The 50 Greatest TV Icons

Last week, I posted about the list that TV Land and Entertainment Weekly put out promoting the newest list out there, the 50 Greatest TV Icons, listing the runners-up (numbers 51-100). Last Friday, there was a TV special counting down the top 50. Here is the list of #1-50. And let's just get on the record here, I got number one right.

1. Johnny Carson (was there really ever a doubt?)
2. Lucille Ball
3. Oprah Winfrey
4. Bill Cosby
5. Walter Cronkite (he is the standard by which all anchors are measured)
6. Carol Burnett
7. Mary Tyler Moore
8. Jerry Seinfeld (not that there's anything wrong with that)
9. Homer Simpson
10. Dick Clark
11. Roseanne Barr
12. Dick Van Dyke
13. Jackie Gleason
14. Ed Sullivan
15. The "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" (aka, the first SNL crowd)
16. David Letterman (so much the better choice than Jay Leno, who stole Johnny's crown from Dave)
17. Bob Newhart
18. William Shatner
19. Andy Griffith
20. Carrol O'Connor
21. Kermit
22. Milton Berle (what does it say that he is all the way down at number 22?)
23. Barbara Walters
24. Michael Landon (Holy Pa!)
25. Heather Locklear
26. Farrah Fawcett (but only for the hair flip . . . )
27. Regis Philbin
28. Howard Cosell
29. John Ritter (another big loss for TV - gone too soon)
30. Alan Alda
31. Sarah Jessica Parker
32. Henry Winkler (the Fonz, and I learned recently, one of Emerson College's most famous alumni)
33. Ellen DeGeneres
34. Bob Barker (a legend and an icon)
35. Michael J. Fox
36. Diahann Carroll
37. George Clooney
38. Bea Arthur (Then there's Maude . . .)
39. Jennifer Aniston
40. Sally Field
41. Jon Stewart
42. James Gandolfini (EW called him a family man, yes, but also a cold-blooded killer)
43. Flip Wilson
44. Susan Lucci
45. Sarah Michelle Gellar
46. Lassie
47. Simon Cowell
48. Jimmy Smits
49. Calista Flockhart
50. Larry Hagman