The 20 best TV shows about making TV shows

Tina Fey spent several years working at Saturday Night Live, an experience she decided to mine for her first foray into sitcoms. That gave us 30 Rock, one of the best comedies of its era. Fey starred as Liz Lemon, head writer for TGS , but Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy was perhaps the show's defining character.

As 30 Rock hit the air, Aaron Sorkin was bringing us Studio 60, another show about the behind-the-scenes life of a sketch comedy show. Back then, people were excited about Sorkin’s show and skeptical Fey’s would have much of a run. Really. In the end, 30 Rock became a classic, and Studio 60 became an absolute punch line.

Hey, we just trashed one Sorkin show, so let’s show him a little love. Sports Night is partially why people were enthused about Studio 60. Sports Night, about a SportsCenter-style show, was a critical darling. Though it only lasted two seasons, it got a reputation for being a “canceled too soon” program.

One of the all-time sitcoms, The Mary Tyler Moore Show had a killer ensemble led by the titular actress. We spent time with Mary Richards while she hung out with Rhoda or went out on dates, but a ton of the show took place at the Minneapolis news program where Mary works. It’s also where a few of the other iconic characters, Lou, Ted, and Murray, were found.

Many people wanted Garry Shandling to be a real talk show host. Instead, he decided to star in a comedy show about the making of a talk show. Shandling starred as Larry Sanders, and celebrities got a chance to lampoon their images by playing themselves. 

GLOW is based on the real ‘80s pro wrestling promotion "Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.” It was silly and winking, and some of that makes its way into the Netflix show inspired by “GLOW.” There’s also plenty of drama among the characters when they aren’t in the ring pretending to be, say, evil Russians or old ladies. Unfortunately, a fourth and final season was nixed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Muppets have always been meta. Just take the quintessential Muppets show as an example of that. The Muppet Show is about the Muppets making a variety show. We see plenty of the elements of that variety show — all the machinations and goings on involving Kermit, Scooter, and everybody’s favorite porcine diva, Miss Piggy.

When Murphy Brown wasn’t taking on Dan Quayle, she worked as an investigative reporter for FYI. The television newsmagazine seems to be the universe of the show’s version of 60 Minutes. She hosted a cable morning news show when Murphy Brown was rebooted. Of course, nobody remembers that.

On the “brilliant-but-canceled” front, we have Great News. The show was created by Tracey Wigfield, who had worked on 30 Rock. Great News is basically 30 Rock but set at a news show instead of a sketch show. Tina Fey even played a role in the second season.

This time around, Moore is playing the spouse of the person working on TV. Rob Petrie is one of the writers for The Alan Brady Show, based on show creator Carl Reiner’s time writing for Sid Caesar. Reiner played Brady on the show.

As one does, Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor hosts a popular home improvement show that is filmed in the Detroit area. Hey, considering how often Tim avoids certain death, maybe we shouldn’t question the plausibility of that. “Tool Time” features Tim and his put-upon assistant Al and a series of over-the-top inventions from Tim that inevitably go awry.

In Ricky Gervais’ follow-up to The Office, he plays, well, an extra. Early on, that means he’s working on films and television. However, Gervais’ Andy Millman gets a role in a lowbrow sitcom in the second season.

In the real world, we had Siskel and Ebert. In the world of The Critic, there’s Jay Sherman. Well, also Siskel and Ebert, who cameo in one episode. Jay Sherman’s show-within-the-show serves as an excuse for movie parodies and also for Sherman to drop his catchphrase, “It stinks!”

Lisa Kudrow knows a thing or two about being a sitcom star. She was on Friends, after all. The Comeback is a show about a sitcom actress trying to make a comeback. The first season was a beloved cult classic, and then there was excitement when a belated second season was delivered, but it was received in a fairly lukewarm fashion.

Eliza Thornberry is the daughter of two parents who star and produce a nature documentary show. They are always on adventures to shoot footage for their program. Of course, this is a cartoon for kids, so much of the focus is on Eliza's ability to talk to animals.

The Morning Show was an opening salvo from Apple TV+ in an attempt to make its mark in the streaming landscape. They did that by bringing us a massive cast. The Morning Show stars Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell. The show has plenty of fans and has gotten Emmy nominations, but it also has some vocal detractors. It’s polarizing, by and large.

The show that birthed Adult Swim, Space Ghost Coast to Coast took an old, forgotten superhero and made him the host of a talk show. Every episode basically feels like us watching them tape his show. With as much time as we spend with Moltar, this has to be considered a show about the making of a TV show.

The WB was a perfect choice for this style of meta show. It’s a show about the making of a teen drama set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. That’s a clever idea, and in execution, it worked well, though the show was canceled after one season.

One more Friends actor in the mix! This time, it’s Matt LeBlanc, but Episodes is different than The Comeback or The Morning Show. The erstwhile Joey Tribbiani is playing “Matt LeBlanc,” a version of himself hired to star in a new show. Episodes is about the making of this show, from LeBlanc’s egotistical antics and beyond.

It took Newhart a couple of seasons to get going. When the show began, Dıck Loudon was running his inn with his wife Joanna and working as a how-to book writer. Then, in the third season, he gets a gig hosting Vermont Today for the local channel, where he works with producer Michael Harris (Peter Scolari). This is when Newhart really took off and became, in part, a show about making TV.