Top (Live Action) Comedies
01. 30 Rock
Channel: NBC
Like Mad Men, this is a show in which when it started winning awards mainstream audiences started paying attention. (Jon Hamm in a multi episode arc this season!!! cross-over!!!!!).
I'll probably end up repeating myself from last year when I also placed 30 Rock as the #1 comedy. I'll just bullet point it then:
- The whole cast is uniformly great.
- While Alec Baldwin is great on the show, Tracy Morgan is funnier than him. give Tracy an award!
- Tina's husband, Jeff Richards, provides the music and it's the best comedy score on television. Just really evokes the whole New York mood.
- The guest stars are always great. Steve Martin being the best of the recent bunch. BTW: Tina, please write a movie for you and Steve Martin to act together in. It would get Martin in his first funny movie in 10 years, and you'd make magic together.
- Robert Carlock, the lead writer on the show, used to write for Joey. Now with his soul back, he's doing the funniest episodes of 30 Rock. Maybe the next great showrunner will come from the According To Jim writing staff? Time will tell!
Best Episode Of The Year: SuccessionCooterBelieveInTheStarsGavinVolure (hey, that's 4 episodes!)
02. Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!
Channel: Adult Swim
I debated putting this on, because it's a 11 minute sketch comedy show basically, but then I realized some of the biggest laughs this year were from Tim and Eric.
Ever since Tom Goes To The Mayor aired on Adult Swim, Tim and Eric's brand of humor has been polarizing. Some people think it's awful, and the downfall of civilization, while others (like yours truly) think it's brilliant, subversive works of art.
I can't tell you why the show is funny. You just have to watch it yourself, and see if that kind of humor works for you. I have Season 1 on DVD and I showed it to a lot of people over the summer. Some of them were as madly in love with it as I was, and others just didn't like it at all.
The guest stars that this show manages to bring are clearly celebrities who are fans of Tim and Eric. Everyone from Jeff Goldblum to Ray Wise to Patton Oswalt and Zach Galifianakis.
The truly insane thing is John C. Reilly, one of the best actors on the planet and Academy Award nominated, has created this character Dr. Steve Brule. He has appeared on dozens of episodes, and is usually the best part of the episode. The crazy thing is that next year there will be a Dr. Steve Brule spinoff show called Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule. John C. Reilly with his own Adult Swim show!!!! are you kidding! brilliant! You can thank Tim and Eric for that.
Best Episode Of The Year: Jim and Derrick
- a scathing parody of Fuse/Fuel TV programming that should seriously win awards
03. The Office
Channel: NBC
The second half of season 4 and the episodes of season 5 have really be amazing. Starting out with the classic "Dinner Party" and ending with last weeks "The Surplus" (both episodes written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, screenwriters for The Year One) The Office has been on a ridiculous roll. The only reason it isn't higher is just because the two shows above it are better. That's it.
Ed Helms as Andy Bernard continues to be a perfect presence to the show, and it's great to see Helms get a showcase every week. Hopefully it leads to a starring role in a movie. But the one new addition that everyone was talking about was Academy Award nominated actress and former cast member from The Wire, Amy Ryan. Her role as Holly Flax humanized Michael, and stopped him from becoming a cartoon. Ever since leaving the show a few weeks ago, it's been a bummer. It says a lot about the staff, however, that the show is still as strong as ever without her.
Greg Daniels with Michael Schur are currently busy on The Untitled Amy Poehler Project (with Aziz Ansari and Rashida Jones) to air in mid season, and we'll see if the show suffers from Greg having to work on two shows at once. Sometimes it happens like that (The beginning of the fall from Classic Episodes to just Good for The Simpsons started when Futurama came on the air), but I hope not. I hope we get two great new comedy series' from the same great braintrust. That isn't too much to ask for.
Best Episode Of The Year: Dinner Party
04. Sarah Silverman Program
Channel: Comedy Central
This show has always been funny. This past season airing now, though, are the best episodes the show has ever done. They are absurd wonders, and some of the funniest moments of the year have come from them. The show doesn't rely so much on "Sarah takes on a taboo topic for 30 minutes!" anymore, instead focusing on some delightfully silly plots. For example, Sarah becomes randomly pregnant one day, until it's found out that it's a stop-motion goblin that flies out of her vagina. Where else can you see that on TV? Certainly not CSI: Miami!
