Longest Running Television Shows

The path by which I got to thinking about this subject was by musing on how poorly NBC’s new primetime television offerings fared this year. Only one of three new primetime dramas that premiered in the fall has been renewed for next year. That show is Grimm, an odd combination of fairy tale, horror-fantasy, and police procedural. That doesn’t sound to me like to be a likely candidate for longevity and that in turn made me start thinking about the programs that survived the longest.

I’m going to exclude daytime soaps, variety shows (the last long-running variety show,Grand Ole Opry Live was cancelled in the Aughts), game shows, news programs, various different kinds of reality programs, and disconnected anthologies and concentrate on serial episodic dramas and comedies. The heavyweight champions of television at 61 years and 52 years, respectively, are The Hallmark Hall of Fame and The Wonderful World of Disney. Hallmark is still ongoing; Disney ended its run in 2008. Those are what I’d characterize as “disconnected anthologies”. I’m just considering serial episodic dramas and comedies.

The Simpsons (23 seasons; 503 episodes)

The Simpsons debuted in December 1989, a spin-off of The Tracey Ullman Show. Over the years it may well have provided the best satire in television history. I think it’s interesting that television satire is almost completely relegated to primetime cartoons and mock news/public affairs programs.

Gunsmoke (20 seasons; 635 episodes)

Gunsmoke debuted in September of 1955, a television version of what may have been the best radio drama of all time. Seasons were a lot longer in the early days of television and, if the Simpsons persists for another six years it might catch up to Gunsmoke’s episode count. Amazingly, James Arness held on as Matt Dillon throughout the run, changing from towering young hero to grizzled veteran over the course of the show.

Law and Order (20 seasons; 456 episodes)

Law and Order debuted in 1990 (two years after the pilot was shot) and continued until 2010. It’s one of the few U. S. shows I can think of that has been able to survive multiple total cast changes. That may have been helped by the New York setting and the great array of New York-based character actors the show has been able to draw on.

Lassie (17 seasons)

Lassie debuted in September 1954. I lost interest in it after the Tommy Rettig days and I speculate that it may have survived until the Nielsen methodology was reconfigured to skew less rural.

South Park (16 seasons; 215 episodes)

South Park debuted in August 1997 on Comedy Central where it has been a fixture ever since. I have never seen South Park and can only point out that it’s another instance of television satire offered as an animated cartoon.

ER (15 seasons; 331 episodes)

ER, the long-running medical drama that catapulted George Clooney to fame, premiered in September 1994. I thought it lost its soul after the first couple of seasons but, apparently, quite a few people disagreed with me. Quite a number of ER’s principals have landed on their feet after leaving the show, either in the movies, another television series, or by going into production.

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (14 seasons; 435 episodes)

Not only was Ozzie and Harriet, which premiered in October 1952 (which makes it the oldest of the very long-lived shows), a fixture on television in the 1950s and 1960s, it made a pop star out of bandleader Ozzie Nelson’s young son, Ricky. Mark Harmon, star of today’s top-rated primetime drama, NCIS, made his television debut on Ozzie and Harriet.

Bonanza (14 seasons; 430 episodes)

I never watched Bonanza, which premiered in September 1959, in first run. I may have caught an episode or two in rerun. I found the acting too horrible. Lorne Greene is great to listen to but awful to watch. If you’ve never watched it, imagine William Shatner with a deeper voice and without the nuance (not to mention, in the last few years, the self-mockery).

Knots Landing (14 seasons; 344 episodes)

I am proud to say that I have never watched an episode of the primetime soap opera, Knots Landing, which debuted in December 1979, part of the wave of primetime soaps that premiered around then. I would not have guessed that it was the longest running of the bunch.

The complete list of longest-running shows is here.

In reviewing the complete list several things jump out at me. First, some of the genres that once were the most durable, e.g. variety shows, Westerns, have vanished or all but vanished from television. Second, unquestionably primetime animated cartoons are the champs among primetime serial episodic television. I speculate that’s due to lower production costs or, possibly, greater profitability in rerun due to reduced payment of residuals.

After cartoons police procedurals are durable standards and the clear winner among live action dramas.

10 comments… add one
  • PD Shaw Link

    What stands out to me is that sit-coms are not represented greatly in this list, even though they are usually the most watched programs in a given year (until about ten years ago). Source:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_watched_television_broadcasts#2010s

    I’m guessing good sitcoms are more difficult to write for a long period of time, and are under more pressure if/when key cast members depart.

