Yes, Dear. And Other Shows.

I rarely watch TV these days because there's too much reality shows on it.

I watch news, certain game shows, and PBS specials. Sometimes, I watch sitcoms. But the best sitcoms were those from the mid '80s to the '90s.

I remember that NBC had an unbeatable Thursday evening line up of sitcoms during this period: The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers and Night Court.

Then in the late 80's to early 90's, there was an intelligent show called Murphy Brown which starred Candice Bergen as a newscaster/journalist. There was a season in which Murphy Brown got pregnant and her network did not want to show her very pregnant stomach on TV, and she fought it tooth and nail. Murphy won, and also the real world; the real-life pregnant newscasters started to be seen on TV while their stomachs were getting big.

In Philippine television, there was an intelligent talk show which aired in the early 2000's called Points of View, and shown on Studio 23.

The two sitcoms I liked the most are The Wonder Years and The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.

The Wonder Years was a hit ABC - comedy series starring Fred Savage as Kevin Arnold, the main character, a boy facing rites of passage on his way to adulthood. Kevin lives with his brother Wayne , his sister Karen (Olivia d'Abo), his father Jack (Dan Lauria), and his mother Norma (Alley Mills). Kevin grows up with his on-and-off girlfriend, Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) , and his best friend, Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano).

The show had a successful 6 year run, from January 1988 up to September 1993. The show's theme song was "With a Little Help From My Friends" by John Lennon & Paul McCartney and sung by Joe Cocker.

It was a show narrated by the grown up Kevin Arnold, but the adult Kevin was never shown.

The show, which was supposed to have happened during the 60's and 70's, had quite a few episodes discussing the war in Vietnam. There were a lot of episodes and sub plots in which one can identify with.

The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, on the other hand, was also an NBC show, which later transferred to the Lifetime channel. The following is an overview of the show taken from tv.com:

"Molly Dodd is a 30-something, creative woman who makes interesting career choices and struggles with complex relationships with men and with her family. Molly's best friend, Nina Shapiro, also makes appearances here and there. Each episode begins with someone close to Molly commenting on some facet of her personality or her life.

Elements of magical realism run throughout the series, for instance, when Molly communicates with the ghost of a relative (to tell who would be a spoiler). Molly has trouble saying "no" to people, like her mysterious cousin Mike from Baltimore who moves in with her and stays longer than he's welcome. Molly eventually seeks therapy but is turned away by her therapist when she falls in love with Molly.

Some of the most notable men in Molly's life are her father; her ex-husband Fred, a sax player who keeps returning to toy with her emotions; Davey, the elevator man in her apartment building; Moss Goodman, the owner of a bookstore, who is seriously socially handicapped but charming as all get out (on right in the photo); and Nate Hawthorne, a literate cop with severe allergies."

The sitcoms of the 2000's, like Seinfeld, Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond were also quite funny, but I have not seen them much during their regular seasons. Instead, I'm just seeing them now as re-runs.

When I was in high school, I used to watch the Philippine sitcom Buhay Artista which starred funny men Dolphy and Panchito, and later, Laff Ins with Ramon Zamora.

Presently, my favorite sitcom is the Two and a Half Men, starring Charlie Sheen. A lesser known sitcom which was a bit funny, too, and was shown on CBS from 2000 - 2006 was Yes, Dear.