Seinfeld's cast thrown into the mix, resulted in a sitcom beyond comparison.

However, given Seinfeld’s almost unprecedented ratings success, various TV network heads, producers, comedians, and writers actively tried to draw comparisons between their own work and the sitcom. In the mid-1990s, TV executives gambled on an array of shows touted as the next Seinfeld. The problem was, the formula that made one of the best sitcoms of all time couldn’t just be copied and pasted elsewhere. Thankfully, most of the wannabe Seinfelds that lasted several seasons moved past the comparison by growing in different directions. But that didn’t stop others from coming along a decade later and trying the same trick.

10 Ellen

1994–1998

Celebrated stand-up comic Ellen DeGeneres had tried out sitcom television before, but Ellen was different. This time, DeGeneres had a show that leaned into her observational style of comedy, while having her play a fictional version of her real-life comic persona. What’s more, as its original title, These Friends of Mine, changed because Friends came along with a similar title, implies, the show gave her a set of wacky and not entirely likable friends to star alongside.

The scripted comedy series Ellen is different from both Ellen DeGeneres' subsequent sitcom, The Ellen Show, and her later talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which is also commonly known as Ellen.

If this description sounds suspiciously like a carbon copy of Seinfeld, that’s because it was. Ellen was ABC’s answer to Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David’s sitcom on NBC, and the two shows went head-to-head in the ratings for four years, with Seinfeld coming out on top.

9 Friends

1994–2004

It might seem a little unfair to label Friends with the “wannabe Seinfeld” tag. After all, it’s a great sitcom in its own right, which developed its own distinctive style right from the get-go. But there’s no denying that Friends was originally pitched as a rival to Seinfeld, with more likable characters. Its basic premise about a group of friends hanging out in New York, drinking coffee, is virtually identical.

Of course, there are major differences in tone and sense of humor between the two shows. Nevertheless, Friends was guilty of borrowing more than a few storylines from Seinfeld down the years.

8 The Drew Carey Show

1995–2004

Hot on the heels of Ellen, The Drew Carey Show was another sitcom about a standup comedian starring as himself alongside three friends. Believe it or not, these three friends were a smart but cynical loser, an overly energetic manchild, and a female friend who later became Drew’s girlfriend.

Carey gets some credit for moving his characters out of New York’s sitcom bubble, at least.

Drew Carey was obviously a big fan of Seinfeld’s main characters. He just wanted to put them in a more down-to-earth setting, working mundane jobs in his home city of Cleveland, Ohio. The show’s humor certainly isn’t on a par with Seinfeld at its best, but Carey gets some credit for moving his characters out of New York’s sitcom bubble, at least.

7 The Single Guy

1995–1997

Created by SNL alumnus Brad Hall, who also happens to be the husband of Elaine Benes actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The Single Guy is essentially the story of a struggling writer in New York and his friends. At least Jonathan Eliot is struggling to make it big and pay the bills, unlike Jerry Seinfeld in his eponymous sitcom.

Still, The Single Guy had virtually nothing original to show for itself, and was openly attacked by critics for ripping off Seinfeld. Its character Sam Sloan, Jonathan’s best friend, is ultimately indistinguishable from the character traits of George Costanza. A David Schwimmer cameo as his Friends character Ross Geller only served to highlight The Single Guy’s imitation of its contemporaries further. It lasted just two seasons before being axed.

6 Caroline in the City

1995–1999

If it was easy to see through The Single Guy’s straightforward replication of Seinfeld’s premise and plot, then Caroline in the City took things up a notch in the imitation stakes. The show was quite simply a mirror image of Seinfeld with the gender roles reversed.

As well as Frasier, Caroline in the City featured crossover episodes with Friends and The Single Guy, too.

The titular Caroline, played by Back to the Future star Lea Thompson, was a cartoonist rather than a standup comedian, but otherwise, she had everything Jerry Seinfeld had. There’s the ex-boyfriend, the failing, indebted, and misanthropic friend, the zany neighbor, and even an equivalent character for Seinfeld’s Newman. The show shared a universe with Frasier, too, with the more-famous sitcom allowing several of its characters and actors to cameo in Caroline in the City.

5 Curb Your Enthusiasm

2000–2024

Curb Your Enthusiasm is a little different from the other sitcoms on this list in that the two shows share a creator. If Seinfeld was Larry David’s show about nothing starring Jerry Seinfeld, then Curb was his show about nothing starring himself. The two sitcoms even collided when Curb Your Enthusiasm’s ending included several parallels to Seinfeld’s finale storyline in 2024. Still, that doesn’t make them identical.

Curb is very different from Seinfeld in formal and situational , with its single-camera setup and focus on celebrity life making it a very different watch. At the same time, the two sitcoms share the same comedic thread, and David’s guiding hand in both is unmistakable. Perhaps he wasn’t trying to make Curb Your Enthusiasm the new Seinfeld, but it was certainly his new Seinfeld.

4 It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

2005–Present

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the 21st century’s best answer to Seinfeld, a sitcom juggernaut about a group of friends getting up to hijinks in their local neighborhood via a casual hangout spot. The show’s writers have always acknowledged their debt to Seinfeld in of comic style, storylines, and even specific jokes.

It’s hard to begrudge Sunny its Seinfeld lifts, though, given how upfront Rob McElhenney and Glenn Howerton have been about it, and how well the sitcom has taken its inspirations and run with them to somewhere completely different. Then there’s the shot-for-shot, word-for-word remake of a scene from legendary Seinfeld episode “The Contest”, which It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia nails to perfection. This show isn’t exactly trying to be the new Seinfeld. It’s just repaying what’s owed.

3 The Sarah Silverman Program

2007–2010

In 2007, Sarah Silverman was one of the biggest names in standup comedy. She decided it was time to launch her own sitcom, based on a fictionalized version of herself, who wasn’t a comedian and was a nightmare to be around.

The Sarah Silverman Program isn’t quite Seinfeld for the late noughties, as its narrative style and humor are very different from Jerry Seinfeld’s sitcom. Yet, despite Silverman’s own negative experience guest-starring in Seinfeld, the show borrowed the essential idea of the insufferable fake persona.

2 The League

2009–2015

Jeff Schaffer worked on Seinfeld right up to its finale, before moving on to Curb Your Enthusiasm. He then transitioned seamlessly to The League, an anarchic sitcom about a group of fantasy football league players who gather regularly and get one another into all sorts of trouble.

The League went somewhat under the radar at the time of its release, but it is well worth checking out if you’re a big Seinfeld fan.

The show bears the unmistakable hallmark of Seinfeld’s humor, which makes perfect sense when you consider that its co-creator was one of the great sitcom’s main writers. It went somewhat under the radar at the time of its release, but it is well worth checking out if you’re a big Seinfeld fan.

1 Workaholics

2011–2017

Workaholics is basically about three male friends who haven’t really grown up since they met in college. There are certain similarities to be drawn between the dynamics of Blake, Adam, and Anders in the show and Jerry, George, and Kramer in Seinfeld. Just like Seinfeld, none of them are particularly likable.

In addition, Workaholics makes overt references to the cues it took from Seinfeld, including instances where episodes have the same name as their Seinfeld equivalent. Since the sitcom’s run started 13 years after Seinfeld ended, the style and staging of the show’s comedy is quite different from its forerunner. Traces of Seinfeld are still visible in Workaholics, though, nonetheless.