Tie your shoe laces, knot your ties, and maybe even mow your lawn, because today I’ll be doing one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Like, I have seen the eye of the tornado and engaged in a staring contest with it, I have drank larva because I was so thirsty and I have beaten Barry Allen in a racing contest but what I am about to do will go down as one of the hardest things I've ever done. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am about to reveal my top 10 sitcoms. I know…I know…who is this guy? I’ll tell you who I am. My name is Charles Adamu, and I am a lover of TV shows. I could try to explain to you how much I love TV shows but I don’t want this article to span an infinite amount of pages. If you name it, I’ve watched it and if I haven’t, I’ll watch it.
TV shows have been a huge part of my life for the past 5 years and although some people might say watching Netflix is a waste of time, I hold a different thought. I think that TV shows have actually taught me a lot of things, and have given me a lot of lessons that hadn’t I watched those shows, experience would have taken the opportunity to be my teacher instead; and let’s be honest, although experience is the best teacher, it doesn’t usually let you go unscathed. Anyway, let’s get back on track here. There are a ton of genres when it comes to TV shows but today, I will be taking time out to name my top ten TV shows in the world of sitcoms. You know how in every family, every parent has a favorite sibling but they just never ever admit who that is. And the hardest question to ask that parent would be: Can you tell us who your favorite child is?
Today, unfortunately, and painfully, I’ll be admitting to myself and to you all which one of my many children I love the most. Today, I’ll be dipping into my mind palace and picking those who are most loved by their parent. Today, I will be separating the “This was a good show” from the, “Oh my God, who wrote this.” Now before I go on, I would like to apologize to future readers of this article concerning the possibility that your favorite sitcom might not feature here. I am sorry and you should know that this is purely personal and I’m just being honest to myself and to you as well, so buckle your seat belts, wear your second sock, and turn off your headphones because here I go!
10. New Girl
New girl! This sitcom like a lot of sitcoms, talks about the lives of a couple of characters finding their way through life. The series stars actress and singer Zooey Deschanel as Jessica Day (my favorite character in the series), an awkward and loving lady in her early twenties looking for a new place to live right after she finds out that her longtime boyfriend is cheating on her. Somehow, she meets three single guys who share an apartment and are looking for a fourth. The three guys: ridiculous Nick Miller (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), who thinks himself a womanizer, and athletic Winston Bishop (Lamorne Morris). And together, alongside the beautiful model, Cece (Hannah Simone) who was Jessica Day’s best friend, they navigate the ups and downs of life and love. Now in my experience, a lot of sitcoms don’t have a good ending. And by good, I don’t mean roses, smiles, and unicorns, I mean a well-written ending. New girl for me accomplishes that. Somehow, they found a pretty suitable ending and I was really pleased by this. Now I am not basing the series making my top ten on just a good ending but if you’ve seen a lot of TV shows like I have, you’d know that a well-written ending on TV is a rarity. Also, the characters in my opinion are really well developed and the character Jessica Day always made my day.
9. One Day At A Time
My hats off to this series. Truth be told, I stumbled upon One Day At A Time. I was bored, I had nothing to watch and I was in the mood for laughs. I popped open my Netflix, scrolled through a couple of comedies, and for some reason, clicked on One Day At A Time and I couldn’t click pause till the fourth episode because I just could not believe that I had not watched it yet. I just couldn’t believe it! It shows three generations of the same Cuban-American family living in the same house: a newly divorced former military mother, her teenage daughter and teen son, and her old-school mother. Now here is the thing, with not so many scenes, not too many characters, and very thin popularity, One Day at a Time manages to tackle a whole lot of societal issues. Issues like addiction, sexism, self-identity, racism, immigration, drugs, sexuality, etc. So many issues were mentioned and somehow within the sensitivity of these issues, they still managed to make it incredibly funny. One Day At A Time is definitely an incredible watch and if you haven’t seen it, you should!
8. Modern Family
Incredibly enough, I just watched Modern Family. The thing is, I didn’t have Disney Plus and I didn’t want to go to jail for using illegal sites so I lured my roommate into getting Disney Plus and somehow got him to give me a profile. I got into the humor of Modern Family right away! Modern Family. What do I love most about the show? The concept! The story is told from the perspective of an unseen documentary filmmaker. The series offers an honest, often hilarious perspective of family life. Parents Phil and Claire yearn for an honest, open relationship with their three kids. But a daughter who is trying to grow up too fast, another who is way too smart for her own good, and a sometimes smart and sometimes not-so-smart young son make it challenging. Claire's dad, Jay, and his Latina wife, Gloria, are raising two sons together, but people sometimes believe Jay to be Gloria's father. Jay's gay son, Mitchell, and his partner, Cameron, have adopted a little Asian girl, completing one big -- straight, gay, multicultural, traditional -- happy family. Modern Family is a great way to pass the time and have good laughs. Some of their jokes were a bit intense, getting a tad close to boundaries of things like racism but in my opinion, they do not cross the line. Anyway, a lot of you have probably already seen Modern Family but if you haven’t, why haven’t you?
7. Black-ish
Black-ish is probably one of the first five sitcoms I ever watched. The show follows an upper-class black family being led by Andre Johnson (Anthony Anderson) and his wife, Bow Johnson(Tracee Ellis Ross). In summary, the show reveals the struggle a black family undergoes in trying to gain and maintain a sense of cultural identity while living in a predominantly white neighborhood. I will say that black-ish is the type of show you watch during an academic session. You know all those times when there are just so many tests and assignments coming up and you just feel so exhausted, put on an episode of Black-ish and I bet you that you’ll be revived. Or even as a worker, maybe your boss gave you a hard time at the office and you just feel like you’re tolerance has been over-tested, put on an episode of Black-ish and watch how Andre Johnson’s pettiness, makes you forget about your boss.
6. The Office
Speaking of offices, the sixth position on my list goes to “The Office”. The office is an incredible show. I’ll let you in on a secret: it took me trying to watch the show five times before I finally got into the humor. If you are a “The Office” fan, then you know it’s not like every sitcom; the humor is dark and unique, and it takes a keen sense of being able to tap into the humor to be able to actually enjoy the show. I’ll be honest, the first season was not too impressive but in the second season, I felt like they really got the ball rolling. The relationship and tension between Jim Halpert and Pam got me hooked. I just needed to know! Will they end up together or not?! And I was learning some steps on how to flirt with a receptionist. I mean, who knows? Also, I didn’t really like Michael Scott at first but I think he grows on you. You begin to see that he’s not totally a bad person. All in all, The Office is a show that I really would not have forgiven myself if I didn’t get to watch. Now I know I can’t ask each and every one of you reading this to try to watch it five times but give it a chance and I bet you that you’ll love it in the end. Most importantly, if you want to watch a show and go, “What the?!”, multiple times, then The Office is the way to go.
Okay…okay…okay, I know I promised that I’ll reveal my top ten today but I wasn’t entirely sincere. Today I’ll only be revealing to you my 10th-5th favorites and I’ll be saving “The Big Five” for my next article. It’s hard you know, I just told some of my children that they are not amongst my “Big Five”. I feel like I need some time to recover and redevelop the strength to rank my children once more. And with that said, I can(because I love writing), and cannot(because I hate ranking my kids) wait to reveal to you all the “Big Five” next week!