They Have Their List; He Has His

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.

--The credo of deceased Chuckles the

Clown, as affectionately recalled

in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

*

“Best” and “worst” lists are meaningless and fleeting, but more importantly, they are fun. Here are the best reasons:

1. They make people mad, instigating debate.

2. They require focusing on trivia that blots out stressful reality.

3. They honor the past.

The occasion for this analysis is the “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time,” which consumes much of the current issue of TV Guide. This massive ranking is the work of nostalgiaphiles at the magazine and at TV Land, the relatively obscure channel spun off last year from Nickelodeon’s Nick at Nite evening fare.

The top three reasons for devoting a column to “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time” are:

1. Poor news judgment.

2. Desperation.

3. Nothing else to write about.

Notably, some episodes on the list are being aired on TV Land and Nickelodeon Monday through Friday next week. Just as notably, 25% of the episodes listed as “greatest” are from series that Nickelodeon either airs on Nick at Nite or on TV Land or owns the rights to. These include such elite oldies as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (Nos. 1 and 27), “Hill Street Blues” (No. 49), “St. Elsewhere” (No. 44), “The Wonder Years” (No. 29), “Taxi” (Nos. 19 and 63), “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (Nos. 8 and 15) and “I Love Lucy” (Nos. 2 and 18).

Much dicier, they also include “The Brady Bunch” (No. 37), “Bewitched” (No. 48), “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” (No. 64), “Mister Ed” (No. 73) and a two-part “Green Acres” (No. 59).

The top reasons for the latter group being listed as “greatest” are:

1. Doing so gives Nickelodeon another outlet to advertise its Nick at Nite shows.

2. Doing so gives Nickelodeon another outlet to advertise its TV Land channel.

3. The selection committee resides in a padded room.

4. All of the above.

In other words, some of the “100 greatest” are just a bit suspect. Either that, or maybe “The Partridge Family” (No. 78), “The Patty Duke Show” (No. 71), “The Beverly Hillbillies” (No. 62), “Gilligan’s Island” (No. 52), “Car 54, Where Are You?” (No. 61) and “The Love Boat” (No. 82) really did sneak in some hummers while some of us weren’t looking.

And an episode from “The Brady Bunch” (No. 37) exceeding anything from HBO’s still-running “The Larry Sanders Show” (No. 39)? And the famed interview episode from “MASH” (No. 80) ranking below the Bradys, “Bewitched,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “Green Acres,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Patty Duke Show,” “Mr. Ed” and “The Partridge Family”? Puhleeeeeeze!

Designating best episodes is tough. Inspired by TV Guide, I instead listed in no special order my favorite entertainment series, which, because I know you care, are printed below:

“The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” “Buffalo Bill,” “Frank’s Place,” “Seinfeld,” “Dream On,” “The Larry Sanders Show,” “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Law & Order,” “thirtysomething,” “Moonlighting,” “Northern Exposure,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “NYPD Blue,” “Twin Peaks,” “MASH,” “SCTV,” “The Wonder Years,” “Hill Street Blues,” “The Simpsons,” “The X-Files,” “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,” “Profit,” “Your Show of Shows,” “Caesar’s Hour,” “The Honeymooners,” “The Defenders,” “Tanner ‘88,” “Masterpiece Theatre,” “Mystery!,” “The Avengers,” “The Prisoner,” “Police Story,” “Police Squad” and “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.”

I also jotted down my favorite movies, then my favorite actresses and actors. Obviously, it was a slow day.

Compiling such lists is highly subjective, of course. To me, nearly every “Seinfeld” rerun I see is the best TV episode ever. But I could just as easily make a case for the episode listed No. 1 of all time in TV Guide and opening the “100 best” extravaganza Monday night on TV Land and Nick at Nite.

It’s that bracing spritz of seltzer in your pants, the very, very great “Chuckles the Clown” episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” The 1975 episode’s mocking of a clown who wears a peanut costume in a parade and gets shelled by a rogue elephant is still hilarious after all these years, and a striking example of how genius writers and a gleaming cast can make even death comical when the deceased is an abstraction. Chuckles died, Ted Baxter reports somberly in his newscast, “a broken man.”

But this genuine classic sharing a “greatest” list with, say, a “Green Acres” episode from 1968? “Green Acres,” the infantile, hayseed sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor as posh urbanites transplanted to rural Hooterville, yielding the 59th greatest episode ever?

Getting to the bottom of this, courtesy of Nickelodeon, I previewed the two-parter, which airs Tuesday and finds Hooterville’s grunting pig, Arnold Ziffel, being so dazzling in a local stage play, standing in for a dog, that Gabor’s dopey Lisa wrangles him a screen test with a Hollywood producer friend of hers (“Arnold was just vunderful”), not telling him that Arnold isn’t human.

Actually, it’s pretty funny, especially when Arnold’s owner, Farmer Fred (Hank Patterson), gives him an emotional send-off: “Be a good boy, and I don’t want you to get mixed up with those Hollywood pigs.” And a highlight of Part 2 is Arnold in hairdressing for his screen test, getting his tail done, then later having a chat, in subtitles, with the horse whose starring role he’s taking over in a movie.

When it comes to acting, Arnold outshines Eva. Still, this is hardly “Babe,” and what must Steven Bochco think? The episode that opened his “Murder One” on ABC last year is ranked just behind Arnold at 60th, meaning that those drafting the list thought more of “Green Acres.”

I also watched the four “greatest” episodes that follow Chuckles Monday night.

* No. 15: “It May Look Like a Walnut” from “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” 1963. After he and Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) are terrorized by a late-night horror movie about extraterrestrials, Rob (Van Dyke) spends the rest of the episode mysteriously confronted by walnuts and an alien leader who turns out to be Danny Thomas.

You get great, gangly physical stuff here from Van Dyke, but the spoofy plot tips its ending prematurely, and many other episodes of the show are funnier, including the No. 8 show on the list, in which Laura runs afoul of Alan Brady’s (Carl Reiner) toupee.

* No. 58: “Fat Farm” from “The Odd Couple,” 1971. After being nagged by Felix (Tony Randall) about his gluttony and baggy body, Oscar (Jack Klugman) and his fussy apartment mate check into a fat farm where patrons are served empty plates and told to imagine they contain food.

Oscar: “I’m beginning to believe this nonsense.”

Felix: “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

It’s moderately funny, which is as funny as “The Odd Couple” ever got.

* No. 73: “Leo Durocher Meets Mister Ed” from “Mister Ed,” 1963. The highlight is a truly inspired sequence in which Ed the horse runs the bases and completes an inside-the-park home run by appearing to slide at home plate. The rest, with baseball maven Ed sharing time with Durocher and the Dodgers, and Alan Young’s Wilbur the ever-gullible fool, is horse feathers.

* No. 28: “The Jailer” from “Gunsmoke,” 1966. This episode has Bette Davis eyes and, of course, Davis herself, who is memorable but never persuasive as a bitter widow who abducts and hopes to use Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake) to gain vengeance on Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) for getting her criminal husband hanged.

“Don’t talk flippant, ya ain’t in no position,” she tells a defiant Kitty, who later, lips quivering, works her wiles on one of her captors, Bette’s overmatched son, Jake. Meanwhile, the script has more holes than Jake’s body after Bette plugs him.

Like many of these “100 greatest” episodes, not so vunderful.

* Selections from the “100 greatest episodes” list will air on Nickelodeon and TV Land from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Friday next week.