While fans of The Big Bang Theory might love the classic sitcom, it is hard to deny one awkward reality about its 12-season run. By the time The Big Bang Theory’s finale aired, the show was easily the biggest sitcom on TV. With a regular weekly audience of 20 million at its peak, the series was arguably even the biggest sitcom since Friends.
Despite this success, there are some hangout sitcoms better than The Big Bang Theory. That said, there are few that can match the show’s superior ratings and cultural staying power. Community was more critically acclaimed, but that NBC hit didn’t spawn two separate spinoffs.
Similarly, New Girl might have been a critical darling, but it never even came close to matching the ratings of The Big Bang Theory. In this regard, the show seems like a shoo-in for the title of CBS’s most iconic sitcom ever. At least, until viewers remember one awkward outlier.
The Big Bang Theory Is Not CBS’s Most Iconic Sitcom
The Big Bang Theory will never be CBS’s most iconic sitcom because MASH aired on the same network decades earlier. The anti-war sitcom remains the most popular TV show of all time in terms of ratings, with MASH’s finale “Goodbye, Farewell, And Amen” garnering a historic 106 million viewers when it aired in 1983.
This finale is still the biggest TV event of all time, meaning The Big Bang Theory never stood a chance of defeating the series when it came to cultural impact. Set in Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War, MASH was adapted from director Robert Altman’s 1970 movie of the same name.
Although MASH’s antiwar themes and exploration of trauma allowed the show to comment on the then-ongoing American invasion of Vietnam, this didn’t stop the series from having fun. MASH was an iconic sitcom first and foremost, and the hilarity of its writing was precisely what made MASH’s devastating finale so moving.
MASH Was Hugely Influential On Two Generations of Sitcoms
Viewers would be hard-pressed to find a sitcom as daringly political as MASH on American television in 2025. However, it is still tough to deny the reality that MASH shaped not one, but two generations of shows that followed. The series did this by setting the template for the workplace sitcom.
In the decade after MASH began airing, Barney Miller, Taxi, and Cheers all took its basic workplace comedy setup and ran with it. Cheers then led to spinoff Frasier, making MASH’s impact on the network sitcom landscape even bigger in the process. In the ‘00s and 2010s, the workplace sitcom became even more popular.
Thus, although The Big Bang Theory directly spawned Young Sheldon and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, it would be hard to argue that the series had anywhere near the same cultural impact as MASH’s run. Before MASH ended, multiple successful spins on its basic premise had already succeeded.
In contrast, The Big Bang Theory didn’t lead to a string of shows starring socially maladroit but well-meaning, and the few shows like this that it did spawn, such as Dads and The Great Indoors, were quickly canceled. MASH defined the workplace sitcom setup, something that was emulated endlessly in the ‘80s and then revived throughout the ‘00s.
MASH cemented its place in TV history by pioneering the workplace comedy setup, and this inevitably meant that The Big Bang Theory could never have replicated the show’s cultural staying power. However, some of MASH’s best episodes prove that the show had another ace up its sleeve when it came to longevity.
MASH’s Message Made The CBS Sitcom Uniquely Powerful
However, this novelty soon wore off as nerds became more commonplace throughout pop culture, and a resurgence of interest in comic books, superheroes, and fantasy media made “Nerdy” interests more mainstream. In contrast, MASH’s novelty was more timeless.
It is not unreasonable to suggest that MASH’s daring anti-war message was more impactful than anything in The Big Bang Theory. This daring approach explains why the sitcom has continued to capture the imagination of viewers decades after its finale.