The cast is just terrific for comedy nerds with Jay Johnston and Brian Poshen from Mr. Show in the main cast. Other people who have appeared this season include Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric fame, Stephen Root, Gary Marshall, Matt Besser, Andy Richter, Matt Berry, Adam Carolla, Todd Glass, and many others. If you are a fan of absurdest humor, then you should defintely check out this past season of the show.
Best Episode Of The Year: High, It's Sarah
05. The Big Bang Theory
Channel: CBS
I can't believe it either.
I watched the pilot episode of this when pilot SCRs leaked in the summer of 07. I thought this pilot was really lacking, and I thought that would be the last I have seen of it.
Then I continued hearing word that the show has greatly improved, and that it's really funny. I decided to go through the first season, and I became hooked. This is a traditional sitcom done great. The reason why the traditional four camera, live audience sitcom has gotten such a bad rap over the years is because the quality of them were bland and awful. Shows like The Big Bang Theory, and How I Met Your Mother prove that there can still be great things done with the format.
The cast plays off each other really nicely, with Jim Parsons as Sheldon being the standout. He takes what could be a one-note character mess into a lovable, hysterical character. One of the plusses about the show is we are not laughing AT the main gang. The pilot kinda did that to an extent of "HA HA, what a bunch of nerds!", but the show has evolved and every character has their own voice and aren't walking stereotypes.
and I mean really. You know if would enjoy this show if you find this joke hilarious:
setup: Gang is watching The Clone Wars, and Sheldon hasn't seen it and doesn't want to because “I prefer to let George Lucas disappoint me in the order he intended.”
Really, just download/watch the season 2 episode "The Lizard-Spock Expansion". If you enjoy it, then you will love the series. If you don't, then you won't. It's that simple
Best Episode Of The Year: The Lizard-Spock Expansion
Honorable Mentions:
How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
- Season 2 was the peak of this show. It's still very enjoyable, and really, any show where you get a weekly dose of Jason Segel and NPH is awesome.
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (FX)
Sure, the season was wildly uneven, but it featured one of the best episodes in the series in "The Gang Solves The Gas Crisis". If you haven't seen It's Always Sunny, I suggest starting with that one.
Funniest Half Hour Of The Year
East Bound and Down pilot episode
Channel: HBO
Quote:
Originally posted by David Gordon Green
“**** formula. That’s what we’re all about. There is no formula. You don’t have to like the main character. Look at most of the great movies and comedies, they follow their own beat. This show has a lot of traditional narrative devices that do not necessarily play out in traditional narrative ways. We’re alluding to all of those points of the hero’s journey…and then we’re decapitating them. We ****ed the textbook over on this one.”
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The show doesn't officially start airing until February, but I had to mention it.
The pilot episode of the Danny McBride/Jody Hill/Ben Best series East Bound and Down leaked in July, and since then i've seen it 5 times. More then anything else this year. The show, executive produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, is ridiculously funny. It gets funnier with every new viewing.
The show is about Kenny Powers (Danny McBride), a John Rocker-esque major league baseball player who becomes very popular for his crazy antics (his catch phrase is YOU'RE ****IN' OUT!) until the crowd turns on him. He goes back to where he grew up in North Carolina hiding from not paying taxes, and moves in back with his brother (played by the dude who played Sol Star in Deadwood). He meets up with his former high school girlfriend and becomes the substitute P.E. teacher. There are more things that happen in the pilot, but I won't spoil them. Also have to mention the terrific work by Andy Daly in this pilot. He is one of the funniest people on earth and him paired with another funniest person on earth, Danny McBride, just brings this laughter explosion
One thing I will say up front is that this show will not be for everyone. If you watch television because you want the lead character to be someone you root for then this is the wrong show. Kenny Powers is a terrible person on a downward spiral, and Danny McBride plays it to perfection. If you have ever been to the south, it captures it perfectly. Nothing sugar coated. If I could think of a comparison point for this show it would be Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant's The Office but in the south and no couple you are rooting for.
The pilot alone is immensely quotable, and I can only imagine how the full 6 episode season will be like. David Gordon Green, indie darling and director of Pineapple Express, is directing the bulk of the series, and Adam McKay, director/co-writer of Anchorman, Step Brothers, and Talladega Nights, will direct an episode as well. In the end, I see this as being a monumental series for HBO.It will become one of the funniest comedies the channel has ever put out, standing right beside The Larry Sanders Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Part 2 of albums = tomorrow.
thanks for the comments!