100 Greatest TV Episodes Of All Time: 1. "Chuckles Bites the Dust," ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show")

This episode truly was both a) excellent all around AND b) groundbreaking in nearly all of the ways people say about it.

 

12
FAWLTY TOWERS
1980 (U.S.)

"One of the rock-ribbed rules of American programming is: Nobody wants to watch a show about someone who isn't likable. (This is sometimes called the Dabney Coleman rule, after the actor who has had a few critically acclaimed but low-rated sitcoms about less-than-admirable characters.) Thus it falls to the British to give us an Absolutely Fabulous (see number 47) or a Fawlty Towers. Basil Fawlty -- the English innkeeper cocreated and portrayed by Monty Python alumnus John Cleese in 1975 (the U.S. debut came in 1980) -- is definitely not likable. He is, in fact, sly, sarcastic, suspicious, rude, raging, and resentful, particularly of his wife, Sybil (Prunella Scales). When Sybil starts a three-day hospital stay for an ingrown toenail -- coinciding with the arrival of German guests -- Fawlty's faults run riot in an achingly funny episode. "The Germans," which includes a talking moose head and a fire that breaks out during a fire drill, climaxes when Basil gets a concussion and cannot follow his own urgent advice to the inn's staff about their new guests: "Don't mention the war!" Not only does the befogged Fawlty mention it, but he launches into a hysterical Hitler impression; and the unforgettable sight of the 6'5'' Cleese goose-stepping through Fawlty Towers and shrieking in mock German puts "The Germans" high in our pantheon."

Oh, ye classic. Makes me laugh to just think of it.

 

A definite classic, but so are all the Fawlty Towers episodes. If one ever needs to understand what is meant by "farce" in its purest sense, watch this show.

 

I once saw Prunella Scales essay Her Gracious Maj. Elizabeth II. Once I got over the shock--it's Mrs. Fawlty!--I thought she did a great job.

 

Everyone always mentions "The Germans" as the best episode of Fawlty Towers...but over the years it's kinda lost it for me. "The Hotel Inspectors" I've come to love a lot more.

 

I'm probably related to her at some level. Same surname.

 

The bit with the moose head is my favorite.

 

Scales or Windsor?




Also, Fawlty Towers rock.

 

The Germans is hilarious.

 

11
THE TWILIGHT ZONE
March 2, 1962

"Respectfully submitted for your perusal: a Kanamit," intones Rod Serling in his distinctive voice. "Height: a little over 9'. Weight: in the neighborhood of 350 pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs a tale." Serling's teasing introduction notwithstanding, the Kanamits' origin is obvious enough: They're from outer space. As for their motives -- well, they're here to help. At least that's what their "spokesman" -- a big, bald fellow with hugely protruding brain lobes -- tells the United Nations. A day after arriving, these well-meaning aliens are demonstrating new fertilizers that will eradicate famine. Thanks to Kanamit force-field technology, the nations of Earth no longer need armies, and in the spirit of transgalactic understanding, earthlings by the thousand soon rocket off on all-expenses-paid vacations to Kanamit. Too good to be true? You bet. The one real clue we have to Kanamit motives is a book of theirs. A government cryptographer, played by Lloyd Bochner, and his crew have translated the title as To Serve Man (also the name of the episode). It's only as Bochner himself is about to board the ship for Kanamit that his assistant (Susan Cummings) comes up with the episode's punch line -- and with it, the essence of edginess and bitter irony that made The Twilight Zone such a memorable place to visit: To Serve Man is a cookbook!"

 

I saw this episode in 1982 when I was 9.

In a word. . .NIGHTMARES.

 

One of the all-time great Twilight Zones. I loved this one. I think the Kanamit was the same guy that played Lurch in the Addams Family(?)

I can't remember if it was in the Airplane! comedies of the 80s or the Naked Gun movies of the 90s, but in one of those crazy comedies, right in the middle of a crowd scene, the actor from this TW episode, Lloyd Bochner, wanders through the scene with a big book in his hands yelling IT'S A COOKBOOK! IT'S A COOKBOOK! It was hilarious to see it out of context! I've often wondered how many people caught that.

 

10
THE X-FILES
October 13, 1995

"Though alien abductions, freaks of nature, and sinister conspiracies among governments-within-governments are its stock-in-trade, The X-Files is never more profound and moving than when it explores the heart in darkness: "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" is the finest achievement in a series that continues to break, then rewrite, the rules. It's a scary, sad, often marvelously goofy tale of a life-insurance salesman whose ability to predict people's deaths puts him in a serial killer's path; the premise serves as a jumping-off point for heavy-duty subjects like life after death, predestination, and the possibility of grace in a world of insane violence and despair. Peter Boyle gives an astonishing performance in this quirky death of a salesman -- his transitions in and out of trances are simply breathtaking. The episode marches to an unavoidable, but nonetheless amazing, conclusion. And when Scully (Gillian Anderson), who will soon be diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, asks Bruckman how and when she will die, he looks at her and mysteriously replies, "You don't." How can that be? How can she avoid the inevitable? What's in store for herâ?¦and us? For hard-core fans, it's The X-Files' supreme moment.

