TV Show: Cheers
Seasons: 11
Finale Episode Airdate: May 20, 1993
Show Residuals: Up to $5 million a year*
Ted Danson has enjoyed a successful career, but his most recognizable role was in NBC’s Cheers as leading character Sam Malone. Cheers was – and continues to be – one of the biggest shows ever to grace our screens.
After Cheers aired, some interesting details came out about the show. For example, the show’s location, the Bull & Finch Pub, was chosen out of the phone book. The producers asked Tom Kershaw, the owner of the bar, to shoot exterior footage. Kershaw agreed–for a price of just $1!
Danson has had several roles since that have bumped up his bank balance, including parts in Curb Your Enthusiasm, Bored to Death, and The Good Place. If Danson decides to retire, he could rest easy knowing that he would still get up to $5 million a year from his 80s sitcom. That’s a prettier pension than most of us can expect to get!
TV Show: Full House
Seasons: 8
Finale Episode Airdate: May 23, 1995
Show Residuals: Up to $2,000 per year*
Bob Saget played Danny Tanner on Full House, and he has made the highest residual checks of anyone else in the series. These checks, he stated in an interview, still didn’t amount to much. He stated that because he was not an executive producer, his residuals from the popular sitcom were between $2 and $2,000.
He claimed that, with residuals, you basically get “nothing.” Saget is likely making comparatively more residual money now from his Full House spinoff, Fuller House, which airs on Netflix. Fuller House has five seasons but was canceled in the spring of 2019 after viewership plunged.
Jeff Franklin, the producer of the show, still continues to rake in high residuals. Full House aired internationally, and, in some cases, it even became more popular in syndication. Dave Coulier, one of the main “uncles” on the show, said that Full House was a “dysfunctional family” that still kept it “G-rated.”
TV Show: CSI Miami
Seasons: 10
Finale Episode Airdate: April 8, 2012
Show Residuals: Up to $100,000 per year*
Retired actor and producer David Caruso played the main character on the crime show CSI: Miami. He played Detective Horatio Caine, and he was active in the industry from 1975 until 2012. CSI, like Law & Order, has had a lot of spinoffs, as people can’t seem to get enough of true-crime shows.
Caruso can retire in peace, thanks to passive income from the show’s reruns, which appear on cable TV and streaming services. CSI reportedly generated over $6 billion in total. The show was created by Anthony Zuiker, who himself is worth $150 million as the executive producer.
TV critic Nina Tassler has stated that CSI: Miami has been a “key player” in the rise of CBS “to the top.” CBS, as of 2018, is valued at $21.86 billion in total assets. It brings in a revenue of $14.154 billion. Without CSI: Miami (and David Caruso), who knows where those numbers would stand today?
TV Show: Everybody Loves Raymond
Seasons: 9
Finale Episode Airdate: May 16, 2005
Show Residuals: Up to $18 million a year*
Ray Romano might be known to younger voices for his work in the Ice Age franchise, but he gained widespread recognition as the star of the CBS series Everybody Loves Raymond. The show ran for nine seasons before finishing in 2005, much to the chagrin of fans who would’ve gladly continued to watch the exploits of the Barone family.
What you might not know about Everybody Loves Raymond is that every episode was created in a workweek. On Monday, actors read through the script. Filming took place on Friday after script-tweaking and camera blocking. The house, located in Merrick, New York, where ELR was filmed is now worth $500,000.
These days, Romano is one of the wealthiest Emmy award-winning actors of all time, thanks largely to his continued royalty checks. The star earns approximately $18 million a year from show residuals alone. Is it any wonder he has appeared on Forbes’ celebrity rich list?
TV Show: M*A*S*H
Seasons: 11
Finale Episode Airdate: February 28, 1983
Show Residuals: Up to $1 million a year*
M*A*S*H took a serious subject and gave it a comic twist, while also maintaining the emotional connection that audiences craved. It didn’t take long for the Alan Alda lead show to become a hit. In the beginning, the actor scored around $10,000 per episode for his portrayal of Hawkeye. By the end of the series, this increased substantially to an approximate $235,000.
Alda doesn’t make as much money as some famous sitcom stars do, pulling in up to $1 million a year in royalties, depending on how the show is syndicated. Thanks to a glittering career, Alda remains a very wealthy man.
Alda has also managed to rake in at least a little cash from the many spin-offs and specials in which he’s featured. There was a two-season spinoff of M*A*S*H, titled AfterMASH, which aired from 1983 until 1985. Trapper John, M.D. was a more successful spinoff. Documentaries and movies took place throughout the eighties as well.
