Let us not forget “The Cosby Mysteries,” which is I think the only show so far mentioned which isn’t a sit-com. I never saw the thing myself, but IMDB tells me the Cos played a character named Guy Hanks.
–Cliffy
The Lucille Ball Show
Did she ever have a show actually called that? All the ones I looked at just had Lucy in the title.
The Patty Duke Show. She was the youngest person to have a show named after her.
You beat me to the Patty Duke Show.
Agreed: no such show.
However, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour would qualify, because while Lucy played “Lucy,” Desi played “Ricky”.
Lots of them in the early days.
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.
The George Burns Show (19858)
The Jack Benny Show.
The Pinky Lee Show.
The Hank McCune Show.
The Peter and Mary Show.
The Stu Erwin Show.
The Ray Milland Show.
The Donald O’Connor Texaco Show.
The Phil Silvers Show.
The Marge and Gower Champion Show.
The Bill Dana Show.
The Joey Bishop Show.
The Ann Southern Show.
The Jim Backus Show.
The Tab Hunter Show.
The Tom Ewell Show.
The Bob Cummings Show.
The New Loretta Young Show.
The New Phil Silvers Show.
The Cara Williams Show.
The Smothers Brothers Show. (the 1965 sitcom)
The Tammy Grimes Show.
The Debbie Reynolds Show.
The Tim Conway Show.
That’s just through the 60s. In some of them the leads played themselves, though.
I was sure that Reven-Symone must have had her beat with That’s So Raven but she was a couple years older than I thought when that show started.
By my probably faulty math, ages at premiere were:
Patty Duke - 16 years, 308 days
Raven-Symone - 17 years, 38 days
I found some early shows (all from the 1950s) starring people so obscure that they slipped right by me.
The Goldbergs (Molly Goldberg)
The Hartmans (Paul Hartman and Grace Hartman)
Wren’s Nest (Sam and Virgina Wren)
Menasha the Magnificent (Menasha Skulnik)
The Ruggles (Charles Ruggles)
Dave and Charley (Dave Willock and Charley Weaver)
Where’s Raymond (Ray Bolger)
Marge and Jeff (Marge Greene and Jeff Cain)
Honestly Celeste! (Celeste Holm)
Those Whiting Girls (Margaret and Barbara Whiting)
The Ed Wynn Show
The Dennis O’Keefe Show
Menasha Skulnik got a show named after himself?
George Burns played George Burns and Gracie Allen played Gracie Allen. Jack Benny wasn’t a sitcom. It was kind of everything. One week it was a sitcom of his life, the next week it was sketch comedy, the next week it was variety. Benny never had any sort of a format really
Just once I would have liked to see it the other way round, though.
Yeah, in the OP I was intending shows where the actors whom the show is named after played ongoing characters that had different names from their own.
There are a lot more that meet that criteria than I had thought. And a few recent ones, too, like The Bill Engvall Show mentioned above.