The Most Famous Duos in TV History

Among the longest-running cartoon shows ever, “Tom and Jerry” started as a series of movie theater shorts featuring a cat named Tom, a mouse named Jerry. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, it debuted in 1940. Edited versions of the shorts first appeared on TV in 1965. A decade later, the first iteration of “The Tom and Jerry Show” – produced especially for the small screen – was launched on CBS. Since then, the cartoons have appeared, off and on and under various titles and on various networks, through the present day.

Television’s first famous sit-com buddies, Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) and Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance), spent the early 1950s on this CBS comedy classic trying to extricate themselves out of zany situations that were mostly created by Lucy.

There were only 39 episodes of CBS’s “The Honeymooners,” but that was long enough for the bloviating Ralph Kramden and loopy Ed Norton to become one of television’s greatest duos.

This ABC offering was the first animated series on prime time. Inspired by “The Honeymooners,” it featured Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble as Stone Age suburbanites.

The campy send-up of the comic-strip caped crusader, which aired on ABC, was so popular it was on twice a week. As the Dynamic Duo, Adam West chewed the scenery as Batman and Burt Ward was his faithful companion, Robin.