TVSquad

Comedian man-child Nick Swardson has a new comedy special premiering this week called Seriously, Who Farted? I smell a Kennedy Center Honor (sniff, or is that a People's Choice Award?).

Now normally, I do like to literally judge something by its cover, but it's hard not to with a title like Seriously, Who Farted?. A title like that could be either the greatest or absolutely worst of anything of all time, whether it's a comedy special, video game, or brand of cereal. If it's a brand of cereal, then it would most likely be the worst.

So I asks ya...

As AOL Television continues their look at the 50 Best TV Comedies -- Ever with numbers 40-31, we here at TV Squad are also looking at them as well, but in a different light. Last week, we took a look at the top ten sitcom sidekicks. This time around we look at the stars of these shows. In particular, those stars that began their career between a brick wall (or a curtain) and a microphone.

We're talking about stand-up comedians. During the early days of television they were found very infrequently in situation comedies (yet, they were plentiful in variety shows). However, as the decades progressed, more and more of them found a home in front of three cameras and a live studio audience. Many of them became bigger stars then they ever were performing routines in front of a drunken audience at 1:00 AM.

We've compiled a pretty comprehensive (in my opinion) list of those stand-ups who made it big in the sitcom world. In order to keep the list down to under a thousand entries, we set a few standards: The sitcom needed to last at least two seasons, the show had to be a comedy and not a variety program, and the comedian needed to have a prominent role in the sitcom. Even with those rules the list is pretty extensive. So, without further pontification...

Some scientists have way too much time on their hands. Researchers at the University of Stirling in England blended together 179 different facial aspects of 20 top comedians to come up with the perfect face for comedy.

Soft, feminine features, typified by the face of Ricky Gervais, were more likely to make people laugh. According to psychologist Anthony Little, "The characteristics of a feminine face imply that the person may be agreeable and cooperative...Typically masculine facial traits, such as chiseled jaws and high foreheads are regarded as less amusing and their owners are less likely to succeed in a comedy career."