Clerks

The classic sitcom set at New York's Sunshine Cab Co. won three straight Emmys as Outstanding Comedy Series and had one of the all-time great ensembles, including Judd Hirsch, Danny DeVito, Andy Kaufman, Marilu Henner, Tony Danza and Jeff Conaway.

In keeping with its promise to add ethnic diversity to its prime-time lineup, the ABC network gave the green light to the development of a weekly, half-hour sitcom built around the talents of Latino standup comedian George Lopez. On his eponymously titled series, Lopez was cast as "himself," an employee at a large airplane-parts factory not named Lockheed. Newly promoted to manager, George now found himself in the untenable position of ordering around his old pals -- not to mention his own mother, and fellow employee, the indomitable and insufferable Benny Lopez (Benita Moreno). Others in the cast included Constance Marie as George's wife Angie, Masiela Lusha and Luis Armand Garcia as his children, and Valente Rodriguez as his best friend Ernie. George Lopez debuted on March 27, 2002.

Scooby-Doo and his human friends solve ghostly mysteries.

Once the syndicated series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman had created a market for satirical soap operas, the networks rushed to the post with comical continuing "dramas" of their own. The most successful product of this genre -- and one of the most controversial -- was the weekly, half-hour ABC series Soap, which debuted September 13, 1977. Put simply, Soap was the sexy saga of two families, the wealthy Tates and the not-so-wealthy Campbells. Ditzy Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond), the wife of philandering businessman Chester Tate (Robert Mandan), is the sister of Mary Dallas Campbell, who lived with her second husband, blue-collar worker Burt Campbell (Richard Mulligan). Jessica and Chester's children included the sexy, libidinous Corrine (Diana Canova), who ended up marrying defrocked priest Father Timothy Flotsky (Sal Viscusco); strait-laced Eunice (Jennifer Salt), later the wife of convicted murderer Dutch (Donnelly Rhodes), who had escaped from prison with Chester after the latter had confessed to the murder of Jessica's paramour, tennis pro Peter (Robert Urich) (who happened to be the son of Burt Campbell!); and young son Billy Tate (Jimmy Baio), a typical hormone-driven teenager who would "mature" to the extent that he was stalked by a scorned lover. The Campbell children included Mary's sons by her first marriage: Danny Dallas (Ted Wass), a young mobster, and Jodie Dallas (Billy Crystal), a homosexual who nonetheless enjoyed several heterosexual relationships, one of which produced a daughter. Among the many other characters were Jessica Tate's father, "The Major" (Arthur Pierson), a senile, shell-shocked WW2 veteran; the Tates' snide, sneering butler Benson (Robert Guillaume, who later starred as this character in his own sitcom); Detective Donahue (John Byner), who fell in love with Jessica while searching for the fugitive Chester; Mafia daughter Elaine Lefkowitz (Dinah Manoff), who, before being kidnapped and bumped off, forced Danny into a romantic relationship; Carol David (Rebecca Balding), the conniving mother of Jodie's baby; and "El Puerco" (Gregory Sierra), a South American revolutionary who became enamored of Jessica. The various and sundry plots and subplots wending their way through Soap's four seasons are far too multitudinous and complex to explain here. Suffice to say that the storylines incorporated false murder charges, amnesia, suicidal lesbians, interracial marriage, religious cults (in this case a group called the "Sunnies"), UFO abductions, extraterrestrial clones, satanic possessions, and banana-republic firing squads. In other words, Soap was just your average, typical soap opera, but with a laugh track. Even before the series debuted, Soap was under attack from a vast array of "clean up TV" brigades, religious organizations, and self-styled social arbiters. On the other hand, the series had scores of high-profile defenders who recognized Soap for what it truly was: A pungent lampoon of modern manners and mores, served up in a humorous and exaggerated fashion with no malice intended. The series ended on April 20, 1981, with its traditional season-ending "cliffhanger" -- which in this instance would not be resolved the following season.

George Burns (as himself) is the landlord of a California apartment building, where he again breaks the fourth wall (as he did in the classic 'Burns and Allen' series) by directly addressing viewers. This time around, in a show produced after Gracie's death, he again narrates, and follows a tenant, Wendy, making asides along the way.

Cory Matthews, the titular boy, grows up in this long-running sitcom, a staple of ABC's 'TGIF' lineup through much of the 1990s. (It premiered when Cory was 11 and ended with him married to childhood sweetheart Topanga Lawrence.)