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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[AdamFTF]

The Flintstones

First TV cartoon created for an adult audience. Possibly the show to solidify Hanna-Barbera's place as the reigning kings of TV animation for a couple decades.

[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.

[Osiris-Rex]

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.

Plus it was a way for Rod Serling to introduce controversial topics in the guise of Sci-Fi that would have never made it to the network if they were more realistic. Star Trek also copied that. Ironically one of the knocks
against Supergirl is they have too many real world topics in the guise of a super hero show. People want the show to be less real world and more fantasy.

[AndrewCrossett]

I Love Lucy was the template for the hundreds of family sitcoms that have come since.

M*A*S*H pretty much invented the dramedy.

All in the Family introduced social relevance to entertainment TV.