25. Full House
Darcy/MovieStillsDBYes, Full House technically premiered in 1987. However, the show ran for eight seasons through 1995. It was an anchor show for ABC in the early ’90s — so we’ll count it as a ’90s show.
First things first, this show is incredibly schmaltzy and saccharine. When the world’s greatest dad Danny Tanner (played by the late Bob Saget) takes a knee to throw an elbow around one of his daughters and dispenses a life lesson while sappy music plays, it’s enough to make anyone’s eyes roll out of their head.
Yet, inexplicably, Full House is incredibly watchable. Dave Coulier’s dumb jokes work despite their dumbness. John Stamos is impossibly charming. Those Olsen Twins are just adorable. Even annoying neighbor Kimmy Gibbler (played by Andrea Barber) eventually wins you over.
Resist as you might, Full House will wear you down with its endearing wholesomeness.
24. Family Matters
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Did you know Family Matters was a spin-off of Perfect Strangers? Harriet Winslow, played by Jo Marie Payton, first appeared on that show. Producers decided to pair her with Reginald VelJohnson from Die Hard to create Family Matters. The two would be the leads of yet another boilerplate wholesome family sitcom. It likely would have been yet another forgettable TGIF show like Going Places or Baby Talk if something strange hadn’t happened halfway through the first season.
Enter Steve Urkel, played by Jaleel White. No one knows how or why it happened, but audiences loved Urkel. He completely took over the show.
While disappointing for Payton who saw her role diminish over time, it kept the show on the air for nine seasons. In that time the show would jump multiple sharks, getting increasingly more ridiculous. Yet, it remained the anchor for ABC’s TGIF lineup for more than half a decade.
23. Home Improvement
Darcy/MovieStillsDBCould you put together a list of the best ’90s sitcoms without including Home Improvement? I don’t think so, Tim.
Home Improvement was never a critical darling, nor did it win any Emmys in its eight seasons on ABC. Despite that, it was a major hit that established Tim Allen as a household name. For a time, it made him arguably the most famous comedian in America.
Home Improvement also launched the careers of both Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Pamela Anderson, much to the delight of ’90s tween girls and teen boys, respectively.
While the show was anchored by the Taylor family, Tim’s work life as the host of the silly show within the show “Tool Time” helped distinguish Home Improvement from other “learn a lesson and get a hug” shows that you might have found on TGIF
22. Ellen
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Ellen ran for five seasons and 109 episodes. The show was a big step forward in normalizing gay representation on television, but it downplays the fact that Ellen was also just a very good traditional sitcom. Originally called These Friends of Mine, the show followed Ellen Morgan through her life as she navigated her work and relationships.
Despite how she might be viewed today, this show’s version of Ellen DeGeneres is charming and likable. As such, she brought a unique energy to ABC primetime. They weren’t reinventing the wheel with this show, but it was a very, very solid ’90s sitcom
21. Married…With Children
MoviePics1001/MovieStillsDBMarried…With Children is Fox’s longest-running sitcom ever. It was the first program the network aired when it had its “grand opening” launch day on a Sunday in 1987. While it took a few years to catch on, Married…With Children’s brand of raunchy, irreverent comedy was totally unique among network sitcoms in the ’90s. It eventually found a loyal audience.
The show flipped the traditional family sitcom on its head. The father, Al Bundy, showed open contempt for his wife, kids, and job. The mother, Peg, was an awful homemaker who was more interested in shopping than supporting her family. Their miserable children seemed unable or unwilling to learn any lessons from their mistakes. The show wasn’t for everyone and likely hasn’t aged well, but it was right at home in the ’90s.
20. Daria
movienutt/MovieStillsDBOur first animated show on the list. This piggybacked off of the success of The Simpsons. Additionally, several primetime cartoon sitcoms for older audiences began popping up on television in the mid to late ’90s. Daria, a sitcom spin-off of Beavis and Butt-head, was part of MTVs move away from pure music video television and toward becoming a more traditional network that served a younger, Gen-X audience.
The show was smartly written and very much of its time, with main character Daria Morgendorffer’s aggressive cynicism comically clashing with the banalities of suburban life. Sure, this is still a high school sitcom, but it was able to authentically speak to the lives of its audience in a way that few shows could in the ’90s.
19. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
MoviePics1001/MovieStillsDBThis NBC sitcom ran for six seasons from 1990 to 1996, though it really achieved iconic status after the fact through a combination of becoming wildly popular in syndication and because Will Smith became one of the biggest crossover media stars on the planet.
The show is your standard “have a hug and learn a lesson” family show, though it did also explore themes of class and race in addition to having some real emotionally devastating and thought-provoking “very special” episodes. The Fresh Prince might be cut from the same cloth as some TGIF-style sitcoms, but none of those can measure up.
Also, this has a top 5 sitcom theme of all time. No question.
18. Murphy Brown
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The biggest problem with revisiting Murphy Brown today is that so many of its references are incredibly dated. A show that prided itself on being current can now often be hard to follow for anyone who isn’t up to speed on the news and politics of the early-to-mid ’90s.
The original series ran for ten seasons, from 1988 to 1997 — and charted the trials and tribulations of both the home and work life of the eponymous TV news anchor. The show would change over time, particularly when the original showrunner, Diane English, departed after season 4. Still, despite changes in the writing staff or cast, Candace Bergen held the show together with her strong performance.
17. Wings
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Set in the same universe as Cheers and Frasier, Wings is a sleepy but entertaining sitcom set at a fictional airport on the island of Nantucket. We follow the exploits of Sandpiper Airline owners Joe and Brian Hackett as well as the employees of the airport and the other airline they compete with. Nothing special, but the performances are strong and the characters are likable.
Wings also happens to have one of the strangest pilot episodes of all time. In it, we meet older brother Joe as he learns that his late father has organized a scavenger hunt for himself and his estranged younger brother Brian to find a lost suitcase. It’s so unlike every episode of the show that followed it is a wonder the show was picked up for a series.
16. Living Single
deleted-20240201/MovieStillsDBA funny, relatable show about six attractive twenty-somethings trying to make a life for themselves in New York. No, we’re not talking about Friends — we’re talking about Living Single.
Created by Yvette Lee Bowser, Living Single actually premiered the year before Friends in 1993 on Fox. We don’t need to get into whether Friends was coincidentally similar to or straight-up copied from Bowser’s premise, but it is a shame that the shows were ultimately made to compete against each other in the same time slot.
Living Single was an important, early show that featured young, black professionals from a black creator who showed the lives of these characters authentically and without stereotype.
15. Sports Night
CaptainOT/MovieStillsDBOh, Sports Night, we hardly knew you.
Aaron Sorkin’s first foray into network television unfortunately only lasted two seasons on ABC before being canceled. It, like other prematurely canceled shows such as Arrested Development or Better Off Ted, was simply too ahead of its time to catch on with contemporary audiences.
Set in a fictionalized version of ESPN’s SportsCenter, the dialogue was too smart, too fast. The camera was much more frantic than other ’90s sitcom fare. By season two, the show had famously abandoned its laugh track entirely.
The one saving grace of Sports Night’s brief existence was that it allowed Sorkin to work out his formula for drama and comedy. He eventually would use what he learned much more successfully in his next project, The West Wing. Regardless, Sports Night stands on its own as an incredibly well-written and produced sitcom and one of the best of the ’90s.
14. Spin City
diannecan/MovieStillsDBLet’s set this entry with the caveat that we are giving flowers specifically to the first four seasons that featured beloved film and television actor Michael J Fox — and not the final couple of seasons where he was replaced by Charlie Sheen.
Set in the New York City mayor’s office, Spin City smartly decides to be a show about the lives of people who work in politics and not a show about politics. The cast is a murderer’s row of underrated comedic actors: Alan Ruck, Richard Kind, Barry Bostwick, Connie Britton, Jennifer Esposito, Michael Boatman, and of course, Michael J Fox.
Creator Bill Lawrence would go on to make a couple of superior shows, but Spin City should not be overlooked.
13. The Drew Carey Show
CaptainOT/MovieStillsDBCredit to The Drew Carey Show for never being afraid to get weird with it. Outside of the fact that the regular episodes would occasionally veer into the surreal, the show also featured live episodes, improv episodes, “very special” episodes, and even episodes designed entirely around blooper-spotting contests for viewers at home.
