JOIN USHere are some sitcoms that remain evergreen
There have been several sitcoms over the decades that can never be forgotten. Whether it is the actors, the storyline, the wit or the subject, many well-made sitcoms are evergreen and one will never get bored of watching them over and over again.
DH lists a few prominent and unforgettable ones from the yesteryears:
Mind Your Language:
This British sitcom was made the late 70s with a revival, albeit short, in the mid 80s. Jeremy Brown (played by Barry Evans) is an English teacher who has students from several non-English speaking countries, including India. Despite his best efforts, the students pick up very little. School principal Miss Courtney (Zara Nutley) is very strict and believes that women are far better than men. The English as a foreign language course is under constant threat from her as she believes Brown is not doing much good.
Brown is appalled at the students’ replies and slow pace of learning. However, the answers they give is what makes the show great fun to watch. Besides, that he has to put up with constant fights between Indian student Ranjeet Singh (Albert Moses) and Pakistani Ali Nadim (Dino Shafeek). This series is loads of fun.
A Hindi remake was telecast in India.
Everybody Loves Raymond:
This American sitcom is based on the life of Raymond Barone (Ray Romano), who is a sports writer with Newsday newspaper. It ran for nine seasons from 1996 to 2005. Raymond lives with his wife Debra (Patricia Heaton) and children Ally (Madylin Sweeten), Michael (Sullivan Sweeten) and Geoffrey (Sawyer Sweeten).
Across the street live Ray’s parents Frank (Peter Boyle), Marie (Doris Roberts) and brother Robert (Brad Garrett).
The sitcom revolves around a good mix of Raymond’s professional and personal life. Marie constantly ridicules Debra for her bad cooking and the two do not share the greatest of relationships. Marie is also over-protective of Raymond and likes him more than Robert, who obviously is not thrilled about it.
Frank is arguably the funniest character in the serial.
The Big Bang Theory:
This American sitcom ran for 12 seasons from 2007-2019. The sitcom is based on the life of scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena.
The main characters are child prodigy Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), both physicists. Their neighbour is Penny (Kaley Cuoco), who eventually marries Leonard.
Sheldon is outright brilliant but weird in his ways and this annoys Leonard quite a lot. Sheldon and Leonard's colleagues and friends are aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and physicist Raj Koothrappali (Kunar Nayyar).
Sheldon eventually marries Caltech colleague Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) and they also get the Nobel Prize. Howard, who also goes on to become an astronaut, is married to Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz (Melissa Rauch).
Sheldon’s quirky and annoying behaviour is the focus of the serial. However, being a good bunch of friends, they choose to tolerate him.
Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister:
The two highly popular British political satire series ran from 1980-84 (Yes Minister) and 86-88 (Yes Prime Minister).
Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) is a former journalist, but later joins politics. He wins the elections and becomes a minister in the Department of Administrative Affairs. His permanent secretary is Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne) and Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds) is his principal private secretary.
Jim is the typical politician who takes decisions for votes, but Humphrey tries to make him see sense. However, Humphrey is also shrewd, tries to keep Jim in check and often tries to get the better of him. Jim often blurts something and is the situation is brought under control by Humphrey. Bernard is often caught with foot in the mouth moments. Humphrey is rather brilliant with his language that Jim sometimes totally fails to understand.
Jim eventually becomes the PM. He gets to work with Humphrey again as the latter becomes the cabinet secretary much before Jim becomes the PM. Bernard also begins to work for the PM as principal private secretary. A similar saga of the Yes Minister days continues.