The great comedian Mitch Hedberg once had a joke about how, as a comedian, people expected him to do other things, like create a TV show. As he put it, "That's like if I worked hard to become a cook, and I'm a really good cook, they'd say, 'OK, you're a cook. Can you farm?'"
While Hedberg may have been less interested in the sitcom life, plenty of his peers have been, including Jerry Seinfeld, Martin Lawrence, and George Carlin. And while many people remember Seinfeld and Martin, The George Carlin Show, just like so many other shows that starred comedians, has all but been forgotten.
10 The George Carlin Show Made It Two Seasons
Airing on Fox and running for 27 episodes across two seasons, The George Carlin Show starred the famous comedian as a taxi driver named George O'Grady, a New Yorker who spent most of his time at the Moylan Tavern.
Carlin created the series alongside Sam Simon, one of the co-creators of The Simpsons. While the show was well-reviewed, it never found an audience, and in his autobiography, Last Words, Carlin discussed the issues he had working with Simon on the set, going so far as to say that he was happy when the series was canceled so he could stop working with the show's co-creator.
9 Mulaney Was Ahead Of Its Time
Another Fox series, Mulaney, created by comedian John Mulaney, lasted just thirteen episodes and was ripped apart by critics, many of whom called it a copy of Seinfeld. Along with Mulaney, the series starred Martin Short and had guest appearances by Pete Holmes, Julie Klausner, and Nick Kroll, with whom Mulaney co-created the Netflix animated series Big Mouth.
While Mulaney may not have been a hit, John Mulaney has gone on to have an amazingly successful career. Along with Big Mouth, Mulaney's many specials, including Oh, Hello on Broadway with Nick Kroll, John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch, and his stand-up special Kid Gorgeous at Radio City have been massively successful.
8 The Sinbad Show Couldn't Build Off Of Past Success
After the success of playing Coach Walter Oakes on A Different World for four seasons, Sinbad took his star power and made the jump to being the lead of his own show, simply titled The Sinbad Show. Airing for just one season, The Sinbad Show was canceled by Fox in 1994. The show's cancelation, along with the network's decision to cancel Roc, South Central and In Living Color - all shows with predominantly Black casts - at the same time led to some accusations of racism at the network.
7 Whitney Lost The Plot
Not every comedian had a short-lived sitcom on Fox. Whitney, which was created by and starred Whitney Cummings, aired on NBC for two seasons before being canceled. The series was originally based around Cummings' stand-up material, but after poor reviews for the first season, the show was retooled to be more of an ensemble show like Friends. The switch to a Friends style show didn't help, and while Whitney premiered to solid ratings, by the end of the second season the writing was on the wall and NBC canceled the show.
6 Thea Broke Boundaries But Not Ratings
The first sitcom that was built around a Black female comedian, Thea starred Thea Vidale as a who worked at a supermarket during the day and ran her own hair salon from her front porch at night. The series, which also starred a then 15-year-old Brandy who would go on to have a very successful music career, started off strong in the ratings but saw viewership decline over time, leading to ABC's decision to cancel Thea after just nineteen episodes. Vidale went on to play Momma Benjamin, the mother of wrestler Shelton Benjamin on WWE, and to complete in the reality series Last Comic Standing.
5 Damon Starred Two In Living Color Alums
After becoming a standout star of In Living Color during the show's first two seasons, Damon Wayans returned to television in 1998 with a number of films, including The Great White Hype with Samual L. Jackson and Bulletproof with Adam Sandler, under his belt to star in his own sitcom on Fox titled Damon.
The series, which reteamed Damon Wayans with his In Living Color castmate David Alan Grier along with SCTV alum Andrea Martin, aired on Fox in 1998, but was canceled after just 13 episodes.
4 Action Was On The Wrong Network
In the 1980s and 1990s, Fox was known as the "edgy" broadcast network station, thanks in part to shows like Married... With Children and The Simpsons, but in 1999 the station took things to a new level when they aired Action, a sitcom about the behind-the-scenes business of making movies. Along with lots of foul language that had to be bleeped out, the series was filled with dark humor and sex.
Action starred comedian Jay Mohr as a movie producer who finds himself in business with a former child star turned sex worker played by Illeana Douglas. While Action was well-reviewed, it lasted just 13 episodes.
3 No One Was Mad About The Paul Reiser Show
Best known for his sitcom Mad About You which he starred in alongside Helen Hunt, comedian Paul Reiser tried to strike sitcom gold a second time with The Paul Reiser Show. Airing on NBC just a year after Mad About You ended, The Paul Reiser Show saw the comedian play himself as an out-of-work actor looking for the next big thing. Reiser had hoped that the series would air on HBO but it ended up at NBC, where it was canceled after just two episodes aired.
2 All-American Girl Was Picked Apart
The first American sitcom to be based around an Asian-American family, All-American Girl starred Margaret Cho as Margaret Kim, a Korean-American woman living in San Francisco with her family. The majority of the show's comedic conflict came from Cho's Margaret wanting to be more "Americanized" while her family worked to stay true to their Korean heritage.
Cho, who had no creative control over the series, found herself at odds with ABC executives almost from day one, leading to the comedian's hospitalization after she was forced to go on a crash diet. Adding to the show's problems, Cho was the only Korean American in the cast; the rest of her family was played by actors of Chinese or Japanese descent. The series was met with bad reviews and poor ratings, leading to its cancelation after the first season.
1 Charlie Hoover Had Two Comedians But No Audience
A short-lived series that co-starred comedians Sam Kinison and Bill Maher along with actor Tim Matheson, Charlie Hoover focused Matheson, who played Hoover, as a middle-aged man who starts to see a one foot tall Sam Kinison as the personification of his thoughts just after turning 40.
Like so many other shows that starred comedians, Charlie Hoover was canceled by Fox in its first season. A few months after the series' cancelation, Kinison would tragically die from internal injuries after being involved in a car accident.