All-time greatest TV show lists are stupid

It's stupid to make lists of the greatest TV shows of all time. They're pointless and ill-informed.

There are few people who can make any sort of intelligent judgment because few people have seen enough shows from enough eras to make the comparisons.

Hey, there have been lists that include junk like "Family Guy" among the best comedies. Lists made by people who are 12, apparently.

But that's what always happens when lists like these are made — contemporary shows are overrated in comparison to older programs because people making the lists aren't familiar with older programs.

Which is why the two-hour special "TV's All-Time Funniest" (7 p.m., ABC/Ch. 4) seems like an awful idea.

The program (which was not screened for critics) gives us the results of a poll done by Nielsen Media Research. TV fans across the country were asked to choose their funniest characters in eight categories: fathers, mothers, kids, relatives, neighbors, friends, bosses and co-workers.

So we're going to get Cliff Huxtable vs. Homer Simpson; Lucy Ricardo vs. Marion Cunningham; and so on. Such comparisons are not only pointless but impossible.

What's better, a Gershwin tune or a Beethoven symphony? A Monet painting or a sculpture by Michelangelo? Dark or light chocolate?

It's personal preference. And, to be fair, you have to be familiar with everything that's being judged.

There are those who would argue that Jack Benny was the funniest man on television. What do you suppose the odds are that he'll be a big winner in "TV's All-Time Funniest" given that most Americans weren't even born in 1965, when "The Jack Benny Program" went off the air after a 15-year run.

Yours truly has been paid to watch television for more than 18 years, and I don't claim to be in a position to judge television in its totality. My memories of Benny, for example, are from his appearances on "The Lucy Show" (which I saw in reruns), on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" (which I saw in anniversary shows) and on some very vague recollections of "Laugh-In."

(I watched some old "Jack Benny Program" kinescopes, but how many of us are TV-obsessed enough to do that?)

Even though "TV's All-Time Funniest" confines itself to sitcoms, how, exactly, do you compare "Mary Tyler Moore" to "The Simpsons" to "The Monkees" to "All in the Family" to "Seinfeld" to "The Office"? They're all very, very different shows.

Plus, they're all being judged in 2008, when they're all each very much a product of their times.

That's another incredibly stupid thing critics sometimes do — declare TV shows (or movies) to be "instant classics." A "classic" is something that holds up over time, and a lot of shows that are highly popular and hugely respected don't.

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