Settling in with your family around the tube and watching art imitating life has been a favored pass time fore more than fifty years. Even in instances where the families are unconventional, there is nothing more soothing than knowing that even the families out in TV Land face the same types of issues that occur in every day life.

There have literally been hundreds of family shows throughout the years, and many of them have left a lasting impression on their generation. Some of the most popular and memorable shows of all time seem to take an unconventional approach to family.

The #5 top family show of all time, Leave it to Beaver, catered to long-forgotten days when Mom spent her days at home baking apple pies and preparing dinners for Dad’s business clients.

One of the earlier televisions sitcoms to center around the family, Leave it to Beaver originally aired on the CBS network in 1957, and focused on the every day life of the Cleavers and their two sons, Wally and Beaver.

Fresh off the back of conventional family, the #4 family show of all time is Bewitched! Featuring a rather eccentric married couple who try desperately to blend in with normal society, hijinks ensue when husband Darrin Stephens attempts to prohibit his wife Samantha from practicing witchcraft. Over the course of the series, Darrin’s plight is continually foiled, especially when the couples’ two children, Tabitha and Adam, are born with uncontrollable and underdeveloped magical powers. The series aired on the ABC network in 1964 and ran for eight consecutive years.

In 1974, the #3 family show of all time debuted on ABC. Happy Days featured Howard and Muriel Cunningham and their two teenage children, Richie and Joanie. A father-knows-best family in 1950s suburbia, the series focused heavily on teenage life and culture during the ‘50s. A family favorite, it was responsible for several spinoff series, like Laverne and Shirley and Joanie Loves Chachi.

In 1969, The Brady Bunch kicked off on ABC, and is easily the #2 top family show of all time. The series revolved around newly re-married couple, Mike and Carol Brady, each of whom brought three children from their previous marriages into their new family. With divorce rates and broken families on the rise, the Bradys were an experiment in the reconstruction of the family unit. With help from the family’s maid, Alice, the six children bonded with their new parents and siblings, while the parents did everything in their power to provide a stable home environment.

As the family unit evolved over the decades, and television turned toward even more real life issues like adoption, shows like Different Strokes, Webster and Punky Brewster experimented even further with the rigid definition of family. During the late 1980s, however, ABC took the confines of family to a place many viewers took to heart: the lower middle-class.

The #1 family television series of all time, Rosanne, began airing on ABC in 1989. Featuring a lower middle-class family from the Midwestern United States, Dan and Rosanne Connor struggle to raise their three children, Becky, Darlene and DJ against the restrictions of their social class and tight economic times. During its nine seasons, Rosanne explored hardcore issues like teen sexuality, financial hardship, the rigid confines of social class, entrepreneurship, divorce, death, friendship and even winning the lottery. The series tackled serious family issues that many sitcoms barely skirted in the past, bringing the evolution of the TV family full circle. Still relative to many of today’s families, the Journal Sentinel Online recently announced that Rosanne would moving into primetime on TV Land.