20 TV Characters Who Made Us Laugh in 2019

When it comes to laughter on television, 2019 delivered in huge ways. 

These characters landed every punchline, nailed personal growth, and some took their final bow in 2019’s most beloved comedies. The task of narrowing down the funniest folks of the year is not an easy one. The comedy landscape had many tough competitors this year. 

New shows, such as Bless This Mess and Fleabag, gave us fresh laughs, staples The Good Place and Brooklyn Nine-Nine delivered week after week, and then there were the hilarious and heartfelt farewell seasons of The Big Bang Theory and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

At the end of the day, these are just the performances that we’ve chosen as the cream of the crop. 

In no particular order, here are the 20 TV characters who made us laugh most in 2019.

1. Moira Rose (Schitt’s Creek)

Moira Rose (Catherine O’Hara) began Schitt’s Creek’s fifth season on the brink of a reignited film career, ready to walk the red carpet for The Crows Have Eyes.

The movie didn’t pan out, which was bad for Moira, but great for the rest of us because we then had the pleasure of watching her hilariously overcompensate for her film loss by directing the town’s production of Cabaret.

Moira rose from the ashes of loss, only to emerge the true sensation we always knew that she actually was, wearing dozens of fabulous wigs (and wigs as hats!) along the way.

2. Janet (The Good Place)

Janet is the not a girl that everyone wishes they had in their lives; especially when it comes to the difference between a group of cockroaches saving humanity or, you know, imploding humanity.

D’Arcy Carden brought an incredible depth to her portrayal of Janet in 2019 as she struggled with becoming just a little more human, while maintaining her omnipresent supernatural skills.

Her big moment this season came when all of the Janets, good, bad, and neutral, came together to buy some time for Eleanor and the gang while they worked to come up with a plan to stop the Judge from destroying the human race.

Whether or not the Janets will succeed remains to be seen, but one thing we know for sure is that we aren’t ready to say goodbye to this not a girl yet.

3. Barry Berkman (Barry)

Barry Berkman (Bill Hader) is a passionate wannabe actor on the rise. He’s also an assassin, trying desperately to keep his double life a secret from those who mean the most to him as he tries to start his new life.

Barry Season 2 allowed Bill Hader to stretch his legs with an even darker shade of comedy than we’d already come to expect.

Viewers managed to find the levity in both sides of Barry’s personality as he sweetly perfected an empowering scene with his girlfriend, Sally, and as he reluctantly got tangled up in new assassination plans. Those plans served to cover up his most heinous act to date: the murder of one of the series’ most beloved characters.

Hader brilliantly tows the line between the two, earning him the 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

4. Jean Milburn (Sex Education)

When your mother is a famous sex-therapist, it’s bound to be a breeding ground for comedy. That’s exactly what happens to Otis when a video of his mother, Jean (Gillian Anderson), makes its way around school.

Jean instantly becomes the star of Sex Education with her matter-of-fact delivery and her unusual prying into her son’s sex life. It’s not her fault; if Otis would just communicate with her about his life, she wouldn’t feel the need to pry into his own life, as well as the lives of some of those around him.

Anderson is a comedy natural, and quickly became the show’s fan-favorite.

5. Angie D’amato (Single Parents)

Angie (Leighton Meester) had a great 2019, despite the fact that she and Will are still doing that whole “will-they-won’t-they” thing.

Angie finally had the guts to stand up to her ex (brilliantly played by Meester’s real-life husband, Adam Brody) and somehow get hot sex AND the last word. She visited The Bachelor mansion. She sent her son to Lance Bass’s space camp. She encouraged both Will and Poppy to get into relationships, AND she’s still a totally slammin’ mom.

Cheers, Angie! Can’t wait to see what 2020 brings to you!

6. Annie Easton (Shrill)

Annie’s looking to make some changes, but they have absolutely nothing to do with the number she sees on the scale.

Annie has bigger problems: her father is sick, she lets people walk all over her, her boyfriend is kind of a slacker, and she hasn’t been able to stand up for herself yet.

Everything changes for Annie when she makes a major decision that changes everything and she becomes a more confident, funny, flawed, sexy, bad-ass lady. 

