Azaria's onscreen breakthrough came as the smarmy best friend in the Fox sitcom "Herman's Head" (1991-94), which reteamed him with Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa Simpson). In a change of pace, the versatile actor appeared in the short-lived romantic comedy "If Not for You" (CBS, 1995). The series portrayed the travails of two people, engaged to others, who lock eyes in a restaurant, discover they work in the same recording studio, and fight their growing attraction. Azaria brought charm and wit to his portrayal of Craig Sheffer and demonstrated onscreen chemistry with co-star Elizabeth McGovern. The following year he joined the cast of "Mad About You" (NBC), starring then-girlfriend-now-wife Helen Hunt, in the recurring role of Nat, a thickly New York-accented dog walker.

On the big screen, Azaria's critically-acclaimed portrayal of a venal TV executive who coached game show contestant Ralph Fiennes in Robert Redford's "Quiz Show" (1994) jumpstarted what has become an increasingly burgeoning career. In his most outrageous performance to date, Azaria burned his way into the public's consciousness as the hot-pants-wearing, Gloria Estefan-worshipping, gay Guatemalan houseboy of Mike Nichols' "The Birdcage" (1996), stealing one scene after another from his more famous co-stars Robin Williams, Nathan Lane and Gene Hackman. Though his work on "The Simpsons" had slightly prepared him for working with an invisible co-star like "Godzilla" (1998), he admitted that five months as a photographer aggressively angling for footage of the non-existent giant lizard made for some odd dreams near the end of shooting.

In 1998, Azaria enjoyed wide-ranging roles as one of three hapless marijuana growers in "Homegrown", as the wealthy boyfriend of Gwyneth Paltrow in the modern-day set remake of "Great Expectations", and as a "B-team" silverware-hurling superhero in "Mystery Men". He was the former resident of "Mystery, Alaska" (1999) who, as a high-profile sports writer, arranges for the NHL's New York Rangers to play the hometown team in a picture that served as a reminder for scripter David E Kelly not to give up his day job. Azaria fared better that year as composer Marc Blitzstein in Tim Robbins' "Cradle Will Rock", which effectively captured the spirit of the 1930s in its recreation of the furor surrounding the production of a pro-union play and the government's attempt to shut it down.

Azaria's best work in 1999 and the most layered and sensitive work of his career came on the small screen in ABC's "Tuesdays with Morrie", portraying sportswriter Mitch Albom to Jack Lemmon's irrepressible, wheelchair-bound Morrie Schwartz, Albom's former college professor dying from Lou Gehrig's disease. Reconnecting with Schwartz after seeing him interviewed by Ted Koppell, Albom finds not an embittered old man but an inspired man of "incredible clarity" teaching his "final course . . . in living." Their sessions together prompt Albom to question the shallowness of his own existence and to eventually write the best-selling account that would serve as the picture's source material. Azaria also appeared as an academic advocating tactical nuclear victory over the Russians in CBS' two-hour, live broadcast of "Fail Safe" (2000), adapted from the Cold War novel by Harvey Wheeler and Eugene Burdick. Azaria was able to quickly move on from the dismal failure of his Seth Kurland-created sit-com "Imagine That!" (2002) which was canceled after only two episodes aired. Instead the actor would excel on the big screen in parts both serious--such as his supporting role as principled but deposed New Republic editor Michael Kelly in "Shattered Glass" (2003)--and comic--including his hilarious, all-too-brief turn as the frequently nude scuba instructor Claude who cuckolds Ben Stiller in "Along Came Polly" (2004). Azaria also had a small but well-cast bit in "Dodgeball" as young Patches O'Houlihan, a flashback version of the Rip Torn character, before going on to star as psychiatrist and family man Craig Huffstodt, who heads into a midlife crisis on the quirky Showtime series "Huff" (2004-2005), a highly promoted endeavor that prompted glowing reviews but failed to attract a substantial audience. Unbowed, Azaria headed to Broadway for a bravura performance as an out-of-the-closet Sir Lancelot in Eric Idle's "Spamalot," a musical inspired by the 1975 film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" that earned critical raves and record-breaking ticket sales.

In addition to his vocal work on "The Simpsons", which earned him a 1998 Emmy Award for Outstanding Voiceover Performance, Azaria was the voice of "Hollywood Dog", a 1990 animated and live-action pilot not picked up by Fox. He created the voice of Bartok the Bat for the Don Bluth-Gary Goldman-directed feature "Anastasia" (1997), reprising the role for the 1999 straight-to-video prequel "Bartok the Magnificent". He redubbed the voice of Eric for the primetime animated series "Stressed Eric" (NBC, 1998), originally broadcast on the BBC-2, not to mention providing the voices of Edward 'Eddie' Brock and Venom for Fox's animated "Spider-Man" (1995-98). In 2000, he reteamed with Bluth and Goldman, contributing his vocal skills to the animated science fiction feature "Titan A.E.", Fox Animation Studio's ambitious but failed attempt to win over a teenage audience.