    I think part of the “success” of Simpsons is that sitcoms have greater re-run value, so even though only about half as many people watch it on Sundays than once did, its widely available through syndication. In fact, is there any day or place in this country where you can’t be watching Friends, Seinfeld, Cosby Show, Cheers, M*A*S*H* and Rosanne?

  • Brett Link

    I’d go with “lower production costs” for the animated shows, although keeping the voice acting talent after so many years can be expensive (I would imagine that Dan Castellenata makes good money now). Real-life aging eventually forces any live-action comedy to either do a cast change or change in its setting, whereas The Simpsons and other animated comedies can use the same set-up for decades without change (but not necessarily without becoming tired and stale).

  • PD Shaw Link

    Building on Brett’s comment, I have to wonder how many of the other programs on this list have “appeared” on The Simpsons?

  • Drew Link

    I don’t know whether it makes me seem like I crawled out from under a rock, a malcontent or what, but in the shows cited:

    Simpsons – aware of it, never seen an episode

    Gun smoke – watched some as a kid

    Law and Order – aware of it, may have seen an episode or two; obviously didn’t make much of an impression

    Lassie – watched as a kid

    South Park – aware of it; never watched it

    ER – aware of it; I saw the scene where Clooney lost his doctor buddy to an embolism, and the scene where the black heart surgeon sarcastically commented that he wasn’t listening to Snoop Dog, but surgery techniques on his ear buds. That’s it.

    Ozzie and Harriet – obviously aware. Never saw.

    Bonanza – watched as a kid.

    Knots Landing – never heard of it.

    I did watch Firing Line religiously. That’s where I learned to dislike Steve Green and Michael Kinsley. Oh, and then there are sports……….want a run down hole by hole on the 1986 Masters? How about Normans second to the 15th against Faldo?

  • Drew Link

    PS

    I didn’t think so.

  • Brett Link

    Not having seen an episode of “The Simpsons” definitely makes you a minority among Americans (possibly “Americans” in the “New World” sense as well, since the show has been widely syndicated in Latin America).

    Do you get broadcast television? Your local Fox affiliate should be showing them regularly – mine shows two Simpsons episodes a day, at 6:00 and 10:35 PM.

  • Yeah, Drew is in the same viewing area as I am. Fox Chicago.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Series longevity is an area of particular interest to me since there are great similarities between book series and TV series. One reason cartoons do well: no one ages in a cartoon. Also the expectations of the animated universe allow the writers greater latitude.

    Comedy is hard to maintain. Jokes get old and even the best writers can only go to the same well so many times. There’s the joke, there’s the call-back, there’s the self-mocking self-referential call-back, there’s entering the joke into the running mythology, but there’s just so many times you can pull that off.

    The thing I notice about the list above is how few involve story arcs beyond the individual episode. The Simpsons don’t learn and grow, they don’t move from A to Z. Stand-alone stories works better for longevity and for late adoption, but it’s boring for the writers and probably the actors as well. It’s out of fashion now and seen as something for the older (irrelevant) demographic.

    We ran a book series to 63 books (10,000 pages) and parsed out multiple book story arc very sparingly. I’m taking GONE to 6 books (3000 pages) by using lots of arc but also using lots of characters to carry that arc. George RR Martin crashed the Fire and Ice series because he failed to differentiate between major and secondary characters while burning arc. Patrick O’Brian pulled off the masterful Aubrey-Maturin series with a near-perfect combination of set bits and long-term arc, but even he was out of gas at the end.

  • One of the things that made me start thinking about this was NBC’s midseason replacement drama, Smash. Show biz dramas have always been popular in solipsistic Hollywood but I wondered if they were really popular enough outside the business to support a lengthy run.

    My conclusion was that they weren’t. There have been an enormous number of show biz-oriented comedies and dramas over the years from The Jack Benny Program and I Love Lucy right up to Smash. Other than the Benny program few have been really long-lived. Interestingly, despite its iconic status, I Love Lucy is not among the longest-lived series but The Lucy Show is. It ran for 12 seasons.

  • Drew Link

    I think Micheal makes an excellent point about “story arcs”. I’ve obviously seen snippets of Simpsons etc but I listen for about 15 seconds and say to myself “pedestrian, seen it heard it before…..next.”. I know this would bore everyone else to tears on this blog, but I’d much rather (and I in fact did) spend two hours last night viewing and contrasting the swings of Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus. At least there is utility, for me anyway, in that.

    Listening to cheap joke lines you can smell coming a mile away just doesn’t interest.

    Story arcs are different. That’s an evolving set of circumstances, charcaters and character development etc; and I’m sure Michael knows when it’s time has played out and he needs to move on.

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