Comedy · 2000s

118 shows120 sequences

1 sequence

The Big Bang Theory

2007–2019CBSComedy

Fourteen billion years of natural history in twenty-three seconds, flashing past at one image per beat.

Season 1

1 sequence

Malcolm in the Middle

2000–2006FoxComedy

They Might Be Giants' 'Boss of Me' over archive film of chaos — falling, crashing and general misadventure, cut faster than a network comedy usually dares.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Office

2005–2013NBCComedy

Scranton, a car park and a filing cabinet, shot like stock footage for a regional business — twenty-two seconds that promise nothing will happen.

Season 1

1 sequence

Scrubs

2001–2010NBC / ABCComedy

Twelve seconds, an X-ray and a guitar — a medical comedy that spends less time on titles than most shows spend on a network ident.

Season 1

1 sequence

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

2005–FX / FXXComedy

Photographs of Philadelphia over a jaunty public-domain waltz, with the episode's absurd title card dropped into the middle of it.

Seasons 2–4

1 sequence

Modern Family

2009–2020ABCComedy

Fourteen seconds of family photographs sliding into place, and a card. Nothing else.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Middle

2009–2018ABCComedy

An Indiana family with no money and no prospects, nine seasons long.

Season 1

1 sequence

Two and a Half Men

2003–2015CBSComedy

Twelve seasons on a Malibu beach house, opened by four sung syllables.

Season 6

1 sequence

Curb Your Enthusiasm

2000–2024HBOComedy

A tuba, a circus march, and nothing else. Twenty-four years and twelve seasons on a piece of production-library music picked because it sounded like a man walking into trouble.

Seasons 1–12

1 sequence

How I Met Your Mother

2005–2014CBSComedy

Fourteen seconds of photographs and a ukulele — a nine-year story introduced by a handful of snapshots.

Season 1

1 sequence

Parks and Recreation

2009–2020NBCComedy

Pawnee's municipal signage and a brass fanfare, pitched at exactly the level of civic pride the show's protagonist has for a mid-sized Indiana town.

Seasons 1–7

1 sequence

Arrested Development

2003–2019Fox / NetflixComedy

A ukulele, a narrator, and a family photograph that gets less flattering the longer you look at it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Community

2009–2015NBC / YahooComedy

Study-group detritus on a table, in a show that spent six seasons abandoning its own format for whatever genre it fancied that week.

Season 1

1 sequence

Nurse Jackie

2009–2015ShowtimeComedy

Hospital corridors and pills, filmed with the brightness of a pharmaceutical advertisement.

Season 1

1 sequence

30 Rock

2006–2013NBCComedy

Nineteen seconds of Art Deco signage and a brass sting, moving at roughly the speed the show's dialogue does.

Season 1

1 sequence

Glee

2009–2015FoxComedy

An Ohio show choir, and the series that briefly made network television a singles chart.

Season 1

1 sequence

Entourage

2004–2011HBOComedy

Los Angeles from a moving car, and Jane's Addiction — an opening that is essentially an advertisement for the lifestyle the show is about.

Season 1

1 sequence

Peep Show

2003–2015Channel 4Comedy

Nineteen seconds and a card, for a comedy shot almost entirely from inside its characters' heads.

Season 4

1 sequence

Doc Martin

2004–2022ITVComedy

A London surgeon with a blood phobia relocated to a Cornish village that will not leave him alone.

Season 1

1 sequence

Everybody Hates Chris

2005–2009UPN / The CWComedy

Chris Rock narrating his own Bed-Stuy adolescence, opened by the family on the stoop.

Season 1

1 sequence

Boston Legal

2004–2008ABCComedy

Legal-drama iconography played as farce, from the same producer as Ally McBeal and with the same refusal to take the profession seriously.

Season 1

1 sequence

The IT Crowd

2006–2013Channel 4Comedy

Eight-bit pixel art and a chiptune, for a basement full of people nobody upstairs wants to think about.

