The greatest sitcom characters of all time

Petty, self-centred, stupid... hilarious. There's always a reason why we love a sitcom character. Fully formed the second they appear on the screen, their mishaps/adventures/one-liners are what bring us back to a sitcom again and again.

Here we (try) and chart the best sitcom characters of all time. As always, there are a few caveats. We have decided to choose just one character per sitcom. For some sitcoms (It's Always Sunny, Community) the entire ensemble could have been chosen by we narrowed it down to just one.

These are the characters that have made TV watching over the years brilliantly enjoyable. Those characters that, no matter what is going on in the real world, offer up comfort because you know exactly what you are getting - and we can't get enough of them.

Any favourites we've missed off? Let us know at the end

Best sitcom characters

Jerry’s bald, bespectacled best mate was based on Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. The self-styled “Lord Of The Idiots”, George is the selfish, lazy, insecure little man inside all of us. He lies to get perceived tiny advantages in relationships. He says things we might think but would never dare admit. A god, despite it all.Typical line: “No, no, I don’t think I’m special. My mother always said I’m not special.”Image Credit: Columbia Pictures Television

Typical line: “I have cause. It is be-cause I hate him.”Image Credit: NBC

Typical line: “There's only one thing I hate more than lying: skim milk."Image Credit: NBCUniversal Television

Our only animated entry has had his role ‘embiggened’ since the early days. The focus of Matt Groening’s creation shifted from Bart to his dad Homer, as everyone realised the doughnut-munching doofus was the hero. No one says “Don’t have a cow, man!” any more. But they do say “D’oh!”Typical line: “All right brain, you don’t like me and I don’t like you. But let’s just get me through this and I can get back to killing you with beer.”Image Credit: Disney / Fox

There’s something of David Brent about the self-proclaimed “cool dad” and doofus estate agent (or “ninja in a blazer”).Typical line: “I’m hip, I surf the web, I text. LOL: laugh out loud. OMG: oh my God. WTF: why the face?”Image Credit: 20th Television

Typical line: “I hate life, life hates me.”Image Credit: Sony Pictures Television

Typical line: "Now You've Done It. You've Made Me Turn My Chair."Image Credit: NBCUniversal Television

Typical line: "I am nothing like Family Guy! When I make jokes, they are inherent to a story – deep, situational and emotional jokes based on what is relevant and has a point! Not just one random, interchangeable joke after another!"Image Credit: Paramount

Typical line: "What is this word 'spa'? I feel like you're starting to say a word and you're not finishing it. Are you trying to say 'Spagetti'? Are you taking me for a spaghetti day?"Image Credit: 20th Century Fox Television

Playing an exaggerated version of himself, Larry’s life is a string of faux-pas and petty feuds – invariably culminating in shouting and humiliation.Typical line: “Can I tell you something about apricots? One in 30 is a good one. It’s such a low-percentage fruit.”Image Credit: HBO

Typical line: "Here I am with all this talent bottled up inside of me and you're always sitting on the cork."Image Credit: CBS Television Distribution

George Oscar Bluth has ridden his Segway into the history books: selfish, vain and prone to disastrous magic ‘illusions’, he really is the thinking man’s idiot.Typical line: “You didn’t eat that dove, did you? Because I only have a couple of days left to return it.”Image Credit: 20th Television / Netflix

The hotel proprietor with the bendy straw physique is the ultimate sitcom buffoon.Typical line: [On his wife’s laugh] “Sounds like somebody machine-gunning a seal.”Image Credit: BBC

Typical line: "If that's a joke, I love it."Image Credit: Apple TV Plus

Typical line: "Sorry, David, I had nowhere else to turn."Image Credit: Lionsgate Television

While the other five tried to be funny – all rapidfire quips or self-conscious kookiness – the originator of “smell-the-fart acting” ploughed his own furrow and quietly became the mega-sitcom’s funniest draw.Typical line: [Trying not to spoil The Shining] “All blank and no blank makes blank a blank blank. Oh, and the end, when Jack almost kills them all with that blank but at the last second they get away.”Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television Distribution

Typical line: “Mother, I come bearing a gift. I'll give you a hint: it's in my diaper and it's not a toaster.”Image Credit: 20th Century Television

Before sabotaging Chariots Of Fire performances, Rowan Atkinson played a dynasty of Edmunds across the mock-historical series. The standouts are the dashing Elizabethan nobleman and the wily butler to the Prince Regent. All were scathingly sarcastic.Typical line: “I couldn’t be more petrified if a wild rhinoceros had just come home from a hard day at the swamp and found me wearing his pyjamas, smoking his cigars and in bed with his wife.”Image Credit: BBC

To think the chilled-out entertainer began life in a 1997 sketch called ‘Seedy Boss’. The beauty of Brent is in Gervais’s mannerisms – tie-fiddling, finger-pistols – and the gap between his view of himself and the reality. In his mind, he’s a comedian, hip dude and musical genius. In truth, he’s incompetent, offensive and even in his Sergio Georgini jacket is deeply uncool.Typical line: “There are limits to my comedy. There are things that I’ll never laugh at. The handicapped. Because there’s nothing funny about them.”Image Credit: BBC