7. Amy Santiago (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

We’ve always known that Amy (Melissa Fumero) is an undeniably hilarious stand-out on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

In 2019, Amy rose to new, more emotional, heights when she shared her own #MeToo moment with Jake; her former captain crossed a line that left her afraid of the repercussions if she were ever to speak up, and left her feeling unworthy of her job title.

We also got a glimpse of her family life when her perfect brother David, played by Lin-Manuel Miranda, stopped by to drive her crazy, and she and Jake finally talked babies – babies that we’re just waiting patiently for.

If 2019 is any indication of what Amy can take on, something tells us she’s bound to have an even better 2020.

8. Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory)

Sheldon (Jim Parsons) went out with a bang — see what we did there?

In the final season of The Big Bang Theory, he adjusted to life as a newlywed, learned to accept that things will change, achieved his goal of winning a Nobel Prize, and spent time reflecting on the relationships and the friends that helped him achieve that goal.

Is there anything more we could have asked for as a send-off for one of television’s most beloved characters of all time?

9. Nadia Vulvokov (Russian Doll)

Nadia (Natasha Lyonne) died suddenly on her 36th birthday. That should be the end of the story. 

Nadia wakes up, every morning on a bathroom floor, and tries to solve the timeloop that she is stuck in before the day ends. Her daily endeavors always end the same way – with her death. 

We’ve seen her have a heart attack in a bodega. We’ve watched her get hit by a taxi. She’s even fallen into the sidewalk cellar doors on more than one occasion. It shouldn’t be as funny as it is, but Natasha Lyonne plays a woman desperate not to die in very nuanced ways. 

As Nadia teamed up with Alan, a man also in a time loop, Nadia learned to care about someone other than herself and also maybe (potentially) figure out how to stop dying. 

10. Rebecca Bunch (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend)

Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) took her final bow in 2019 after four seasons of her figuring out a diagnosis, her career, and navigating the minefield that is her love life, the latter of which was simply the best outcome for a seasons-long question mark.

Her final year gave us resolutions, a trip to Raging Waters, auditions gone wrong, and one hell of an eleven-o’clock number that proved why Rebecca Bunch has always been one of the funniest women of the decade, not just 2019.

11. Sandy Kominsky (The Kominsky Method)

Michael Douglas turned in a great performance as the aging acting coach Sandy Kominsky, one that’s earned him a Golden Globe award, as well as Emmy and SAG award nominations. 

The richness of Sandy’s comedy stems from the uncomfortable humor that comes with getting older (cue the erectile dysfunction jokes) and his heartfelt conversations with his friend Norman (Alan Arkin). 

Sandy’s most humorous story of 2019 involved his daughter dating an older man (played by Paul Reiser). The discomfort levels soared, leaving the audience with no choice other than to laugh it out.

12. Jane Villanueva (Jane the Virgin)

Jane Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez) struggled a lot in 2019: her husband came back from the dead, she stalked her baby daddy ex-boyfriend, tried to get her novel off the ground, and her son started to suffer from some bad behavior. 

As Jane comically tried to live one day at a time in her own personal telenovela, we got to see the Jane that we’ve known and loved since the very beginning — a young woman doing her best with every crazy circumstance thrown at her searching for a story of her own to tell and the right man to stand at her side while she tells it.

Jane the Virgin signed off after five seasons this year, and the writers made sure that Jane got the chance to do one big victory lap this season, wrapping up every loose end with the same level of laughter and love that remained consistent throughout its run.

13. Gary Walsh (Veep)

As Veep entered its final season, we all thought Gary (Tony Hale) might be the only person immune to Selina’s wrath as she tried to win back her presidency. 

Throughout the season we saw Gary serve, obey, and predict the needs of Selina. He defended her fiercely and comically, only to be completely betrayed by her when it mattered, as she allowed him to unknowingly take the fall for her for her misuse of funds. 

Our final memory with Gary — “You’d hate the flowers. I brought the Dubonnet.” — is equal parts hilarious and gut-wrenching, which is exactly the kind of humor we grew to love and expect from Tony Hale’s performance. 

14. Fleabag (Fleabag)

2019 was the year that everyone fell in love with the walking train-wreck that is Fleabag, and with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the actress who brings her to life. 

There’s much to be said about a character who consistently invites you into her world by breaking the fourth wall and making you a part of her naughtiest thoughts. 

