Comedy TV Shows

1975 · 2 Seasons · BBC Two · Comedy

Twelve episodes of near-perfect farce that established the template for character-driven comedy, Fawlty Towers remains as funny now as it was in 1975.

2015 · 1 Season · tvN · Drama, Comedy

A warm and profoundly moving portrait of neighborhood life in 1988 Seoul that weaves together family, friendship, and first love into one of the most emotionally rich K-dramas ever made.

1985 · 7 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

The Golden Girls put four women over fifty in a Miami kitchen and produced one of the sharpest joke machines in sitcom history, a show that remains funnier line for line than most comedies made since. Bea Arthur's withering Dorothy, Betty White's serenely dim Rose, Rue McClanahan's man-eating Blanche, and Estelle Getty's purse-clutching assassin Sophia form television's perfect comic quartet, and the cheesecake-fueled friendship underneath gave the laughs their staying power. Some period jokes have aged badly and the plots recycle, and none of it matters at the kitchen table. Thank you for being a friend was a mission statement.

2015 · 18 Seasons · Channel 4 · Comedy, Game Show

The most consistently joyful show on British television, turning absurd tasks and comedian chemistry into endlessly rewatchable entertainment.

1969 · 4 Seasons · BBC One · Comedy, Sketch

The comedy that broke the mold and never bothered putting it back together, Monty Python's Flying Circus remains the benchmark for fearless, absurdist humor.

2020 · 2 Seasons · tvN · Drama, Comedy

Five doctor friends who've known each other since med school navigate hospital life, personal challenges, and a band hobby in one of the warmest and most rewarding Korean dramas ever made.

2014 · 3 Seasons · BBC Four · Comedy

The most gentle and quietly profound comedy in recent British television, finding depth and beauty in two men walking through fields with metal detectors.

1983 · 4 Seasons · BBC One · Comedy

A comedy that got smarter with every era it visited, Blackadder transformed from a shaky medieval start into one of the most quotable and emotionally devastating sitcoms in television history.

2014 · 4 Seasons · MBS · Sports / Comedy / Drama

Haikyuu!! is the gold standard of modern sports anime, turning high school volleyball into one of the most thrilling and emotionally resonant experiences in the medium. Production I.G delivers consistently excellent animation, every character from star players to opponents receives meaningful development, and the show contains zero filler across its entire run. It makes you care about volleyball with an intensity that borders on unreasonable, and that's exactly why it works.

2022 · 1 Season · Tokyo MX · Comedy / Music / Slice of Life

Bocchi the Rock! takes the well-worn premise of a socially anxious teenager joining a band and turns it into one of the most visually inventive and emotionally resonant anime comedies in recent memory. CloverWorks delivered something special with its wild animation experiments, and the show's ability to make social anxiety both hilarious and deeply relatable struck a chord with an enormous audience. It's only 12 episodes and occasionally leans too hard into repeated gags, but those are small complaints against a show this creative and this warm.

2016 · 3 Seasons · Crunchyroll · Animation / Action / Comedy / Supernatural

Mob Psycho 100 is one of the rare anime that gets better with every season and sticks the landing when it matters most. It wraps profound messages about self-acceptance and emotional growth inside some of the most inventive animation the medium has produced, and it does it without ever feeling like it's lecturing you. The humor is sharp, the action is spectacular, and the heart underneath it all is completely genuine. Three seasons wasn't many, but the show used every one of those 37 episodes to say exactly what it wanted to say.

2003 · 7 Seasons · Adult Swim · Animated Comedy / Action-Adventure

The Venture Bros. spent seven seasons and a wrap-up film building one of the richest, funniest, and most emotionally rewarding universes in adult animation. Its character development puts most prestige dramas to shame, its comedy remains endlessly quotable, and its willingness to let characters truly change gave it a depth that no other superhero parody has matched. The long hiatuses between seasons tested patience, and the show's density makes it impenetrable for casual viewers, but for anyone willing to commit, this is one of the finest animated series ever produced.

2013 · 4 Seasons · Comedy Central · Comedy

Nathan for You is a one-of-a-kind comedy achievement that transforms small business consulting into absurdist performance art, anchored by Nathan Fielder's total commitment to increasingly unhinged premises.

