10 Forgotten Sitcoms With Surprisingly A-List Casts
Chemistry between the cast is everything in a sitcom. Oftentimes, the best ensemble sitcoms aim to cast mostly new talent alongside one or two established names to lend star power and comedic credentials. For example, Community had Chevy Chase and Joel McHale, but the rest of the cast were fairly unknown before becoming household names, including Donald Glover, Alison Brie, and Ken Jeong.
Sitcoms like Parks and Recreation, Taxi, and Cheers all helped launch a new generation of comedic talent. It’s getting harder to find truly unknown ensembles these days, as studios want major stars upfront. This has always been true to some extent, which explains the long list of sitcoms built as star vehicles for stand-up comics, from Seinfeld to Crashing.
This list curates some of the best forgotten sitcoms that feature surprisingly recognizable A-list talent. Some of the shows were written for these stars at the height of their fame, but never caught on, while others happened to cast actors just on the precipice of breaking out into stardom. Either way, these shows have a lot to offer, beyond being interesting factoids on IMDb.
What About Joan? (2001)
Joan Cusack, Kyle Chandler, & Jessica Hecht
What About Joan? was built as a showcase for Academy Award nominee Joan Cusack, who starred as an elementary school teacher navigating romance and everyday life in Chicago. The sitcom paired her with a pre-Friday Night Lights Kyle Chandler as her love interest, with Jessica Hecht in a comedic turn before Breaking Bad.
On paper, it had all the ingredients of a breakout network comedy, but the cast ultimately proved more memorable than the sitcom itself. Critics were mixed on the series, though Cusack’s performance was frequently praised.
ABC still renewed it for a second season while aggressively searching for comedy hits and was willing to give a star-led vehicle produced by James L. Brooks extra time to find an audience. That audience never materialized. The show was canceled after just two season 2 episodes aired, leaving 10 produced episodes unaired, an especially strange and memorable TV footnote.
Cuckoo (2012-2019)
Andy Samberg (Season 1), Taylor Lautner (Season 2-4), & Andie McDowell (Season 5)
Cuckoo is one of the rare sitcoms whose premise keeps reinventing itself while somehow holding together. The series is one of Andy Samberg's best roles. He plays the title character, an eccentric American drifter who returns from Thailand married to the daughter of a painfully conventional British family and promptly moves into their home.
After Samberg exited after season 1, the show made an unexpectedly bold pivot by introducing Twilight's Taylor Lautner as Dale, Cuckoo’s long-lost son, whose earnest weirdness gave the sitcom an entirely new energy. Later, Andie MacDowell joined in season 5, continuing the show’s streak of surprising casting choices.
What could have collapsed after losing its original star instead became a surprisingly durable and delightfully odd British comedy, anchored by constant reinvention and Taskmaster UK host Greg Davies. Its willingness to get stranger with every season ended up being the saving grace of Cuckoo.
Out of Practice (2005-2006)
Ty Burrell, Henry Winkler, & Stockard Channing
Out of Practice is a fascinating what-if from Christopher Lloyd, co-creator of Modern Family, and it even features Ty Burrell years before his breakout role as Phil Dunphy. The 2005 CBS sitcom follows a family of five doctors who have very little in common and rarely get along.
Burrell plays a very un-Phil-like role as the eldest brother, a self-centered plastic surgeon and committed womanizer. Happy Days legend Henry Winkler stars as the father, a gastroenterologist enjoying his post-divorce independence. Stockard Channing plays his ex-wife, a status-conscious cardiologist who still exerts influence over the family.
CBS aired only 14 episodes during its original run as viewership steadily declined despite a strong lead-in from Two and a Half Men and a high-profile cast. Even with the talent involved, the show’s traditional multi-camera family sitcom approach felt slightly out of step with where network comedy was heading in the mid-2000s.
Stark Raving Mad (1999-2000)
Tony Shalhoub & Neil Patrick Harris
Between his roles in Wings and Monk, Tony Shalhoub starred in Stark Raving Mad as an eccentric horror novelist obsessed with elaborate practical jokes. He was paired with Neil Patrick Harris in the stretch between Doogie Howser and How I Met Your Mother, playing his reluctant editor, a tightly wound professional with a range of phobias.
The chemistry between Shalhoub and Harris was widely seen as the show’s strongest asset, with both performers already showing the range they would later become known for. However, it struggled to retain viewers after Frasier's lead-in and faced stiff competition from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in the same time slot.
Despite the talent involved, it failed to gain traction with audiences, relying too much on a familiar odd-couple trope. Stark Raving Mad was ultimately canceled after one season, with several episodes left unaired in its original NBC run.
Future Man (2017-2020)
Josh Hutcherson, Ed Begley Jr. (Season 1), Keith David (Season 1), Haley Joel Osment (Season 1 & 2), Seth Rogen (Season 3), Britt Lower (Season 1 & 2), & Katherine LaNasa (Season 2)
Future Man is a sharp sci-fi time travel comedy starring Josh Hutcherson. He plays Josh Futterman, a seemingly average janitor whose elite video game skills make him the best chance to save the future.
