# The 44 Best 1980s Sitcoms

> Ratings juggernauts share space with short-lived cult shows and a few British favorites. Pick the laugh track that still plays in your head.

*By YPB Team · Published November 9, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-44-best-1980s-sitcoms*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Cheers** — score 1000/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1982–1993) set in a Boston bar run by former Red Sox pitcher Sam Malone, played by Ted Danson.
2. **Married... with Children** — score 814/1000
   A Fox sitcom (1987–1997) about Chicago shoe salesman Al Bundy and his family, which debuted on the network's first night of prime-time programming.
3. **Who's the Boss?** — score 775/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1984–1992) with Tony Danza as a retired baseball player working as live-in housekeeper for advertising executive Angela Bower.
4. **The Facts of Life** — score 745/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1979–1988) spun off from Diff'rent Strokes, following housemother Edna Garrett and her students at the Eastland girls' school.
5. **Growing Pains** — score 705/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1985–1992) about the Seaver family of Long Island, with Alan Thicke as a psychiatrist father working from home and Kirk Cameron as son Mike.
6. **The Cosby Show** — score 684/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1984–1992) following obstetrician Cliff Huxtable, his lawyer wife Clair and their five children in a Brooklyn brownstone.
7. **Murphy Brown** — score 660/1000
   A CBS sitcom (1988–1998) starring Candice Bergen as an investigative journalist and anchor on the fictional newsmagazine FYI.
8. **Family Ties** — score 660/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1982–1989) about former hippie parents in Columbus, Ohio, and their conservative son Alex P. Keaton, played by Michael J. Fox.
9. **A Different World** — score 660/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1987–1993) spun off from The Cosby Show, set at the fictional historically Black Hillman College in Virginia.
10. **Designing Women** — score 610/1000
   A CBS sitcom (1986–1993) created by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason about four women running an interior design firm in Atlanta.
11. **Diff'rent Strokes** — score 610/1000
   A sitcom (NBC 1978–1985, ABC 1985–1986) in which Manhattan millionaire Phillip Drummond takes in brothers Arnold and Willis Jackson, with Gary Coleman as Arnold.
12. **Yes Minister** — score 610/1000
   A BBC political satire (1980–1984, continued as Yes, Prime Minister 1986–1988) with Paul Eddington as minister Jim Hacker and Nigel Hawthorne as civil servant Sir Humphrey.
13. **The Wonder Years** — score 553/1000
   An ABC comedy-drama (1988–1993) following Kevin Arnold growing up in late-1960s suburbia, narrated by his adult self and voiced by Daniel Stern.
14. **It's Garry Shandling's Show** — score 553/1000
   A Showtime sitcom (1986–1990) in which Garry Shandling plays a version of himself who regularly addresses the studio audience directly.
15. **Roseanne** — score 553/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1988–1997) about the working-class Conner family of fictional Lanford, Illinois, starring Roseanne Barr and John Goodman.
16. **Perfect Strangers** — score 488/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1986–1993) pairing Chicago clerk Larry Appleton with his distant cousin Balki Bartokomous from the fictional island of Mypos.
17. **Night Court** — score 488/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1984–1992) starring Harry Anderson as judge Harry Stone, presiding over a Manhattan court's night shift.
18. **The Young Ones** — score 488/1000
   A BBC Two sitcom (1982–1984) about four students sharing a squalid house, starring Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Nigel Planer and Christopher Ryan.
19. **Empty Nest** — score 488/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1988–1995) spun off from The Golden Girls, starring Richard Mulligan as a widowed Miami pediatrician whose adult daughters move back home.
20. **Blackadder** — score 488/1000
   A BBC sitcom (1983–1989) whose four series follow Rowan Atkinson's Edmund Blackadder through eras from 1485 to the First World War.
21. **Amen** — score 488/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1986–1991) starring Sherman Hemsley as Deacon Ernest Frye of a Philadelphia church, opposite Clifton Davis as its new pastor.
