Every HBO Comedy Ranked From Worst To Best

A comedy 10 years ahead of its time, had The High Life been produced 10 years later, it could have been a significant hit, or at the very least a beloved cult artefact. Instead, the one-and-done series by long time Letterman writer Adam Resnick was quickly buried, and is difficult to find today.

The series depicts a pair of idiotic businessmen in 1950s Pittsburgh. Emmett and Earl, two scheming boobs, spend each episode trying to get rich through a new ill thought out ploy, and by the end of the episode it tends to have blown up in their faces in a ludicrous manner.

The series is shot in black and white, emulating sitcoms of the era, but the subject matter is frequently outrageous - the boys wind up involved with the Ku Klux Klan, or are unwittingly accused of being communists. This, alongside production problems and the relentless nastiness of the main characters (which would come into vogue in the ‘00s) made this a hard sell for viewers, and it quickly fizzled out.

It’s hard to know what kind of shelf life this format could have had, but there’s definitely some greatness in these eight weird, uncomfortable episodes.