Daily Dirt: Archie and Edith best TV couple ever … but Rip and Beth could be closing the gap

It was a tough call, but I went with Archie and Edith as the No. 1 TV couple of all time. What do you think about the first of today’s three thoughts in Vol. 129 of the Daily Dirt?

1. Be it a husband and wife, or even boyfriend and girlfriend, I think we have all had our favorite TV “couples”. Here’s my top five from the past 50 years or so:

1. Archie and Edith Bunker, “All in the Family”: There will never be another match like this. Archie, the “lovable bigot” who, the older he got, had more trouble adapting to the changing world around him, and Edith, who simply had trouble adapting — but had a heart of gold.

2. Sam Malone and Diane Chambers, “Cheers”: Week after week we watched, week after week we rooted for them as a couple … but, alas, there was always some sort of bump in the road for Ted Danson and Shelley Long. Dammit.

3.Roseanne and Dan Conner, “Roseanne”: This was the couple much of America adopted. Roseanne Barr and John Goodman represented the struggling middle class husband and wife living paycheck to paycheck, with all sorts of “real-life” storylines in between. And most of them hilarious.

4. Rip Wheeler and Beth Dutton, “Yellowstone”: Cole Hauser and Kelly Reilly have only been around for 3-plus seasons, but they are dynamite. Both like to kick ass and take names later. Individually and collectively, this power couple is the driving force behind “Yellowstone’s” burgeoning popularity.

5. Kevin and Winnie, “The Wonder Years”: We watched them grow, mature and figured they would be together always … but, “Things never turn out exactly the way you plan them,” Kevin said in the series finale. Fred Savage and Danica McKellar were perfectly cast for this show.

2. Count this as a special edition of “Found on Facebook,” and it is not to intended to be funny. It is intended to make you take a deep breath and reflect.

Recently, I came across the following and simply sat and stared at the screen on my cell phone.The post read: “Arlington National Cemetery contains over 400,000 reasons why you stand for the national anthem.” From this day forward, I will always think about those words when at an athletic contest or some kind of event when the crowd is asked to stand for the “Star-Spangled Banner”. There is no reason not to stand. Absolutely none.

3. The top 10 most popular movie stars of all-time, according to box-office receipts.

Rankings are based on the money generated by the movies they were featured in, according to the-numbers.com:   

• 1. Robert Downey Jr. (43 films), $14.39 billion.
• 2. Samuel L. Jackson (63), $14.34 billion.
• 3. Scarlett Johansson (31), $14.11 billion.
• 4. Chris Hemsworth (25), $11.20 billion.
• 5. Chris Evans (27), $11.06 billion.
• 6. Zoe Saldana (28), $10.97 billion.
• 7. Chris Pratt (29) $10.74 billion.
• 8. Tom Hanks (53) $10.69 billion.
• 9. Vin Diesel (26), $10.54 billion.
• 10. Bradley Cooper (27), $10.40 billion.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. He is Archie Bunker.