And my story "Shame" is at Twist of Noir.
Best TV Cast Ever
I am going with HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS
Hard to be
at Richard Belzer, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Kyle Secor, Andre Braugher, Melissa Leo with drive-bys by Ned Beatty, Michele Forbes, Jon Seda, Giancarlo Esposito and Zelyko Ivanek.What's your choice.
32 comments:
Homicide is hard to beat. The Wire, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Seinfeld are all well cast.
Though I watch serious American TV shows like CRIMINAL MINDS, THE MENTALIST and CSI, I'm not familiar with their cast. So I'll play safe and go with the ones I'm familiar with. For instance, BECKER (Ted Danson, Terry Farrell, Hattie Winston, Shawnee Smith and Alex Desert) as well as the incorrigible five-member cast of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND (particularly the late Peter Boyle). Holy crap!
The Sid Caesar Show? Perry Mason? L.A. Law? Gunsmoke?
LA LAW had a great cast. Raymond was very well cast. I miss their exploration of family. It could be shrill but it always felt honest.
THE HONEYMOONERS gets my vote. The FRASIER cast was especially good, too.
I'll go with HAPPY DAYS
Honeymooners certainly did the most with a very small cast and an even smaller set. Frasier--well, that's my favorite sit-com ever. And Happy Days--was a half-hour we spent with our kids every week. Damn, I miss those happy days.
THE WEST WING
THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW
HILL STREET BLUES
Jeff M.
Patti - I have to go with The West Wing - what a great ensemble!
I second Jeff with THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW.
A couple of beaut stories there Patti.
homocide, yes. The first series of Cracker or Hill Street Blues are good uns!
Since my last comment I've been thinking about the best TV cast ever. Pardon me, but here's what I came up with — the best TV dad-cast ever: Peter Boyle in EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, John Mahoney in FRASIER, George Segal in JUST SHOOT ME, Jerry Stiller in THE KING OF QUEENS, James Gandolfini in THE SOPRANOS, Kurtwood Smith in THAT 70S SHOW, and Dan Castellaneta/Homer Simpson in THE SIMPSONS. Who are the other best dads on the idiot box?
Ralph Wait (sp?) in THE WALTONS comes to mind. Have to think about it but that is a terrific list. The actor who plays the father in NURSE JACKIE is pretty terrific. And along the Tony Soprano lines, Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad would follow.
Hardly just drive-bys by Ned Beatty, Michele Forbes, Jon Seda, Giancarlo Esposito and Zelyko Ivanek...they were integral. As were even such unlikely candidates as Daniel Baldwin, or Max Perlich. Incredible what an impression Jon Polito made in his short run on the series...and don't hate Sarita Choudhury, Michael Michele, or Callie Thorne because they are beautiful (even when improbably so), or Peter Gerety since he wasn't. (That was Jon Seda's job, among some others'.)
Frequently, the casts outshine the scripts on television. Among the rare examples of a good match are ONCE AND AGAIN, GILMORE GIRLS, and a number of others...PARENTHOOD is an example of the more typical run of things.
Ralph Waite. Will Geer no slouch there, either.
I'd have to go with Hill Street Blues also. I think the show killed the careers of many of the actors, because nobody could imagine them in anything else.
I never thought of it before, Al, but you're right. The patter the Gilmore Girls performed was the highlight of the show. Will Geer, yes.
The cast of BREAKING BAD and MAD MEN may rank near the top.
Thanks, Paul. Oh, how I loved CRACKER.
TAXI
Ooh, good one. How could I forget that one?
I'm sure I'm going to be shot down in flames but I think the cast of Happy Days were great. Mr & Mrs C were surrogate parents for a lot of crazy mixed up kids!
And I think Fonzie would agree with that.
Definitely an example of a cast better than the scripts. Almost textbook. (The first season of HAPPY DAYS wasn't bad. That's it.)
Among current series, I'll nominate CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL.
Never heard of it but there is no way on earth I could watch it without slashing my wrists.
SO true of HAPPY DAYS. When Fonzie took off as a character, they got lazy.
Cast: The Honeymooners, Seinfeld, Leave It to Beaver.
Best Dad: Ward Cleaver, hands down.
And Beaver holds up remarkably well. What great writing! Seinfeld had a great cast and we loved it, but I am not sure how well it will hold up.
For me, SEINFELD didn't hold up till the end of the series...I took Larry David's implied contempt, in his last script for the series proper, for what the series had become by its finale as deserved.
Happily, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL is an absurdist sitcom, shot in the same abandoned hospital as SCRUBS was. No hara-kiri necessary. The cast ranges from Lake Bell to Henry Winkler, which is why I was reminded of them, and features an impressive bunch of comedy talent on a regular basis, supplemented episodically.
Ooooh, I missed this one, Patti.
I loved HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS. What a super great show.
I think I would go with your pick and maybe add the cast of MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW and HILL STREET BLUES.
Oh, how could I leave out my favorite show of all time: THE WEST WING. Where are my senses?
CHEERS, MURPHY BROWN and the original cast of M*A*S*H.
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