The Ricky Gervais Show

Season 1 (2010)

Season 2 (2011)
Season 3 (2012)

Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington are in the Guiness Book of World Records for having their podcast downloaded the most times. In 2010, they decided to have these podcasts animated and turn it into a 13 half hour episode series which mainly consists of Gervais and his The Office and Extras collaborator rip on their colleague Pilkington. The Ricky Gervais Show is excellent for two reasons. First it provides a window into the comic minds of Gervais and Merchant as well as Pilkington who truly is one of kind and a person whom I honestly cannot figure out whether his schtick is real or not. The second reason the show is successful is the animation of Andy Bialk. Done in the style of Hanna-Barbera, it imaginatively and humorously illustrates the musings of the trio including Pilkington's thoughts which Gervais often refers to as "bullocks" or "the ravings of a mad man." The fact that this kind of conceptual television show can be such a hilarious success is a tribute both to the animation of Bialk and the top tiered comic stylings of Gervais, Merchant, and the hilariously obtuse Pilkington.