Examples of the Straight Man on live-action TV.
- In The A-Team, Face is almost always the Straight Man to counterbalance Cloud Cuckoo Lander Murdock's antics, especially when they do scams together.
- Gorden Kaye as Rene Artois in 'Allo 'Allo! was the Only Sane Man in a small town in Nazi-occupied France, forever getting caught up in hare-brained schemes by Those Wacky Nazis and members of La Résistance. Often the only one to point out the stupidity and suicidal nature of these plans, he was always ignored and told to do his duty as he was the hero of the Resistance/flattered into it/forced to do it at gunpoint.
- Michael Bluth on Arrested Development is this combined with Only Sane Man. His attempts to manage his completely and utterly insane family of narcissists lead to much of the comedy.
- Barney Miller had the titular character (the captain of the precinct) play the straight man (and often the Only Sane Man) to the rest of his officers. Originally, he was going to be written with as much humor and quirks as everyone else, but the writers soon realized that he worked better as the straight man for everyone else to bounce off of. After the first two seasons one running gag that arose was his inability to tell a joke and make it funny. Never is his straight man status better seen as in "Hash", where the rest of the squad unwittingly eats hashish-laced brownies. He begged off, citing his weight, causing him to have to nursemaid the drugged antics of Yemana, Harris, Fish and Wojo.
- On The Big Bang Theory, Johnny Galecki's character Leonard plays this role, largely for Sheldon's comic lines, and sometimes for funny lines from other characters as well. In Galecki's much smaller recurring character role on Roseanne, his character David tended to play this role for Darlene and others, as well.
- Laura in The Brittas Empire largely served as the straight woman to both the antics of her Pointy-Haired Boss Brittas and for the other more quirky members of the staff.
- From the second series onwards, Rowan Atkinson's portrayal of Blackadder was more or less a straight man for the characters of Baldrick, Percy and George. Except when he was saying something snarky.
- In the first series it was Baldrick of all characters was generally the Straight Man, as well as the Hyper Competent and extremely Beleaguered Assistant to Atkinson's Stupid Evil Prince Edward, and frequently the Only Sane Man as well. Early-Installment Weirdness is putting it mildly.
- The calm, introspective Sergeant Wilson was straight man to the bombastic Captain Mainwearing on Dad's Army, an English sitcom about the Home Guard during WWII.
- Zig-Zagged with Sam Malone on Cheers. At times he really is the most level-headed person in the room and serves as a perfect contrast to the outrageous characters around him. While other times, he can be just as wacky as every other character in the bar.
- On The Daily Show:
- Jon Stewart plays the straight man to the various fake correspondents, who themselves tend to conduct interviews where they make their subjects unwitting straight men. Stewart also uses footage (sometimes out of context) and reports of various politicians, newsmakers and media whores as straight men for his own punchlines, but it could be argued that sometimes what they are doing is so outrageous that he can only react as an incredulous straight man even for them.
- Stewart also plays the straight man to Stephen Colbert whenever he does tosses over to Colbert's show.
- Deborah on Everybody Loves Raymond acts as the comic foil to Raymond and his quirky family. Patricia Heaton can sometimes steal the scene by just standing there and saying nothing. Body language conveys it all.
- Friends. Although Chandler was more of a Deadpan Snarker, he was definitely the straight man to Joey. In one case, he was able to pull it off without even saying anything, as the group prepared to head to London:Chandler: You got your passport?
Joey: Yeah, in the third drawer of my dresser. Wouldn't want to lose that.
Chandler: (just stares at him)
Joey: ...oh! (runs back to his room) - The writers of Hi-de-Hi! deliberately did not give Simon Cadell (Jeffrey Fairbrother) any jokes in his lines. The humour of the character comes from Cadell's brilliantly dry delivery and facial expressions.
- Al Borland (Richard Karn) would play the straight man to Tim Taylor (Tim Allen) in ''Home Improvement' particularly during the Show Within a Show, "Tool Time" where Tim was terribly accident prone. Often, when Tim would ask Al to do something dangerous, he replied with the line "I don't think so Tim," which became his Catchphrase.
- Himitsu no Hanazono (2007): Natsuyo is this to her quirky, cheerful ex-boss Ryoko, whereas Wataru is this to his bumbling idiot little brothers (most often Osamu and Satoshi). Ryoko, depsite being her superior, is a cheerful wide eyed idealist whereas Natsuyo can only think of work and is so dedicated to it she misses her birthday for it, while Wataru had to step up to care for his brothers after their father's death. The 4 of them formed a unit to create manga later.
- Kaamelott: The cast can be mostly divided into the straight men (Arthur, Lancelot, Léodagan, the armsmaster) and the comedic dumbasses, but what's interesting is that they can be the comedic foils to each other.
- The best example would be Léodagan (Arthur's father-in-law and essentially a Feudal Overlord), who shares in Arthur's dejection when something idiotic happens (Perceval flubs yet another quest, the peasants are revolting again, Attila the Hun is at the gates, etc.) but then serves as the foil himself when the right subject comes up (investing in a ring of watchtowers all along the coast of Britain, buying a dozen Awesome, but Impractical Siege Engines for defensive purposes, increasing taxes, etc.).
- In Kenan & Kel, Kenan was this to Kel's funny man. Interestingly enough, All That shows that Kenan could also be the funny man, even before he got onto Saturday Night Live.
- The The Kids in the Hall sketch "Mc Guillicutty and Green" play with the set up by having the straight man magange to be too straight.
- Everyone at the 4077th can fill this role for Hawkeye when needed, but the classics were Major Burns and Col. Flagg.
- The comedic duo Mitchell and Web generally have Mitchell as the straight man.
