I have ranked the top 68 television shows of the '00s, and will be presenting them, one-by-one, starting with 68 and working down. The rankings are more or less based on the show's popularity, it's cult status, it's critical acclaim, and my personal liking of it, with a heavy dose of arbitrariness added in. If a show was a big enough phenomena, I'll keep it on the list - but if I don't like it, I may drop it some spots. One other caveat - these are primetime shows (I apologize if I put a cable show that wasn't, I thought they were all primetime shows - the main point of this is just that no talk shows, no Colbert and Daily show that would be on otherwise).

33: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

One of my personal favorite comedies currently on TV, I got on board sometime during the third season, when a friend in Philadelphia gave me the heads up (relatively soon after the airing of the It's Always Sunny commercials which were parodies of the Mac and PC ads - Mac would say "I'm Mac", and then one of the other characters would say "I'm PC" and then what it stood for - the only one I remember is that Danny DeVito said "Perverted Clown" - not sure why that stood out - I had absolutely no idea what was going on in the commercials). Since then, I've been a devoted viewer and have been surprised at just how big the show has gotten - the cast went on a tour doing renditions of "The Nightman Cometh" - the musical performed within the show, and people dressed as Green Man - Charlie's characters which involves him wearing a full body green lyrca suit - pop out at any Philadelphia sporting event.

The party line on Sunny is that it's something like Seinfeld on crack - or in my way of saying it, while sometimes the Seinfeld characters are insensitive to others - you can imagine wanting to be friends with them - you'd never want to be friends with the Sunny characters - they're - and this is one of the things that separates from just about everything else on TV - jackasses, dicks, all together despicable people - and there's pretty much no reason ever given for you to feel any other way about them (well, except maybe Charlie - he's pretty lovable).

Each episode generally has a familiar set up - someone in the Gang - the shorthand for the characters Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Dee and Frank - gets an idea - and the Gang generally splits up into two groups taking on something to do with the idea, getting themselves into all sorts of trouble, and constantly backstabbing and betraying one another, which has absolutely no consequences by the time the next episode rolls around.

It's super low budget, it's theme song is some old timey instrumental music and every time I think the writers have absolutely exhausted things to make fun of and socially acceptable lines to cross (the gang takes on abortion, the gang deals with racism, the gang deals with drugs), they find something new, and it's more or less been consistently funny (obviously there are better and worse episodes, but generally even the worse episodes have a few great laugh lines - even the weird flashback-gang-are-characters-in-revolutionary-times episode which was the worst of the series).

It may not be the best crafted show out there, or having the most meaningful or engaging story - there's almost no serial element - but it does what comedy shows in theory should do best - its' funny - more than funny - it's hilarious - I probably laugh more while watching Sunny than almost any show on during the same time - and it passes the test for longer term appreciation - it's full of repeatable lines that last - watching repeats are just as funny as watching for the first time. It's one of the few shows that I have more or less unrestrained praise - sure, it puts up a ceiling by not being a show with many layers or meanings or story or feeling but it sets out to do one thing and it does it very well.