Discover genuine laughter again after watching the five best underrated comedies that will surely tickle your funny bone.

Are your house cats into S&M? Has a deer told you “Don’t get weird”? Did your parents drug your atheist fiancee to try to convert her to religion at a cabin getaway? If you answered yes to any of these questions you have either experienced them or have seen three of these five great underrated comedies. The latter, good for you! If it’s the former seek professional help ASAP.

The best underrated comedies seemingly come out of nowhere. One night, you get home after overextending a night that should’ve ended before it started. Turn on the tube at 3 a.m. and BAM! They just show up out of nowhere, like a fairy godmother of guffaws.

Sometimes a good show just sneaks under the radar. It may be on a channel you don’t watch, airs at an ungodly hour, or is just under-marketed for some reason. No need to fret. Your old pals are here to make sure the best underrated comedies are seared right into your eyeball sockets. Okay, maybe not that dramatic but you get the point. On to the shows…

5 – High Maintenance (HBO)

High Maintenance follows The Guy, played by co-creator/co-writer Ben Sinclair, as he makes special pharmaceutical deliveries on his bike to New York City’s most eclectic clients. We get a glimpse into each client’s story from the absurd to the almost heartbreaking fractured tales.

The Guy serves as a vehicle, opening windows into the lives of seemingly disconnected New Yorkers needing a fix. The Guy may find himself as the supplier of goods for a couple’s birthday party orgy celebration. Another time, he’s just trying to avoid being caught up on a social media addict’s instagram.

You’ll be surprised how closely we’re linked to a teenage girl trying to find her place in life and day breaker parties in Brooklyn. Totally one of the best underrated comedies, and one that is true to life.

4 – Brockmire (IFC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffVyPX-tROM

What would happen if you took your favourite announcer and drowned him in a barrel of 1,000 year old whiskey? Then put that announcer back on the air to call your local minor league game in the middle of nowhere? You’d get Brockmire, one of the finest gentlemen with the smoothest voices giving you the harshest advice that life’s had to offer him and spitting it back in your face in the middle of a Sunday afternoon baseball game.

Starring Hank Azaria (basically all your favourite voices on the Simpsons) as the main character, Brockmire brings a brutal honesty about what’s really going on in the mind of an in game announcer. He brings about his own demise during a national telecast, when he reveals the very intimate details of how he busted his wife cheating on him. After years away from the game, he’s convinced to come back to work by Jules James (Amanda Peet), when his now infamous outburst becomes a viral sensation on YouTube.

We get a unique view of what fans imagine it would be like if the guys who called our games let loose a bit and really let us know what they think of the players and managerial calls in game. At one point, he trashes the players so bad that they actually form a hate-fuelled rally to come back and win a game on free booze night. It’s quite a treat to see if he can hold it together as the team he’s calling the plays for actually gets good and gains notoriety. He’s going to need all the luck in world being that season 2 takes place in bourbon soaked New Orleans.

3 – The Guest Book (TBS)

Just like High Maintenance, The Guest Book has one common through line connecting its rotating cast of main characters: The Froggy Cottage Guest Book. As the visitors come and go, they log in their experience at the cabin. Some are there to rekindle their marriage spark while others pretend to have a birthday party just to invite the coworker they have a crush on. Real common man stuff.

The subplot here is when the local strip joint owner/dancer tries to blackmail the owner of Froggy Cottage. Sometimes you should just avoid the lap dance and take a lap around town. Intertwining between each new story, we get to learn more about the inhabitants of the sleepy town and their vices as well.

It’s all tied together at the end of each episode by the band HoneyHoney. They delightfully wrap up each episode with a folksy song about the events that just transpired at the Froggy Cottage. This is what sets it apart from High Maintenance and keeps the fun in the show going when it gets dark. Like when a man’s parents purposefully drug his wife-to-be in order to accept God. Although the intended outcome is achieved, they end up losing their religion in the process. Irony folks!

2 – People of Earth (TBS)

Meet Don, Jeff and Johnathan. No, they don’t work in your accounting department or are attempting to reunite a defunct boy band. They’re the aliens confounding the members of the alien abduction support group, Star Crossed, in the quiet town of Beacon, New York. Surprisingly they have much in common with the average man.

New member to Star Crossed is Ozzie Graham (the ever-cool-sleepy-eyed Wyatt Cenac), a journalist who begrudging agrees to write an article about the tormented group. As he digs deeper into the group he finds that maybe he should be taking them a bit more seriously even though they seem wickedly whacked out.

This surprisingly has more twists and turns than a pretzel on a rollercoaster. It’s a comedy that incorporates drama and sci-fi effortlessly. And with a cast of alums from shows like The Office, The Daily Show and SNL, it’s no wonder why it works so well.

1 – Animals (HBO)

How do you get two puppies to stop fighting? Make ’em lick each other. A cat gets the perfect coat with a thousand brush strokes in his vanity mirror. New born baby birds love popcorn chairs, especially if they’re from Steve Buscemi’s backyard. I’ve learned all these indelible fun facts and more from HBO’s Animals.

Created by Phil Matarese and Mike Luciano (the main characters in every episode), Animals brings New York City’s other eccentric inhabitants to life in a hilarious and often thought provoking way. From the trials and tribulations of squirrel adolescence to adjusting your life as a divorced tick, Animals covers it all. One episode even covers the lifespan of ups and downs of a pair of best friend flies. One minute they’re oggling Victoria’s fly magazine *heh* and the next their aged wings are flapping for the last time *sob*.

Phil and Mike get some help from over 50+ guest voices that you may be familiar with. Kumail Nanjiani, Emelia Clarke, RuPaul, Nick Kroll, Jonah Hill – the list goes on. They even add some musical talents in the mix with Usher, Big Boi & Killer Mike and even Kesha. It’s a seriously long and star studded list. What’s better is that they add their own takes and improvisations on the characters they’re given and deliver.

What sets Animals apart from the likes of other animated shows like Family Guy or South Park is how they bounce from absurdity to genuine heart effortlessly. Each vignette will either have your brain going ‘WTF is happening right now?’ to ‘awww how sweet, I wish my human counterparts were like that!’ within a few seconds. With two seasons in the books and a third on the way, it truly is one of the best underrated comedies to date. Already done with binge watching these bad boys? No worries, here are some other shows that are coming back from the dead ready to rock your socks off.