REWIND
Playing Bruckman was "a deep experience, not without struggle," says Boyle. "I'm in Vancouver, it's a cold August day, and I'm not smiling. When I play a character who has to die, it gets me a little depressed."

Iconic.

 

I liked it when be bought a lottery ticket, and every number was 1 off

 

This was easily a) one of the greatest X-Files (I usually put it at the top) episodes ever and b) possibly the greatest guest spot of all time in any series (yes, even over Sammy Davis Jr. -- though that's close).

I was actually just talking about this episode over the weekend with my family, due to how memorable it was. And yes, my favorite part was Bruckman discussing Mulder's possible death with Mulder...

 

Brilliant episode. This was the X-Files team hitting every note they needed to.

 

I still think the episode where Scully is abducted, "Ascension", is the greatest episode the X-Files has ever had. So much emotion displayed by Anderson, but especially by Duchovny. However, Clyde Bruckman is a true classic as well.

 

This one and the Eddie Van Blundt one are my favorites.

 

Small Potatoes?

Yeah Clyde Bruckman was excellent

I also liked Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"

 

Probably my favourite X-Files episode. Pretty much perfect.

 

"Small Potatoes" is perhaps the most brilliant comic episodes and has already been discussed as part of this list.

 

Donnie Pfaster would eat both of them. Literally.

I nominate Irresistible as being better than either of these.

 

9
THE BOB NEWHART SHOW
November 22, 1975

"Over the River and Through the Woods," the craziest Bob Newhart Show episode of all time, begins sanely enough: Emily (Suzanne Pleshette) announces her intention to visit her family in Puget Sound over the Thanksgiving holiday; psychiatrist Bob begs off, saying he wants to be available to his neurotic patient, the endlessly depressed and depressing Mr. Carlin. But Carlin can't be happy unless he's making others miserable, so he invites himself over to watch football with Bob, Jerry (Bonerz), and ever-present neighbor Howard (Daily). Of course, there are certain customs that must be observed. "We take a slug of this every time the other team scores," says Jerry, offering an enormous jug of grain alcohol to Bob. Soon things get loco; it's a high-scoring game. Smashed, starving, and facing a frozen turkey, the boys consider cooking the bird at 2,000 degrees for a half hour -- but the oven only heats to 500. "Then we'll use four ovens," suggests Howard. That's when they decide to call out for Chinese food -- to be precise, for Moo Goo Gai Pan (to be more precise, for Moo Goo Goo Goo Gai Pan). And lots of it. So much that it has to be delivered with a hand truck. Luckily for Bob, Emily arrives just in time to pick up the tab -- and put on a pot of coffee."


Yes, a great one.

 

8
THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW
September 15, 1965

"History's three best-kept secrets were the location of King Solomon's mines (never disclosed), the plans for D day (made manifest on June 6, 1944), and the fact that Alan Brady wore a toupee, which suddenly became common knowledge when Laura Petrie accidentally blabbed it to a national audience as a contestant on the "Pay As You Go" TV game show. Big oops. "What do you think Alan will do?" asks a quivery lipped, impeccably coiffed Laura (Mary Tyler Moore). "It's not what," replies her stammering husband and possibly soon-to-be-ex-Brady employee Rob (Dick Van Dyke), "but how." And indeed, in the bright, witty, Emmy-winning script for "Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth" that kicked off this magical series' fifth and final season, hell hath no fury like an egomaniacal TV star who's had the rug pulled out from over him. Series creator Carl Reiner, in one of his 12 appearances as Brady, is incensed and cutting, especially when addressing a desktop of heads, each sporting one of his wigs: "Fellas," says Reiner (who revealed his own baldness in this episode), "there she is -- there's the little lady who put you out of business." More than 30 years after it aired, "Big Mouth," a caustic meditation on male vanity and office etiquette, is still one of the most precise, cohesive, and funny half hours of TV ever produced."

Seen this one; don't know that I would rank it this high, but it is good.

 

7
CHEERS
November 27, 1986

"In "Thanksgiving Orphans," the holiday is looming, and most of the Cheers gang has nowhere to go. Diane's solution is simple: Why don't they gather at Carla's house? "What could be more enjoyable than opening your heart with holiday cheer?" she asks. Carla (Rhea Perlman) responds, "Opening yours with a can opener?" Nevertheless, Woody (Woody Harrelson), Frasier (Kelsey Grammer), and Cliff (John Ratzenberger) agree to spend the holiday with Carla. As the afternoon wears on, they're joined by Sam (Ted Danson), Diane (Shelley Long), and Norm, who arrives with "birdzilla," a turkey so huge it takes all day to cook. Before this episode ends, nerves will fray, and the famished guests -- arguably the most adept sitcom ensemble ever cobbled together -- will indulge in the funniest food fight in TV history. The final arrival at the party is Norm's never-seen wife, Vera -- who winds up getting smacked in the kisser with a pie just before we catch sight of her face.

REWIND
"Throwing food is the most fun that you can possibly have," Perlman says of Carla's chuck-and-duck feast. "I don't know why we don't throw it at each other all the time. The world would be a better place."