2012 · 2 Seasons · Disney Channel · Animation, Adventure, Comedy

Gravity Falls is a masterfully crafted animated series that layers genuine mystery, sharp humor, and emotional depth into a show that respects its audience regardless of age.

2018 · 3 Seasons · ABC Kids · Animated Comedy

Bluey achieves something remarkable by being simultaneously a perfect preschool show and deeply moving television for adults, with its seven-minute episodes delivering more emotional truth about family life than most hour-long dramas manage.

1951 · 6 Seasons · CBS · Sitcom / Comedy

I Love Lucy ran for six seasons on CBS and produced 180 episodes that essentially invented the modern sitcom. Lucille Ball's fearless physical comedy, the chemistry between all four leads, and writing clever enough to make a simple domestic formula endlessly entertaining turned the show into a cultural landmark. Some of the marital dynamics and humor reflect 1950s attitudes that modern audiences will notice, and the episode structure rarely deviates from its established pattern. None of that diminishes a show that remains laugh-out-loud funny more than seventy years after it first aired. Few comedies have ever matched its combination of craft, charm, and lasting influence.

1972 · 11 Seasons · CBS · Comedy / Drama

M*A*S*H remains one of television's towering achievements, a comedy set in a Korean War surgical unit that used humor as a survival mechanism while building toward emotional moments that still devastate fifty years later. The show's evolution from broad military comedy to sophisticated dramedy tracked television's own maturation, and its finale remains the most-watched broadcast in American television history. Alan Alda's Hawkeye Pierce is one of the medium's great characters, and the show's anti-war message, delivered through laughter and tears in equal measure, has never been more relevant.

2021 · 3 Seasons · HBO · Black Comedy Drama

The White Lotus is one of the most distinctive series HBO has produced in years, a darkly funny anthology that uses gorgeous resort settings to dissect the ugliness underneath wealth, entitlement, and the stories people tell themselves. Seasons one and two are as close to perfect as prestige TV gets. Season three shows signs of formula fatigue but still delivers more than most shows manage in their prime. Watch it and watch it with people who want to argue about it afterward.

2016 · 4 Seasons · FX · Comedy-Drama

Atlanta is one of the most distinctive shows to air in the last decade, a series that carved out its own lane and never once looked back. Four seasons gave it room to grow, experiment, and occasionally frustrate, but the overall body of work is remarkable. The performances are universally strong, the writing swings for the fences more often than almost any other show on television, and its willingness to sit in discomfort makes it stick with you long after each episode ends. Some of its creative choices won't land for every viewer, but that's part of what makes it matter.

2018 · 4 Seasons · HBO · Dark Comedy

Barry ran for four seasons on HBO and left behind one of the most confident, inventive half-hour shows in recent memory. Bill Hader built something that started as a dark comedy about a hitman in an acting class and evolved into a full-blown examination of violence, identity, and the stories people tell themselves. The supporting cast, particularly Anthony Carrigan as NoHo Hank and Henry Winkler as Gene Cousineau, elevated every episode they touched. Later seasons pushed harder into darkness, and the finale swung for the fences in ways that divided some viewers. But the ambition never faltered, and the show's willingness to follow its characters into genuinely uncomfortable territory is what separates it from most comedies on television.

2014 · 6 Seasons · Netflix · Animated Tragicomedy

BoJack Horseman is one of the most emotionally ambitious animated series ever produced, a show that used talking animals and Hollywood satire as cover for a deeply serious exploration of depression, addiction, and the limits of self-awareness. Its six seasons built something that very few comedies attempt and even fewer pull off: a long-form character study where the laughs and the devastation feel equally earned. The first season requires patience, and the subject matter can be hard to sit with. But the show's refusal to offer easy answers or redemptive arcs for its deeply flawed characters is exactly what makes it resonate so powerfully with the people who stick with it.

