Hey Letterman, I got your top 10 hangin' right here

The other night, with no new midget porn to be found on the Internet, I decided to feel up the boob tube. I thought amid the 200 or so channels we have maybe there wouldd be at least one show I could sit through for 30 minutes or an hour before some hot monkey love with Wife and then beddie-bye time.

Of course that meant cutting through dozens of Spanish-language channels, which seem to either feature variety shows with a fat dude host surrounded by chiquitas with their jumblies busting out of their mini-dresses (maybe I should watch more) or Spanish soap operas that feature chiquitas with their jumblies busting out of their mini-dresses while crying to their fat husband on the show (maybe I should start watching those, too).

Once I got through those channels, then it was off through the wonderful viewing world of home improvement TV. I think these shows are designed to give folks an idea what they can do with their shacks, but I watch what these butt munches do to the houses and thank God they ain't ever comin' down to my neck of the woods. Wife and I watched one of these TV abortions without fail during a 6-week span - I'm pretty sure it was called "Screw up a room in my house" - where two couples swap houses and, with the help of a show-provided interior designer (the producer's words, not ours), irreperably disfigure one room in each other's house. But the show's evil because they don't want these homeowners beating the crap out of the designer, so they force them to say nice things about the newly designed room ("Oh, what a pretty color of brown. Look honey, it will be like we're living inside a turd."). I know our friends, and if we gave them carte blanche to redesign a room Wife and I would get booger-colored walls with caricatures of Diamondback players stenciled througout the room painted in pastels because Wife hates those colors. So, yeah, don't look for our application any time soon.

Finally, after wading through more channels than I could give half a pubic hair for (who's going to watch BYU TV, really? That's right, we have BYU TV because secretly the Mormons are trying to take over the world. The hell with Osama and Islam, those Utah sneaks are up to no good) I finally spy a show I've wished I could find on the tube for some time - The Wonder Years. It epitomized my high school experience (more than Head of the Class or Welcome Back, Kotter, since I was neither a braniac or a Sweathog), complete with those Kevin Arnold daydreams of sweeping Winnie off her feet or playing a hard case to sweat down one of my sister's boyfriends. It was like the show's creators crawled into the caverns of my mind and put my memories to the small screen.

So I sat there watching it, remembering how much I loved that show, and slightly freaked at how much I saw myself in the main character. And finding that show came on the heals of learning there are late night reruns of Cheers another channel just before Seinfeld comes on in the desert. It's two-and-a-half hours of great TV (bless channel 17 and channel 10, they show an hour of Wonder Years and Seinfeld, respectively).

With three great sitcoms playing grab ass with each other from 9 to 11:30 p.m. out here, it paused me to ponder (I ponder just like Thoreau, but better because I consider the important shit like TV shows while he just looked at the colors of the leaves - what a schmuck): Of all the sitcoms I've watched on a fairly regular basis, including those I caught in syndicated reruns, what would make my top 10? I'm not talking about those a-holes in the newspapers and TV rags and what they think, or even what y'all think are the best shows, I'm considering only the shows I've actually watched on a regular basis. You won't see The Simpsons or The Andy Griffith Show or The Honeymooners on this list. Not that they're bad shows, it's just that I never watched them regularly.

So, let's start with the honorable mentions. Some of these might not be the best of shows, hell I watch some now and think what was I thinking which is quickly followed by waves of guilt for making the Old Man and Dear Ol' Ma watch these steaming piles of elephant poo.

In no particular order, with comments for some:

• The Cosby Show (we were a house divided over this, it faced off against Magnum P.I. for many years, so one week Sister and I got to watch The Cos, and the next week the parental units would watch Magnum. We were very democratic because we only had one tube)
• NewsRadio (I still miss Phil Hartman)
• Diff'rent Strokes (What you talkin' about Ma? This show doesn't suck? Oh wait, yeah it does)
• Three's Company (I lived this show in Las Vegas)
• Family Ties
• Growing Pains (I kept a soft spot in my heart for this show until I watch The True Hollywood Story and saw what a nut bag that Kirk Cameron is. )
• My Name is Earl (Young show keeps me laughing, and often I find myself asking, "What would Earl do?" I'm going to start wearing a WWED bracelet.)
• The Monkees (That little guy with the limey accent makes me laugh every time, and I can never get that theme song out of my melon)
• I Love Lucy
• Married with Children (I still have a crush on Christina Appelgate, and I was hopelessly similar to Bud Bundy)
• Brady Bunch (an after-school staple in the Melissa house)
• 3rd Rock from the Sun
• MASH (I hemmed and hawed about including this show, I've seen many episodes, but am hard press to pick out any that stand out)
• Entourage (this isn't your typical sitcom, but it's worth watching if only to laugh at Jeremy Piven each week)
• Everybody Love Raymond (This show would rank higher on my list if it didn't hit so close to home - and I mean that literally)
• Scrubs (another I'd rank higher if I just watched it more - it's ER without the cheesy previews that proclaim each ER to be "The ER that will change the way you watch ER."
• Mork & Mindy (I was pretty young for this show, but I remember going around the playground shouting "na-nu na-nu" to everyone)

And now the top 10:

10. Happy Days (The finale damn near made me weep like a gay dude losing out on a pair of pink Keds, and I still go around smacking juke boxes to see if it will play. Aaaaaaa, a man's gotta try, right?)

9. All in the Family (at first this was going to fall in the MASH and Scrubs category, but then I remembered an episode with The Jeffersons, before they were The Jeffersons, that had me laughing to the verge of tears, so it gets a slot on my list)

8. Friends (I fought to keep this off the list, but I watch the reruns still and find myself laughing all the time)

7. Sanford and Son ("I'm comin' to join ya honey," Redd Foxx was funny before Eddie Murphy could say funny. He left us way too soon)

6. The Office (This show makes me wet my pants every week, literally and figuratively ... try to understand that one)

5. Fawlty Towers (Brit show starring John Cleese. An English teacher in 8th grade turned me onto this show, and because of her gift of opening my eyes to this show I worked my ass for a B- ... thank Ms. White)

4. Cheers (Makes me want to own a bar, or at least visit on such a regular basis that everyone shouts "Mike ... what's new Michael?" "Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach, and they're demanding beer.")

3. The Wonder Years (I got a lump in my throat watching the final episode where the narrator epilogues the characters' lives. It might not be the funniest, but it's the most relatable no matter your age)

2. Arrested Development (Horribly mismanaged by Fox, I still don't understand how this show was cancelled - it's a travesty, and I blame the Mormons. I mean, someone has to be the skapegoat, right?)

And finally...

1. Seinfeld - I find myself on a daily basis hearing snippets of dialogue that I can remember hearing on the show. I've seen every episode so many times I can see it in my mind if I close my eyes. Remember, this is a show that gave us: Man hands, close talker, low talker, master of my domain, nip, changing teams, the library cop - a personal favorite as episodes go, serenity now, festivus, Art VandeLay, Doctor Van Nostran, and the Moops.)

Maybe one day I'll rave about how The A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard are easily teh best TV dramas to every travel the airwaves, but for today you'll just have to live with comedies. Feel free to jump on the comments page and tell me your top 10, or your favorites, or how full of rhino poo I really am.