfeld" reunion and the stars finally agree to appear in a scripted episode.

"The show mined comic gold from the little idiosyncrasies and annoyances of American life," Bloom and Vlastnik wrote in their book "Sitcoms." "Seinfeld ushered in the era of squeamish comedy."

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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