Here are the funniest TV shows we’ve ever seen, like the headline says. Here we go.
But First
Your list is probably different — so please share your own choices. Comedy is subjective, after all.
Also, you’ll notice some bias here toward more recent shows. Since comedy is so much about breaking rules, it’s hard for older shows to stay funny as the rules change. A risky joke in 1960 might not even feel like a joke today.
And finally, this isn’t a list of the “best” or “most beloved” comedy shows, or comedies with the characters we like the most, or whatever — these are shows that made us laugh, uncontrollably.
With that explained, on to the funniest TV shows we’ve ever seen.
Chappelle’s Show
Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan created one of the most jaw-dropping sketch shows of all, one that Comedy Central executives eventually admitted they didn’t understand, as Brennan recently said on the Joe Rogan podcast.
Blind racist Clayton Bigsby — who doesn’t know he’s Black — is maybe the perfect Chappelle’s Show creation: provocative, absurd, but mostly just hysterically funny.
Favorite line: Come on, of course it’s “I’m Rick James, b—-.”
The Righteous Gemstones
You could make a case for all three of Danny McBride’s HBO shows — the others are Eastbound and Down and Vice Principals — to be on this list of funniest TV shows.
But we’re going with The Righteous Gemstones, about a family mega-ministry that combines comedy and drama — as well as shocking violence — better than any show we’ve ever seen. The core cast is outstanding, but everyone shines. Benjamin Jason Barnes (Tim Baltz) made us laugh harder than anyone else on the show with his reaction to Baby Billy (Walton Goggins) overturning a trailer full of remedies for “covids” and other ailments.
Favorite line: “The elixirs…”
The Simpsons
The longest-running comedy in TV history is also arguably the best. Yes, its quality has shifted from season to season, but The Simpsons has brought more brilliant characters to the screen than any other show, and plenty of simple wisdom, as well.
And of all these funniest TV shows, it’s also the all-time champion of out-of-nowhere shots at beloved chain restaurants.
Favorite line: “I’m so hungry I could eat at Arby’s!”
In Living Color
In Living Color would do anything for a laugh, no matter how offensive or grotesque, and for that we happily add it to our list of funniest TV shows.
It leaned hard on big characters and catch phrases, from “Fire Marshall Bill” to the “Men on Film,” but we most loved its weird observational sketches like “Hey Mon,” a sitcom about a hardworking West Indian family.
Favorite line: “How many jobs he got?”
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
We have endless respect to Always Sunny for never once, in 16 seasons, trying to make its lead characters smart, likable or admirable. Charlie Day, Glen Howerton, Kaitlin Olsen and Rob McElhenney — and obviously Danny DeVito — may be the funniest people ever to star in a sitcom, even if Emmy voters will never give them their proper due because of their basic-cable status and refusal to play nice.
We love the incredibly daring early episodes, but we also love The Gang trying and failing to virtue signal in these supposedly more socially conscious times. Again, we’re gauging funniest TV shows by how hard they make us laugh — and almost no show makes us laugh harder than this one.
Favorite line: “Turn the cage so I can see!”
South Park
When everyone else is scared to say something, South Park says it. It has gone after everyone in its nearly 30-year reign, and we love it — even when it makes fun of people and institutions we hold dear. It’s one of the funniest TV shows and least scared TV shows.
Also, we think about the Mad Max episode every single day.
Favorite line: “Respect my authoritah.”
The Office
Are you a fan of the British The Office? Or the American The Office? The great news is, you don’t have to choose. Both are brilliant.
We were on a plane yesterday and happened to watch the “Gay Witch Hunt” episode from 2006 – a time when many more people were closeted at work and same-sex marriage wasn’t illegal. And man did it hold up, right up to the horrifying forced kiss between Michael (Steve Carell) and Oscar (Oscar Nuñez).
Favorite line: “That’s what she said. Or he said.”
I Think You Should Leave
Created by Tim Robbins, a former Saturday Night Live writer and actor who was simply too weird for the show, I Think You Should Leave is the latest show on our list — and maybe the one that has made us laugh the hardest.
It definitely has the best batting average, given that it has only had three short seasons and would rather do blazing 20-minute episodes than longer ones padded with clunkers. We aren’t even going to try to explain the jokes. Just watch. It’s the funniest new TV shows, but also one of the all-time funniest TV shows.
