They always tell you to write about what you know. The writing is easier if it is in the familiar and this applies to anything you are writing. I write lists primarily as I love the good ole comic book store conversations about who would win if. Television writers have to turn out roughly fifty pages a week. The easiest way to accomplish this would be to write about, what else, a television show. Here are my top five shows within a show.

5. The Dick Van Dyke Show. This show starred, who else, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore as his wife. The show centered on the head writer for a Tonight Show style show. You very rarely, if ever, see the actual show, The Alan Brady Show, hosted by Carl Reiner. What you do see is the misadventures of Rob and Laura Petrie and their budding young family. Also along for the laughs in the writers room was Sally Rogers and Buddy Sorrel. This show was one of my first favorites. I grew up in a period before cable television. If you were home sick from school all you had to watch were Soap Operas, don’t get me started on General Hospital, or you would watch the UHF station and see all the classics. I really loved this show. I used to dream of one day creating my own television show, check out my post under I’d watch that. It looked like so much fun. I must admit I did get a taste of that while writing for my dad’s radio show when I was about fifteen. Most kids went home did home work. I went home spent an hour watching news and writing bits; occasionally I go to go to the station and record those bits. I was the only fifteen years old who could do a good Andy Rooney impersonation. What I am getting at is I liked the Dick Van Dyke show.

4. 30 Rock. This was also a fun show. This is really an update of the Dick Van Dyke show with more focus on the show than the family, or as I call it the work family. This show’s focus is on a Saturday night live style show with skits and stars. Really that is all you need to know. It shows how long of a day these people put in trying to be funny. The antics of the star, Tracy Morgan, drive not only the writers but the management level staff crazy. This show is at its best when it seems to make no sense. We all have those days at work where if you told someone what happened they would not believe you. I get this all the time when I tell stories to friends and family about my day spent teaching. They think I am funny and all I am doing is telling about a parent meeting or an excuse given by a student. This show is funny and works well in the absurd.

3. Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Another Saturday night live style show but this time done as an hour drama, have you heard any of the real stories from behind the scenes on a sketch comedy show this is a more fitting format. This was also an Aaron Sorkin production. He followed west wing with this which I thought was brilliant. We could have all the fun and drama of the West Wing but with none of the rules you had to follow because of the Constitution. Starred Mathew Perry and Bradley Whitford. Focused on the production of this sketch comedy show but really focused on the back stage lives of these people. Drug addiction romance and aspirations for something more all fall together with the addition of gust stars stopping in to host the show. All this drama and they still had to be funny. This show was cancelled after only a few episodes but I still love it. I guess I just root for the underdog.

2. Home Improvement. This was a show about a tool salesman that received his on local cable television show where he would discuss home improvement products and projects. Starring Tim Allen regurgitating his stand-up act, not that there is anything wrong with that, and of course there was a lesson to be learned every week. That lesson was that dad was usually wrong. He would then use Tool Time to apologize when he realized he was wrong. He received advice from his Zen Monk like neighbor Wilson. Who was wise. Wise enough no to be married and therefore suffered none of the ills of his well-meaning neighbor Tim. This is also were we see television begin to fully portray father as no longer knowing best but seemingly knowing least, but more on that in another post. This show was funny, clearly 8 seasons of funny. And I think will be one of the shows from the nineties that will talk about in years to come.

1. Buffalo Bill. This is one of my favorite shows. This is the show where I learned about the running gag. This is a joke that continues on and on until…well forever really. The promos for the show always had it as “Bill’s last show” from the first episode on. Why? Because it was always Bill’s last show. This is how I was able to stay up till 9:30 on a school night. It took my aunt several episodes to figure out it was always Bill’s last show. The focus here was on the local celebrity, Dabney Coleman, and his mid-day talk show, just like Merv Griffin, he would have on other local celebrities and do various segments, like the old days. Of course someone would offend Bill and he would threaten to quit or he would offend someone and be on the chopping block. Funny funny show. One major draw look for a young Geena Davis as the hottie around the office. Great writing good solid jokes another winner in my mind.

Those are my top five favorite shows within a show. Did I miss one you like? Let me know in the comments below. As always vote for your favorite on the list.