The cast is stacked across the board, from veteran performers like Ed Begley Jr. and Keith David to future breakout TV names like Britt Lower (Severance) and Katherine LaNasa (The Pitt). Even Haley Joel Osment appears in key early seasons, with Seth Rogen executive producing and appearing on-screen in season 3.
Across its three-season run on Hulu, the show constantly reinvents its timeline and setting, which allows for major tonal shifts and fresh supporting characters. This surprisingly elastic approach to storytelling kept Future Man feeling unpredictable and inventive throughout, even if it remains criminally underrated.
Miracle Workers (2019-2023)
Daniel Radcliffe, Steve Buscemi, Geraldine Viswanathan, & Quinta Brunson (Seasons 3 & 4)
Miracle Workers was an incredible anthology comedy that got somewhat lost in the noise, despite its highly recognizable cast. As an anthology, each season shifted into a completely different setting, characters, and genre, giving stars Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi a chance to reinvent themselves in wildly different worlds, from heaven bureaucracy to medieval peasantry to frontier survival.
Quinta Brunson joined later seasons of the show before her success with Abbott Elementary. Airing on TBS, a network not typically associated with breakout original comedy hits, Miracle Workers struggled to become a cultural event despite consistently inventive storytelling and a strong ensemble.
The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret (2010-2016)
David Cross, Will Arnett, Sharon Horgan, & Jon Hamm
The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is a dark cringe comedy about a deeply incompetent American office worker whose life unravels due to his arrogance, dishonesty, and escalating bad luck. David Cross plays Todd Margaret, a low-level employee who is promoted despite having no relevant experience, and who repeatedly lies his way deeper into disaster.
It’s a fish-out-of-water story where he consistently misreads British culture, turning everyday misunderstandings into full-blown professional and personal collapse. The humor is intentionally uncomfortable, built around awkward social failures that grow darker and more surreal as the series progresses.
The supporting cast is unusually stacked. Arrested Development's Will Arnett plays Todd’s volatile superior, and Mad Men's Jon Hamm appears in a bizarre recurring role that heightens the show’s surreal, escalating sense of absurdity.
Black Monday (2019-2021)
Don Cheadle, Andrew Rannells, Regina Hall, Paul Scheer, & Casey Wilson
Black Monday fit neatly into the era when Showtime was leaning into shows about greed, ego, and systems of power, like Billions and House of Lies. A Wall Street satire set around the 1987 crash fit that brand perfectly, but with a more absurd, Wolf of Wall Street-style comedic angle.
The series had an incredible cast, including Don Cheadle, Andrew Rannells, Regina Hall, Paul Scheer, and Casey Wilson. Incredibly, the show ran for three seasons, extending well beyond its initial 1987 crash storyline.
Black Monday was ambitious, funny, and chaotic in a way that didn’t always fully land, but it remained worth watching for the performances alone. It ultimately struggled to break out because it aired in a crowded prestige TV anti-hero era, where even strong, well-cast shows had difficulty becoming cultural events.
Ladies Man (1999-2001)
Alfred Molina, Betty White, Kaley Cuoco, Alexa Vega, & Steven Root
Ladies Man starred Alfred Molina as Jimmy Stiles, a husband, father, ex-husband, and son-in-law trying to navigate life under one roof with the many women in his family. At the time, Molina was a respected character actor rather than a household name, bringing a grounded presence to the sitcom’s heightened domestic chaos.
The casting of the children proved especially prescient in hindsight, with future The Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco playing his teenage daughter in season 2 and Spy Kids' Alexa PenaVega (then Vega) as his younger daughter. Sitcom legend Betty White played his mother, with additional appearances from Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, effectively creating a partial Golden Girls reunion.
Despite the stacked ensemble, the show never found its audience. Ladies Man remains one of many interesting, largely forgotten family sitcoms.
The Afterparty (2022-2023)
Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, Ben Schwartz (Season 1), Dave Franco (Season 1), John Cho (Season 2), Ken Jeong (Season 2)
The Afterparty is a clever murder-mystery comedy in which each suspect recounts the same night’s events in wildly different genre styles, depending on their personality and perspective. Tiffany Haddish leads the cast of The Afterparty as the sharp detective investigating the case, alongside Sam Richardson as the well-meaning but unlucky figure tied to both seasons’ central deaths.
Season 1 features a stacked ensemble including Ben Schwartz, Dave Franco, and Ilana Glazer, while season 2 refreshes the guest roster with John Cho, Ken Jeong, and Zach Woods. The anthology structure allowed for constant tonal reinvention and genre parody, keeping the format fresh across two distinct mysteries.
Despite strong reviews and a playful concept that consistently attracted recognizable talent, the series was ultimately canceled after two seasons as it struggled to translate critical goodwill into sustained viewership. Apple had become increasingly focused on shows that translated critical acclaim into broader audience engagement, even for experimental, high-quality, underrated sitcoms with A-list casts.