On paper, the show is fairly conventional. A Cleveland guy works at an office, hangs with friends at a local watering hole, and runs a small business out of a home garage…but in practice, this is an outside-the-box sitcom that wasn’t afraid to shake everything up once in a while. The last couple of seasons in particular do some pretty aggressive zigging and zagging plot-wise. It doesn’t all work (in fact most of it doesn’t) but it’s certainly interesting.
12. 3rd Rock From The Sun
MoviePics1001/MovieStillsDBIn a decade dominated by sitcoms with very simple, grounded premises, 3rd Rock From the Sun stands out with its Conehead-inspired story of aliens disguised as humans visiting Earth.
What works here is that everyone involved is acutely aware of how dumb this all is. John Lithgow and Kristen Johnson are always operating at eleven. French Stewart is somewhere off the scale in the high teens or low twenties. But they are all committing so hard to the ridiculous concept that it’s a joy to watch. There are few shows where you can see how much fun everyone is having at all times.
Even Jane Curtain, playing the straight woman opposite Lithgow, appears to be having the time of her life. This isn’t Shakespeare, but most episodes are 22 minutes well spent.
11. Everybody Loves Raymond
Carlito/MovieStillsDBSure, everybody might love Raymond, but the real reason to watch this classic sitcom is the supporting characters. Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle are perfectly cast here as Raymond’s overbearing and often unwelcome neighbors slash parents. They lovingly terrorize the Barone family with their constant pop-ins and meddling, particularly Raymond’s wife Debra played by the incredible Patricia Heaton. Wildcard Brad Garrett rounds things out as Raymond’s older brother — a character that quickly became the series’ scene stealer.
Really, the strength of Everybody Loves Raymond illustrates a throwback family sitcom that didn’t take any shortcuts. The chemistry among the cast was so strong that episodes felt like real people dealing with real situations. Very funny people, but real people nonetheless
10. Martin
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Despite the show ultimately coming to a disappointing end during its fifth season — marred in controversy between its two biggest stars — nothing should be taken away from the incredible first four seasons of television that audiences got from Martin
Airing on Fox from 1992 to 1997, Martin was one of the young network’s biggest hits. Based on star Martin Lawrence’s standup comedy, the show followed the eponymous main character’s relationship with his girlfriend Gina and his job as a radio DJ in Detroit. The show was fresh, and edgy, and spoke to its audience in a way that few shows had to that point. Unsurprisingly, the show continues to grow a following more than 30 years later on syndication.
9. King of the Hill
Ray Mickshaw/WireImageThere’s something quintessentially ’90s about King of the Hill even as the series continued to air deep into the 2000s. The Fox animated sitcom, created by comedy titans Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, was a modest hit for the network — yet highly praised by critics for its simple but honest slice-of-life approach. More grounded than something like the Simpsons or Family Guy, King of the Hill still used broad caricatures to explore the mundanity and quirkiness of small-town America.
The difference, though, is that over time those broad caricatures were allowed to grow into real people with depth and layers. It was a show that rarely felt like it was punching down at the types of people it was portraying.
8. Mad About You
MoviePics1001/MovieStillsDBArguably the most believable couple in the history of television. Even when they squabble, argue, or get into a full-on fight, the authenticity of the relationship can never be called into question. Mad About You is a surprisingly intimate show at times. Not in a way where we’re explicitly invited into the bedroom (although we occasionally are), but that the show often feels like we are a fly on the wall seeing something that we shouldn’t.
Perhaps it’s the small details that create this sense of actually knowing Paul and Jamie. For example, Paul never wears shoes when he’s in his home. A silly thing to point out, but when was the last time you saw a character barefoot in their own home on a sitcom? And yet, when was the last time you casually walked around your house in your shoes?
The recent remake couldn’t live up to the original run of Mad About You. The chemistry was still there between Reiser and Helen Hunt, but too much had changed. It was missing something that had been lost in the preceding twenty years.
7. Roseanne
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Created by Matt Williams and Roseanne Barr, Roseanne stood out as a series in the ’90s because of its honest portrayal of the working-class family. Viewers could see their struggles comedically played out on their television screens as the Conner Family made it through their day-to-day on a limited income without a lot of the whitewashing that was common in other family sitcoms of the day.
Also more importantly — this family liked you. Roseanne and Dan Conner and most of the rest of the clan weren’t the typical type of actors you’d see as leads in a sitcom. It was not only honest to the premise of the show but refreshing to audiences who didn’t have to suspend disbelief that these working parents also happened to look like Hollywood actors.
