Every HBO Comedy Ranked From Worst To Best

The sketchy personal life of star and creator Louis CK can make this (and superior FX series Louie) a difficult watch, but taken on its own merits, Lucky Louie was an experimental, often riotously funny sitcom that pushed boundaries and helped introduce the world to a man who was briefly the king of comedy.

Its beauty is its simplicity: Lucky Louie is a traditional sitcom, filmed in front of a live studio audience, but on HBO. The show examines marital strife as Everybody Loves Raymond might, but instead of mild disagreement, here we had plotlines about Louie calling his wife the C word.

The intention was never to mock beloved sitcoms, but to celebrate the format and formula. Louie had a sitcom wife (the great Pamela Aldon) and dumb best buddies from which great comedy was mined, and CK in the lead role is as likeable a bumbling sitcom husband as you could ask for.

The show gleefully pushed buttons, and complaints combined with low viewing figures made it an easy one to cancel. One season was probably plenty, but it doesn’t skimp on the laughs.