Shows Celebrating Their 25th Anniversary in 2025

A quarter century ago, the world had survived the Y2K scare and found itself preoccupied with the arrival of a little thing called the 21st century. The year 2000 brought about a whole new era of inventiveness and possibility that we are still getting the hang of. But with everything going on, it didn't skimp on the television.

That year brought about the reality competition series genre that has dominated airwaves ever since. It debuted groundbreaking new animated series and opened the door to new shades of representation that had not often permeated the television landscape. It also welcomed the world into the small town of Stars Hollow, Conn., and began raising the next generation of crime-solving forensic scientists.

As we reflect on the first quarter century of this new millennium, let's look at the TV series celebrating their 25th anniversaries in 2025.

A longstanding integral part of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup, this series follows the anthropomorphic fast food characters named Master Shake, Meatwad, and Frylock as they live together as roommates next door to a human neighbor named Carl. After a brief moment when the series thought its food friends could solve crimes, it instead let go of the reins of sanity and just became a show about whatever idea could keep its characters busy for 10-12 minutes at a time — and audiences have been watching and discovering it ever since. The series was even revived in 2023 for a short five-episode run.

Streaming on Hulu and Max

Right on the heels of Survivor in May, CBS took another crack at the reality competition series with this isolated experiment, based on a European format, that asks what would people do if they were sequestered in a house for an entire summer and watched 24/7? What alliances and showmances would form between people who couldn't escape each other? How dirty would the methods get to snatch power and hold onto it? With stalwart host Julie Chen at the helm, the series is about to air its 25th season, making it, no pun intended, a survivor of a genre of TV that it helped create. Some of the greatest strategy players in reality TV history have done their tour of duty in the Big Brother house, and it continues to train the TV personalities of tomorrow.

Streaming on Paramount+

Coming off the rousing success of Ally McBeal, creator David E. Kelley turned his attention to a much more serious subject without dancing babies: the public school system in Boston. At Winslow High School, when the teachers and students weren't learning in class they were locking horns on a number of touchy subjects that gave the everyday ritual of schooling a gripping tension. The sometimes outlandish storylines married nicely with the average struggle for an American teenager and the underpaid teachers charged with molding their minds and their paths for the future.

Across the pond in England, the Brits got their own version of shows like Friends and Seinfeld with Coupling, a comedy about six friends navigating life and love in their 20s. The series hailed from Steven Moffat, the future creator behind the revival of Doctor Who in 2005 and eventually Sherlock in 2010. Not unlike other friends-focused series of the time, it revolved almost exclusively around the interactions between three men and three women, the former of which were depicted as pretty downtrodden and the latter were shown in a vibrant, high-spirited light. It became a huge hit in the UK, and because everything is cyclical, it even got an American remake in 2003 that was cancelled after four episodes on NBC.

Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and his team of forensic crime solvers in Las Vegas changed the game of franchise procedural TV when CSI premiered in October 2000. The Who theme song, the crackling dialogue that made investigations feel like high drama, the increasingly absurd killer-of-the-week plots, the scientific jargon that went over our heads, but we pretended like we understood it anyway. This show was a genuine phenomenon watched by more than 26 million people each week at its peak. Franchises like One Chicago and 9-1-1 owe a great deal to the framework built by CSI and its many spinoffs and reboots that followed it in the past 25 years. Let's not forget: CBS even got Quentin Tarantino to direct two episodes!

Streaming on Paramount+

Larry David took swings at his own life with this semi-autobiographical farce about a retired TV writer and producer living out his days in Los Angeles, a city where everyone gets on his nerves. Few TV shows of the 21st century have been as funny, wry, and beloved as Curb Your Enthusiasm, which just ended its 11-season run rolled out in two parts — 2000-11 and 2017-2024. Pulling in his famous friends and frenemies, David managed to make a comedy classic by taking pot shots at his own self-described insufferable reputation. He made making fun of yourself an art, and 25 years has only solidified Curb Your Enthusiasm's place in the TV lexicon.

