# Biggest movie star to come from a sitcom? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 21, 2001, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911 "2001-09-21T00:19:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911/21 "2001-09-21T14:01:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evnglion \* > \*\*Billy Crystal in Soap is pretty big now > > can anyone say Jennifer Aniston? Everytime I look she has a new sappy, romantic comedy coming out. \*\* But she didn’t get her start on Friends. She played Jeanie in the short lived Ferris Bueller series. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911/22 "2001-09-21T14:03:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Dick van Dyke was a movie star (“Bye Bye Birdie,” which he also starred in on Broadway) before TV. **The Dick Van Dyke Show** ran on TV well before the movie **Bye Bye Birdie** ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911/23 "2001-09-21T14:20:20Z")
**CalMeacham** , _The Duck Factory_ was in no way a hit; it ran maybe five episodes. **watsonwil** , I challenge you to name any hit film with Gary Coleman in it. Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera aren’t movie stars, but they are big stars who got their start on television: Disney’s _The Mickey Mouse Club._ Or so I’m told; I don’t have cable. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911/24 "2001-09-21T14:29:33Z")
Just checked the IMDB. The Dick Van Dyke show started i 1961, and Van Dyke had a history in TV stretching back ten years before that. Bye Bye Birdie was 1963, so he definitely qualifies. **Fiver** – sorry, I missed the bit about the TV series being a “hit”, and I didn’t realize that TDF ran so few episodes. Nevertheless, Carrey was the star of that show, which he was not on In Living Color. I’m still amazed that, the first time The Comedy Channel ran “Earth Girls Are Easy”, it didn’t even mention Carrey’s name (the only of the three aliens they treated as ananymous). He still hadn’t made it, not until “Ace Ventura”. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911/25 "2001-09-21T14:50:02Z")
Wasn’t Jennifer Lopez a Fly Girl on **In Living Color**. This doesn’t really count, but Jack Nicholson was on a few episodes of **The Andy Griffith Show** , way before _Easy Rider_. Seeing him on the show is pretty neat, because he hates TV and this is one of the few, if only, sightings of him on a sitcom. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911/26 "2001-09-21T15:05:04Z")
How about Goldie Hawn? She started out as a girlfriend on **Good Morning World** (not a starring role, granted), then moved on to her big hit on **Laugh-in** (not a sit-com, but she was big in it), then went on to several starring roles in the movies. ---
**Author:** ![LateComer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2001, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911/27 "2001-09-21T15:21:07Z")
In the bizarro world: Shelly Long after leaving Cheers. McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers after leaving MASH. Lisa Bonet after leaving the Cosby show. > [@](#): > > Another example would be Robin Williams, not as Mork the alien that visited Happy Days, but certainly Mork from Mork and Mindy. Jay: “Good Will Hunting? You mean that movie with Mork From Ork in it?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biggest-movie-star-to-come-from-a-sitcom/82911.md?page=1)