20 Groundbreaking TV Comedies That Redefined The Genre

From The Simpsons to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, there are a handful of classic TV comedies that broke the mold and defined the genre. Dozens of TV comedies come and go every year, but, once in a while, a creator comes along with a vision so original and exciting that it changes the game.

M*A*S*H was the first sitcom to bring in dramatic elements and hit the audience on a deeper level. Friends was the first sitcom to become a Harry Potter-sized mega-I.P. These groundbreaking shows defined TV comedy as we know it.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The Mary Tyler Moore Show brought a “found family” element to the workplace sitcom that TV creators are still trying to replicate to this day. Every wholesome ensemble show about a workplace family, from The Office to Parks and Recreation to Superstore, exists in the shadow of Mary Tyler Moore.

But that’s not the only way The Mary Tyler Moore Show broke the mold. It also carried an empowering feminist message, depicting an unmarried, childless, career-focused woman without judgment, at a crucial point in the women’s liberation movement.

Saturday Night Live

Lorne Michaels created the ultimate training ground for American comedy talent with Saturday Night Live. SNL’s revolving-door ensemble has given us such comedy superstars as Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, and many, many, many more.

Every Saturday, SNL runs an hour-and-a-half of sketches, short films, monologue jokes, celebrity cameos, and currents-affairs commentary, and it’s always a mixed bag. But every now and then, you stumble across a truly iconic sketch, like Matt Foley or “More Cowbell.”

Cheers

A lot of sitcom tropes that are now synonymous with the genre, from the drinking-hole hangout to the will-they-or-won’t-they couple, originated on Cheers. Cheers was the precursor to Friends; it did everything that Friends would do a decade later, but did it even better.

Cheers is the ultimate ensemble comedy, because all the characters are clearly defined. Sitcoms work best when everyone in the room has their own distinctive, hilarious voice. You couldn’t give a John Ratzenberger line to Kelsey Grammer. You couldn’t give a Rhea Perlman line to Shelley Long.

Mr. Bean

Rowan Atkinson proved to be a modern master of physical comedy with his landmark performance as Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean revived the comedy stylings of silent-era stars like Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, and Atkinson is a monumental enough talent to pick up the torch and carry on their legacy.

Mr. Bean is one of the few TV shows with global appeal, because its humor crosses the language barrier. It’s all physical humor, and the stories are told mostly without dialogue; it’s a masterclass in visual storytelling.

All In The Family

During the 1970s, as the United States weathered the effects of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, the country was rife with political divisions. Most mainstream television shied away from addressing divisive political issues, but Norman Lear tackled them head-on in the biggest sitcom of the ‘70s.

Lear’s classic comedy All in the Family puts a bigoted conservative under the same roof as his progressive liberal son-in-law, and forces them to get along. The heated debates between Archie and Meathead are just as relevant today.

Chappelle's Show

Dave Chappelle pioneered a kind of hybrid standup/sketch show that would later be emulated by Key and Peele, Amy Schumer, and Nick Kroll. Chappelle’s Show might be the greatest sketch show of the 21st century, and it’s one of the only sketch shows where the engineered standup bits setting up the sketches are just as funny as the sketches themselves.

From “Mad Real World” to “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories,” Chappelle’s Show had plenty of iconic sketches that hold up to this day. The show’s mix of social satire, cultural comedy, and absurd comic characters (such as a blind Black white supremacist) was unparalleled.

Police Squad!

Before Frank Drebin made the leap to the big screen in The Naked Gun, he had his own criminally short-lived show. Police Squad! is a pitch-perfect parody of old-school detective dramas like Dragnet and M Squad, with Leslie Nielsen playing the comedy as straight as ever.

Police Squad!’s layered visuals, rapid-fire gag rate, and impressive attention to detail may have gotten the show canceled (the network thought it was asking too much of its audience), but it’s gone on to inspire everything from The Simpsons to Brooklyn Nine-Nine. In a just world, we would’ve gotten 100 more episodes of Police Squad!

King Of The Hill

Mike Judge and Greg Daniels gave us a refreshingly naturalistic counterpoint to surreal animated sitcoms like The Simpsons and South Park. King of the Hill might be a cartoon, but it’s about as realistic as a cartoon can get.

Rather than resorting to far-fetched plotlines and absurdist non-sequiturs like Family Guy, King of the Hill focuses on relatable situations and finds its humor in character. The grounded storytelling and wholesome, lighthearted tone of King of the Hill can be seen today in Bob’s Burgers and F is for Family.

I Love Lucy

I Love Lucy practically laid the groundwork for the sitcom as we know it today. Lucille Ball is a once-in-a-generation talent who blazed the trail for women in comedy. Before I Love Lucy came along, women were typically relegated to the thankless role of the “straight man.”

But in I Love Lucy, Lucy is the comic lead getting into wacky shenanigans, and her husband Ricky is the foil trying to keep up. Ball shared spectacular on-screen chemistry with her on- and off-screen husband, Desi Arnaz, making for one of the most captivating double acts in television history.

Frasier

It’s rare that a spinoff from a hit TV show isn’t terrible, and even rarer that it actually surpasses its predecessor. Frasier’s writing is as sharp as Shakespeare, its ensemble cast is perfectly matched and perfectly balanced, and at its core, it’s a touching father-son story.

Frasier is the closest American television has ever gotten to replicating a classic British sitcom like Fawlty Towers or I’m Alan Partridge, where a comically unsympathetic antihero fails so relentlessly and so repeatedly that he becomes a lovable underdog.