"Sitcom" may be short-form for situation comedy, but might as well just stand for "sit" comedy considering how much time TV characters spend seated while cracking wise. Couches and cubicles see the most overall ass action, and some shows go the chair route in non-alcoholic settings like Seinfeld's restaurant, Friends' Central Perk and Rent-a-Goalie's Café Primo. But it's always more realistic when a show includes barstools and booths so the characters can get comfortably plastered. Because drunk folks = funny!

Some shows even go so far as to make the bar the main set. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Sundays at 2:10am ET/PT on Showcase) revolves around The Gang, the hard-drinking, hilariously mean-spirited owners of Paddy's Irish pub, the worst bar in Philly, which neatly allows for soused plotlines like installing a glory hole in the men's room, visits from awesome guest-stars like kilted wrestling legend Rowdy Roddy Piper or kidnapping a newspaper journalist who dubs Paddy's, well, the the worst bar in Philly.

So I did some jager-schlager shots and came up with a list of television's other best bars.

 

5. McLaren's (How I Met Your Mother)
Like most young urbanites, the friends of HIMYM have a conveniently located local where they can down beers, trade barbs and pick up chicks ("Have...you met Ted?"). Sure, McLaren's has a surprisingly high percentage of plot-device hotties hanging out in such a run-of-the-mill pub -- it's based on a real-life run-of-the-mill Irish pub in midtown Manhattan called McGee's -- but I guess that helps explain why a suited-up Barney would spend so much time in such a downmarket drinking hole.

 

 

4. Peach Pit After Dark (90210)
After spending their high-school years chilling at Nat's Archie Comics-style malt shoppe, the producers needed somewhere a little less PG-13 to put their aged cast without losing that iconic name. Hence, the Peach Pit After Dark, a nightclub run by Valerie Malone (Tiffany Thiessen, who had previously outgrown her own childhood hangout The Max on Saved by the Bell) which boasted surreal live performances by the likes of The Flaming Lips and The Cramps. (BTW: If you say 90210 isn't a sitcom, I suggest you go watch some reruns, my friend).

 

 

3. Regal Beagle (Three's Company)
Every self-respecting '70s swinger needs a hedonistic hang-out and for Jack Tripper, his pick-up artist pal Larry and his platonic roommates Janet and Chrissy (and later that dumb blonde girl and the nurse Terri) it was the Regal Beagle.
Sure, a British Pub isn't exactly Studio 54 but this player's pub did boast a particularly iconic name. A quick Google turns up real-world Regal Beagles in Boston, Chicago, Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver (the latter, at least, has a similar setting to the original's Santa Monica beach locale).

 

 

2. Cheers (Cheers)
If there were a photo beside the dictionary definition of a sitcom bar, it would be of the iconic awning of this underground Boston drinking establishment where everyone knows your name.The employees -- womanizing washed-up ball-player Sam, dumb-as-a-post bartender Woody and snarky spitfire Carla (played by Rhea Perlman, wife of Danny Devito who coincidentally currently stars in bar-comedy Always Sunny) -- were so beloved enough that we didn't even think too much about how bar regulars Cliff and Norm were raging alcoholics. 

 

 

1. Moe's Tavern (The Simpsons)
Matt Groening and crew, however, have no such qualms about mocking the drinking problems of the regulars who haunt Homer's home away from home. Of course, none of those Duff drinkers get savaged quite as soundly as owner Moe Szyslak, who is essentially the anti-Sam Malone when it comes to women (or anything else, for that matter). Moe's briefly becomes trendy enough to attract Aerosmith in the Flaming Moe episode and later transforms into an upscale yuppie nightclub and a restaurant called Uncle Moe's Family Feed Bag, but really there's no place a small-town tavern. Just, y'know, don't order a pickled egg.