EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND – 210 EPISODES
Not exactly the most modest of titles, Everybody Loves Raymond starred stand-up comedian Ray Romano as sportswriter Ray Barone for nine seasons from 1996 to 2005.
Ray Romano
Based on the real life experiences of Romano, producer Phil Rosenthal, and the writing team Everybody Loves Raymond survived for 210 episodes (that’s a lot of real-life experience!).
Another family-centric sitcom, Ray lives with his wife Debra (Patricia Heaton) and three children Ally, Michael and Geoffrey. However his over-bearing mother Marie and crass father Frank live over the road and constantly turned up unannounced on a daily basis.
Add to that an obsessive-compulsive nemesis of a brother and you’ve got comedy gold.
Everybody Loves Raymond’s 14 Emmy awards certainly proved it had staying power and that’s why it deserves a place in our heavyweights.
KING OF THE HILL – 255 EPISODES
Who better to create an animated sitcom than the creator of the iconic Beavis & Butt-Head and a writer from the most successful animated series of all time The Simpsons?
King of the Hill
In 1997 Mike Judge and Greg Daniels pooled their combined expertise to give birth to King of the Hill and it was the best idea they ever had.
Set in Arlen, Texas King of the Hill starred the small-town Hills family and took pleasure in finding the funny in the mundane things of life. It also used the vocal talents of the late Brittany Murphy as Luanne.
King of the Hill was cancelled last year to make room for Family Guy and its spin-off The Cleveland Show and bowed out gracefully with an admirable 13 seasons and 255 episodes making it the second longest-running animated series after The Simpsons!
KING OF QUEENS -207 EPISODES
Another Comedy Central favourite, King of Queens starred Kevin James and Leah Remini as married couple Doug and Carrie Heffernen who live in Queens, New York with Carrie’s dad Arthur played by Ben Stiller’s daddy Jerry.
King of Queens
With an innings of nine seasons between 1998 to 2007 this sitcom clung on to make it past the ‘Big 200’ mark finishing with a respectable 207 episodes to its name.
Nowadays Kevin is enjoying success in the movie biz starring in Hitch and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and is apparently appearing in live action Smurfs movie. Which leads us nicely into our next item…
THE SMURFS – 256 EPISODES
Blue skinned and as tall as three apples piled high, the adventures of the little white hat-wearing, forest-dwelling beings that were The Smurfs occupied the Saturday mornings for most children in the 80s.
A vision in blue
Based on a Belgium comic book series in 1981 The Smurfs became a Saturday morning cartoon series made by Hanna-Barbera – the folks behind The Flintstones.
The Smurfs generally lived in peace (probably because the Smurf village reflects communist Russia) but every now and again spent their time avoiding the evil sorcerer Gargamel and his evil cat Azrael who was hell bent on capturing the little blue blighters so he could create a potion to create gold. No shame.
The Smurfs enjoyed 256 episodic Smurfy outings but if you’re one to be shallow and pedantic there were actually 421 Smurf stories in total as well as 7 specials, so maybe its 428! Such was a success of the Smurfs, they even released an album of party tracks in the late nineties!
Missed out the first time? Well The Smurfs are getting the live action/CGI movie treatement now with stars Neil Patrick Harris, Katy Perry, Hank Azaria, Alan Cumming and even Quentin Tarantino lending a hand.
M*A*S*H – 255 EPISODES
M*A*S*H was a TV show adapted from a film adapted from a book. A bit like Highlander…but not.
Another eleven-seasoner, M*A*S*H celebrated 255 episodes in it’s time running from 1972 – 1983.
A big favourite in Comedy Central towers M*A*S*H was set during the Korean War and told the story of the doctors and support staff stationed in the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH!) in South Korea.
M*A*S*H ran for 11 years...
Moving to a darker place in the latter seasons M*A*S*H kept audiences on its toes experimenting with its form much like ER did in recent years. They made a real-time episode, a mockumentary episode and even crammed a whole year in the life of the 4077th workers into one episode!
M*A*S*H even held the record for most-watched television episode with the finale reaching 105.97 million viewers but was usurped only this year after the Super Bowl XLIV scored 106.5 million viewers. Damn football.
And if that’s not a sitcom heavyweight-defining fact then I don’t know what is.
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