What show had the biggest impact?

[babyblob]

I hear the phrase ground breaking thrown around when hearing about different shows. So it had me wonder what show for whatever reason had the biggest impact on pop culture as a whole?

[SpiderClops]

Game of Thrones.

[Osiris-Rex]

Seinfeld. People even celebrate things like Festivus as a result of that show.

[Riv86672]

ALL IN THE FAMILY was pretty groundbreaking in terms of tackling subject matter that no one talked about on TV.

[Jim Kelly]

THE MILTON BERLE SHOW. They didn't call him Mr. Television for nothing.

[Anarchist]

The Wire is held in the highest regard.

[Gotham citizen]

ALL IN THE FAMILY was pretty groundbreaking in terms of tackling subject matter that no one talked about on TV.

Moreover it started an huge number of (very often) successful spin off: Maude, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Archie Bunker's Place, Gloria, 704 Hauser…

I would add to the list of TV show with the biggest impact Star Trek, Miami Vice and N.Y.P.D. Blue.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Its influence has impacted tv shows, movies, novels and comics for urban fantasy significantly. It's fingerprints are all over Teen Wolf, Supernatural, True Blood, Shadowhunters, iZombie, Smallville, Vampire Diaries, The Magicians, Legacies, Merlin and more. Basically, pick any urban fantasy show made after it and its presence has been felt.

[Noodle]

I Love Lucy pretty much set the standard for TV sitcoms, as well as being one of the first shows to have a pregnancy on it. Behind the scenes it was one of the firsts to have a woman be in a prominent position in regards to making the series.

Johnny Carson's Tonight Show is also pretty much the basis for every late night talk show that's ever come after it.

M.A.S.H. is still to this day the only non-sports broadcast in the 30 most watched TV programs of all time.

[Jim Kelly]

Johnny Carson's Tonight Show is also pretty much the basis for every late night talk show that's ever come after it.

TONIGHT was the creation of Steve Allen, circa 1954, and he established the format of the talk show we know today. Allen became so busy that Ernie Kovacs was given the Monday and Tuesday night slots to host the show, with his own band and announcer. Allen left in 1957 and NBC let Kovacs go. They tried to change the format of TONIGHT, to make it more of a news program. This didn't work, so they hired Jack Paar to host THE TONIGHT SHOW which returned to the format that Allen had pioneered. Paar left in 1962 and Johnny Carson was supposed to take over, but he was still under contract to ABC, so in the interim several guest hosts filled in-- Art Linkletter (4 weeks), Merv Griffin (4 weeks), Hugh Downs (2 weeks), Joey Bishop (2 weeks), Bob Cummings, Jack Carter, Jan Murray, Peter Lind Hayes, Soupy Sales, Mort Sahl, Steve Lawrence, Jerry Lewis (2 weeks), Jimmy Dean, Florence Henderson, Arlene Francis, Jack E. Leonard, Groucho Marx, Hal March and Donald O'Connor.

[Kieran_Frost]

Well... the one that springs to mind most is I Love Lucy. Before Lucille Ball, shows weren't "saved" they just recorded over them once they aired. So we don't have copies of old shows. And she changed that; and owned the rights to the saved episodes of her show (smart lady). Which changed TV. It changed it forever. While some others shows are iconic more than I Love Lucy, her show changed the game. Period.

[Kirby101]

Well... the one that springs to mind most is I Love Lucy. Before Lucille Ball, shows weren't "saved" they just recorded over them once they aired. So we don't have copies of old shows. And she changed that; and owned the rights to the saved episodes of her show (smart lady). Which changed TV. It changed it forever. While some others shows are iconic more than I Love Lucy, her show changed the game. Period.

I believe Desi also created the three camera shoot so everything could be filmed at the same time.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Well... the one that springs to mind most is I Love Lucy. Before Lucille Ball, shows weren't "saved" they just recorded over them once they aired. So we don't have copies of old shows. And she changed that; and owned the rights to the saved episodes of her show (smart lady). Which changed TV. It changed it forever. While some others shows are iconic more than I Love Lucy, her show changed the game. Period.

As Kirby101 correctly says, it's really Desi, not Lucy, who was the "smart lady" in terms of running the business. Desi didn't invent the 3-camera setup, but he definitely made it the standard for sitcoms.

Also, filming instead of airing live meant no low quality kinescopes.

Also, airing reruns during some weeks during Lucy's real life pregnancy showed the networks that people would be ok with seeing the same episode more than once -- hence, the invention of the rerun as a way to add more revenue (the downside being that, over time, networks bought fewer and fewer new episodes -- from 39 per season down to 22 today).

Also, owning the original films gave him a library to sell to CBS when syndicated reruns became a reality.

Also, filming I Love Lucy in Hollywood instead of in New York, the way most TV was done at the time, opened the floodgates to all of TV production originating out of Hollywood instead of just movies.

I Love Lucy was definitely influential in terms of the way things were done behind the scenes in the nascent TV industry.

[C_Miller]

Well... the one that springs to mind most is I Love Lucy. Before Lucille Ball, shows weren't "saved" they just recorded over them once they aired. So we don't have copies of old shows. And she changed that; and owned the rights to the saved episodes of her show (smart lady). Which changed TV. It changed it forever. While some others shows are iconic more than I Love Lucy, her show changed the game. Period.

I struggle to think of another show that wrote the book on a format that is still used today than I Love Lucy.

For the culture as a whole, I might submit The Twilight Zone. People still make references to it almost 70 years later. People still watch the marathons when they pop up on Syfy for random holidays. It also defined what Science Fiction could do on television, but also in all mediums. I honestly don't think we have Star Trek without it.

[Powerboy]

I hear the phrase ground breaking thrown around when hearing about different shows. So it had me wonder what show for whatever reason had the biggest impact on pop culture as a whole?

Probably "All in the Family". It's seldom seen nowadays because it was so topical. But it was willing to deal with the social issues that were sweeping the nation in a time when other shows ignored them or barely mentioned them. Racism, Sexism, Gay Rights, Trans-phobia, Corrupt political leaders, corrupt police forces, ethnic bigotry, religious hatred, and on and on. And this was in the 1970s.

We like to believe that we are not influenced by Hollywood but we are. Even in the rural isolated region I grew up in, I became aware of many of these issues because of that show and realized there was a huge other side to the story besides the small town ignorant attitude I had been told.

It was that show that broke the barrier. People may say they have seen all kinds of shows tackle those issues. But every last one of them was after "All in the Family" did it. I don't even think there's any question that it had the hugest impact on popular culture.

Mind you, I get that "I Love Lucy" had people preoccupied with what was happening with the Ricardos as if they were real but that's a preoccupation with the show itself and I know "Buffy" had a big impact on similar shows. But I'm talking about increasing awareness and popularizing new attitudes of a culture.