10 Hilarious Hulu Comedy Series To Check Out On In 2020

Streaming service Hulu has changed the game for prestige television, thanks to its line-up of original comedies which refuse to take itself too seriously and are designed to explore uncharted territories. Hulu is home to several new-age comedies which millennials relate to intensely like Shrill, High Fidelity, or Woke.

Then there are some unusual one-of-a-kind comedic outings like Difficult People or Dollface which take a fresh look at familiar premises or the quirky history-backed comedies like The Great or Catch-22. If you’re lost on Hulu and need a handy guide to all the hysterical outings, we’ve got you covered.

10 Woke

Woke stars Internet’s newest boyfriend Lamorne Morris as a successful cartoonist who doesn’t take a keen interest in political issues, until he is racially profiled by a cop and is left quite traumatized by the incident.

Post the violent event, he is forced to acknowledge the several minor forms of discrimination he has refused to address his whole life and realizes that his mind is now open to new voices. The show takes a pointed look at the subject of privilege and race and has been called one of the most relevant outings of this year.

9 The Great

The gorgeous historical comedy takes some factual liberties but does justice to its storyline by creating a truly enjoyable and sophisticated visual experience. The Great stars Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult as the Empress and Emperor of Russia, and charts Catherine’s rise to prominence.

Hoult plays a sadistic emperor and Fanning plays his young, doe-eyed bride-to-be who gets married for love but soon starts planning a coup and conspiring to murder her new husband. The makers have described the show as ‘anti-historical’, but that has probably got to do with its format that makes light of the period dramas which often appraise themselves a bit too high under the guise of prestige TV.

8 Catch-22

George Clooney in a mini-series based on satirist Joseph Heller’s most acclaimed novel? It’s hard to say no to such a prospect. Catch-22 is a dark comedy about a young bombardier in World War-II who desperately wants to get away from the battlefield and finds the war quite absurd.

The novel was designed to be a sharp anti-war critique and the 6-episode series does a great job of unraveling the inanity of the war and bureaucracy and also makes for a really timely look, especially pertaining to some global crises.

7 Ramy

The critically acclaimed comedy series stars comedian Ramy Youssef stars in this semi-autobiographical show playing a version of himself, a first-generation Egyptian-American millennial from New Jersey who has to balance his generational identity and the religious community he belongs to.

The show offers an acute look at a young Muslim man’s trajectory and explores aspects of the culture and religious community that has usually been overlooked by western pop culture. Mahershala Ali stars in the second season as a cool, radical Sheikh (yes, a worthy alternative for Fleabag‘s Hot Priest) for which he even got an Emmy nod.

6 Letterkenny

Letterkenny is the underdog of comedy series and the show has received incredible reviews. Letterkenny revolves around siblings Wayne and Katy who run a produce stand in a rural Canadian community. Each episode starts with “There are 5000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems,” and takes an endearing and heartwarming look at small-town life, without being condescending or unnecessarily cerebral.

The show started in 2016 but did not get a lot of attention in the American sitcom circuit, but Hulu acquired the show in 2019, and Season 7 was aired as a Hulu original.

5 Shrill

Shrill is one of the best things on Hulu and the most repeatable. Shrill makes for a new kind of comfort watch and stars Saturday Night Live star Aidy Bryant as a culture and lifestyle journalist who wants to accomplish good things in her career without changing her body.

The show essentially captures the core issues of the body positivity movement and communicates them in a rather simplistic, organic way. But surprisingly the show doesn’t just stick to one agenda, and in the second season especially, goes on to tackles quite a few millennial issues that most workplace sitcoms have avoided for so long.

4 Casual

Casual is the new-age family watch that must be on any comedy lover’s watchlist. The show is about a young, single tech entrepreneur Alex who finds himself living with his newly divorced sister Valerie and raising his teenage niece, as he simultaneously tries to navigate the dating circuit.

Sitcoms revolving around unconventional living arrangements have found a lot of success in the last few years; even shows with shaky premises have been renewed since the audiences are keen to learn how things pan out. Casual doesn’t take itself too seriously, it’s about two siblings trying to raise a kid, but it’s also about several other things and the script seems to have found the right balance of elements for this show to work. 

3 Difficult People

The funniest, sassiest, and most ranting comedy of our times, Difficult People features Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner, basically playing themselves with different last names. The show is about two aspiring comedians in their mid and late thirties trying to make it big in Hollywood and New York’s comedy circuit, as they straddle rejection, Twitter, financial anxieties, and other stuff that plagues any creative person aspiring for stardom.

The show is hilarious because the leading duo exudes a sense of familiar jadedness that is not pretentious but in-your-face and quite snarky and makes this show the perfect watch for days when you want to scream at someone.

2 Dollface

Dollface stars Two Broke Girls’ Kat Dennings, as a young web designer who has a breakup and must work hard to bring back sisterhood in her life. The show got noticed because of its nuanced and promising premise. The comedy is based on something a lot of millennial women have faced while balancing their friendships and romantic relationships.

Dennings plays Jules who gets dumped and is in dire need of female kinship but has to struggle hard to re-enter her friends’ lives because she has neglected them for her relationship. The show is real, heartwarming and a great look at friendships between women.

1 High Fidelity

Fans were outraged when the serialized reboot of the cult comedy High Fidelity was canceled by Hulu, especially because this was one of the very few shows on the streaming network with a black female lead, a point leading lady Zoe Kravitz also drew attention to, post its cancellation.

The show follows a Brooklyn record store owner named Rob who tries to evaluate her past relationships by revisiting and examining them and also hopes to find ‘the one.’ Though the premise may sound done and dusted, the show offers a fresh, interesting look at modern relationships and their pitfalls and makes for a really captivating comedy.

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