2000 · 12 Seasons · HBO · Comedy

Curb Your Enthusiasm spent 24 years proving that a show built almost entirely on improvisation and social discomfort could be one of the funniest things on television. Larry David's fictional version of himself became an iconic comedic creation, a man whose refusal to follow unspoken social rules exposed just how fragile those rules really are. The improvisational format kept the show feeling spontaneous in ways that scripted comedies rarely achieve, and the best episodes are intricately plotted machines where every thread collides in the final minutes. Some later seasons recycled familiar patterns to diminishing returns, and the show's polarizing nature means it was never going to work for everyone. But twelve seasons on HBO, ending on its own terms with a finale that honored everything that came before, is a run that very few comedies can match.

2016 · 2 Seasons · BBC Three / Amazon Prime Video · Comedy-Drama

Twelve episodes. That's all Phoebe Waller-Bridge needed to build one of the most celebrated comedies of the past decade. Fleabag is sharp, filthy, surprisingly devastating, and smart enough to know exactly when to end. Its humor won't land for everyone, and its world is narrow in ways that matter. But the writing is so precise and the performances so committed that the whole thing feels like a magic trick, a show that makes you laugh until it quietly breaks your heart. It walked away at the peak, which is the hardest thing any show can do and the reason people are still talking about it.

1989 · 9 Seasons · NBC · Sitcom / Comedy

Seinfeld ran for nine seasons on NBC and produced 180 episodes that redefined what a sitcom could be. Four selfish, petty, hilarious New Yorkers turned the smallest moments of daily life into comedy gold, backed by writing sharp enough to create an entirely new comedic vocabulary. A few episodes have aged poorly, the last two seasons lost a step without one of the show's co-creators, and the finale remains one of television's most polarizing hours. All of that amounts to minor turbulence across one of the most consistently funny runs in TV history. The show about nothing gave television everything.

2018 · 4 Seasons · HBO · Satirical Drama / Black Comedy

Succession spent four seasons dissecting a family of media billionaires tearing each other apart over a company none of them truly deserved, and it did so with a level of craft that put it among the best television of its era. The writing is razor-sharp, the performances are extraordinary across the board, and the show's ability to make you laugh and wince in the same scene is something very few series have pulled off this consistently. Season 3 loses some momentum, and the early episodes ask you to spend time with people you may actively dislike before the show's grip fully tightens. Those are real flaws in an otherwise exceptional piece of work, one that stuck the landing and left a permanent mark on prestige television.

2005 · 9 Seasons · NBC · Comedy / Mockumentary

Nine seasons, 201 episodes, and an absurd amount of quotable moments later, The Office remains one of the most rewatched comedies ever made, and that reputation is mostly deserved. Its middle stretch is among the best sitcom television ever produced, carried by Steve Carell's layered performance and an ensemble cast that made a fictional paper company feel like a place you'd actually want to visit on your lunch break. The final two seasons drag it down, and the early episodes take a few tries to find the right tone. Taken as a whole, though, this is a show that redefined what a television comedy could look like and still works as the ultimate comfort rewatch more than a decade after it wrapped.

2003 · 9 Seasons · Channel 4 · Sitcom

Peep Show is the greatest cringe comedy ever made and one of the best British sitcoms of any era. David Mitchell and Robert Webb are a perfect comedy pairing, and the POV camera format gives the show an intimacy with its characters' worst impulses that's simultaneously hilarious and excruciating. Nine seasons over twelve years is a remarkable run that maintains quality far longer than most comedies manage, and the show's influence on modern British comedy is immeasurable. If you can handle the secondhand embarrassment, there's nothing else like it.

1995 · 3 Seasons · Channel 4 · Comedy

Three priests on an island. That's it. That's somehow enough to produce one of the funniest and most endlessly quotable sitcoms in the history of British and Irish television.

2018 · 3 Seasons · Channel 4 · Comedy

A warm, wildly funny sitcom that turns the Troubles into the backdrop for teenage chaos, proving that the best comedy often grows from the most unlikely soil.

2022 · 2 Seasons · Apple TV+ · Dark Comedy Thriller

Bad Sisters is that rare show that can make you laugh at a murder plot and cry over a family dinner in the same episode. Sharon Horgan built something special with this Irish dark comedy thriller, anchored by five performances so natural they make sisterhood feel like something you can reach through the screen and touch. The tonal balance occasionally wobbles, and the second season can't quite match the first's propulsive energy, but the Garvey sisters are among the most compelling family units in recent television.