TV Show: Baywatch
Seasons: 11
Finale Episode Airdate: May 14, 2001
Show Residuals: Up to $4 million per year*
Baywatch wasn’t so much a show as much as it was a cultural phenomenon. It launched the career of Pamela Anderson, who went on to become one of the world’s biggest female symbols since Marilyn Monroe. At the helm of it all was David Hasselhoff as the often-shirtless Mitch.
At one point, Baywatch was one of the most-watched TV shows in the world. The weekly audience was 1.1 billion viewers. However, these viewers didn’t start watching until after NBC canceled the show. It wasn’t until syndication that NBC realized it needed to put Baywatch back into development (though with setting changes and cast overhauls).
Baywatch may not be rerun as much as some other shows, but that doesn’t mean Hasselhoff doesn’t still make a considerable amount from the hit series. The Hoff could take home around $4 million a year thanks to his beach patrolling role. The actor also made a cameo appearance in the 2017 movie based on the franchise.
TV Show: The Golden Girls
Seasons: 7
Finale Episode Airdate: May 9, 1992
Show Residuals: Up to $3 million a year*
The Golden Girls was way ahead of its time in many ways. It may have been the early 90s, but Beatrice Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan, and Estelle Getty talked openly about every aspect of womanhood. The witty script coupled with the supreme acting talent makes it relevant all these years later.
Betty White is an institution, at almost 100 years old. The actress may have wound down her career in her later years, but her work on The Golden Girls keeps her bank balance looking youthful with injections of $3 million a year.
The Golden Girls’ house is located in Brentwood, California. This house, which was the one used in the opening song (“Thank you for being a friend…”) went on the market in 2020 for $3 million. Though the house’s address was in Miami in the show, the original house used until season three was damaged in a hurricane.
TV Show: The Big Bang Theory
Seasons: 12
Finale Episode Airdate: May 16, 2019
Show Residuals: Up to $10 million a year*
Jim Parsons made waves as Sheldon Cooper, the eccentric genius that delivered hilarious one-liners without even trying. Like his co-stars Johnny Galecki and Kaley Cuoco, The Big Bang Theory made him a household name. In the final season, Parsons was earning $900,000 an episode.
His salary didn’t start out that way. For the first three seasons, he was earning $60,000 per episode at most. When the fourth season came, Parsons and his co-stars renegotiated and made $200,000 per episode for season four. After that, their salary went up $50,000 per episode for every new season.
Thanks to the longevity of the show and its continued popularity, Parsons can expect to pull in an impressive $10 million a year from various repeats. With channels vying to secure the rights, it’s a dead cert that the star won’t ever have to sing for his supper, even if the offers stop pouring in – which is unlikely.
TV Show: Friends
Seasons: 10
Finale Episode Airdate: May 6, 2004
Show Residuals: Up to $20 million per year*
David Schwimmer played Ross on Friends, and he is still cashing checks for $20 million as a result. Schwimmer was a beloved member of the cast, and he was able to have a successful career after starring in Madagascar, American Crime Story, and now The Laundromat, a Netflix movie he appears in alongside Meryl Streep.
Schwimmer’s first Friends episode was on September 22, 1994, and he was present for the show’s finale as one of the original six members. He played a lovesick paleontologist professor on the show. His easily most famous line is, “We were on a break!”
All the filming took place in Burbank, California at the famous Warner Bros. Studios. All ten seasons of the hit sitcom ranked within TV ratings’ top ten. Friends’ series finale reached 52.5 million viewers, which made it the fifth-most-viewed finale in the history of TV. No wonder the residuals are so hefty!
TV Show: Married With Children
Seasons: 11
Finale Episode Airdate: June 9, 1997
Show Residuals: Up to $10 million a year*
Ed O’Neill may be better known these days for his role as Jay in Modern Family, but this isn’t his first rodeo. The actor gained widespread notoriety as Al Bundy in the hit sitcom Married with Children, which aired from 1987-1997. Alongside Katey Sagal, O’Neill entered the living rooms – and the hearts – of millions of families.
Married with Children was always making headlines for its jokes, which were ahead of the time. It wasn’t until advertisers began to drop their support after one episode that Married with Children reigned it in, as it didn’t want to lose that ad revenue. To see certain unaired episodes, you have to buy the DVD for the show.
O’Neill is luckier than some other actors who struggle to recapture the success they once had. Married with Children reruns see him bring in around $10 million a year, while the recently completed Modern Family will likely surpass that, making him an even richer man than he already is.
