Last time there was regular cigarette smoking in sitcoms by main character(s)

I know this sounds like a weird thread.
I am watching Cheers and noticed that despite background customers cigarette smoking, none of the main cast smokes (at least on a regular basis) during the series. Maybe Rebecca (Kristie Alley) did at some point but I am still in the Shelly Long years.
In I Love Lucy, their early years was sponsored by Philip Morris so they smoked regularly and even after their sponsorship they would still light up in some episodes so they count.
Then I was thinking was there any sitcom in the 60's? I can't think of any. Dick Van Dyke Show- that's next on my list to binge?
What about the 70's? Maude? Mary Tyler Moore smoked in real life during her series but never on the show.
So I can't think of any after I Love Lucy? Is there any?

Note: I'm not counting cigar smoking as there a bunch of shows throughout the years that did that. I believe Tim Allen was smoking cigars on Home Improvement? Not sure who did after that. I didn't count dramas and westerns as usually villains or of the time period (Westerns, Mad Men) characters would often be lighting up. Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad would be another example. He chain smoked throughout the series.
Also, sitcoms set in past time i.e. Marvelous Mrs Maisel wouldn't count. No cartoons (i.e. Patty & Selma from the Simpsons)
Only sitcoms that took place in the present time period who were the last main characters that smoked?

 

Do Patty & Selma count?

 

No they aren't main characters and a cartoon. I thought of them.

 

Wasn't there a storyline in Friends about the others try to help Chandler give up Smoking? I've only seen two or three episodes of the show but I'm sure that was one of them.

 

This seems like one of those threads where the goalposts are going to be moved every post to disqualify something.

 

That's a good example of maybe an extended storyline of him smoking as he would relapse. Is there any that was regular that continued throughout the series? No quitting.
I just remembered Sarah Jessica Parker smoked in Sex In The City but she quit towards the end too.

 

I promise it won't!

 

Absolutely Fabulous, an appalling yet inexplicably popular British "sitcom" that ran on & off until 2012, featured a horrible pantomime dame type character played by Joanna Lumley who puffed her way through the couple of episodes I suffered through.

 

Veep. Selina Meyer.

 

You've mis-spelled vape.

 

That's because Grant Tinker didn't want anybody smelling it on her breath when they kissed the screen.

 

Who smoked in Veep?

 

Fred and Barney smoked, but only during the commercials.

Savages.

 

Title character.

 

There was a UK sitcom in the mid two thousands, just before our public smoking ban took hold, called The Smoking Room. It starred Paula Wilcox of Man About The House fame (itself full of actors puffing away) and was set in the smoking room of an office, or some such. I never saw it but I remember clips with plenty of nicotine going round.

 

This 1997 Sun-Sentinel article mentions a few findings from studies, which can help you pinpoint when smoking declined on television. Some passages copied below. (The studies they cite may take a little more effort to find.) The article is discussing how depictions of smoking was rising in television during the 1990s -- not necessarily by the main characters, but not always portrayed in a negative way (like when Chandler started taking up smoking on Friends, but the show strongly portrayed it as a bad thing).

Separate from Network TV, Netflix (and I think some of the other video streamers) did start having a lot of smoking on its shows for a time, like they missed the memo. Although Netflix stopped this after being called out about it by some public health groups. The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (if you want to consider that a "sitcom") did have a recurring character who smoked, I think it was a character who was freed from Kimmy's cult. Stranger Things also had a lot of smoking, although that's not what the OP is looking for (neither a sitcom or set in present day), but interesting to mention because it was a show with young viewers.

From the article:

"Tobacco advertisements have been banned from television since 1971, but the visual image of people lighting up has proved to be a hard habit to break for television networks.

"Tobacco usage - including cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco - on prime-time comedies is at its highest level since 1963. And on TV dramas, there hasn't been so much tobacco use on screen since 1970, according to a study done at the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. ...

"In his 1993 study, Glantz charted the usage of tobacco products and not only found that occurrences are on the rise in prime-time comedies and dramas, but that smoking is still shown in a positive light. In comedies, a tobacco event occurred almost once every two hours, and in dramas there were 1.2 events per hour.

"This is far from the 1950-63 height of televised tobacco use, which displayed more than two events per hour overall and more than four per hour in dramas. Usage was virtually nonexistent from 1971-77, right after the ban on tobacco-related TV ads went into effect, when tobacco showed up less than once every two hours overall and 0.7 time an hour in dramas. Comedy shows depicted tobacco only 0.06 time per hour in that era."

 

While he didn't smoke regularly, Kramer on Seinfeld did in so many episodes. In fact in one episode he turned his apartment into a smoking lounge.

George took up smoking to annoy his fiancee, to keep from getting married.

Both Jerry and Elaine smoked cigars.

 

Saw a senior vaping today in her car. That was weird.

 

I don't recall, but what I do know many stars are smoking in new movies and movies from the past 10 or more years...

 

Is The Bear a sitcom? Feels like one, however intelligent and not vapid.

Plenty of smoking.

 

Mad Men

 

Does this count?

 

Ted Danson Becker that finished in 2004

 

Morticia had a bad smoking habit.

 

the only sitcom that I thought of is barney miller which ended 4o years ago.
detectives harris and yumana were smokers.