Season 1

1 sequence

Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide

2004–2007NickelodeonComedy

A middle-school survival manual delivered to camera, one tip per episode.

Season 1

1 sequence

Weeds

2005–2012ShowtimeComedy

'Little Boxes' over identical suburban houses — and from the third season the song is re-recorded by a different artist every episode, which makes this one of the most varied openings in television.

Season 2

1 sequence

Ugly Betty

2006–2010ABCComedy

Fashion-magazine collage and a poncho, in twelve seconds.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody

2005–2008Disney ChannelComedy

Twins living in a Boston hotel their mother sings in.

Season 1

1 sequence

Californication

2007–2014ShowtimeComedy

Los Angeles from a convertible, with a writer who has not written anything in some years.

Season 1

1 sequence

Chuck

2007–2012NBCComedy

Consumer electronics and spy hardware cut together at the same speed, for a show that could never decide which it was about — correctly.

Season 1

1 sequence

Drake & Josh

2004–2007NickelodeonComedy

Two stepbrothers in San Diego, from the All That writers' room.

Season 4

1 sequence

iCarly

2007–2012NickelodeonComedy

A web show made in a Seattle flat, five years before that was an ordinary thing for a teenager to do.

Season 1

1 sequence

Balamory

2002–2005CBeebiesComedy

A Scottish island village painted in primary colours, with a theme that asks what the story is in it.

Season 1

1 sequence

Pushing Daisies

2007–2009ABCComedy

Storybook illustration and saturated colour, pitched exactly between a fairy tale and a mortuary — which is the show.

Season 1

1 sequence

Zoey 101

2005–2008NickelodeonComedy

A Californian boarding school, with a theme sung by Jamie Lynn Spears.

Season 2

1 sequence

That's So Raven

2003–2007Disney ChannelComedy

A girl who sees the future and misreads it every week.

Season 1

1 sequence

Mock the Week

2005–2022BBC TwoComedy

A topical panel show whose titles cut the week's news into a strobing collage before anyone speaks.

Season 1

1 sequence

Drop Dead Diva

2009–2014LifetimeComedy

A model who dies and wakes up in the body of a lawyer, which is a body-swap comedy and a legal procedural at once.

Season 1

1 sequence

The League

2009–2015FX / FXXComedy

A fantasy football league and the friendships it slowly destroys.

Season 1

1 sequence

Dead Like Me

2003–2004ShowtimeComedy

Reapers, toast and small municipal death — an opening that treats the afterlife as clerical work, which is the joke the series runs on.

Season 1

1 sequence

Still Game

2002–2019BBC Scotland / BBC OneComedy

Two Glasgow pensioners and the Craiglang high-rises, with titles built entirely from the scheme itself.

Season 1

1 sequence

Even Stevens

2000–2003Disney ChannelComedy

Shia LaBeouf as the youngest of three in a Sacramento family.

Season 1

1 sequence

Big Time Rush

2009–2013NickelodeonComedy

A manufactured boy band playing a manufactured boy band, which then toured as one.

Season 1

1 sequence

In the Night Garden...

2007–2009CBeebiesComedy

Two minutes of a boat, a sleeping child and a narrator naming everything in the garden, before a programme designed to send that child to sleep.

Season 1

1 sequence

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

2004Channel 4Comedy

A title sequence pretending to be a lost 1980s horror series, complete with the production faults the conceit requires.

Season 1

1 sequence

Miranda

2009–2015BBC Two / BBC OneComedy

Miranda Hart addressing the camera in a joke shop, in eleven seconds of open.

Season 1

1 sequence

Chappelle's Show

2003–2006Comedy CentralComedy

Twenty-two seconds of animation and a beat, for the sketch show that defined a decade of American comedy in two and a half seasons.

Season 1

1 sequence

Little Britain

2003–2006BBC Three / BBC OneComedy

A radio series moved to television, narrated as though it were a documentary about a country nobody has heard of.

