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Candice Bergen's hard-charging TV newswoman went through 93 secretaries, and in 1992 a sitcom character ended up in a Vice President's speech. The truckload of potatoes dumped outside Dan Quayle's residence that fall was the show's answer.
Four guys from Los Angeles whose eight-line chant of refusal became a rite of passage for every suburban kid with a Discman. Rage Against the Machine fused metal, rap and funk to revolutionary politics, tried to hang upside-down flags on Saturday Night Live, charged the New York Stock Exchange for a video, and broke up in 2000 at the height of it.
Michael J. Fox ran a fictional New York City Hall as Deputy Mayor Mike Flaherty, covering for a clueless mayor and a staff of lovable disasters. His 2000 farewell, after going public with Parkinson's, drew nearly 33 million viewers; Charlie Sheen took the desk for two more seasons.
A "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot" in a flag-draped Eagle's Nest, four nights a week after The Daily Show. Stephen Colbert coined "truthiness" on night one, roasted the president to his face at the 2006 Correspondents' Dinner, ran for president, started a real super PAC and never once broke character — well, almost never.