227
Apartment-building porch sitcom with Marla Gibbs free of Florence's uniform.
broadcast network
NBC
NBC is broadcast television as a Thursday night and a precinct: Cheers and Friends for the hangout, ER and Law & Order for the gurney and the arraignment, Hill Street Blues for the cop shop that got messy on purpose. Bonanza, Columbo, Miami Vice, and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In prove the peacock could also do western, raincoat, neon, and sketch chaos.
On TV Flash, NBC is the broadcast network that treated a Boston bar, a Manhattan coffee shop, and a Chicago ER as national meeting places. Cheers and Frasier make talk a sport; Friends turns the apartment into infrastructure; Community later tears the sitcom into a paintball essay. Dragnet and Columbo keep the badge in two different keys.
The catalog shelf is a second peacock. 30 Rock meta-farces the sketch factory; A Different World and 227 give the sitcom a campus and a stoop; Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Chuck keep the precinct and the nerd-spy joke alive. Start with a highlight if you want the monument. Stay for ALF, Baywatch, or CHiPs when you want the network in a more reckless outfit.
FAQ
What did NBC mean for broadcast comedy and drama?
NBC is the broadcast home of the hangout sitcom and the workplace procedural as weekly ritual. Cheers, Friends, and Frasier taught America to treat banter as plot; ER, Law & Order, and Hill Street Blues made hospitals and squad rooms feel like serial novels without leaving network television.
Where should I start with NBC on TV Flash?
If you want the monuments, start with Cheers, Friends, ER, or Law & Order. For craft that rewired cop shows, Hill Street Blues; for raincoat mystery, Columbo; for neon, Miami Vice. Then wander the catalog: 30 Rock for meta, A Different World for campus politics, Brooklyn Nine-Nine for the later precinct joke.
How does NBC differ from ABC in this catalog?
ABC's broadcast mix in our shelves leans spells, islands, and Wisteria Lane. NBC leans bars, coffee shops, ERs, and ding-ding procedurals. Both are Big Three living-room television; NBC's signature here is talk as sport and the workplace as a nation.
Catalog
Shows on NBC
30 Rock
Meta sketch-show workplace farce at machine-gun joke density.
3rd Rock from the Sun
Aliens in human suits discover emotions, bureaucracy, and Jane Curtin.
A Different World
HBCU life after Denise left the nest — Cosby spin-off that found its own voice.
Adam-12
One-Adam-12 — black-and-white patrol as Jack Webb moral clarity.
ALF
A cat-eating alien puppet crashes suburbia — merch first, sitcom second, finale nightmare.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
The master of suspense as dry host — murder with a wink and a silhouette.
Amen
Sherman Hemsley takes the pulpit — church politics as sitcom battleground.
Bat Masterson
Derby hat, gold-tipped cane — Gene Barry's dandy lawman who fought with style.
Baywatch
Slow-mo lifeguards, red swimsuits, and Hasselhoff's second global export.
Blossom
Hats, fourth-wall bits, and Very Special Episodes — Mayim Bialik’s first era.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Precinct found family — jokes with a moral core and a damn fine captain.
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Disco-era space hero thawed out for laser fights and Twiki sidekick comedy.
Caesar's Hour
After Show of Shows — Caesar's gang keeps the live sketch flame alive.
Candid Camera
Smile — you're on hidden camera. Allen Funt's prank sociology as entertainment.
Chico and the Man
East L.A. garage buddy comedy with a star exit the medium never forgot.
CHiPs
Ponch and Jon on freeways of gold — California Highway Patrol as sunshine action.
Chuck
Nerd with a supercomputer in his brain — Buy More as spy base.
Crime Story
Michael Mann's period crime passion project — Chicago heat to Vegas neon.
Daniel Boone
Fess Parker's coonskin return — frontier hero TV for the whole family.
Diff'rent Strokes
What you talkin' about, Willis? — adoption comedy with very real aftershocks.
Dr. Kildare
Richard Chamberlain's idealistic intern — medical soaps get a matinee idol.
Dragnet 1967
Just the facts — Jack Webb's badge minimalism returns for a turbulent decade.
Emergency!
Squad 51 rolling — paramedics as heroes before medical dramas went steadicam.
Empty Nest
Golden Girls neighbor doctor with adult daughters home again — Miami shared-universe comedy.
Family Ties
Hippie parents, Reagan-kid son — the decade's political generational gag in living color.
Fireside Theatre
Early filmed anthology giant — Jane Wyman's later host era and massive 1950s ratings.