2021 · 1 Season · TV Tokyo · Mystery / Thriller / Comedy

Odd Taxi is a mystery thriller disguised as a show about talking animals, featuring one of the tightest scripts in anime history. A walrus taxi driver's conversations with his passengers gradually reveal an interconnected web of secrets, crimes, and a missing girl case that draws in everyone from idol fans to yakuza enforcers. The writing is razor-sharp, the characters are instantly memorable, and every seemingly throwaway detail pays off in ways that reward close attention. It's one of the best anime of the 2020s and one of the most criminally underwatched.

2010 · 10 Seasons · Cartoon Network · Animation, Fantasy, Comedy

Adventure Time started as a goofy cartoon about a boy and his magic dog and slowly revealed itself as one of the most ambitious animated narratives ever attempted. Its willingness to tackle loneliness, identity, trauma, and love within a candy-colored post-apocalyptic world earned it a place in animation history. The middle seasons drag with filler and the mythology can feel impenetrable to latecomers, but the highs are extraordinary. This is a show that grew up alongside its audience, and the emotional payoff of that journey is something few series in any medium have matched.

2021 · 3 Seasons · FX on Hulu · Comedy-Drama

Reservation Dogs is one of the most original shows to come out of the 2020s, a coming-of-age comedy-drama that tells Indigenous stories with a voice entirely its own. Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi created something that feels both culturally specific and universally resonant, following four Oklahoma teenagers through grief, friendship, and the messy process of figuring out who you are. The show's gentle pacing won't work for everyone, and its third season occasionally stretches the episodic format thin. But the writing is warm without being sentimental, the humor is bone-dry and perfectly timed, and the final season delivers an emotional landing that most shows can only dream of.

1999 · 2 Seasons · Channel 4 · Comedy

A cult comedy that channeled the pop-culture-soaked brain of late-90s geek culture into something inventive, funny, and years ahead of its time.

2017 · 1 Season · tvN · Comedy, Drama

A surprisingly warm prison comedy-drama from the Reply series creators that finds humanity and humor behind bars, turning incarceration into a canvas for exploring friendship and second chances.

2007 · 2 Seasons · ABC · Comedy-Drama, Fantasy

Pushing Daisies is one of the most visually inventive and emotionally genuine shows network television has ever produced. Bryan Fuller built a candy-colored world around a premise that could have been grim and instead made it warm, funny, and deeply romantic. The 2007 writers' strike cut its first season short, and ABC cancelled it after just 22 episodes, but the show's reputation has only grown since. Its biggest limitation is that ABC never gave it enough time to fully explore its own potential, and the rushed ending reflects that. But what exists is a rare piece of television that committed fully to a singular vision and made something no other show has come close to replicating.

2015 · 2 Seasons · Amazon Prime Video · Comedy / Drama / Thriller

Patriot is one of the most brilliantly original shows of the decade, a spy thriller about a deeply depressed intelligence operative who goes undercover at a Milwaukee industrial piping firm while trying to influence an Iranian election. It's funny, devastating, and constructed with a precision that reveals new layers on every rewatch. Its cancellation after two seasons is one of streaming television's great tragedies.

2005 · 3 Seasons · Adult Swim · Animated Dark Comedy / Drama

Moral Orel begins as a sharp religious satire and transforms into one of the most emotionally devastating animated series ever made. The third season's pivot from comedy to bleak character study is a creative gamble that completely pays off, revealing the hollow core beneath Moralton's pious surface. Its cancellation cut the story shorter than intended, but what exists is a uniquely powerful piece of television that rewards patience and emotional fortitude.

2019 · 5 Seasons · BBC One · Comedy

A brilliantly cast ensemble comedy that turns a haunted house into the setting for one of the warmest and funniest British sitcoms in years.

2005 · 2 Seasons · BBC Two · Comedy

Gervais and Merchant's follow-up to The Office delivers biting Hollywood satire through celebrity cameos and cringe comedy, with a finale that punches far above its weight.

2019 · 1 Season · tvN · Romance, Drama, Comedy

A sweeping cross-border romance that blends comedy, drama, and political tension into one of the most addictive and emotionally satisfying Korean dramas ever made.

