HBO Max is in a bizarre place at the moment, as the Warner Bros. Discovery merger has seemingly put a target on the back of HBO Max and its products, the DC movie Batgirl and the HBO Max series Strange Adventures have both received the ax, and there could be more on the horizon.
However, HBO Max has plenty of high-quality content. And when it comes to comedy, there is no other network producing consistently funny TV shows and specials--sorry, Comedy Central, but it's true.
With so much talk about the streaming service, as Warner Bros. Discovery continues to cut production on it and more than likely is figuring out how to tag "90 Days" onto HBO's shows, it's a good time to look into the streaming service and find the funniest shows and specials. Digging through HBO Max's streaming service, we found the 15 funniest HBO Max TV shows you need to check out, and of course, this also includes some classic HBO programming as well--along with one show that originally aired on Comedy Central. OK, so Comedy Central does still produce great stuff.
Outside of the 15 shows on this list, HBO Max has a ton of great comedy shows that are well known, and this includes Curb Your Enthusiasm and, I dunno, everything on Adult Swim. We'll get to Adult Swim soon enough, so for now, let's focus mainly on HBO and HBO Max content you might have missed out on.
1. The Rehearsal
The most meme-able person of 2022 has become Nathan Fielder. His HBO Max original series is essentially Nathan For You with an unlimited budget. Fielder wants to help people with situations they don't feel comfortable with, so Fielder goes above and beyond to rehearse these situations. Whether it's telling a friend a secret, confronting a sibling, or even raising a child, Fielder will build you an exact replica of the place you plan on making this situation happen and running through various versions of the situation dozens of times. It is an awkward, bizarre, potential trainwreck, but it's mainly because the people who choose to take part in the experiment are either so delusional or removed from how society works, that they are the perfect complement to Fielder's deadpan delivery.
2. Nathan For You
If you already love The Rehearsal, then you need to watch Nathan For You over and over again. Fielder took his "Nathan on Your Side" segments from his time on This Hour Has 22 Minutes in Canada--during many of which he talked to local businesses--and elevated them to be a show about helping local businesses with very good ideas that seem absurd at first. The show doesn't have the budget The Rehearsal has, but the show is much more "setup-punchline" with its gags. Yes, the show still features some folks that are very removed from reality, and Fielder takes them all on a bizarre and hilarious trip.
3. How To With John Wilson
This is the last Nathan Fielder-related project, I promise. How To With John Wilson is an awkward docuseries where documentarian John Wilson takes the viewer on a first-person journey through his life and the tasks he's trying to accomplish each week (Fielder was the EP on Season 1). Basically, the show is a lot of B-roll of New York City, with Wilson's voiceover. The best episode of the series thus far is "How to Cook the Perfect Risotto," where Wilson wants to make a meal for his landlord and heads off to learn how. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happens while he's trying to learn to make Risotto, throwing everything off.
4. 7 Days in Hell
Director Jake Szymanski and writer Murray Miller partnered for this sports mockumentary about a tennis match that lasted for seven days. Starring Andy Samberg as tennis bad boy Aaron Williams (yes, of the famed Williams tennis family) and Kit Harington as the British tennis prodigy Charles Poole, the 43-minute special is wild and exceptionally out there, yet it feels like an HBO Sports documentary. This may have been released before the existence of HBO Max, but it feels like the perfect home for it as one of HBO's best original comedies.
5. Tour de Pharmacy
In 2017, Szymanski and Miller had a follow-up to 7 Days in Hell, but it wouldn't follow Williams or Poole. Tour de Pharmacy was another HBO Sports mockumentary that followed 1982's Tour de France. In the show's fictional universe, during the race, all but five bicyclists are found guilty of doping. So these five cyclists must compete against each other. The film stars Andy Samberg as Africa's first Tour de France competitor, Marty Haas, Freddie Highmore as Adrianna Baton--who is a woman pretending to be a man--Daveed Diggs as Slim Robinson, the nephew of Jackie Robinson, Orlando Bloom as Italian cyclist JuJu Peppi, and John Cena as Gustav Ditters.
6. A Black Lady Sketch Show
The name says it all: It's a sketch comedy show created by Black ladies. The name may be super-generic, but the writing and sketches are witty, wonderfully satirical, and self-reflective. One of the things I love about the writing is the quick wordplay that you might miss while watching the first time. During a scene where a couple is seemingly being interviewed post-game by sports reporters, one reporter asked the man to comment on the evening after he had turnover after turnover, and the man replies, "What can I say, I really just love pastries." That entire bit is chock-full of moments like that. There are lots of recurring characters and sketches to fall in love with, like Black Lady Court Room.
