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Preview data: all rankings, scores, votes, refresh labels, methodology, testing and editorial-process statements in Top 49 are illustrative demo content, not live measurements or documented reviews.
Rank 13NewNew entry
#13 in Sitcoms
of 16 ranked entries
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Rob McElhenney · Since 2005
McElhenney built a show about genuinely terrible people and simply never blinked, running the bit for two decades without a single character learning anything. The commitment is the whole joke. Recorded specifics: premiered 2005, creator Rob McElhenney, seasons 16. Panel highlighted no sitcom has sustained "no growth" as a premise this long, day, McElhenney, Howerton, Olson and DeVito with zero weak link and willing to go further than a network show ever would. The reservation on record is the shock-value premise means some episodes have aged badly on purpose.
EnsembleSingle-camera
Score breakdown
How It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia earned 77.6
Each criterion is scored independently, then combined using the weights published on Sitcoms.
- Joke density & hit rateweight 30%
- 79.9
- Ensemble chemistryweight 25%
- 74.9
- Cultural impactweight 25%
- 77.0
- Rewatchabilityweight 20%
- 78.4
On the record
Recorded detail
| Premiered | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Creator | Rob McElhenney |
| Seasons | 16 |
| Rating | 8.8 |
Panel verdict
Strengths and reservations
What it gets right
- No sitcom has sustained "no growth" as a premise this long
- Day, McElhenney, Howerton, Olson and DeVito with zero weak link
- Willing to go further than a network show ever would
Where it gives ground
- The shock-value premise means some episodes have aged badly on purpose
1 appearance
Where this entry ranks
From the same list
Ranked alongside it
Rank 01Editor’s pickSeinfeld
Larry David & Jerry Seinfeld · 1989–1998
David and Seinfeld built an entire show on the premise that petty grievances are the realest material there is, and refused every sitcom instinct toward growth or sentiment. The plotting is tighter than shows twice as serious.
98.1/100 Top 49 score—No change
Rank 02Editor’s pickThe Office
Greg Daniels · 2005–2013
Daniels adapted Gervais and Merchant’s premise and slowly let warmth back into the mockumentary format the UK original had deliberately withheld. By season two it had built its own identity entirely.
96.5/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Rank 03Editor’s pickArrested Development
Mitchell Hurwitz · 2003–2019
Hurwitz packed sight gags and callbacks into single-camera episodes at a density built for rewatching, which is exactly why the show found its real audience only after cancellation.
95.2/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Rank 04Fawlty Towers
John Cleese & Connie Booth · 1975–1979
Cleese and Booth wrote exactly twelve episodes and walked away rather than dilute them, and the hit rate across those twelve is close to perfect. Basil Fawlty remains the most controlled comic performance on this list.
92.8/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Rank 05Cheers
Glen Charles, Les Charles & James Burrows · 1982–1993
Burrows and the Charles brothers proved a bar could sustain eleven seasons of will-they-won’t-they without repeating itself, mostly by trusting the regulars around the edges as much as the leads.
91.5/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Rank 06Editor’s pickFrasier
David Angell, Peter Casey & David Lee · 1993–2004
A spinoff with no right to outclass its source material did it anyway, trading Cheers’ barroom sprawl for apartment farce and radio-booth pomposity. The door-slamming choreography alone took real stagecraft.
89.7/100 Top 49 score1Down 1
Rank 07Parks and Recreation
Greg Daniels & Michael Schur · 2009–2015
Daniels and Schur spent one shaky season finding the show’s actual heart, then built six more around a small-government bureaucrat who somehow made earnestness genuinely funny.
86.6/100 Top 49 score1Up 1
Rank 08Editor’s pick30 Rock
Tina Fey · 2006–2013
Fey wrote jokes at a rate that demands a pause button, layering sight gags into backgrounds most viewers only catch on a rewatch. Denser than almost anything else in the format.
86.0/100 Top 49 score4Down 4
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Top 49 rankings are editorial. Scores are produced from the published criteria on each list and are refreshed on the cadence stated there. Figures shown across this section are curated demonstration data.