TV Show: Friends
Seasons: 10
Finale Episode Airdate: May 6, 2004
Show Residuals: Up to $20 million per year*
Matt LeBlanc played Joey on Friends, and he received three Emmy award nominations for his work on the show, as well as residual checks totaling up to $20 million. He starred in a Friends spinoff, Joey, which featured his goofball Friends character. Joey aired in 2004 for two seasons before being canceled in 2006.
Sadly, Joey was canceled because of low ratings. The series wasn’t received well by critics, even though the first episode of the spinoff got 18.6 million viewers. Ratings began to drop, but they remained at 10.1 million viewers (about average for NBC). After the ratings were cut to 4.1 million, the show got the ax.
There were forty-six episodes in total of the spinoff, eight of which NBC didn’t air. Ratings on the spinoff were so bad that NBC didn’t want to spend the airtime on them. LeBlanc does have a new project out now, called Man with a Plan.
TV Show: Friends
Seasons: 10
Finale Episode Airdate: May 6, 2004
Show Residuals: Up to $20 million a year*
Friends is one of the most popular shows the world has ever seen. The series made Hollywood A-listers out of its cast, but Jennifer Aniston has arguably had the most successful career since. The actress has starred in multiple movies, all helping her to amass a fortune of over $240 million dollars.
If times get rough for Jen and the work suddenly dries up, she can still look forward to a huge annual check of $20 million in dividends from the Warner Bros. hit show. The network allegedly bags over $1 billion a year from the hit comedy.
It’s unlikely that Jennifer Aniston will ever run out of money. She still makes at least one hit movie a year. As of 2018, she is one of Tinseltown’s highest-paid actresses. She’s made the Forbes Highest-Paid Actress list every year for fifteen straight years, beginning in 2001—when Friends took off.
TV Show: Frasier
Seasons: 11
Final Episode Airdate: September 16, 1993
Show Residuals: $40 million in total*
Actor David Hyde Pierce recently reflected on the twentieth anniversary of Frasier on the Katie Couric Show, and he had nothing but good things to say about the cast. Frasier, which was called the “smartest show on television” for a while, first aired in 1993. Christopher Lloyd was the main writer of the series.
Now that Frasier is off the air, more and more behind-the-scenes details are coming out, including one about Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce. Grammer received a DUI after crashing his car. The Frasier cast performed an intervention, and Grammer got help. Production was delayed for a month, but it was worth it.
The series concluded in 2004, with its Goodnight, Seattle two-part finale. The show has racked up $40 million in total so far from reruns. Hyde Pierce played Dr. Niles Crane, a psychiatrist, on the show. He took home four Emmys for his Supporting Actor role.
TV Show: The Brady Bunch
Seasons: 5
Finale Episode Airdate: March 8, 1974
Show Residuals: $0 per year*
What people might not realize is that Maureen McCormick was a popular commercial actress before she became part of The Brady Bunch, a series about a clean-cut family in the sixties and seventies. The cast recently opened up about their struggle to get residuals from the five-season series.
They have tried to renegotiate, but the no-residuals clauses in each of their contracts are airtight. The Brady Bunch will only make a fee (a small one, at that) if clips from their show are used in a movie. Otherwise, they do not make anything from reruns. Moral of the story: read the contract carefully before signing!
Hopefully, McCormick is able to rake in at least a little money from promos associated with the many spinoffs that The Brady Bunch has had. The show’s successful syndication has led to reunion films and spin-offs, such as The Brady Girls Get Married, The Brady Bunch Hour, The Brady Brides, The Bradys, A Very Brady Christmas, and more.
TV Show: NCIS
Seasons: 18
Final Episode Airdate: N/A
Show Residuals: Up to $60 million in total*
Mark Harmon makes $125,000 for every new episode of the criminal investigative drama NCIS. He portrays Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, a no-nonsense Navy investigator who leads a group of investigators to solve crimes. NCIS’s first show aired on September 23, 2003, on CBS. It also was part of the Belisarius Productions, Inc. business.
There have been two location-based spinoffs of this seventeen-season show: NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans. NCIS holds the distinction of being the seventh-longest running primetime TV series in the US. It shows no signs of stopping now, and its next episodes will air through
November. Harris, an online poll site, asked Americans what their favorite television show was in 2011, and they voted NCIS #1. The eighteenth season of NCIS was announced in May of 2020, ensuring that this trend will keep going. Though Pauley Perrette and Duane Henry left, NCIS clearly hasn’t suffered too badly.
