TV News

5. "Married ... With Children" (1987)
The fledgling FOX network was looking for a hit as it took to the air in 1987. And while no sensible person would expect a crude lowbrow sitcom about a profoundly dysfunctional family to take off, that's exactly what happened. "Married...With Children" introduced the world to Al, Peg, Kelly and Bud Bundy, a crude lot who somehow still seemed to love each other through a haze of lechery, misogyny, emotional disconnectedness and more. Never destined to be an Emmy winner, the show lowered the bar for what was permissible on TV and opened a world of possibilities for shows to follow, most of them on FOX.

4. "The Simpsons" (1989)
"The Simpsons" has been a historically influential show just based on the catchphrases it has introduced to contemporary culture ("D'oh!," "Eat my shorts!," "Eeeeexcellent") but its reach extends even further. After being hatched as a series of crude shorts played during "The Tracey Ullman Show," "The Simpsons" premiered as its own program in midseason 1989 and went on to demonstrate that a weekly animated sitcom could appeal to a broad audience, thus paving the way for "King of the Hill," "Family Guy" and countless others. Perhaps more importantly, "The Simpsons" has always mixed highbrow humor in with the lowbrow gags, creating a safe harbor for the brainy even in the intellectual wasteland of Homer Simpson's day-to-day life.

3. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997)
Rarely does a TV version of a movie live up to the quality of its big-screen counterpart, let alone surpass it. Surely that was on the minds of whoever scheduled a small-screen edition of the mildly successful and comically preposterous "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as a midseason replacement in 1997, five years after the original film was released. Expectations couldn't have been any lower. But the series ended up being truer to creator Joss Whedon's original, darker, more nuanced vision of the story, and TV's "Buffy" earned a fanatical following. Goes to show that TV adaptations can produce fantastic shows, that the supernatural can be implemented in a completely human and believable way, that comedy and drama can exist simultaneously, and that cheerleaders kicking vampire booty is totally freaking awesome.

2. "Dawson's Creek" (1998)
It makes sense for adults to be sensitive and have problems and complex emotions. But teenagers? What do they have to be all torn up about? As "Dawson's Creek" taught us, plenty. Premiering on a fifth-place network as a midseason replacement does not exactly indicate great chances for success, but after taking to the airwaves in January 1998 on the WB, Dawson Leery and his pals Pacey, Joey and Jen incorporated highly literate scripts, generous helpings of emo music, and hitherto untapped wells of teen angst to create a show that was incredibly popular among young people as well as older people who liked to imagine that they were that good looking and articulate when they were young, too. Without "Dawson's Creek," there would never have been "The O.C." or countless other distraught teen dramas.

1. "The Office" (2005)
Fans of the original Ricky Gervais-led British version of "The Office" spent quite a long time loudly squawking that the American edition, starring Steve Carell, was vastly inferior and should never have been made. But somewhere along the way those complainers must have stopped to actually watch the show, and, like the viewing audience in general, they liked what they saw. Placed on the air with little fanfare by NBC in March 2005, "The Office" has grown to be a fixture for comedy fans and office workers whose souls have been crushed. Besides brilliant acting and writing, the show is distinctively shot in a quasi-documentary style that makes the comedy all the more realistic and, at times, agonizingly painful.

 John Moe is a frequent contributor to MSN, as well as to McSweeney's and National Public Radio. He is also author of the book "Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty With the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith and Beef Jerky."