22. **Head of the Class** — score 488/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1986–1991) with Howard Hesseman as a substitute teacher of a gifted honors class at a Manhattan high school.
23. **ALF** — score 488/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1986–1990) about a furry alien from the planet Melmac who crash-lands into the Tanner family's garage, puppeteered by co-creator Paul Fusco.
24. **Only Fools and Horses** — score 413/1000
   A BBC sitcom (1981–1991, with specials until 2003) about Peckham market trader Del Boy Trotter, played by David Jason, and his younger brother Rodney.
25. **Police Squad!** — score 413/1000
   A six-episode ABC comedy (1982) from the Airplane! team, starring Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, later revived in The Naked Gun films.
26. **Sledge Hammer!** — score 413/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1986–1988) parodying cop shows, with David Rasche as a trigger-happy inspector who talks to his .44 Magnum.
27. **Gimme a Break!** — score 325/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1981–1987) starring Nell Carter as the live-in housekeeper for a widowed police chief and his three daughters.
28. **Bosom Buddies** — score 325/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1980–1982) with Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari as advertising men who dress as women to live in a cheap women-only hotel.
29. **Webster** — score 325/1000
   A sitcom (ABC 1983–1987, syndication 1987–1989) with Emmanuel Lewis as an orphaned boy taken in by former football player George Papadapolis, played by Alex Karras.
30. **The Golden Girls** — score 325/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1985–1992) about four older women sharing a house in Miami, starring Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty.
31. **Kate & Allie** — score 325/1000
   A CBS sitcom (1984–1989) starring Susan Saint James and Jane Curtin as divorced mothers who share a home in Greenwich Village with their children.
32. **Charles in Charge** — score 325/1000
   A sitcom (CBS 1984–1985, syndication 1987–1990) starring Scott Baio as a college student working as a live-in babysitter.
33. **Benson** — score 325/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1979–1986) spun off from Soap, with Robert Guillaume as a butler who rises to state budget director and lieutenant governor.
34. **Newhart** — score 222/1000
   A CBS sitcom (1982–1990) with Bob Newhart as Dick Loudon, a how-to author running an inn in rural Vermont.
35. **Taxi** — score 222/1000
   A sitcom (ABC 1978–1982, NBC 1982–1983) about drivers at a New York cab company, with Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito and Andy Kaufman.
36. **Red Dwarf** — score 222/1000
   A BBC Two science-fiction sitcom that began in 1988, following Dave Lister, the last human alive, aboard a mining ship three million years in the future.
37. **Punky Brewster** — score 222/1000
   A sitcom (NBC 1984–1986, syndication 1987–1988) with Soleil Moon Frye as an abandoned girl taken in by Chicago photographer Henry Warnimont.
38. **'Allo 'Allo!** — score 222/1000
   A BBC One sitcom (1982–1992) about café owner René Artois in German-occupied France, juggling the Resistance, the Germans and his romances.
39. **Small Wonder** — score 222/1000
   A syndicated sitcom (1985–1989) about a robotics engineer's family hiding V.I.C.I., a robot he built to look like a 10-year-old girl.
40. **Mr. Belvedere** — score 222/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1985–1990) starring Christopher Hewett as an English butler working for the Owens family in suburban Pittsburgh.
41. **Full House** — score 222/1000
   An ABC sitcom (1987–1995) about widowed San Francisco sportscaster Danny Tanner raising three daughters with help from his brother-in-law Jesse and friend Joey.
42. **227** — score 0/1000
   An NBC sitcom (1985–1990) starring Marla Gibbs as Mary Jenkins, a resident of a Washington, D.C., apartment building, with Jackée Harry as neighbor Sandra.
43. **Mama's Family** — score 0/1000
   A sitcom (NBC 1983–1984, first-run syndication 1986–1990) starring Vicki Lawrence as Thelma Harper, a character from sketches on The Carol Burnett Show.
44. **Silver Spoons** — score 0/1000
   A sitcom (1982–1987, NBC then syndication) starring Ricky Schroder as a boy who moves in with his wealthy, toy-loving father Edward Stratton.

Tags: usa, 80s, tv shows, comedy, uk, sitcom