In this article the authors argues that at the end of the 1960s and in the middle 1970s, Italian television programs such as "Quelli della domenica", "L’altra domenica", "Onda libera", and "Non stop" have launched a series of cabaret artists that will become the most notorious protagonists of the Italian popular comedy in the further decades (Enrico Montesano, Adriano Celentano, Renato Pozzetto, Paolo Villaggio, Roberto Benigni, Massimo Troisi, Francesco Nuti, Carlo Verdone). Although different in terms of style and intent – from political satire to mere ironic and nonsense entertainment – the cinematographic career of these “sons of television” reveals interesting aspects of the germinal and mutual relationship between tv and cinema on the...