No one, to my knowledge, has attempted a systematic study to identify the funniest year on record, but I feel safe in saying that 2018 wasn’t it. But isn’t laughter the best medicine? The answer, at least according to the comedian Hannah Gadsby, whose special “Nanette” was the breakout hit of the year, is no. “I reckon penicillin might give it the nudge,” she jokes, in a thrilling set about how jokes might be the very things making us feel so shitty. O.K., ready to laugh?

Photograph by Cheriss May / NurPhoto / Getty

Michelle Wolf on Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Wolf’s joke about the White House press secretary’s “perfect smoky eye,” got the most attention in the aftermath of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, in April. But the better joke was a different one about Sanders:

I’m never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you know? Is it Sarah Sanders, is it Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is it Cousin Huckabee, is it Auntie Huckabee Sanders? Like, what’s Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? Oh, I know. Aunt Coulter.

Wolf’s set was judged by some as too mean-spirited; journalists lamely rushed to defend Sanders’s honor as a woman and a mother, and the W.H.C.A. issued a weaselly statement saying that Wolf’s set was “not in the spirit” of “honoring civility.” All the pearl-clutching was merely evidence of the success of Wolf’s jokes, which, in the months since—with Sanders lying ever more boldly and white women still turning out to support the President—have only gained resonance.

Adam Sandler on “That’s What She Said”

When Sandler released his comedy album “What the Hell Happened to Me?,” in 1996, I had the good fortune to be twelve years old, with a CD player and a room to laugh alone in. So it was gratifying to see the Sandman make a skillful return to standup with this year’s special “100% Fresh.” At fifty-two, he retains his impish persona and casual, mumbly delivery, often pausing mid-joke to laugh and take the air out of the moment. But the special, which was edited together from several live performances, also demonstrates his often overlooked gifts: his genre-spanning talent as a songwriter; his immense vulnerability, which is layered over with rage; and his charming self-effacement, as if, even as the featured act in front of large, adoring crowds, he’s wary of taking up too much space. In the best joke of the special, Sandler’s daughter, who’s in the sixth grade, has asked him why the boys at her school keep saying “That’s what she said” and laughing hysterically whenever she speaks. His response is that of a vulgar, nervous kid turned lame, tongue-tied dad, as mystified by parenting as he once was by sex:

“And so, I’m, like, O.K., how do I explain this to her? And I’m trying to just figure out, you know, the right way to do it in a clean way, no cursing. And I’m just going, ‘U—uh—uh—uh, well, it’s a . . . ’ And then my kid goes, ‘That’s O.K., Daddy, you tried your best.’ And I was like, ‘That’s what she said.’ ”

Photograph courtesy Netflix

Chris Rock on Bad Apples

Rock is often praised for his work in the higher registers, but my favorite joke from his Netflix special, “Tamborine,” was a minor one. Talking about how police officers who kill unarmed black people are often referred to as mere “bad apples,” Rock says,