Image Credit: Sony Pictures Television

in Seinfeld.Typical line: "I need that stuff that junkies use. You know, when it takes a cop 15 bullets to put him down."Image Credit: HBO

Typical line: “Oh please, it's bad enough hearing all those snickers as you walk down the aisle, but me in white, even I couldn't keep a straight face.”Image Credit: NBC

Typical line: “Darling, if you want to talk bollocks and the meaning of life, you're better off just downing a bottle of whisky. At least that way you're unconscious by the time you start to take yourself seriously!”Image Credit: BBC Worldwide

Just about the best in an ensemble of enormously funny characters. And that’s down to his preposterous lines and their pin-point delivery by Saturday Night Live alumnus Tracy Morgan (try spotting the difference between the actor and the 30 Rock caricature).Typical line: [On his tough upbringing] “I once saw a baby give another baby a tattoo. They were very drunk.”Image Credit: NBC

Typical line: “I don't want these virgins. They are going to taste too sad.”Image Credit: Madman Entertainment

The titular priest’s dunderheaded pal believes in Darth Vader more than he does in God. Yet while Ted rails against the universe, Dougal sleeps soundly. In He-Man sheets.Typical line: “It’s like a big tide of jam coming toward us, but jam made out of old women.”Image Credit: Channel 4

Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television Distribution

Peter Capaldi pitches No10’s policy enforcer (“the PM’s all-swearing eye”) somewhere between Alastair Campbell, Sir Alex Ferguson and Begbie from Trainspotting. Armed only with a mobile phone and a lethal line in put-downs, he’s terrifying and funny.Typical line: [His response to a knock at his office door] “Come the f*ck in or f*ck the f*ck off.”Image Credit: BBC Worldwide

Some of the jokes may be as careworn as that falling-through-the-bar clip, but Del is a true one-off. He drinks disgusting cocktails, drives a yellow three-wheeler, misuses French phrases and dreams of trading in his council flat for something more salubrious. A ludicrously attired hero.Typical line: “Don’t you realise those watches are a very sought-after property? They are especially sought after by the River Police and the Flying Squad.”Image Credit: BBC

Typical line: “If anyone is feeling anxious, worried or maybe you just want a chat, please, please do not come crying to me.”Image Credit: Channel 4

Image Credit: Red Dwarf

Typical line: “I’m literally grasping at straws.”
Image Credit: Disney / ABC

Typical line: It really is the most incredible chime I've ever heard, and that is coming from someone whose godfather is the most famous clock in the world.Image Credit: NBC

North Norfolk’s premier broadcaster started in spoofs (The Day Today, Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Partridge) before moving into sitcom territory with the two series of I’m Alan Partridge. He remains Steve Coogan’s masterpiece: your textbook Daily Mail-reading, Top Gear-watching menopausal man who loves the sound of his own burbling voice. Alan’s nonsensical rants are legendary, but what distinguishes him is Coogan’s immersion in the character. We believe that Alan Partridge is real, from his fastidiously combed hair to his sports-casual loafers. From catchphrasey bravado to the little-boy-lost look in his eyes.Typical line: “Right, dry skin cream. I’m having an attack of the old flakes again. This morning my pillow looked like a flapjack.”Image Credit: BBC

Ronnie Barker’s portrayal of the cynical HMP Slade inmate – truly his finest hour.Typical line: “When Harry Grout asks a favour, it is on the understanding that it gets done. Otherwise he takes it as a personal insult, and sends a henchman to mete out dire retribution. From Crusher With Love.”Image Credit: BBC

Mark and Jez are superbly observed, but it’s Jeremy’s deadpan, drug-hoovering band-mate Super Hans who’s the cult star. Notable for getting addicted to crack (“moreish”).Typical line: “People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. You can’t trust people, Jeremy.”Image Credit: Channel 4

Typical line: "I've just had a fantastic idea."Image Credit: BBC

The true star of the classic Home Guard comedy wasn’t jobsworth Captain Mainwaring or any of his naive troops, rather it was second-in-command Wilson – the well-spoken day-dreamer with a mysterious side and a winningly louche demeanour.Typical line: “Would you mind awfully falling in, please?”Image Credit: BBC

The entire family was fairly sedentary, but Ricky Tomlinson’s patriarch was especially immobile. On the rare occasions when Jim wasn’t slumped in his armchair, controlling the remote, he was off down The Feathers or to the loo for “a Tom Tit”. Despite the nose-picking and ball-scratching, Tomlinson made him hugely lovable.Typical line: “Anne Robinson, my arse. Watchdog? I’m watching a bloody dog.”Image Credit: BBC

Image Credit: BBC

• These are the best British sitcoms of all time.

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