- During his time on Monday Night Football; Frank Gifford filled this role in his commentary, particularly in the early years alongside Howard Cosell and Don Meredith but this continued later on with Al Michaels and Dan Dierdorf.
- Monty Python's Flying Circus All of the members took turns being the straight man, if the sketch used one at all, and many of the sketches didn't. A recurring character called The Colonel often served this role, shutting down a sketch partway through because he felt that he hadn't delivered a single funny line.
- John Cleese is the straight man in the Parrot Sketch
- Graham Chapman, generally, played the role straight, although he had a more active role in the humor than most straight men.
- Terry Jones, as in "Nudge, Nudge" and "Buying A Bed".
- Eric Idle has also fulfilled parts like these, for example in the "Kilimanjaro Expedition" sketch.
- Carol Cleveland probably played straight parts the most. In many sketches, she is either the voice of reason or the only sane woman amidst all the madness. Examples are the "Dennis Moore" sketch and "The Visitors", for instance.
- In the Motor Insurance sketch,
there are subtitles that say "Straight Man" and "Another Straight Man" referring to the sketch's... well, straight men. And even there, it's subverted to hell and back."Excuse me... do I have any more lines?
- A casual glance at Morecambe and Wise often leads people to conclude Ernie is the Straight Man, but in fact, the two of them often exchanged and transcended the rolenote , as in this exchange:Eric: How are we going to play the Three Musketeers when there's only two of us?
Ernie: Easy, I'll play one, and you can play the other two.
Eric: Can I really? That's very good of you, Ern! - Pam Dawber as Mindy on Mork & Mindy. Dawber had that vital charm and intelligence to play the only human who can deal with Mork's silliness without feeling threatened by it.
- Bob Odenkirk is usually the straight man in comparison to David Cross' Large Ham on Mr. Show. This is often a great source for comedy on Bob's part, as in one sketch where he passes a lie detector test despite saying all sorts of outrageous things (in a completely deadpan monotone), up to and including derailing a train with his penis.
- Joel, and later Mike would play this role to both the Mads and the Bots on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
- Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide: One of Ned's purposes is to be this to everyone else, with the sole probable exception of Moze, with whom he has a "Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone" dynamic.
- The Odd Couple (1970) plays with it. Felix and Oscar typically exhibit such extreme tendencies of their respective personalities (Felix being a Control Freak and Oscar being lazy) that whichever is the straight man depends entirely on who's more rational in a given situation. Otherwise, the viewer or occasional third party character is the Only Sane Man.
- Rodney Trotter and Mike Fisher on Only Fools and Horses. The standard set-up is either "Delboy has misunderstood something, Rodney (or Mike) tries to correct him, Del says something that suggests he has taken this and applied it to his original misunderstanding, Rodders opens his mouths to explain further, then gives up and moves on in the conversation" or "Del has A Simple Plan, and Rodney is trying to persuade him it won't work, but his sensible objections are overruled by Del's own bizarre logic. Also, Rodney is slowly realising that Del isn't going to be the one in the middle of things when they go wrong."
- Parks and Recreation:
- The show starts with Mark and Ann in this role; they generally act as saner, more rational foils to the zaniness of everyone leaves.
- After Mark leaves, the dynamic changes. Ann is still the general comic foil, but as April's apathetic snark gets softer she moves in to become the foil to Andy, and Leslie herself ends up acting as the straight woman to the whole office when they get too wacky. Also, Donna has her moments.
- And later Ben comes in to be the straight man to practically everyone, but mostly to Leslie, Chris and Tom.
- Larry on Perfect Strangers, although the dynamic changed after the first season or so, as Larry's wacky schemes ended up driving the plots more and more often. By the time the show ended, both characters were getting an equal number of gags. Still, Larry's original job as straight man got lampshaded near the end of the series in an Imagine Spot where Balki and he play Laurel and Hardy, respectively.
- In the Sarah Palin-Katie Couric sketch in Saturday Night Live, Amy Poehler's Katie Couric works as the quintessential Straight (Wo)Man to Tina Fey's Cloud Cuckoo Lander Palin.
- Schitt's Creek:
- Johnny plays the straight man to his out-of-touch family and the quirky locals, reacting to their behavior as a normal person would. Eugene Levy joked about this in his 2020 Emmy Speech, given Johnny was one of the first straight man characters he ever played.
- Stevie often plays this role for the younger set or to Johnny in the rare moments he's not fulfilling the role. Later, Patrick often plays the straight man to the younger characters, especially David.
- On Seinfeld, the central premise was originally "Where does a comedian get his jokes," so Jerry typically plays the straight man who reacts to the wacky hijinks his friends get into.
- Julian functions as the straight man in Trailer Park Boys, his serious demeanour contrasting sharply with the deadly-stupid Ricky and shed-dwelling eccentric Bubbles.
- Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. Essentially, Hacker and Humphrey are both playing the Straight Man role to Bernard. The actor who played Bernard has even gone so far as to say in an interview that, though his role was technically the most minor of the three main roles, he feels that he got the best job, because Hacker and Humphrey would often have extremely long sections of memorized, straight dialogue (which, given Humphrey's penchant for Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, is all the more impressive) before he jumped in with a punchline.
- George Fenneman, The Announcer on You Bet Your Life, was called "the male Margaret Dumont", by Groucho Marx. As she was the comedian's greatest comedic foil, Fenneman was deeply flattered by the comparison.
- The Young Ones has Mike, who is the least involved in the slapstick (and receives by far the least physical blows) and most of his humour comes from making lame jokes, his "cool" attitude, and his many shady business practices. However, he is also the closest the lads have to a "leader" and facilitates several of the jokes, despite being considered bland.