Streaming on Max

In just a quarter century and with only eight seasons of episodes, Dora the Explorer has become one of the most bankable and dependable animated characters in TV history. The Latina girl and her monkey best friend Boots have taken generations — you read that right, generations! — of kids on countless journeys across several series, platforms, and films. Each episode Dora and Boots face down a problem, and then they use inquisitiveness and adventure to solve it. The representation of a Latin character and the Spanish language also brought in audiences who had never seen themselves represented on screen in this way before, and Dora hasn't stopped exploring ever since, even though the original series officially wrapped up in 2019.

Streaming on Paramount+

Lorelei (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel) Gilmore quite literally became the entire identity for a generation of girls when Gilmore Girls debuted in 2000. As the quirkiest mother-daughter duo in all of Stars Hollow, they blazed through town and every conversation they've ever had with verve, humor and plenty of bad decisions. At the end of the day, Gilmore Girls was about the dependability of the people in life you can always call on, and Lorelei and Rory proved they were only a call away. The return of the series for Netflix's A Year in the Life limited series proved the timeless nature of the story, and it continues to find new audiences today through streaming that can fall in love with its leads, their love interests, and Sookie (Melissa McCarthy).

Streaming on Netflix

In the moment, the phenomenon that was Jackass may have seemed ridiculous to the outside world that wasn't watching the death-defying, outright-stupid shenanigans of Johnny Knoxville and company. But it's become ever more clear with time that more people were in on the joke than weren't. The affection for this prank/stunt series that constantly dreamed up new ways to hurt people without actually maiming them (for the most part) has only grown with time, resulting in the occasional return of the TV series in other forms (Jackass Shark Week!) and a wildly popular film franchise that has made over $500 million worldwide. Gross-out humor wasn't the only thing the Jackass boys made. They also made TV history.

Streaming on Paramount+

For Breaking Bad fans who first encountered Bryan Cranston as drug kingpin Walter White in the AMC drama, knowing that he played the kooky dad of a hilariously zany family may come as a shock. But on Malcolm in the Middle, he and onscreen wife Jane Kaczmarek were brilliant as the parents to three (eventually four) boys played by Frankie Muniz (as child prodigy and series narrator Malcolm), Christopher Kennedy Masterson, Justin Berfield, and Erik Per Sullivan. The pop culture influences of the show's less-than-cuddly view of family life was felt on TV for many years after the show ended in 2006, heralding a new era of family comedies that would have made Leave It to Beaver blush. Growing up in a middle-class family is tough, and Malcolm in the Middle understood the squeeze of it. 25 years later, a Malcolm in the Middle revival was announced by Disney+.

Streaming on Hulu and Disney+

America's obsession with its celebrities got a new and wholly intrusive perspective with MTV Cribs, a reality show where celebrities allow cameras into their homes to show off the lavish lives of the rich and famous. As expected, the series was an exercise in braggadocious behavior, as actors, rappers and some of reality TV's earliest megastars like the Kardashians showed off their houses –– or at least what they wanted the outside world to see of them. The show wasn't without its controversies, as some stars filled their homes with things they didn't actually own or filmed in homes that weren't exactly theirs. But the phrase "welcome to my crib" became part of the national language in the 2000s. So the series did something right.

Streaming on Paramount+ and The Roku Channel

One of the most authentic series about queer life in the modern day, the U.K.'s Queer As Folk, got its own American version on Showtime in 2000. Featuring sexually frank conversations about love, sex, and life, the adventures of a group of Pittsburgh queer friends became one of the first honest outlets for viewers still navigating their own personal quests for identity. Led by the on-again, off-again romance between Brian (Gale Harold) and Justin (Randy Harrison), the series was groundbreaking to say the least. Its sex scenes became regular topics of conversation on internet message boards and eventually Tumblr, and its unapologetic embrace of inclusion across the spectrum was celebrated then and now.

Streaming on Paramount+

America's obsession with reality competition series can be traced to 2000 and the arrival of Survivor. The grueling endurance challenge of outlasting and outwitting fellow competitors in some of the harshest environments in the world altered the brain chemistry of Americans when it first premiered, making us hungry for the rivalry and backstabbing that emerges when a million dollars is on the line. The kind of drama we typically wanted from our soap operas was suddenly playing out with real people, strategizing to outplay the heroes and villains among them. It was brilliantly compelling television, and continues to enrapture its devoted fanbase today as it closes out its 47th season.

Streaming on Paramount+