Favorite line: “What is her job?”
Seinfeld
Maybe the most obvious pick for any list of the funniest TV shows, Seinfeld did the best job of any network primetime comedy of twisting our brains into appreciating the weirder, more absurdist elements of life.
And it has our respect for its no-hugs, no-learning rejection of sentimentality and the usual cloying sitcom nonsense. It’s trying to be one of the funniest shows, not the most cuddly show. It succeeded.
Favorite line: “I’m out.”
Curb Your Enthusiasm
We’ll take Curb over Seinfeld. There, we said it. We love everything about Curb — the pettiness of the ultra privileged, the grudges, the long stare downs, even the swan murder.
The recent series finale — a callback to Larry David’s divisive Seinfeld finale — was a perfect Curb conclusion: ridiculous, small-minded, and totally disinterested in what anyone else thinks.
Favorite line: “I love my sewing machine.”
30 Rock
30 Rock‘s reputation as one of the funniest TV shows only grows with rewatches.
We’re still catching jokes from our third, fourth or fifth watches of old 30 Rock episodes. Tina Fey’s Emmy-magnet masterwork was almost as quick with a joke as Airplane, with a perfect smart-silly sensibility toward race, gender and all variety of sacred cows.
We love an out-of-nowhere insult, and we still laugh at its weird shot at LinkedIn — every time we log into LinkedIn.
Favorite line: “This corporation has a very strict bros before h–s policy.”
Silicon Valley
Mike Judge has made so many wonderful things, from Beavis and Butthead to King of the Hill to Office Space, but the TV show that made us laugh the hardest was Silicon Valley, a satire of pompous tech bros and excess that was also stocked with Game of Thrones-style twists.
Our favorite episode was the one where Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) tried to up his cool quotient with a thin gold chain he couldn’t quite pull off.
Favorite line: “Hey Dinesh, nice chain. Do you c—- your mother with it when you put your p—- in her b——-?
Saturday Night Live
Everyone likes to make the same joke about Saturday Night Dead — and that joke is about 45 years old, folks — but try to imagine the comedy landscape without the Lorne Michaels series that brought us far, far, far too many comedic icons to list.
The SNL sketches we can barely even find anymore — “The Whipmaster”? “The Five Beatles”? — are funnier than most shows will ever produce. And even people who think its best days are behind it have to respect that every few weeks someone — usually Mikey Day — will break out with a brilliant sketch as funny as anything SNL has ever done.
His Matt Schatt sketches, with their perfect misdirection, are among the best SNL sketches ever. (That’s Matt with his wife Alexandra Kennedy Schatt, played by Margot Robbie.)
Favorite line: Too many to list, but let’s go with: “I live in a van down by the river.”
Key & Peele
Almost every episode of this five-season series is hilarious, thanks to the relentless commitment of Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key. Whether playing Latino gangsters Liam Neeson-fixated valets or scared boyfriends or, of course, Obama and his anger translator, Luther, they were the most solid and consistently creative sketch duo of all… except for the next two guys on our list.
Our favorite of all their sketches is “Turbulence,” in which an uptight passenger (Key) argues with a passive-aggressive flight attendant (Peele) for the right to go to the bathroom.
Favorite line: Too many to list, but we’ll go with “But is it against the law, though?” from “Turbulence.”
Mr. Show With Bob and David
We know. Many people reading this have never heard of Mr. Show. But future Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk wrote the “Van Down by the River” Matt Foley sketch for his friend Chris Farley — and many other brilliant sketches — before going on to partner with David Cross, one of the best standups and most underrated actors in the business.
Mr. Show, made for approximately zero dollars in the mid-90s, with a series of terrible time slots on HBO, has proven to be not only one of the funniest TV shows, but one of the most influential. “The Story of Everest” is, on paper, a horrible, horrible sketch — but somehow it’s one of our favorite things ever made. “The Audition” is another perfect Mr. Show sketch.
Favorite line: “No! No one help him!”
Liked This List of the 15 Funniest TV Shows We’ve Ever Seen?
You may also enjoy this list of the 13 Funniest Comedy Movies We’ve Ever Seen, including Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, above.
… or this list of Shameless New Comedies That Don’t Care If You’re Offended.
Editor’s Note: Corrects final link.