Season 1

1 sequence

Hung

2009–2011HBOComedy

Detroit in decline, filmed with more sympathy than the premise would lead you to expect.

Season 1

1 sequence

Black Books

2000–2004Channel 4Comedy

A bookshop run by a man who does not want customers, from Dylan Moran and Graham Linehan.

Season 1

1 sequence

Horrible Histories

2009–CBBCComedy

Sketch comedy about history for children that adults watched anyway, with the titles redrawn between series.

Season 5

1 sequence

United States of Tara

2009–2011ShowtimeComedy

Diablo Cody's series about a woman with dissociative identity disorder, whose titles introduce every alter.

Season 1

1 sequence

Flight of the Conchords

2007–2009HBOComedy

Cut-paper animation of two New Zealanders failing to make it in New York, assembled with the same handmade cheapness as the band it is about.

Seasons 1–2

1 sequence

Royal Pains

2009–2016USA NetworkComedy

A concierge doctor in the Hamptons, in the middle of USA's blue-sky decade.

Season 1

1 sequence

Da Ali G Show

2000–2004Channel 4 / HBOComedy

Sacha Baron Cohen's three characters interviewing people who did not know.

Season 1

1 sequence

Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps

2001–2011BBC ThreeComedy

Six friends in a Runcorn pub, and the sitcom BBC Three ran for nine series while the critics ignored it.

Season 9

1 sequence

Outnumbered

2007–2016BBC OneComedy

Two parents and three children, with the children's dialogue largely improvised.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Colbert Report

2005–2014Comedy CentralComedy

An eagle, a flag and a barrage of adjectives flying at the camera — a parody of cable-news branding so precise that cable news started copying it back.

Season 1

1 sequence

Grounded for Life

2001–2005Fox / The WBComedy

A young Staten Island family, told out of order within each episode.

Season 1

1 sequence

Coupling

2000–2004BBC TwoComedy

Six friends in a bar, structured as farce rather than warmth — the British sitcom most often, and most unfairly, compared to Friends.

Season 1

1 sequence

Undeclared

2001–2002FoxComedy

Judd Apatow's college follow-up to Freaks and Geeks, cancelled after one season.

Season 1

1 sequence

Green Wing

2004–2007Channel 4Comedy

A hospital comedy shot with speed-ramped transitions between every scene, which the titles establish first.

Season 1

1 sequence

Gokusen

2002–2008NTVComedy

A yakuza heir teaching maths at a school for delinquents.

Season 1

1 sequence

Punk'd

2003–2015MTVComedy

Ashton Kutcher's hidden-camera show, and Candid Camera restaged for people with publicists.

Season 4

1 sequence

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

2007–2010Adult SwimComedy

Public-access video aesthetics reproduced exactly and then broken — twenty-two seconds that set the terms for a decade of internet comedy.

Season 1

1 sequence

Childrens Hospital

2008–2016Adult SwimComedy

A hospital soap parody that changed its own premise whenever it got bored, Rob Corddry's first series.

Season 3

1 sequence

Bored to Death

2009–2011HBOComedy

A pulp-paperback cover come to life — Brooklyn drawn as a detective magazine by Dean Haspiel, panel by panel.

Season 1

1 sequence

One on One

2001–2006UPNComedy

A Baltimore sports broadcaster whose teenage daughter moves in with him, and the spine of UPN's comedy block for five years.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Mighty Boosh

2004–2007BBC ThreeComedy

A stage show that became a radio series that became a television series, and kept the crimping in all three.

Season 1

1 sequence

Outrageous Fortune

2005–2010TV3Comedy

A West Auckland crime family whose matriarch decides, when her husband goes to prison, that the rest of them will go straight.

Season 1

1 sequence

Half & Half

2002–2006UPNComedy

Two half-sisters who grew up apart, living in the same San Francisco building as adults.

Season 1

1 sequence

Summer Heights High

2007ABC (Australia)Comedy

Chris Lilley playing three pupils and staff at the same school, shot as a documentary.

