Sitcoms have been a staple of television since commercial television began in the '40s. And just as long as people have been watching them, there've been sitcoms that only got going because a celebrity was involved.  Since the celebrity already comes with a built-in level of popularity, there's already a fanbase available to tap into, which will hopefully grow into an audience that can keep the show running for years.

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Since one of the key parts of a sitcom is being funny, generally the celebrity in question is a comedian. Since the show is a vehicle for the main star, it's often named after them or the main character has the same name as the celeb in question. While this concept might seem self-serving, these sitcoms are among the best in TV history.

10 Dick Van Dyke Show Was Set Around A Comedy Writer

Dick van Dyke talking in the Dick van Dyke show

The Dick Van Dyke Show was a sitcom that ran from 1961 to 1966 and was a vehicle for comedian/actor Dick Van Dyke. The main character, Rob Petrie, was based on the series creator and writer Carl Reiner, who’d been the head writer for a comedy show. Carl would instead play Rob Petrie’s boss on the show, Alan Brady. The Dick Van Dyke Show was known for being one of the earliest sitcoms that portrayed both the workplace life and the lead character’s family life. Effectively, the show had two casts, allowing both Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, who played his wife Laura Petrie, to have their moments and lives.

9 Everybody Hates Chris Was Based Chris Rock's Childhood

Everybody Hates Chris

In 2005, UPN aired the first episode of Everybody Hates Chris, easily one of the best sitcoms of the 2000s. The series was based on the life of comedian Chris Rock, focusing on when he was a kid in junior high and high school. This meant the show was a period piece, taking place in the ’80s as Rock was growing up. The series offered a hilarious look at Chris trying to make it in his own neighborhood without causing trouble for himself, being one of the few Black kids at his school, and trying to avoid raising the ire of his parents. He usually failed at one of the three. The series came to what felt like a quick ending in 2009, but according to Rock, it lined up with him leaving school in real life to follow his dream of being a comedian.

8 Mary Tyler Moore Show Was A Progressive Sitcom About A Single Working Woman

Mary Tyler Moore On The Mary Tyler Moore Show Laughing

Almost a decade after the Dick Van Dyke Show made Mary Tyler Moore into a household name, she was given her own show on CBS. The Mary Tyler Moore Show featured Mary Richards, a young woman trying to make her own way in Minneapolis. What made the MTM Show so revolutionary for its time is Mary Richards was a young woman without a husband who managed to get a job in a male-dominated industry.

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The series showed Mary Tyler Moore’s incredible comedic timing, which she’d picked up from her time working with Van Dyke. It featured an incredible cast of comedic actors at her job and in her apartment building and felt like a progressive spiritual successor to the Dick Van Dyke Show.

7 Jamie Foxx Show Was A Vehicle For Superstar Actor/Singer Jamie Foxx

The main cast of the Jamie Foxx Show

In the ’90s, successful Black sitcoms were everywhere, and they often helped establish young networks like The WB and The Fox Network. The Jamie Foxx Show focused on comedian and actor Jamie Foxx, who played Jamie King. As King, he leaves his home in Texas to come to Los Angeles, working at his aunt and uncle’s hotel while trying to make it as an entertainer. Few shows were anything like the Jamie Foxx Show in the ’90s, and thanks to Jamie Foxx’s own talent as a musician could include music artists and musical performances whenever it wanted, featuring stars like K-Ci and JoJo and Mary J. Blige.

6 The Bob Newhart Show Was A Workplace Sitcom Where The Comedian Played The Straight Man

Bob Newhart Show cast, smiling

Comedian Bob Newhart got his own show on CBS in 1972 that turned him into Bob Hartley, a psychologist working in Chicago. Despite being the comedian, Newhart actually played the role of the straight man most of the time. The series followed his life dealing with his strange co-workers and neighbors, with the occasional patient making an appearance. Bob Newhart would go on to do another series in the ’80s known as Newhart, which has one of the most memorable endings to a sitcom ever, tying into this series in a way that was revolutionary at the time.

5 Curb Your Enthusiasm Is One Of HBO's Longest-Running Series

Cheryl and Larry sitting in chairs in Curb Your Enthusiasm

For HBO to get into the sitcom game, it has to be for a great reason. And getting the co-creator of Seinfeld to do a sitcom based on a fictionalized version of his own life is apparently exactly the incentive they needed. Larry David literally plays a more over-the-top version of himself, and much like Seinfeld, it’s effectively just his everyday life in Los Angeles. He’s semi-retired after having written Seinfeld--which is probably what anyone would do after co-creating the most successful sitcom of the '90s—and he finds himself constantly annoying everyone around him because of his self-centered behavior. Curb Your Enthusiasm might be one of the longest-running sitcoms ever, as the series has been going since 2000 and is still running, with its eleventh season airing in 2021.

4 Sanford and Son Was A Remake Of A Hit British Sitcom

Sanford and Son

Comedian Redd Foxx got a chance to have a television series of his own with Sanford and Son, another Norman Lear show that was based on a British comedy series. Sanford and Son followed Fred Sanford, a junk dealer living in Watts with his son Lamont. Rather than focus on the pair’s struggles in the ’70s as African-Americans, the series usually focused on their daily lives and could be about anything from both of the two trying to get married to them trying to get rich off of Foxx's latest scheme. The series was a smash hit that consistently ranked in the top ten for most of its six-season run.

3 Martin Was One Of Fox's Biggest Hits

Martin TV Show

Fox relied on several Black sitcoms to help grow their audience during the early ’90s, and Martin was the crown jewel of their line-up. Comedian Martin Lawrence’s television series saw him playing Martin Payne, who starts out as a DJ for a radio station, then eventually gets his own television show called Word on the Street.

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Martin’s abrasive nature gets him into trouble with everyone from his friends to his girlfriend to the show’s hilarious carousel of guest characters , often played by Lawrence himself. Martin also meets several major musicians of the era thanks to his job as a DJ, adding a bit more star power to the show. While Martin could never be accused of being “high-brow,” it instead has some of the best laugh-out-loud moments not just of the nineties, but in all of sitcom history.

2 The Mindy Project Helped Cement Mindy Kaling's Place In Hollywood

Dr. Mind Lahiri in her coat in The Mindy Project.

Mindy Kaling was a breakout star on The Office, which led to her eventually getting her own show, The Mindy Project. The series started its run on Fox in 2012, but finished its run on Hulu, a sign of how much the times had changed even while it was on television. In the series, Mindy plays Mindy Lahiri, an OB-GYN that, like most workplace sitcoms, is surrounded by eccentric and strange characters she has to play straight man for. Not only creating, but writing and starring in the show, Mindy Kaling proved herself a creative force in the TV world with this successful and hilarious series.

1 Seinfeld Is About Nothing, But Still One Of The Greatest Sitcoms Ever

Seinfeld the contest

NBC hit it big when they approached comedian Jerry Seinfeld and asked him to come up with a show for them. Along with Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David, Seinfeld created a series that was effectively “about nothing.” It was essentially about Jerry Seinfeld’s life as a stand-up comedian, but instead of just being about him “trying to make it,” it was just about his daily life. It featured Jerry’s ex-girlfriend Elaine, his eccentric neighbor Kramer, and his best friend George, but it’s never about them “doing” anything other than living life. Effectively, it was his observational stand-up turned into a thirty-minute sitcom, and it was popular enough to run for nearly an entire decade.

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