Thinking back on a decade’s worth of television is a reminder that a lot can happen in ten years. Case in point: even though the 2000s are typically considered a low point in the history of televised comedy (Friends, which ended in 2004, was the last sitcom to routinely land near the top of the weekly Nielsens), it was a struggle narrowing my list of the best comedies of the decade down to just ten.

This is the decade that really put the laugh track on life support for the first time, after series like The Wonder Years and Sports Night led the way in the ’90s. The top shows on my list don’t have a laugh track, nor are they missed. With no further ado, the list:

10. Malcolm in the Middle: Many sitcoms take a while to hit their stride (that was certainly true of The Office), but Malcolm, about an unusually bright boy trying to survive in a mostly dense family, was brilliant out of the box. The show couldn’t sustain its tone, in part because star Frankie Muniz very abruptly stopped being cute. In its short time on the air, though, it created a visual style that remains influential to this day.

9. Scrubs: This show never was able to save the NBC Thursday comedy block, which has only returned to health again in recent years. My guess is that its mix of utter goofiness and genuine pathos was confusing to too many people, and its hospital setting made it an odd fit with ER during the times both shows aired on Thursday. But in the end, it proved to be the winning story of a man-child (Zach Braff) becoming a man.

8. Friends: Here’s a show that likely won’t make many lists like this, in large part because it’s typically thought of as a series of the 1990s. Yet nearly half the ten-year run of Friends took place in this decade, and thanks to a cast that had become family to us and to each other after several years, the series retained a surprising amount of quality until the end. Please, you guys: no reunions.

7. How I Met Your Mother: Nearly as complicated at times as Arrested Development but way more accessible, this show proved to be the true successor to Friends, as well as being one of the few CBS sitcom hits of recent vintage with a strong hipness level. Give the producers credit for realizing that the time had come for Neil Patrick Harris to play a caricature of heterosexual male insouciance.

6. Gilmore Girls: Aside from finally giving a great role to Lauren Graham, who had been on my “Why won’t someone make this woman a star?” list for years, this program featured the best dialogue this side of Aaron Sorkin’s White House, and one of the great mother/daughter relationships in TV history. And in an era where TV teen role models consisted of the brats on The O.C. and everyone on MTV, Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel) was an oasis of wit and charm.

5. South Park: It’s been around for so long that listmakers such as me will often take it for granted, and its crudeness will always make it a niche show only (years later, I still have nightmares about Cartman and Ben Affleck). But no show is better at skewering the little hypocrisies of its own audience, and it routinely takes on big targets (Tom Cruise, Kanye West) way before everyone else. RIP Chef.

4. Arrested Development: The show that made everyone feel, if only for a moment, that maybe their own family wasn’t so bad after all. Combining unbelievably silly gags, bizarre scenarios that could unfold over the course of a half hour to set up one big joke at the end, and a brilliant cast led by Jason Bateman (really!), this examination of a hapless family trying to stave off utter financial collapse was the ultimate cult show (sadly, it was never a “cult hit”) of the decade.

3. Curb Your Enthusiasm: It didn’t seem like a promising idea for a series — the life and times of the guy who co-created Seinfeld and inspired the character of George, except with George’s less pleasant traits dialed up about ten notches, and with largely improvised dialogue besides. Larry David isn’t much of an actor, but leaving that aside, Curb had numerous half hours of Seinfeldesque quality — plus the fabulous, filthy mouth of Susie Essman.

2. 30 Rock: Tina Fey has spent the last four years biting the hand that feeds her, as 30 Rock has evolved into a lampoon of network television that has grown ever more acidic as the fortunes of NBC have waned. Its five lead actors were an ensemble without peer and its highs (Alec Baldwin‘s insane recreation of Tracy‘s family therapy session was the decade’s comedic highlight) weren’t matched by any other show, but 30 Rock has slipped some since its first two seasons. Hence its spot at #2.

1. The Office (NBC): Attacked out of the box for sullying everyone’s sacred memories of the U.K. original, The Office barely survived its first short season … and then began to thrive. The series took advantage of the extra time that American network TV provides to flesh out over a dozen major and minor characters, led by the generally ineffective but oddly lovable Michael Scott (Steve Carell). This is a workplace comedy that really gets workplace culture as most Americans live it, which may be why it has never become a sizable hit.

Now before you start asking, “What about …?” here are several other comedies from the decade and the reason they didn’t quite have enough juice to make the list:

Freaks and Geeks, The Middleman, and the British version of The Office, while brilliant, were docked for simply not producing enough episodes. Modern Family and Glee are off to excellent starts, but it’s likewise way too soon to put them on a list such as this — check back in ten years.
The “not enough episodes” demerit was also the major reason for the single toughest cut from my list, Flight of the Conchords.
Sex and the City had already done most of its best work in its early seasons (that is, by the time the decade began); ditto for Everybody Loves Raymond.
I’ve always been just lukewarm about Weeds, leaving aside that it hardly qualifies as a comedy any more.
Both Desperate Housewives and (especially) Ugly Betty were way too inconsistent after their debut seasons.
Entourage kept the momentum going a little longer, but can’t quite make it into this class.
One Tree Hill and Oz were often among the funniest shows on television, but not in the way intended by their creators.