Season 1

1 sequence

That Mitchell and Webb Look

2006–2010BBC TwoComedy

The sketch show out of the radio series That Mitchell and Webb Sound, and the home of Numberwang.

Season 1

1 sequence

All of Us

2003–2007UPN / The CWComedy

A blended family sitcom produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, out of their own circumstances.

Season 1

1 sequence

Titus

2000–2002FoxComedy

Christopher Titus narrating his own childhood from a white void between scenes.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Inbetweeners

2008–2010E4Comedy

Twenty-one seconds of school corridor, with no attempt to make any of the four look like someone you would want to be.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wonderfalls

2004FoxComedy

Souvenir figurines that talk, in a Niagara Falls gift shop — Bryan Fuller's first series and a direct ancestor of Pushing Daisies.

Season 1

1 sequence

Teachers

2001–2004Channel 4Comedy

A Bristol comprehensive from the staff room's side, with Andrew Lincoln before The Walking Dead.

Season 1

1 sequence

Spicks and Specks

2005–ABC (Australia)Comedy

A music quiz named after a Bee Gees single, and one of the ABC's most watched programmes for a decade.

Season 1

1 sequence

Eve

2003–2006UPNComedy

The rapper Eve as a Miami fashion designer, in one of the run of sitcoms UPN built its Monday nights on.

Season 1

1 sequence

Little Mosque on the Prairie

2007–2012CBCComedy

A Muslim congregation renting a prairie church hall, in a sitcom that became Canada's most exported comedy.

Season 4

1 sequence

Son of the Beach

2000–2002FXComedy

A Baywatch parody produced by Howard Stern, and one of FX's first originals.

Season 1

1 sequence

Slings and Arrows

2003–2006The Movie NetworkComedy

A Canadian series about a Shakespearean festival, with a different theatrical opening for each of its three seasons.

Season 2

1 sequence

The Chris Isaak Show

2001–2004ShowtimeComedy

The musician playing himself and his band playing themselves, in a series about their own touring.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Basil Brush Show

2002–2007CBBCComedy

The fox puppet given a sitcom of his own, forty years after he first turned up on somebody else's.

Seasons 1–4

1 sequence

The Mitchell and Webb Situation

2001Play UKComedy

David Mitchell and Robert Webb's first sketch series, five years before the one everyone remembers.

Season 1

1 sequence

We Can Be Heroes

2005ABC (Australia)Comedy

Chris Lilley playing all six finalists for Australian of the Year, in his first series.

Season 1

1 sequence

Os Normais

2001–2003TV GloboComedy

A Rio couple narrating their own relationship to camera, in the sitcom that reset Brazilian television comedy.

Season 1

1 sequence

8 Out of 10 Cats

2005–Channel 4Comedy

A panel show about opinion polls, which spawned a Countdown crossover more popular than either parent.

Season 1

1 sequence

8 Simple Rules

2002–2005ABCComedy

A father guarding his daughters, and the sitcom that had to keep going after John Ritter died during its second season.

Season 1

1 sequence

According to Jim

2001–2009ABCComedy

Eight seasons of a Chicago family sitcom that critics ignored and audiences kept renewing.

Season 1

1 sequence

Benidorm

2007–2018ITVComedy

An all-inclusive Spanish resort and the same British families returning to it for ten series.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Bernie Mac Show

2001–2006FoxComedy

A comedian raising his sister's three children and turning to camera to explain himself about it.

Seasons 3–5

1 sequence

The Big Fat Quiz of the Year

2004–Channel 4Comedy

An annual quiz about the year just gone, running long past midnight and rebuilt from scratch each December.

Season 10

1 sequence

Cory in the House

2007–2008Disney ChannelComedy

That's So Raven's brother moved into the White House as the chef's son.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Ellen DeGeneres Show

2003–2022SyndicationComedy

Nineteen years of daytime, opening on a host dancing her way in through the audience.

Seasons 1–3

1 sequence

George Lopez

2002–2007ABCComedy

A Los Angeles factory manager and the family around him, and the longest-running American sitcom led by a Latino cast.

