From The Office To Superstore

The workplace sitcom is one of the most beloved staples of TV comedy. It’s one of the two primary sitcom subgenres. There are family sitcoms like The Simpsons and Married… with Children, which go to a character’s home and meet their biological family, and there are workplace sitcoms, which go to their place of work and meet their work family.

Watching a show like The Office or Parks and Recreation can be a nice escape from the mundanity of our own jobs. No real job is as fun as working at Cloud 9 or Fawlty Towers, but that’s why we love these shows.

10

Superstore

Although it sadly remains an underappreciated gem, Superstore deserves to be in the conversation with the best workplace comedies ever made. The genius of its construction is that it looks and feels like a typical sitcom — bright lighting, archetypal characters, familiar premise, etc. — but the content is anything but.

Superstore has a subversively dark sense of humor (there’s a running joke that severed feet keep popping up around the store) and it touches on serious issues like racism, sexism, and immigration. More than anything, it satirizes American consumerism and capitalism through unionization storylines and throwaway gags about unscrupulous corporate practices.

9

The I.T. Crowd

The I.T. Crowd creates a hilarious juxtaposition in its workplace setting. The titular I.T. department are stuffed into a dank, decrepit basement, but the office complex upstairs is lavish and well-lit, with a modern sheen. The series has a ton of fun with that contrast, treating the I.T. guys as hideous trolls being hidden away underground.

Roy, Moss, and Jen have a perfect sitcom dynamic — Moss is the socially awkward geek, Jen is the straight foil who acts as the voice of reason, and Roy is pitched somewhere in the middle — and the writing is razor-sharp. Like Seinfeld, The I.T. Crowd’s only goal is to make you laugh, and it does so with its twisty, ironic storytelling as much as its one-liners.

8

Taxi

A lot of the now-familiar tropes of the workplace comedy were pioneered by Taxi. This sitcom set in a New York City taxi dispatch garage revolves around an ensemble of wacky, colorful characters — including Danny DeVito as a shameless sleazeball and Andy Kaufman doing his famous “Foreign Man” character — who all get involved in each other’s personal lives.

Taxi is a sharply written sitcom, with hilarious characterization, astute observational humor, and delightfully absurd situations. But it also has an underlying sweetness. It captures the comedic flaws of its characters, but it also captures the tragic elements that make them endearing and human. A lot of great sitcoms are standing on the shoulders of Taxi.

7

Parks & Recreation

Parks and Recreation is one of the ultimate feel-good shows. The Parks Department is no ordinary TV workplace; it’s a bastion of public service. It’s inspiring to watch Leslie Knope at work, because she’s one of the precious few people who have selflessly dedicated their lives to making the world a better place.

The cast of Parks and Rec is a rare sitcom ensemble without an ounce of dead weight. Amy Poehler anchors the show as Leslie, but Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Aziz Ansari, Adam Scott, and Chris Pratt all play star-making supporting roles. Parks and Rec is a really funny show, but it’s also uplifting and optimistic and beautiful.

6

The Larry Sanders Show

When a lot of his contemporaries were taking jobs as late-night talk show hosts, Garry Shandling instead made a meta sitcom about a version of himself who would take that job. In its peek behind the curtain at the late-night circus, The Larry Sanders Show hilariously contrasts Larry’s affable on-air persona with the neurotic wreck he is off the air.

The Larry Sanders Show’s satire of the TV industry went on to influence everything from 30 Rock to Curb Your Enthusiasm. But it also functions as one of the all-time greatest workplace comedies. From Larry’s hot-tempered producer Artie to his sardonic talent booker Paula, everyone in this ensemble brings something unique to the table.

5

Fawlty Towers

After mastering the art of sketch comedy as a member of Monty Python, John Cleese mastered the art of the sitcom with Fawlty Towers. Basil Fawlty became the template for every British comedy icon from David Brent to Alan Partridge, and Sybil, Polly, and Manuel each provided a hilarious comic foil for Basil in their own way.

The hotel setting allowed for a revolving door of eccentric guests to rub Basil the wrong way, from an arrogant American tourist to a free-spirited wedding party. Every episode of Fawlty Towers is a masterfully crafted farce full of funny twists and turns, all building to a brilliantly ironic payoff — it’s sitcom writing at its absolute best.

4

The Office (U.S.)

American remakes of British sitcoms usually pale in comparison to their predecessors; it’s rare that they actually succeed, and even rarer that they join the original as an all-time classic. The U.S. version of The Office pulls off the original show’s perfect balance of grounded, relatable mundanity, excruciating cringe humor, and an endearing underlying sentimentality.

Michael Scott is every bit as inept and lacking in self-awareness as David Brent, but Steve Carell played the character with an innate warmth that made him a lovable underdog. Jim and Pam are the ultimate “will they or won’t they?” couple, Dwight Schrute is hilariously unpredictable, and everyone else in the ensemble is just as wonderfully wacky.

3

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

The trope that makes the workplace sitcom so endearing is the workplace family. The employees at Dunder Mifflin or the Pawnee Parks Department or the Ozark Highlands Cloud 9 aren’t just a bunch of co-workers who clock in and do their work in the same vicinity; they’re a found family who love each other.

This trope was originally pioneered by The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Since Mary Richards was more focused on her career than her personal life, her colleagues at the TV station WJM became her family. The Mary Tyler Moore Show’s depiction of a single, career-driven woman was subversively feminist and empowering for its time, and that messaging still holds up today.

2

The Office (UK)

The American remake of The Office is just as funny as the British original, but it’s much broader and zanier and more cartoonish. What made the British show special was that it accurately reflected what it’s like to work in an office. It captured the fluorescent-lit mundanity so effectively that it allowed the fleeting moments of beauty to shine through.

Ricky Gervais gives a powerhouse performance as David Brent; it’s a masterclass in cringe comedy, but he also brings a real humanity that makes David a quintessential tragic figure. The rest of the cast are just as great; the fly-on-the-wall mockumentary format works so well because the characters all feel like real people, and Wernham Hogg feels like a real workplace.

1

Cheers

Cheers is the ultimate workplace comedy. Most of the other shows on this list, from The Office to Parks and Recreation, owe a debt to Cheers. This tale of the staff and regulars of a Boston dive bar originated a bunch of classic tropes, namely the “will they or won’t they?” couple (Sam and Diane were the original Ross and Rachel).

With a sharply characterized ensemble and a perfect balance of biting humor and inherent sweetness, Cheers is the epitome of the sitcom — and it still holds up today. It’s not a case where Cheers walked so The Office could run; Cheers ran, too.