Flipper
Smarter than the average dolphin — Florida Keys family adventure with marine star power.
Freaks and Geeks
1980s high school, 1999 soul — the perfect canceled cult classic.
Friday Night Lights
Clear eyes, full hearts — small-town football as American scripture.
Gimme a Break!
Nell Carter's powerhouse voice and housekeeper-mom energy in a police chief's home.
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Greeting-card prestige — specials that made quality drama a brand promise.
Hannibal
Broadcast cannibal opera — food porn, mind palace, and queer-coded dread.
Heroes
Save the cheerleader, save the world — then the writers' strike hangover.
Highway to Heaven
An angel and an ex-cop fix hearts on the road — Landon's post-Prairie sermon machine.
Holocaust
Network TV forces the Shoah into American living rooms — controversy included.
Homicide: Life on the Street
Baltimore detectives, handheld grit, and cases that don’t tidy up for sweeps.
Hopalong Cassidy
William Boyd's white-hat Hoppy — the lunchbox that taught Hollywood TV merchandising.
Howdy Doody
It's Howdy Doody time — freckles, Peanut Gallery screams, and Clarabell's seltzer bottle.
Hullabaloo
NBC's answer to Shindig — cages, choreography, and chart-topper TV.
Hunter
Ex-NFL hardcase cop and partner McCall — dirty streets, clean one-liners.
I Dream of Jeannie
Astronaut, bottle, blink — Space Race sitcom with genie chemistry.
I Spy
Cosby and Culp as tennis-circuit spies — interracial buddy espionage on location.
Ironside
Raymond Burr's wheelchair detective — authority rebuilt after Perry Mason.
JAG
Navy lawyers with jet fuel — procedural that quietly built a franchise navy.
Jeopardy!
Answers first, questions second — quiz TV's most elegant trap.
Julia
Diahann Carroll as a nurse and mother — Black lead sitcom without the stereotype cage.
Knight Rider
A man, a talking Trans Am, and justice with turbo boost.
Kraft Television Theatre
Live drama with a cheese sponsor — prestige teleplays that launched a generation of talent.
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Ad-lib puppets and Fran Allison — gentle absurdity that adults watched without irony.
L.A. Law
Power suits, courtroom heat, and office romance — law firm as soap-prestige hybrid.
Land of the Lost
Sleestak nightmares — Saturday-morning pocket universe with real craft.
Late Night with David Letterman
Irony, Top Ten lists, and stupid pet tricks — late night got weird on purpose.
Let's Make a Deal
Door Number Three and costume-clad traders — deal-making as carnival chaos.
Little House on the Prairie
Walnut Grove tears and triumphs — frontier family myth as weekly comfort.
M Squad
Lee Marvin's hard cop in a hard Chicago — noir procedural with a jazz bite.
Mad About You
Newlywed micro-comedy on Must-See — marriage as a two-hander with a dog.
McCloud
New Mexico marshal in New York — boots on asphalt fish-out-of-water crime.
McMillan & Wife
Rock Hudson as commissioner — murder with martini banter and a smart spouse.
Meet the Press
The longest-running show in television history — Sunday panel combat as civic ritual.
My Little Margie
Gale Storm's scheming daughter vs. dad's blood pressure — screwball sitcom fizz.
My Name Is Earl
Karma list as sitcom engine — trailer-park moral philosophy.
NewsRadio
WNYX workplace farce — Phil Hartman perfection in a radio station madhouse.
Night Court
Manhattan night court as vaudeville — magic tricks, public defenders, and Mel Tormé dreams.
Night Gallery
Serling after the Zone — paintings as portals to nastier nightmares.
Omnibus
Aloft culture for the masses — Leonard Bernstein, Orson Welles, and Sunday seriousness.
Peter Gunn
Cool jazz PI, blonde nightclub, and a Henry Mancini score that outlived the plots.
Philco Television Playhouse
Chayefsky's kitchen-sink live plays — ordinary lives, extraordinary telecasts.
Police Woman
Pepper Anderson undercover — glamour badge work and 'jiggle' era debates.
Punky Brewster
Orphan optimism, neon fashion, and earworm theme energy.
Quantum Leap
Body-hopping through history to put right what once went wrong.
Queen for a Day
Applause-meter misery pageant — the most 1950s show that ever 1950s'd.
Quincy, M.E.
Coroner with a cause — Jack Klugman yells at the system until justice shows up.
Remington Steele
She does the detecting; he is the handsome fictional boss — and Bond audition tape.
Sanford and Son
Junkyard king Fred Sanford and the big one that never quite takes him.