2024 · 1 Season · Tokyo MX · Fantasy / Comedy / Adventure

Dungeon Meshi takes the seemingly absurd premise of eating monsters in a dungeon and builds from it one of the most creatively rich fantasy anime in years. Studio Trigger delivers expressive animation that brings both the cooking and the combat to vivid life, while the world-building underneath the comedy reveals surprising depth. The show makes you genuinely curious about what dragon tastes like and how a living armor's ecology works, and that combination of culinary creativity, fantasy world-building, and real character stakes is something no other anime offers.

2022 · 2 Seasons · HBO · Docu-Comedy / Reality Experiment

The Rehearsal is unlike anything else on television, a show that uses elaborate simulations and meticulous planning to explore whether human connection can be engineered, and in the process reveals more about loneliness, control, and empathy than most conventional dramas manage. Nathan Fielder built something truly innovative here, blending comedy and philosophy in ways that make you laugh and then make you deeply uncomfortable about having laughed. Legitimate ethical concerns about its treatment of participants are impossible to dismiss, and the show's ambiguity about its own intentions can feel like evasion rather than art. But as a piece of television that expands the boundaries of what the medium can do, it's extraordinary.

2007 · 4 Seasons · Disney Channel · Animation, Comedy, Musical

Phineas and Ferb turned a simple summer vacation premise into one of the smartest and most consistently entertaining animated comedies of its generation. Its songs are absurdly catchy, its humor works on multiple levels, and the Perry and Doofenshmirtz dynamic is one of the best comedic pairings in animation history. The formula gets repetitive if you binge too many episodes back to back, and the show never really evolves beyond its established structure. But within that structure, it operates at a level of craft and wit that most children's shows can only dream of reaching.

2019 · 3 Seasons · Netflix · Sketch Comedy

I Think You Should Leave carved out a unique space in comedy by perfecting a formula nobody else could pull off: take a recognizable social situation, add one person who refuses to acknowledge reality, and escalate until the whole thing collapses into surreal chaos. Tim Robinson's commitment to his characters, the show's razor-sharp brevity, and its gift for producing endlessly quotable moments made it a cultural phenomenon that far outpaced its modest runtime. Season three shows signs of formula fatigue, and the hit-to-miss ratio is inherently uneven in sketch comedy, but at its best this is the funniest show of its era.

2022 · 3 Seasons · HBO · Comedy-Drama

Somebody Somewhere is one of the most emotionally honest shows HBO has ever produced, a three-season portrait of grief, friendship, and finding your people in the last place you expected. Bridget Everett anchors the whole thing with a performance that never reaches for sentiment it hasn't earned, and her chemistry with Jeff Hiller as Joel gives the show its beating heart. The deliberate pace and low-stakes storytelling won't work for everyone, and a few plotlines across the run feel undercooked. But for anyone who has ever felt stuck, out of place, or uncertain about where they belong, this show lands with quiet, lasting force.

2021 · 5 Seasons · Max · Comedy-Drama

Hacks built its reputation on two things: Jean Smart's towering performance as Deborah Vance and a central relationship so combustible it could power five seasons of comedy and heartbreak in equal measure. The writing is consistently sharp, the ensemble cast punches well above its weight, and the show handles themes of ageism, ambition, and creative legacy with a confidence that most comedies never attempt. A recurring cycle of conflict between its leads tests patience in later seasons, and the portrayal of stand-up itself leans more toward Hollywood satire than anything resembling the real comedy world. But at its best, Hacks is one of the defining comedies of the 2020s, funny and cutting and unexpectedly moving in ways that earned every one of its Emmys.

2019 · 2 Seasons · Hulu · Comedy / Drama

Two women in their thirties play themselves at thirteen, surrounded by actual teenagers, and somehow it becomes one of the most honest depictions of middle school ever put on screen. The concept sounds like a gimmick, but PEN15 earns every minute of its two-season run through fearless writing and performances that capture the full spectrum of adolescent humiliation, joy, and confusion. Its cringe factor will be too much for some viewers, and the show's willingness to go dark in its second season won't land for everyone. For those who can meet it where it lives, this is a show that understands something true about growing up and the friendships that get you through it.