With Hababam Sınıfı, Kapıcılar Kralı and Davaro, Sunal gained large popularity amongst Turkish cinema fans and was famed for his character "Şaban", a role he frequently played.

In a matter of years, Sunal co-starred alongside Halit Akçatepe, Şener Şen and Münir Özkul.

The character was so pure and so fixed in the memories of the Turkish people, it was never replaced by another actor in the recent re-shootings of Hababam Sınıfı, most probably as a sign of respect to Sunal.

His other notable characters include: Tosun Paşa; Süt Kardeş Şaban; Çöpçüler Kralı, who fell in love with a municipality officer's fiancée; Doktor Civanım, a former hospital janitor pretending to be a doctor upon his return to his home village; and finally "Orta Direk Şaban", a naive man trying to become an athlete to impress his crush.

The huge popularity of his movies stemmed not only from their unique humour but also their depiction of the many problems faced by the poor rural people in Turkey during the 1970s and 1980s.

Kemal Sunal died on July 3, 2000, as a result of a sudden heart attack aboard a flight to Trabzon just before take-off.

Zeki Alasya expressed his opinion about Sunal's death as follows: "He forced himself to get on that plane so that no one would have to go to the place where the movie would be shot by bus.