Season 1

1 sequence

Greek

2007–2011ABC FamilyComedy

Fraternity and sorority life at a fictional Ohio university, taken seriously enough to run four seasons.

Season 1

1 sequence

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

2003–ABCComedy

ABC's late-night hour, opening on a Hollywood Boulevard that the show films on the pavement outside.

Season 23

1 sequence

Joey

2004–2006NBCComedy

The Friends spin-off, moving one character to Los Angeles and finding out how much of the show had been the other five.

Season 1

1 sequence

Kath & Kim

2002–2007ABC (Australia)Comedy

A mother and daughter in outer-suburban Melbourne, and the most quoted Australian comedy of its decade.

Season 2

1 sequence

MXC

2003–2007SpikeComedy

Takeshi's Castle redubbed into something considerably ruder, with the original footage left exactly as it was.

Season 1

2 sequences

My Family

2000–2011BBC OneComedy

A Chiswick dentist and the relatives he cannot get out of the house, written by a rotating room on the American model.

Season 3
Season 6

1 sequence

My Name Is Earl

2005–2009NBCComedy

A petty criminal working through a written list of everything he has done wrong, one item an episode.

Season 1

1 sequence

My Wife and Kids

2001–2005ABCComedy

Damon Wayans running a household on a theory of parenting he makes up as he goes.

Season 4

1 sequence

The Naked Brothers Band

2007–2009NickelodeonComedy

A mockumentary about a children's rock band, played by two brothers who really were one.

Season 1

1 sequence

The New Adventures of Old Christine

2006–2010CBSComedy

A divorced mother whose former husband's new girlfriend is also called Christine, which is where the title comes from.

Season 1

1 sequence

Not Going Out

2006–BBC OneComedy

Lee Mack's flat-share sitcom, written joke-first and the longest-running British studio comedy still in production.

Season 1

1 sequence

QI

2003–BBC Two / BBC OneComedy

Sepia illustration and a music-box theme, in a panel show that has changed almost nothing about its opening in two decades and two hosts.

Season 1

1 sequence

Reba

2001–2007The WB / The CWComedy

Reba McEntire as a Houston mother holding a divorce together, with a theme she sings herself.

Season 1

1 sequence

Rules of Engagement

2007–2013CBSComedy

Two couples at opposite ends of a relationship and one man at neither, in the sitcom CBS used for years as a gap-filler.

Season 3

1 sequence

The Suite Life on Deck

2008–2011Disney ChannelComedy

The Suite Life moved onto a cruise ship that is also a school.

Season 1

1 sequence

That '80s Show

2002FoxComedy

The follow-up to That '70s Show with none of the same characters, gone in thirteen episodes.

Season 1

2 sequences

Tyler Perry's House of Payne

2006–SyndicationComedy

A Georgia fire chief with the rest of his family in the house, and the series that proved syndication could still start a hit.

Season 1
Seasons 2–8

1 sequence

Viva La Bam

2003–2005MTVComedy

Bam Margera staging elaborate stunts against his own parents, in the Jackass spin-off MTV built around a single house in Pennsylvania.

Season 1

1 sequence

What I Like About You

2002–2006The WBComedy

Two sisters sharing a New York flat, named for the Romantics single it opens on.

Season 1

1 sequence

The Whitest Kids U' Know

2007–2011IFCComedy

A New York sketch troupe who filmed their own pilot and sold it, opening on a theme they perform themselves.

Season 1

1 sequence

Wild 'n Out

2005–MTVComedy

Improvised comedy played as a team sport, and the longest-running programme MTV has.

Season 16

1 sequence

Would I Lie to You?

2007–BBC OneComedy

A panel show built on whether a story about a guest is true, which turns out to be an unusually durable format.

Season 4

1 sequence

Yes, Dear

2000–2006CBSComedy

Two couples raising children in the same Los Angeles house, one of them anxious about it and one not.

Season 1