Streaming
Alt comedy on Netflix, HBO, Prime Video, YouTube and the rest of the streaming landscape.
Fleabag: The Complete Guide
Twelve half-hours, one Edinburgh monologue and a priest who notices the camera. How Fleabag turned a stage trick into the most influential British comedy of its decade.
100 Essential Sketches on YouTube
Fifty years of sketch comedy in one field guide, from Monty Python to Tim Robinson. For every sketch we name the show and the channel to search, not a link that will die next month.
Mr. Show with Bob and David: The Guide
Thirty episodes, four seasons, a terrible time slot and a writers’ room that seeded twenty years of American comedy. How Bob Odenkirk and David Cross built the sketch show everyone else studied.
Bo Burnham: Career Profile
A teenager's bedroom webcam, four specials, an acclaimed debut film and a lockdown masterpiece made alone in one room. The whole Bo Burnham story, in order.
The Kids in the Hall: The Guide
Five men from Toronto and Calgary, a theme tune by a surf-rock band and a head-crushing man on a street corner. Why the Kids in the Hall still feel weirder and braver than most sketch made since.
The Rehearsal: Season-by-Season Guide
A replica bar in Brooklyn, a fake family in Oregon, a singing competition for airline pilots and a real Boeing 737. What Nathan Fielder set out to do in The Rehearsal, and what he ended up doing instead.
25 Greatest Sketch Shows, Ranked
Fifty-plus years of sketch television, from the BBC in 1969 to Netflix in 2023. Ranked by influence, consistency and how well they still play today.
Best Comedy Specials of 2025-2026
Fifteen specials worth your evening, from HBO's run of weird, personal hours to the Dropout and YouTube releases the algorithm won't show you. Every release date and platform checked.
Julio Torres: Career Profile
A Salvadoran writer who turned SNL's oddest sketches into a career of his own: two HBO series, an A24 film with Tilda Swinton and specials about shapes and colours.
Megan Stalter: Career Profile
From nightly Instagram Lives in a pandemic to an Emmy nomination, a Netflix lead and Broadway. How a Chicago improviser became the face of loud, lovable cringe.
Comedy on YouTube, TikTok and Beyond
Six-second loops, vertical crowd work and subway hot takes. How platforms shaped the comedy made for them, what clip culture costs comedians, and where the next wave is coming from.
Alt Comedy in the 2010s
Streaming bought everything, podcasts took over the commute and the strangest comedians in America got TV shows. It was alt comedy's richest decade, and its most uncomfortable.
Alt Comedy Reviews
The criteria we use to judge a sketch show, a sitcom or a stand-up hour, and short verdicts on the shows and specials we've covered in depth.
Aziz Ansari: Career & Specials
A business-school kid who came up in New York's improv scene, became Tom Haverford, reinvented the streaming sitcom, and remade his stand-up after 2018. The full arc.
Donald Glover: The Profile
Sketch kid, sitcom writer, stand-up, sitcom star, rapper, auteur. Donald Glover's career makes more sense when you see it as one long comedy apprenticeship that never really ended.
Family Comedy That Isn't Bland
Clean comedy has a reputation for being safe and dull. The best of it is neither. A guide to stand-up, TV and films the whole family can watch, many of them made by alt comedians.
How Comedians Satirise Technology
The best jokes about technology are never really about the gadget. They are about what the gadget does to us. A guide to the comedians, sitcoms and specials that got it right.
How Technology Changed Comedy
Comedy is the most portable art form there is, which is why each new gadget has reshaped it. A history of the records, broadcasts, tapes, downloads and feeds that decided what funny sounded like.
How to Self-Release a Special
Netflix isn't calling, and that might be fine. How comedians shoot their own hour, pick a platform and get it in front of people who'll actually watch.
I Think You Should Leave: The Guide
Eighteen short episodes about men who will not admit they’re wrong. How Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin made the defining sketch show of its era, and what’s next.
Mae Martin: Profile & Where to Start
A Canadian comedian who started at thirteen, made addiction and love into one of the best TV comedies of its era, and then pivoted to a thriller.
Tim and Eric: The Complete Guide
Fifty eleven-minute episodes of public-access nightmare, fake products and John C. Reilly as Dr. Steve Brule. How Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim made the ugliest show on television, and why so much internet comedy now looks like it.