The Greatest Television Ever: NBC Thursday Night Comedy

In the coming weeks and months, we at SeedSing will be doing our favorite TV shows. It will be a lot like our greatest American band debate, each week picking a show or a season or just particular moments from TV shows that we enjoy.

I'm going to kick it off today by talking about one of my favorite two hour blocks of TV on NBC. There was a time that the Thursday night line up on NBC had four of the best sitcoms that I've ever seen. It was epic, must watch TV for me and any other fan of comedic television. The four shows they trotted out were "30 Rock", "The Office", "Community" and "Parks and Recreation". Talk about a murderers row of great, great TV. These four sitcoms are all in my personal top ten of TV shows. I love these shows and I love them all for different reasons.

First we'd get "30 Rock". This show is one of the all time greats. Tina Fey is a genius. Her writing and acting are beyond genius. She's on a whole different level from any other sitcom writer I've ever seen. She is a legend. But, it wasn't just Tina Fey that made that show great. We got Tracy Morgan, Jane Krawkowski, Jack McBrayer and, of course, Alec Baldwin. Tina Fey basically revived both Morgan's and Baldwin's career with their roles on this show. And they were both fantastic. Any episode that revolved around Morgan's character, Tracy Jordan, was so hilarious and so well written. Anytime he interacted with McBrayer, or Grizz and Dot Com or with Liz Lemon or Jack Donaghy was great. Morgan's first appearance on the show, naked, except for underwear, freaking out on the highway, waving around a fake light saber, was a perfect introduction to his character. And when he tries to get the EGOT, that was a great run of episodes. Alec Baldwin as Jack Donaghy was the perfect representation of the arrogant, yet idiotic studio head that has no clue how to run a network. He was so great on this show. Two of my favorite lines spoken on a sitcom were said by him. The first, Liz asks him why he's dressed so nicely and he says, "it's after six, what am I, a farmer?", loved it. The only line I like better is when Donaghy is talking about his hard working father and he says, "he worked the day shift at the graveyard and the graveyard shift at the Days Inn", that is exquisite writing. I love "30 Rock" and I could go on forever about it, but I need to talk about the other three shows.

After "30 Rock", we got "The Office". This is my second favorite show of all time, behind only "The Simpsons". When this show was great, it was the best thing on TV. Seasons 1-4 of "The Office" is some of the best TV that's ever been aired. We got three phenomenal episodes in those first four seasons. In season one they had the episode where the sales team challenged the warehouse workers to a game of basketball. It was so good. Michael Scott(Steve Carrell) warming up and then playing basketball is so god damn funny. I love that episode. Season two gave us "The Dundies". That was the award show that they had for the employees of Dunder Mifflin. It was cringe worthy comedy, with Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute(Rainn Wilson), emceeing this train wreck. It was so funny and it was the first time that Jim(John Krasinski) and Pam(Jenna Fischer) kissed. This episode is great. The best episode of "The Office" came in season four. The episode titled, "Dinner Party", is the most uncomfortable 44 minutes of brilliant comedy ever written. Michael and Jan(Melora Hardin) constantly fighting while they have four employees over to their condo is so good, yet so uncomfortable. I still love this episode to this day. It is excellent comedy. I adore "The Office" and it will always hold a special place in my heart. It is the second greatest show of all time, in my personal opinion.

Then, we got the weird, off the wall, bizarre comedy, "Community". At first glance, I didn't think Id really like this show, but the more I watched it, the more I grew to love it and look forward to it every week. Joel McHale finally got his chance to be the lead role on a show and he did it so well. He is criminally underrated for his work on that show. But the other actors were just as good. Danny Pudi. Gillian Jacobs, Donald Glover, Jim Rash and Ken Jeong were great. Alison Brie and Yvette Nicole Brown were also really good. The only person I didn't really care for was Chevy Chase, but he's an asshole. I loved the off beat humor that Dan Harmon brought to major network TV with "Community". The show was an almost perfect representation of community college life. I could relate to the people because I ran into the exact same people in my almost two years of community college. There were athletes, nerds, regular joes, old people and good looking ladies that never got into a four year school, so they had to go to community college. Sure, "Community" is a glorified version of community college, but they made it relatable, especially when Dan Harmon was the main writer and show runner. They had ups and downs, but there were way more ups than downs when it comes to "Community". And yes, the paintball episodes are as good as the fans say they are. Go back and watch those and be amazed at how well "Community" was done. It's an underrated cult classic show.

NBC would close the night with probably my third all time favorite show, "Parks and Recreation". This show is a classic that only got better and better the more seasons it got. I loved the first season, but each season that followed was better than the last. This show was the exact representation of what it's like to work for a parks and recreation department. My sister in law, that works for Columbia's parks and rec department, even confirmed this. Ron Swanson(Nick Offerman) and Tom Haverford(Aziz Ansari) are real representations of people that take government jobs in parks and rec and just sail from there. They don't take their jobs seriously at all because it's not a serious job. They plan parties and races and community gatherings, not that tough of a job. Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope was the perfect post "SNL" role for her. She was so, so good on that show. She excelled. When shows bring new people on, it's usually a bad sign, but the additions of Rob Lowe, whom I've written about before, and Adam Scott made this show that much better. Rob Lowe, as the always upbeat and exercising Chris Traeger, was the perfect foil for Ron Swanson. and Adam Scott as Ben Wyatt, failed mayor and Leslie's love interest, was perfect. When these two showed up, "Parks and Rec" went to a whole new level. Chris Pratt, Retta, Aubrey Plaza and later on, Jon Glaser and Billy Eichner were also excellent on the show. I love every episode of "Parks and Rec", there isn't a bad one. If you haven't seen it and you're looking for a starting point, start at the end of season two, when Rob Lowe and Adam Scott show up, that's when the show went from good to great.

So, there you have the first entry in our greatest TV choices on SeedSing. I figured I'd come out of the gates strong, and this Thursday night lineup is a slam dunk. Come back for more TV later. I already am writing "The Simpsons" blog in my head now.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He desperately wanted to add "Andy Barker P.I." to his list, but then realized the show was no "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.