2019 found Fleabag in a sordid love affair with the priest who was performing the wedding ceremony for her father and his fiance. They discuss celibacy, friendship, confessions, and he even catches her speaking to the audience and questions her about it, which leads to some of the most hilarious moments for her this year.

Fleabag’s self-deprecation, her charm, and her vulnerability turn her into a comedy icon, one which we predict will be the inspiration for many more female-driven comedies to come.

15. Rudy Longfellow (Bless this Mess)

When it comes to quirk, Rudy (Ed Begley Jr.) is king.

Not an episode of Bless this Mess goes by where this socially awkward man doesn’t challenge the norm with his hair-brained logic on everyday life. The strangest part is that somewhere down the line he ends up making sense.

To top it off, all of Bucksnort accepts him for who he is, never giving any sign of contempt for the man in the slightest. But even if they did, Rudy wouldn’t change a thing.

16. Grace Hanson (Grace and Frankie)

It’s hard to imagine a world in which Grace (Jane Fonda) and Frankie are not, as Grace’s new husband Nick says, “a package deal.” However, 2019 saw Grace making big decisions for herself.

She stepped away from the family business, pondered the value of time, and considered life without Frankie. What will her new marriage mean for her relationship with her roomie?

The answers will come in the new year, and we’ve no doubt there will be a lot of laughter and tears.

17. Lydia Riera (One Day at a Time)

With a new lease on life following a stroke, Lydia went straight to work on her “bouquet list,” which is an arrangement of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket.”

Much of what made Lydia so wonderful in 2019 was watching her interactions with Dr. Berkowitz and his innocent charm that lit up the screen.

However, Lydia packed a pretty powerful punch when she shocked her family by opting out of a trip to Miami to scatter her late husband’s ashes, and instead headed to Cuba, a place with powerful and painful memories for her. 

Rita Moreno continues to dazzle audiences with her own brand of comedic brilliance, and fortunately we’ve not seen the last of her portrayal of Lydia. One Day at a Time will return with new episodes on its new network, Pop. 

18. Midge Maisel (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, a.k.a. Midge (Rachel Brosnahan), reached near perfection with the show’s second season.

Her father discovered her burgeoning comedy career, she fell in love with a new man, and she slept with her estranged husband the night before she left for a multi-city tour that could change her career forever.

Each one of these dramatic and soapy plotlines paid off big for Midge as she effortlessly tackled each one with the perfect blend of humor and heart, securing her a spot on this list.

19. Dina (Superstore)

Dina steals nearly every Superstore episode of 2019. That is saying much considering Superstore has an exceptionally deep roster of hilarious characters. 

The aggressively confident Cloud 9 assistant manager covers as wide a range of comedic talents as products in the store.

She has running bits, such as her inexplicable hatred for Sandra, her cop costume, and her whole thing with her birds. Dina is also a master of the socially awkward/loyal to the end of days friend. She is delightfully strange. There are social niceties that Dina is completely blind to, but that has become part of her charm.

When Mateo is cornered and taken away by ICE agents, Dina’s commitment to helping him escape is sincerely touching (ridiculous too, which is on brand). Dina’s love and devotion to her Cloud 9 family are some of the funniest scenes on TV.

Lauren Ash transforms a character who could be just mean into someone who you admire and would be lucky to have in your life. What a feat! We can’t wait to see how Dina makes us laugh in 2020!

20. Jackie Harris (The Conners)

Jackie has always been the comic relief of the Conner family, but 2019 saw her turn the dial from 10 to 20 as Jackie coached Becky through childbirth, kicked her mother Bev to the curb, and wasn’t very shy about her hilariously obvious crush on Darlene’s boyfriend, Ben.

She now finds herself trying to recapture her glory days by reopening The Lunch Box, the restaurant she owned with her sister and friends decades ago. 

Jackie is silly and over-the-top quite often. She means well in trying to help, but her methods are usually misunderstood because of the ridiculous stories that come with them. 

And as ridiculous and over-the-top as Jackie can be, her loyalty to her family and to the people she loves are the foundation of what makes her so funny and endearing. It’s why we laugh at the situations she’s put herself in, and not at her. 

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Who do you think gave the funniest performances of 2019? Sound off in the comments below!

*Additional contributions by Janelle McCammack and Charles Henning.

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