Saved by the Bell
Zack’s schemes at Bayside — teen sitcom as eternal Saturday-morning memory.
Scrubs
Fantasy cutaways in a teaching hospital full of found family.
SCTV
Second City Television — Melonville media satire for comedy nerds who quote deep cuts.
Silver Spoons
Rich kid, toy-filled mansion, and Jason Bateman before Arrested Development.
Sky King
Arizona rancher with a Cessna — aviation adventure for kids who wanted wings.
St. Elsewhere
A crumbling Boston hospital where prestige medical drama learned to bleed.
Superstore
Big-box workplace sitcom — strikes, ICE raids, and Cloud 9 fluorescent truth.
Tales of Wells Fargo
Dale Robertson as a Wells Fargo agent — corporate cowboy justice on the frontier circuit.
Taxi
Sunshine Cab Company's beautiful losers — rough New York hope in a garage.
Texaco Star Theater
Uncle Miltie in a dress — the show so big cities emptied restaurants and tanks dropped after 9 p.m.
The A-Team
I love it when a plan comes together — cartoon violence without the consequences.
The Andy Williams Show
Moon River hospitality — easy-listening variety with Christmas brand power.
The Apprentice
You're fired — boardroom reality that rebranded a real-estate showman.
The Bionic Woman
Jaime Sommers: tennis pro, teacher, ear of steel — feminist cyborg cool.
The Colgate Comedy Hour
Rotating comedy kings — Martin & Lewis, Abbott & Costello, and Sunday-night mayhem.
The Cosby Show
The Huxtables made Thursday sacred — a Black professional family sitcom that rewrote Nielsen math.
The Ernie Kovacs Show
Visual gags, blackouts, and Nairobi Trio — the medium inventing itself for laughs.
The Facts of Life
Eastland School lessons, very special episodes, and Blair Warner privilege energy.
The Flip Wilson Show
The devil made him do it — first Black host of a hit network variety hour at this scale.
The Good Place
Afterlife ethics sitcom — twists that rewired what network comedy could do.
The High Chaparral
Arizona ranch empire with bilingual border tensions — adult western late style.
The Jack Benny Program
The world's cheapest violinist and the longest pause in comedy history.
The Life of Riley
What a revoltin' development! — blue-collar dad comedy with a catchphrase for the ages.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Solo and Kuryakin vs. THRUSH — Bond fever in weekly network form.
The Midnight Special
Late-night rock on the network — Wolfman Jack howls after Carson.
The Monkees
Prefab four, jump cuts, and rock sitcom energy built for Beatlemania spillover.
The Nat King Cole Show
Velvet voice, broken barrier — a Black superstar hosting network variety without national sponsors.
The Price Is Right
Bill Cullen and the art of the bid — pricing game as mid-century consumer fantasy.
The Red Skelton Show
Clem Kadiddlehopper and Freddie the Freeloader — pantomime pathos with a clown's tear.
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show
Moose and squirrel vs. spies — puns, Cold War satire, and fractured fairy tales.
Tonight Starring Steve Allen
Steve Allen invents late-night — desk, door, man-on-the-street, and jazz past midnight.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
King of late night — monologues, couch chemistry, and the national bedtime story.
The Virginian
90-minute Shiloh Ranch epic — western prestige before prestige was a pitch deck.
This Is Your Life
Ralph Edwards ambushes a guest with their entire biography — tissues mandatory.
Today
Garroway, J. Fred Muggs, and the invention of waking up with television.
Tom Corbett, Space Cadet
Space Academy cadets learning the solar system — homework with rocket ships.
Truth or Consequences
Wrong answer? Do the stunt. Ralph Edwards's radio chaos, now with cameras.
Twenty-One
The isolation-booth duel that ended in congressional hearings and a Hollywood movie.
Unsolved Mysteries
Robert Stack’s trench coat and that theme — true crime as living-room séance.
V
Friendly aliens with a reptile secret — miniseries event TV turned sci-fi soap.
Wagon Train
A moving town of guest stars — the prairie as anthology stagecoach.
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color
Disney's Sunday night showcase — color TV's best salesman in a cardigan empire.
Will & Grace
Gay best friend goes lead — Must-See TV with a culture-shifting punchline rate.
Wings
Nantucket airline brothers — Cheers-adjacent comfort with a one-plane airline.
You Bet Your Life
Groucho, a duck, and the secret word — quiz structure as pure ad-lib weapon.
Your Show of Shows
Live 90-minute sketch genius — Caesar, Coca, and a writers' room that became comedy scripture.