Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy

The Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy is an accolade presented annually to honor the best musical or comedy television series. It is given during the Golden Globe Awards ceremony conducted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), an association that is formed of journalists and photographers covering the American entertainment industry for publications mainly in non-US media markets. The award marks as a symbol of honor for the winning series recognizing and setting it apart as the most entertaining and remarkable series in the musical or comedy genre for that year.

The HFPA started honoring outstanding television works from the 13th Golden Globe Awards held in February 1956 and first presented this category as the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series on March 5, 1962, during the 19th Golden Globe Awards. The then ABC aired television sitcom My Three Sons won the award that year tied with the CBS aired panel game show What's My Line? The following year the then CBS aired television sitcom Mister Ed won the Best TV Show Comedy award while the NBC aired television anthology series The Dick Powell Show won the Best Television Program award. Name of winners were only announced in 1962 and 1963 while starting from 1964 names of nominees are also announced. In 1964 the genres of drama, comedy and variety were considered separately for awards presentation while in the next five years the genres were grouped in a single category. From the 27^th Golden Globe Awards held in 1970, the HFPA started recognizing the Drama and Musical or Comedy genres separately and began presenting the awards in the Best Musical/Comedy Series and Best Drama Series categories. The Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy award was won by CBS aired popular variety/sketch comedy television show The Carol Burnett Show that year. The show bagged its second award in the category consecutively. It also holds the record of earning most nominations in the category with ten, tying with the NBC sitcom series Cheers which won the award once in 1991.

During the 37th Golden Globe Awards held in 1980, two television sitcoms namely CBS’ Alice and ABC’s Taxi won the award in a tie. The CBS aired popular television sitcom All in the Family, holds the record of winning most awards in the category with 4, of which 3 were won successively in 1972, 1973 and 1974 while the fourth came in 1978. It is followed by The Golden Girls, Taxi and Sex and the City with 3 wins each; and The Carol Burnett Show, Ally McBeal, Desperate Housewives, Barney Miller, Fame and Glee with two awards each. NBC tops the chart as the network that bagged most awards in this category with 17, followed by CBS with 13 awards, ABC with 11 awards and HBO with 6 awards among others.

List of Winners - Golden Globes Awards Best Television Series Musical or Comedy