10 Most Underappreciated TV Shows Of The Decade (So Far)

As the most popular podcast of any stripe during its initial run, it made sense that HBO would want turn The Ricky Gervais show (and its precursor XFM radio broadcasts) into an animated series. The resulting show – a Hanna-Barbera-style cartoon that visualised the ravings of Ricky, Stephen Merchant and human punchline Karl Pilkington in a literal context – was well-received, but it garnered low viewership over its three seasons.

The original audio versions practically set the tone and format for future comedy podcasts, and the introduction of animation only made segments like Monkey News even funnier. Pilkington’s unbelievably naïve and wrongheaded ideas are a constant source of hilarity, as is the way Stephen and Ricky manipulate Karl into spilling even more silly concepts and beliefs.

The Ricky Gervais show was a strange hybrid of two mediums, but it worked surprisingly well, well enough even to inspire other podcasts to take their work in similar directions. But since it wasn’t quite a sit-com, nor was it a panel show or even a traditional animated piece of fiction, the show is still regularly overlooked as an important touchstone for animation. It was often broadcast in late night blocks, barely managing to achieve half-a-million viewers per episode. The Gervais name was enough to keep the show afloat, but it never became the mainstream success it had the potential to be.