Best Direction

Of the many shamed men returning to comedy this year, none addressed their scandal with as much ambition as Aziz Ansari did in Netflix’s “Right Now.” Much credit must go to the director Spike Jonze, whose on camera presence hinted at a stripping away of artifice, while his stunning compositions suggested the opposite.

Best Talent Cluster

Not since the days of Colbert and Carell has The Daily Show had such a robustly talented core of correspondents. In this year alone, Jaboukie Young-White made a debut splash on Comedy Central, where Roy Wood Jr. also produced a savvy hour; Dulcé Sloan put out a strong half-hour, and in “Asian Comedian Destroys America!” on Netflix, Ronny Chieng, a sharp social critic with a magnetic delivery, produced one of the most assured comic hours of the year.

Best Career Transition

In her most skillfully frank special yet, Amy Schumer, who shot Netflix’s “Growing” while pregnant, finds jokes from avoiding sex with her husband as easily as she once did from having sex with single men. And yet, her punch lines, about tampons, porn and periods, among other things, remain just as visceral and raunchy.

Best Scene-Stealer

Conner O’Malley is one of those comedians who pops up on shows or podcasts or viral videos, injects a frenzied dose of derangement and then exits, leaving behind a giddier mood. On a sketch in Netflix’s terrific “I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson,” he played a maniac who saw a bumper sticker reading “Honk if You’re Horny” and he couldn’t stop beeping. When finally confronted at a funeral, he stomps and spins like Leatherface at the end of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” It’s the kind of lunacy that puts you in mind of Chris Elliott cameos in the golden age of “Late Night With David Letterman.”

Funniest Online Character Comic

This has become a competitive field, with a small army of comedians regularly posting quick hit monologues that go viral. But for consistency of wit and performance, Alyssa Limperis has stood out, making quirky and finely observed portraits of women on the verge of repressing a nervous breakdown. My favorite is her performance of the distinctive anxiety of a person actively listening to a mechanic describing what’s wrong with her car, trying (and failing) to pretend like she has any idea what is going on.