The 25 funniest things that happened In 2019

In a scene that was a callback to the first episode of HBO’s classic sitcom, the last moments of “Veep” were a flash-forward to Selina Meyer’s death. Up-jumped CBS anchor Mike McClintock is about to eulogize Meyer when the news of Tom Hanks’ demise arrives. He shifts gears, and for the last time, our heroine is passed over and ignored once again, this time in favor of a tribute to Hanks and his four Oscars — including one for “Philadelphia 2.”

One of the most delightful surprises in “Avengers: Endgame” was the God of Thunder completely letting himself go. A guilt-ridden Thor has drowned his sorrows in beer and completely skipped ab day for years in the film’s middle portion, and to Chris Hemsworth’s credit, he stayed fat throughout the film. Some called it body-shaming, but we think it’s a great lesson that people of all sizes can call down lightning.

It was a season of humiliation and frustration on so many levels for Tom Wamsgans on “Succession” this year: He was cuckolded by an actor, forced to play Boar on the Floor, denounced in front of Congress and the worst indig nity: abandoned by his frenemy Greg. When Tom finally snaps, it’s in a fury of water bottle throwing, and he’s all the angrier because they’re not even allowed in the good panic room during a shooting: They’re relegated to a second-tier panic room with inferior snacks, a metaphor for their places in the Roy family and Waystar Royco in general.

When Barry and NoHo Hank part ways, Hank is of course hoping for a tender friendship moment. But then an accordion player jumps the gun, starts playing and ruins the whole vibe. And of course, no dissing of an accordion player goes unpunished: It’s Chekhov’s Law of Klezmer.

One of Twitter’s greatest treasures is former “Malcolm In The Middle” star Frankie Muniz's account, which is remarkably dark. Whether he’s having “4 dreams a week where I get shot," breaking his toe fighting scorpions or is abandoned at the airport because his mom is vacuuming, Frankie is having a tough time. But this year, he went in a new, hornier direction and offered to be Lizzo’s purse: “Put a chain around me and I’ll hold your stuff for you.” When Lizzo actually did bring a tiny, non-human purse to this year's AMA’s, there was a flood of Frankie photoshops.

Danny McBride and Walton Goggins have flashier parts, but the heart and soul of "The Righteous Gemstones" is Edi Patterson, who also writes for the show. When she's not smashing soda machines and verbally abusing her boyfriend, BJ, there's a huge amount of vulnerability under the surface. The season culminates in a monologue Judy delivers about her only other boyfriend, which turns into a confession about felony kidnapping, which is all the better since it takes place in a booth at an Outback Steakhouse with a Bloomin' Onion in front of her.

The Cameo app is used for many things, from birthday wishes to shoutouts from midtier celebrities. But Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath took it to another level. In what may or may not have been a joke, McGrath broke up with Sugar Ray superfan “Bradyn” on behalf of his girlfriend “Cheyanne,” explaining that while Bradyn was finishing his thesis, she just wanted to fly. Away from him. Just like a real breakup conversation, it was twice as long as it needed to be, and like a real breakup, it was more painful because one person had frosted tips.

Adam Sandler returned to "Saturday Night Live" in May, just 24 short years after he was fired from the show. The best sketch in his return was “Romano Tours,” a specific travel company commercial about how a trip to Italy isn’t going to change who you are. “If you’re sad now, you might still feel sad there,” Sandler explains, as the whole sketch deflates the “Eat, Pray, Love” idea of travel as personally transformative.

Tim Robinson’s “I Think You Should Leave” is full of sketches about embarrassment and personal discomfort, but the finest example comes when he plays a guy in a hot dog costume desperately trying to deflect blame for his wienermobile crash. It’s the perfect sketch for our post-truth world of 2019, and it feels like the hot dog man spawned hundreds of gifs within minutes of its first airing on Netflix.

We’ve all heard audio from athletes wearing microphones during their games, but this video of a child hockey player proves that it’s way better to have a body mic and an isolated camera focused on a 4-year-old wearing skates and hockey pads to just see what happens.

Hulu’s “PEN15” captures all the awkwardness and pain of being an adolescent, heightened by the show’s two stars acting alongside actual tweens. So many moments are captured perfectly, but particularly the excitement coupled with deep, deep embarrassment of watching a semi-dirty movie in mixed company and Anna’s terrible first kiss with 13-year-old lothario Brendan and his “torpedo cat tongue.” They do a nice job of making the kiss scary and gross.

"Drunk History" is always a high-quality television experience, but it gets better the drunker its narrators get. And ESPN’s Katie Nolan delivers with her tale of the 1919 Chicago White Sox throwing the World Series, featuring a great Jake Johnson performance as Chick Gandil. But it also features Nolan grabbing the boom mic, repeatedly slamming her knuckles on the table and eventually ending up lying down, nearly quitting the story and completely shoeless — a tribute to Shoeless Joe Jackson that showed off her black socks.

The TV version of “What We Do In The Shadows” is a worthy successor to the film, but its most ingenious conceit is the addition of an “energy vampire,” played by Mark Proksch. He describes himself as a “daywalker” and his office is the “hunting ground,” where he can bore people to death and enrage them. But he meets his match when he encounters an advanced energy vampire played by Vanessa Bayer who goes one step further: She’s an emotional vampire.