6. Friends
willka/MovieStillsDBPeople have been clamoring for years for a Friends reunion. The logistics of getting six multimillionaires to agree on a contract, schedule, and script notwithstanding, I don’t think a reunion could ever be truly satisfying. Just look at the final couple of seasons of Friends’ original run. By that point, the premise of the original show that is promised in the opening theme song had already broken.
Friends was at its best when the show was about the lives of a group of young New Yorkers, struggling to make it in the big city. Each with his or her hopes and dreams (and whatever Chandler was doing). The first six or so seasons of Friends are some of the best episodes of hangout television of all time.
5. NewsRadio
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Arguably the most underrated sitcom of the 1990s. NewsRadio premiered in 1994, but after a truncated first season, it was seemingly set up to fail by NBC. The show consistently struggled to grow its audience because it was aired in 11 different time slots during its five-season run.
It’s a shame too, because those who managed to find NewsRadio were treated to an odd, irreverent workplace comedy with fantastic writing and some of the best characters in any sitcom from the decade. From episode on, creator Paul Simms and his ensemble cast are all performing as fully-formed characters as if the show had been humming along for three or four seasons
4. The Larry Sanders Show
Riccardo Savi/Getty ImagesYou’d be within your rights if you wanted to argue that The Larry Sanders Show should be on the top of this list. The only thing that holds it back behind the last few entries here is that it just had such a small, niche audience. HBO in the ’90s just didn’t have the cultural reach that it does now.
That being said, The Larry Sanders Show is a triumph. A brilliant satire of Hollywood and late-night talk shows in particular. Garry Shandling’s Larry Sanders is a perfect avatar for the late-night talk show host: vain, insecure, cowardly, proud, and in desperate need of attention.
The cameos are a delight. It’s always fun seeing big names playing twisted versions of themselves, especially when it highlights their front and backstage personas. Like many of the shows on this list, TLSS was criminally under-watched and everyone should go out of their way to see it.
3. Frasier
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Frasier is an anomaly. How was a show that was a comedy about the love lives of two rich snobs a hit with both critics and a general audience?
The show ran from 1993 to 2004 on NBC. When Frasier finally wrapped up after 11 seasons, Kelsey Grammer put to bed a character that he’d been playing (including his time on Cheers) for twenty years. The show won a record 37 Emmy awards, including a wild run of five consecutive wins for Best Comedy Series. At its peak, it was the third-highest-rated show on television.
What is always most impressive about Frasier, outside of the brilliant performances, is how disciplined the writing is. They seem to be trying to use as little as possible to tell the maximum story in 22 minutes. Not a lot of characters, not a lot of scene changes, not many locations. It’s almost as enjoyable on a technical level as it is to just watch it and have a laugh.
2. Seinfeld
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The show is about nothing. Only, that isn’t right at all, because Seinfeld was very much about something. It was a show about how a comedian gets their material. Jerry Seinfeld’s closing and opening monologues weren’t always directly tied to the events of the episode, but they were always influenced by them.
Seinfeld was a breath of fresh air in the ’90s. Jerry and co-creator Larry David’s mantra of “no hugging, no learning” was at the core of everything. You couldn’t say that any of the main cast of four were particularly bad people, but they certainly weren’t going to learn any lessons as they suffered through their misadventures. The way the writers took this idea of the static, never-changing sitcom character and deconstructed that so cynically was brilliant. There hadn’t been anything else like it on television before.
1. The Simpsons
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Like an earlier entry on this list, Married…With Children, The Simpsons is an early Fox offering. At its core, the show is a deconstruction and satire of the classic American family sitcom. The Simpsons has become much more than that now — an institution more than a television show. During its prime run in the ’90s, there was nothing on television as consistently funny, creative, or irreverent. Of course, the core Simpsons family members are all iconic, but no show before or since has ever managed to build out an entire world of rich side characters and locations the way that The Simpsons has. Springfield, the fictional town in the state of ______, is as fully realized as any world ever created in fiction.
We don’t need to debate when The Simpsons “got bad” or if it ever had a drop in quality at all (at this point that mostly depends on when you started watching the show). However, it’s impossible to argue that it wasn’t at its peak — in both quality and cultural impact — during the ’90s.
