10 Best Comedy TV Shows in 2011

A good way to sit down and relax is to watch some good comedy on TV. The old saying "laughter is the best medicine" has a bit of truth to it. Dictionary.com defines comedy as "a play, movie, etc., of light and humorous character with a happy or cheerful ending." Everyone needs a good laugh now and then. Here are my top 10 comedy television series of 2011. What's your favorite comedy on TV? Did it make my list?

THE BIG BANG THEORY (CBS)
Thursdays @ 8:00pm
Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) are roommates. They are also both physicist geniuses. Their friends Raj and Howard (Kunal Nayaar, Simon Helberg) are also brilliant scientists working at the same university. They are all also sci-fi geeks playing games like Klingon Boggle, WOW, they love their comic books and are avid Star Trek and other sci-fi show fans. None of the boys know quite how to interact with girls - in fact Raj can't even speak to a girl unless he's had a couple of drinks first. Neighbor Penny (Kaley Cuoco) is the dumb blonde girl who doesn't understand anything the guys talk about. New to the cast is Howard's girlfriend Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) and Sheldon's girlfriend/buddy, Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik).

LAST MAN STANDING (ABC)
Tuesdays @ 8:00pm
Tim Allen is back and he has brought his comedy mojo with him. This time he plays Mike Baxter, a guy who works at the Outdoor Man sporting goods store as a marketing director who vents in his video blogs concerning just about anything. At home, Mike's wife Vanessa (Nancy Travis) has just received a promotion at work which leaves Mike at home more having to deal with 3 daughters, one of whom is raising his grandson, Boyd, out of wedlock. Kristin (Alexandra Krosney), the unwed mother, begins to date Kyle (Christoph Sanders), one of Mike's employees who isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. "Last Man Standing" is hands down the best new comedy of the year.

PSYCH (USA)
Wednesdays @ 10:00pm
Best friends from childhood, Shawn and Gus (James Roday, Dule Hill) run the Psych Detective Agency. In this witty comedy, Shawn claims to have psychic powers but really they are just powers of observation that his father, Henry (Corbin Bernsen) taught him while growing up. But Shawn has everyone buffaloed into thinking he is a real psychic, including the local police department. Shawn is often called in to help with a case much to the dismay of the non-believing, 'go-by-the-book' police Detective Carlton Lassiter (Timothy Omundson). His partner, Juliet O'Hara (Maggie Lawson) has faith in Shawn's abilities of deduction where 'Lassie' does not.

THE MIDDLE (ABC)
Wednesdays @ 8:00pm
The comedic Heck family lives in the middle of nowhere Kansas surviving on an average middle income, living a mediocre life. The family is headed by the mother and father team of Frankie and Mike (Patricia Heaton, Neil Flynn). Their three children are Brick (Atticus Shaffer), the youngest and smartest of the bunch who is not a very social person; Sue (Eden Sher), the middle child, the girl no one remembers who is always trying out for something at school and failing; and Axl (Charlie McDermott), the oldest and the jock of the family who doesn't like to wear clothes much.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT (CBS)
Thursdays @ 8:30pm
In this comedy about how relationships work, or don't work, there's the old married couple, Jeff & Audrey (Patrick Warburton, Megyn Price) who find they cannot have a baby so they turn to surrogacy. Then there's their younger friends, Adam & Jennifer (Oliver Hudson, Bianca Kajlich) who live upstairs and are engaged. The third wheel is their single playboy friend Russell (David Spade) who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He is often accompanied by his secretary Timmy (Adhir Kalyan), who resents everything his boss stands for.

MODERN FAMILY (ABC)
Wednesdays @ 9:00pm
These days families can be a mixture of all races and partners as portrayed in the hit comedy "Modern Family." The patriarch of the family, Jay (Ed O'Neil), is married to a vibrant, younger Colombian woman, Gloria (Sofia Vergara) who has an almost middle school-aged son, Manny (Rico Rodriguez) who is the most grown up of the bunch. Jay's daughter, Claire (Julie Bowen) is married to Phil (Ty Burrell) and they have 3 children: the brainiac Alex (Ariel Winter), the ego-driven Haley (Sarah Hyland) and the not-so-bright youngest son, Luke (Nolan Gould). Jay's son, Mitchell (Jesse Tyler) is a gay lawyer who lives with his partner, Cameron (Eric Stonestreet). They have adopted a baby girl, Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons), of Asian descent.

TWO AND A HALF MEN (CBS)
Mondays @ 9:00pm
If you follow the news at all you are aware that Ashton Kutcher has replaced Charlie Sheen as the star of the comedy "Two and a Half Men." Ashton's character, Walden Schmidt, is a billionaire divorcee looking for a new love or better yet, how to get his old love back. Charlie's brother, Alan, and his son Jake (Jon Cryer, Angus T. Jones) have managed to get themselves invited to stay on to live with Walden in the Malibu beach house and Berta (Conchata Ferrell) gets to stay on as the voluptuous, lusty housekeeper. Say what you will about him, but Charlie Sheen left some big shoes for Kutcher to fill. So far it seems the writer's are having a hard time not mentioning Charlie in one form or another in the early episodes with Kutcher. They need to have Walden's character stand on its' own. He could even grow up a bit so he doesn't remind viewers so much of Kelso ("That 70's Show").

SUBURGATORY (ABC)
Wednesdays @ 8:30pm
When teenage Tessa (Jane Levy) gets caught by her single father, George (Jeremy Sisto), with a box of condoms he decides it is time to move away from the big city of New York and all its' challenges to the safer roads of the suburbs. Just like any normal teenager would do, Tessa bucks this idea of moving. Once there, Tessa quickly learns that she doesn't fit in with all the plastic Barbie doll-like females and their haute couture fashion.

OUTSOURCED (NBC)
Thursdays @10:30pm
How does the catalog-based Mid America Novelties make money? They outsource their phone call services to India, of course. When the American store goes out of business, manager Todd Dempsey (Ben Rappaport) finds himself in India heading up and training the local call service. There he meets another American, Charlie Davies (Diedrich Bader) who is runs the All-American Hunter call center and a lovely woman from Australia Tonya (Pippa Black) who runs Koala Air. Todd has to train some interesting people at the call center including the romantic Manmeat (Sacha Dhawan), the hilarious Gupta (Parvesh Cheena), shy Madhuri (Anisha Nagarajan), and the assistant manager who is always after his job, Rajiv (Rizwan Manji).

COUGAR TOWN (ABC)
Wednesdays @ 9:30pm
This group of friends hang out with each other a LOT. The leader of the group is middle-aged Jules (Courteney Cox), who is divorced from Bobby (Brian Van Holt), dates Grayson (Josh Hopkins), is best friends with Ellie (Christa Miller) and Laurie (Busy Phillips) and almost always has a glass of wine in her hand. Her college-bound son, Travis (Dan Byrd) and Ellie's randy husband, Andy (Ian Gomez) round out the gang know as the cul-de-sac crew. The group likes to play 'Penny Can' to pass the time when there's nothing else to do. There's never a dull moment on the cul-de-sac of this neighborhood.

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