The funniest things that happened in the past decade

Thirteen-year-old Rebecca Black’s parents paid $4,000 for a prewritten song and accompanying video for their daughter, and they got far more than they bargained for. It should have lived in obscurity, but then Mystery Science Theater and Rifftrax comedian Michael Nelon tweeted about it, speculating that it might be the worst video ever made, and it quickly went viral, accumulating over 166 million views. The lyrics are insipid, the vocals are heavily AutoTuned, but something about the banality of the music and the oddness of the video make “Friday” weirdly compelling. Is there a rap breakdown in the middle? Oh you better believe there is.

Trump’s first press secretary was in way over his head from the beginning, lying about inauguration crowds and generally flailing at press conferences. But the death knell to his political career was Melissa McCarthy’s devastating impression of him on “Saturday Night Live,” yelling at the press, chugging gum and eventually driving the podium into the critical media throng. Spicer resigned after just six months at his job.

“Last Man On Earth” was a truly strange modern sitcom about the few survivors of a devastating plague. But its best moments came when star Will Forte was able to go off, like in this Season 2 scene where he delivers a heartfelt apology to the remaining survivors — while holding them at gunpoint. R.I.P., “Last Man,” you were gone too soon. Just like Lewis.

Professor Robert Kelly thought he was doing an ordinary interview with the BBC and had no idea he was about to become a viral sensation. But as he was answering questions about South Korea, his family began crashing the live interview. First his 4-year-old swaggered her way into the shot, then his baby cruised in, and finally his wife, desperately trying to corral the children and save the interview. Kelly remained remarkably composed, though for the immediate future he only fielded questions about his adorable family and his failure to lock the study door rather than politics on the Korean peninsula.

“Succession” is about a lot of things: corporate control of the media, family dynamics, personal cruelty, etc. but it’s also about the way that rich people can deeply, deeply embarrass themselves. That is why Kendall Roy’s rap about his father is so deeply funny, as it combines Kendall’s desperate need for his father’s love with his genuine and misguided love of black culture (he named his son Iverson after all), to create a humiliating performance that’s almost worse because of how genuinely enthusiastic and proud he is of his hip-hop efforts.

There’s plenty of amazing moments in "Magic Mike XXL," a rare sequel that exceeds the original in many ways. One of those ways is Joe Manganiello’s incredible gas station striptease (it’s safe for work) just to make the clerk smile. Watching Manganiello explode bags of chips and soak himself with bottled water would be great on its own, but adding the Backstreet Boys to the soundtrack takes this scene to another level.

One of the funniest moments from “Parks and Recreation” wasn’t even scripted. And it didn’t come from one of the show’s stable of improvisers; it came from Chris Pratt. When Leslie Knope is sick and refusing to go to the hospital, Pratt improvises the line, “Leslie, I typed your symptoms into this thing up here, and it says you could have network connectivity problems.” Proof that improv is not always terrible! 

At the 2015 White House Correspondents Dinner, President Obama revealed he was a Key & Peele fan, or at least a fan of Keegan-Michael Key’s character, Luther, a professional “anger translator.” His job is to voice the secret feelings of Obama, which he’d done multiple times on the show but not after the actual president said something and certainly not live, in front of the assembled Washington press corps. Luther got in some good burns on Ted Cruz and Chuck Todd, but it’s also impressive that Key made the President of the United States play straight man to him.

When “The Righteous Gemstones” did their flashback episode, where we see what happens when the family matriarch, the late Aimee Leigh, gets unexpectedly pregnant, the episode has uncanny child actors, family betrayals, stellar wigs and an amazing musical number from Baby Billy (Walton Goggins) and Aimee Leigh (Jennifer Nettles). “Misbehavin’” is about kids who stop their bad behavior when they meet Jesus (aka “the man with the thorny crown”), but some of that bad behavior is as innocuous as waving, or as bizarre as “running through the house with a pickle in my mouth!”, as Goggins shouts joyfully. Warning: This song may get stuck in your head for a week.

After being the subject of many comedy segments, memorably one regarding his crack smoking, Toronto's mayor, the late Rob Ford, went on Jimmy Kimmel Live to defend himself. Except he didn't really do that. Ford dressed like a magician and took a grilling from Kimmel that was alternately hilarious, confusing and a little bit sad and included Kimmel's offer to take him to Jamaica.