Since the first scene of the first episode, "Game of Thrones" had teased the imminent threat of ice zombies and White Walkers emerging from across the Wall to bring death and terror to all of Westeros. And then the much-feared Long Night lasted...exactly one night. Tens of thousands of zombies attacked but miraculously spared all but two major characters, and all of the footage was so dark that viewers couldn’t see what was happening anyway. It set the stage for one of television’s most disappointing series ends. Within a few months of the "Battle of Worsteros," HBO had canceled all its "GoT" spinoffs and the creators were no longer making their planned "Star Wars" trilogy. If it wasn't clear enough that the creators had given up, in the next episode there was a Starbucks cup in Winterfell.

Colton Underwood was a former NFL tight end and the show’s first virgin bachelor, but he also became the first bachelor to literally flee the show. After a traumatic conversation where he got dumped by whom he thought was the love of his life, Colton straight-up vaulted a fence and escaped into the Portuguese countryside. "The Bachelor" delights in breaking the fourth wall of reality TV; Colton’s the first person to jump the fourth wall. Nothing was funnier than host Chris Harrison, whose job normally consists of putting on a suit, dramatically saying “this is the final rose,” and then kicking back at vacation resorts, suddenly having to go on a search-and-rescue mission in the dark.

Liva Pierce put out what might be the best sketch of the year with a Twitter video of her impression the moment in a musical when characters have to move from speaking to singing. All 78 seconds are pure gold, but we’re partial to “I can’t be in love...You’re my biological nephew!” Honorable mention to Matt Buechele and his video of musicals' opening numbers, where the refrain is “the name of the city we live in.”

Catherine O’Hara’s Moira Rose, faded actress, wig aficionado and fruit wine enthusiast, is the best character on television, and in the season premiere of "Schitt’s Creek," we get to see her show off her acting chops in a scene from her low-budget horror movie, “The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening.”

There are a lot of funny moments in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood,” including the moment when Leonardo DiCaprio begins weeping as he is describing a pulp novel about a washed-up bronco buster. The highlight, though, comes when Brad Pitt, drunk on margaritas, decides to smoke an LSD-dipped cigarette at the least opportune time. We won’t spoil it, but suffice to say it involves dogs, the Manson family, spaghetti Westerns and World War II movie props in a wild, shockingly hilarious combo.

“The Long Shot” is a delightful extremely R-rated comedy for anyone who loves rom-coms and, uh, jokes about bodily fluids. But the standout scene is when Seth Rogen’s friend comes out to him as a Republican — and a Christian. The scene moves quickly through anger, shock, racist assumptions and finally acceptance, because it’s OK to love the GOP and G.O.D.

“Last Week Tonight” has had a running legal feud with coal baron and serial legal harasser Bob Murray, which periodically silenced the show. Once each subsequent lawsuit ends, John Oliver recaps the proceedings and then gets sued again. This time, fully expecting it to prompt yet another nuisance suit, John Oliver produced an elaborate and filthy Bob Murray musical (NSFW - language) complete with dancing hot dog vendors and a barbershop quartet of squirrels.

James Adomian is the premier impressionist of our time, and it’s honestly criminal that he doesn’t have his own sketch show. But perhaps his greatest impression is his spot-on Bernie Sanders, and even though "SNL" won’t hire Adomian, he still managed to do the bit where of doing an impression of a celebrity in front of said celebrity. He and the real Bernie Sanders discussed long socks, their love of gesticulating, the Green New Deal and literally dismantling Wall Street.

So many things about the Trump era feel like they’re made by playing B-List Celebrity Mad Libs: Trump is feuding with Debra Messing, Omarosa wrote a tell-all book, Antonio Sabato Junior goes on TV to stump for the Republican Party, etc. But the oddest moment in 2019 came when former Pro Bowl wide receiver Chad Johnson (formerly Chad Ochocinco, as he legally changed his name for a few years because of his football number, No. 85) live-tweeted the arrest of Trump associate Roger Stone: “FBI arrested my neighbor Roger before my morning jog, I’ve only seen s--- like that in movies, crazy to start to my Friday.” He also weighed in after the trial: “Damn they convicted my homie Roger.”

“Hustlers” has a lot of great moments: strippers passing out after mixing ketamine cocktails, Lili Reinhart’s constant nervous vomiting — but the best part is when everyone loses their minds when a celebrity comes to Scores: Usher, played by, you guessed it, Usher, while the soundtrack plays a song by, do I have to say it, Usher. It’s a delightful scene and we’ve gotta say, Usher nails it.

“Inside The NBA” is a top show on TV, but it’s often at its best when it’s not talking about basketball: Shaq not knowing how far away the moon is, the guys racing to the Big Board and Barkley talking about pedicures. This past season had one absolute highlight: the Chuckster giving Jussie Smollett advice about committing crimes. It boils down to “Do not commit crimes with checks; use cash.”

In one of the best late-night sets of 2019, comedian Chris Garcia talks about how he and his Cuban parents have different ambitions for his future. The best part is when he describes speaking Spanish in the bedroom to his non-Spanish-speaking wife. It’s a set about dirty talk that’s actually squeaky clean! Garcia also has a hilarious and heartwarming podcast about his parents called “Scattered."