10 Iconic Best Friend Duos From Funny TV Shows

Since the early days of television, funny TV shows, like sitcoms and sketch comedy shows, have taught us to resolve conflict—no matter how out-of-pocket the offense—with heartfelt confession and earnest efforts towards repair. The connection between these on-screen best friends showcase the joy of having a platonic soulmate, as well as the hard work required to keep these relationships afloat.

1. Maya and Anna in Pen15

Everyone matures and develops at different rates. That’s why it can be so hurtful when, due to reasons outside of your control (like puberty, financial circumstance, or strict mothers, for instance) the person who you do everything with—your best friend—changes. Through a fictional portrayal of a real-life friendship between co-creators Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, Pen15 explores both lighthearted, hilarious anecdotes of young adolescence, as well as more complicated topics like repairing a relationship after serious conflict. Through it all, the two have a buddy in each other for life. What makes this show so special and endearing is how relatable not only their escapades are, but also the pre-teen reasoning and heightened motivations behind them. When you’re each building your individual identities in middle school, it’s hard not to forget you’re a different person than your best friend, and that we all grow on different timelines. The lucky among us get to share the ride for a long while with our best friend by our side.

2. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in Saturday Night Live (and beyond)

From before their pairing on SNL’s Weekend Update as well as the big screen, these women have complemented each others’ work. Fey and Poehler have collaborated since their improv days in Chicago, delivering laughs with easy banter and charm for over 30 years. Though some of their box-office productions have fallen shy of critical acclaim, the palpable dynamism between Fey and Poehler conveys their individual expertise in their comedic crafts and ability to bring levity and fresh perspectives to current events, everyday topics, and conversational themes through wild, yet down-to-earth storytelling.

3. Tuca and Bertie in Tuca & Bertie

Accurate and insightful depictions of the interpersonal dynamics between a people pleaser and a party animal anchor this animated series about two birds. With openness and acceptance, support and encouragement, and complete with memories and flashbacks, Tuca & Bertie touches on some dark and complicated matters, exploring the ways in which people’s (birds’?) complex pasts influence their present-day behaviors, choices, and important relationships in their life. Done with humor and compassion, nuance and sensitivity, the absurdist series finds a way to showcase the special place a best friend occupies in our internal landscape and outer world, as well as the influence—for better or worse—they can have. 

4. Issa and Molly in Insecure

If these shows teach us anything, it’s that our decisions have consequences, ones that can affect us and those we love in profound ways. Throughout Insecure’s five seasons, Issa, played by writer and creator Issa Rae, learns to take responsibility for herself and consider others more, and her friendship with level-headed, responsible Molly (Yvonne Orji) facilitates this growth. Filled with a familiarity that can only come from a long history of knowing each other, their symbiotic relationship drives the progress of the show and Issa’s character growth forward. Despite mutual disappointments and deep hurt, they always find a way back to each other through sincere apology and reconciliation. In a lonely world where “lost” can look different for everyone, and self-sabotage can run your life straight into the ground, the main friendship in Insecure proves a true pal knows you, accepts you and your shortcomings, and is always there to pick you up when you fall down. 

5. Mindy and Morgan in The Mindy Project

Real friends support each other’s delusions and encourage each other’s most outrageous selves. That’s just what this doctor-nurse duo does in The Mindy Project, created by and starring Mindy Kaling. Nurse Morgan Tookers (Ike Barinholtz) plays a cuddly ex-con next to Kaling’s gynecologist protagonist. Morgan bends to Dr. Lahiri’s (Kaling) every whim, from requests for junk food fed through an I.V. if possible and countless strokes of hairbrushing from behind her desk, to the materialization of Mindy’s latest romantic or celebrity obsession. Their dynamic is one of reverence and distaste, respectively, a contrast that lends itself to hilarious dialogue and spark between them, as well as immense character development over the show’s six seasons.

6. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele in Key and Peele

With gleeful improv set on the background of scripted sketches, Key & Peele delights audiences with its witty and versatile humor. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele imbue their beloved sketch comedy show with a keen cultural competence, timeliness, and a full, unyielding commitment to the bit. Quick and clever, this Comedy Central original builds entire worlds within its short sketches, highlighting the creative prowess of the two writers, creators, and friends. Spoofing and spanning genres, the show features talent like Sam Richardson and Robin Thede in ridiculous scenarios filled with perfect premises, great chemistry, and even a few musical numbers. 

7. Keeley Jones and Rebecca Welton in Ted Lasso

Like everyone in Ted Lasso, Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) believes in charismatic Keeley’s (Juno Temple) potential. But Rebecca, as the owner of the football club, has the actual power to share the wealth and privileges that would allow Keeley to let her true gifts shine. Ted Lasso’s Keeley and Rebecca form a strong bond over the course of the celebrated series, a beautiful rendering of an intergenerational friendship filled with reciprocal love and support, strengthening the fictional AFC Richmond team and community season after season. This is female friendship at its finest. 

8. Lucy and Ethel in I Love Lucy

No one does shenanigans better than Lucy (Lucille Ball) and Ethel (Vivian Vance). These two darlings of black-and-white delight audiences still to this day with their mischief, each romp more outlandish than the last. In a style of physical comedy often missing from our TV screens of late, the neighbors and best friends go through life—both the hilarious highs and the didactic tribulations, too—together. Unfailingly, Lucy will loop Ethel into something odd, a plan or scheme with which only a best friend could agree to follow through. “If I had known this is what friends are for,” Ethel proclaims in one episode involving avoidable and tedious manual labor to help rescue her dear Lucy, “I’d have signed up as an enemy.”

9. Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen on Saturday Night Live

As a creative pair, Wiig and Armisen sparkle, brightening each other’s hilarity that much more. On SNL, these two have brought us countless holiday tracks as chronically-underprepared songwriters Garth and Kat, improvising their lyrics and demonstrating the pure pleasure they take in one another’s whimsy. 

10. Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph on Saturday Night Live (and beyond)

Though they only overlapped their tenures on SNL for three seasons, the world of comedy is better for having these funny best friends in it. Their comedic compatibility started at SNL and later moved to the big screen with the side-splitting hit, Bridesmaids. As individuals, they perform larger-than-life, and together, they’re willing to take what the other is serving and dish it back out, with an affecting neuroticism or an arresting grossness, and always with genuine emotion and thrill, making it bigger than before. Better together, in the case of Wiig and Rudolph’s legacy, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

… and a Bonus Pick: Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson on Detroiters

Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson have had a long, productive friendship that dates back to their time at Second City (you can find some videos they made back then on YouTube). Obviously Richardson has been a regular part of Robinson’s beloved I Think You Should Leave for all three of its seasons, but their best work together, and one of the best representations of friendship we’ve ever seen on TV, can be found in Detroiters, their gone-too-soon Comedy Central show. The two Detroit natives play (mostly) incompetent ad men in the Motor City, making ridiculous commercials for local businesses while competing against the big firms for Detroit’s top accounts. Their unshakeable friendship is the bedrock of the show; it’s one of the most positive portrayals of male friendship on recent TV, even if their unceasing support of each other often encourages their worst behavior. It’s also just really damn funny; Sam’s sweetness and Tim’s confused rage go together like vodka and Campbell’s beef broth.—Garrett Martin

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