"Nathan For You" is full of elaborate, picayune harebrained schemes that Fielder develops to help/torment small business owners. We could have chosen so many — the Claw of Justice, Dumb Starbucks — but we're going with the one where Fielder devises the world's greatest rebate. People who buy their gas from a certain station can get it very cheap — but getting the rebate requires hiking up a mountain and an overnight sleepover. The journey takes a lot of twists and turns, but none more twisty than when the gas station owner reveals that he drinks his grandson's urine.  Somehow Fielder makes it through the entire excursion, and this unexpected revelation, with a straight face.

One hallmark of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross' work on Mr. Show and the recent revival "W/ Bob and David" is their ability to take a simple concept and squeeze every piece of comedy out of it — like when TV judge George "No Nonsense" Jackson goes on vacation and his replacement is Sandy "Some Nonsense" Whistleton, and eventually, Gibby "All Nonsense" Whangdoodle.

In advance of the Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl, Conan O'Brien hosted a proxy battle between some of the teams' stars, Rob Gronkowski and Marshawn Lynch in the ultra-violent fighting game, "Mortal Kombat X." Gronk is his usual goofball self, but Marshawn emerges as an incredible video gamer and a wonderful TV personality. The dynamic is great, as is Conan's genuine horror at some of the game's finishing moves. Unfortunately for Marshawn, his coach blew his own finishing move at the Super Bowl, throwing a goal line pass instead of simply handing it off to Marshawn. Conan would have run it!

One of the finest openings on Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's Portlandia was "The Dream of the '90s is Alive in Portland," a musical, biting tribute to the lifestyle of Pacific Northwest, "where young people go to retire" and "the tattoo ink never runs dry." Best of all, in Portland, you never have to give up clowning!

The 1986 World Series goat, Bill Buckner, got a sweet story of redemption in what was then the final season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." After a full episode where Buckner calmly takes the anger and scorn from fans still angry at him for letting a ground ball go through his legs, Buckner gets to be a hero during a fire when he's the only man who could catch a falling baby. Maybe next season Larry David can write an episode where A.J. Hinch doesn't take out a pitcher who's throwing a two-hitter.

Every episode of "Veep" brims with the possibility of a new humiliation for Matt Walsh's Mike McLintock, the beleaguered press secretary. But the worst is when the dreaded Jonah Ryan forces Mike to get on his knees and sing "Goober Peas" and "put a little twang in it." It's hilarious and humiliating and worst of all for Mike, he doesn't even get anything out of it.

Joaquin Phoenix made a memorable appearance on Letterman while he was pretending to have quit acting and start a hip-hop career for his disastrous mockumentary, "I'm Still Here." But we prefer his return visit in 2010, where he apologized and Dave made him really take his medicine in the way only Dave can. He also demanded $1 million, because the footage of his show went in the movie, which would probably wipe out the entire box office profits.

John Oliver delivers smart, cutting political commentary every week on "Last Week Tonight," but our favorite moments come when the show goes hard at a silly, elaborate idea — like buying up all the merchandise from Russell Crowe's auction and then donating it to America's last remaining Blockbuster video stare. The delicious glee on Oliver's face describing just how much they spent on the stupidest movie memorabilia is a delight, as was Crowe's response: donating the proceeds to name a chlamydia ward for koalas after Oliver.

Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson had a tremendous first season of "Broad City" and the highlight may have been the opening of Episode 9, when the girls turn a bank deposit into a Drake-scored hip-hop video, and Ilana appears to be wearing an outfit from a Missy Elliott video. Then their regular broke reality crashes in, and Ilana tries to cash in a bunch of nickels for quarters.

The always-uncomfortable "Peep Show" hit new heights of discomfort with Mark's Moroccan dinner party. A lot of ridiculous behavior is involved — why is Mark wearing eye shadow? — but the peak is Jez trying to show off for the guests with his hot takes, including "apart from all the Christian stuff, what did Jesus actually do?" Then he compares the Messiah unfavorably to Hitler all while two people put their feet in his crotch.