7. Minx
Minx is an original series that follows Ophelia Lovibond as Joyce Prigger, a feminist who has an idea for a new magazine, which in turn becomes the first women's erotic magazine. She's joined by Jake Johnson as Doug Renetti, the publisher of her magazine--as well as a lot of porn aimed at men. While it feels like it's based on a true story, it's not. What makes this such a fun watch is how Joyce, who is relatively conservative sexually, has to adapt and evolve to work in Doug Renetti's world, and Lovibond plays the role perfectly.
8. Harley Quinn
Originally part of DC's streaming service, Harley Quinn is the best show to come out of it. The animated comedy is for adults and stars Kaley Cuoco in the lead role. The show starts off by following Quinn as she emancipates herself from the Joker and tries to make it as a villain in Gotham City on her own. It is one of the funniest animated series currently on television, and one of the best productions to come out of DC as a whole.
9. Our Flag Means Death
Based on a true story--though hard to believe--the 2022 HBO Max series takes place in the early 1700s when a wealthy man named Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) decided to become a pirate. This leads him to befriend Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). Darby is hilarious in the role, as a dandy who has never worked a day in his life, but somehow befriends the most notorious of pirates. Again, this is all based on something that actually happened. It's wonderfully original as well, as there aren't any other pirate comedies out there that aren't anime.
10. The Righteous Gemstones
If you've been wondering what Danny McBride has been up to, then you're not paying attention to HBO. After Eastbound and Down and Vice Principals, McBride went on to create The Righteous Gemstones, starring alongside John Goodman, Adam Devine, Edi Patterson, Tony Cavalero, and Cassidy Freeman. The show follows a famous televangelist family whose current generation is delusional and exceptionally greedy. As you'd expect, the show is wildly funny, with each member of the family going on their own bizarre adventures.
11. The Chris Rock Show
In the late '90s, comedian Chris Rock had his own talk show on HBO. Lasting five seasons, Rock's weekly talk show featured interviews discussing current events, along with lots of comedy. The series helped launch the career of Wanda Sykes as well, as she was a regular part of the show. Rock's weekly talk show was a breath of fresh air to late-night talk shows as Rock's distinctive comedic voice added something new to the tired format.
12. George Carlin's Comedy Hours
HBO is known for its stand-up specials. Throughout the years, the network has produced some exceptionally brilliant ones. However, none of them are as fantastic and poignant as George Carlin's work. On the streaming service, you can find six of his specials: Carnegie, Again!, U.S.C., It's Bad For Ya, Jammin' in New York, and You Are All Diseased. And after you've spent your day watching all of those, HBO has a fantastically well-done documentary by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio called George Carlin's American Dream that you need to watch.
13. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Typically, the news will spend a couple minutes explaining a topic and then move on to the next thing without making one joke. HBO's weekly news series Last Week Tonight spends the majority of its time on a single topic like immigration, police reform, taxes, and even the WWE. In fact, you've probably watched many of them on YouTube, as HBO puts the show's main stories up on the site the next day. Oliver and his writing and research team do a wonderful job of finding sources and citing material in order to explain these topics to the audience. Additionally, they do a good job at explaining it to the audience, as many of these topics can become exceptionally complicated, and it does so in a very comedic way, as the comedy writing is some of the best in the business.
14. Mr. Show
If you love Bob Odenkirk, then you need to see Mr. Show. A sketch comedy show from the mid-to-late '90s, Mr. Show embodied what it was like to be an adult Gen Xer at the time. The comedy is exceptionally witty, sarcastic, and at times wonderfully dumb (The Story of The Story of Everest comes to mind). Odenkirk and David Cross are joined by some other familiar faces like Paul F. Tompkins, Jill Talley, Brian Posehn, Tom Kenny, and others to round out this great cast. If you love sketch comedy, Mr. Show is a must-watch.
15. Hacks
One of HBO Max's premiere and first originals, Hacks follows a young comedian named Ava (Hannah Einbinder), who is tasked with writing jokes for an elder comedian who has a residency in Las Vegas named Deborah Vance (Jean Smart). Of course, the two comedians from very different generations butt heads, which leads to a majority of the conflict on the show, and the series as a whole is incredibly well-written and hilarious.
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