Illustration by Jillian Tamaki.

Obama vs. McCain dance-off. The “Yes We Can” video by will.I.am had greater political impact, but when it came to pure fun, the clear viral winner in the ’08 U.S. presidential election was this blissful “dance-off” between the two candidates.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at the Republican Convention. Slapping a crudely designed cigar-chomping puppet on his hand, Late Night with Conan O’Brien’s Robert Smigel has insulted everyone from Star Wars fans to David Blaine. This year, he took his Don Rickles-style humour to the Republican National Convention and, well, let’s just say the dog marked its territory.

In Bruges. Two British hit men are forced to chill out in Belgium. Comedy, bedlam ensue. A continental Pulp Fiction, if you like.

Mad Men. In its second season, TV’s sharpest, most stylish drama delved deeper into the ’60s zeitgeist. While the big draw was the growing rift between philandering ad whiz Don Draper and his increasingly liberated wife, Betty, the show’s ruminations on the Cuban Missile Crisis, the death of Marilyn and the free love movement were just as bracing.

Toronto-based country band One Hundred Dollars. (Neil Rough/$100)

One Hundred Dollars. With sharply observed narratives about the minute heartbreaks and casual cruelties that make up day-to-day life for the underdogs, Toronto-based ensemble One Hundred Dollars are quietly proving that some of Canada’s finest country music comes out of urban nooks and crannies. The prolific group followed up their fine full-length debut album, Forest of Tears, with an even more ambitious project: a series of seven-inch recordings that explore issues in underrepresented communities across our nation.

Nathan Fielder on This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Sacha Baron Cohen and the gang at The Daily Show explore the outer limits of awkwardness in their “fake news” interviews with unsuspecting, real people. This comic sub-genre isn’t yet tapped out, as Nathan Fielder proves each week on 22 Minutes. Whether he’s speaking to the federal finance minister or a sleep expert, the deadpan comedian hits paydirt whenever he convinces his guest that’s he’s blanking out. Cringe-inducing, but in a good way.

The Future Is Unwritten and There’ll Always Be an England. Back in 1979, Julien Temple documented the Sex Pistols’ break-up in The Great Rock 'n’ Roll Swindle. This year, he revisited the first wave of British punk with two projects. The Future Is Unwritten is a gloriously unsentimental appraisal of the late, great Clash frontman Joe Strummer that explains how the singer managed to remain “punk” in his personal politics. There’ll Always Be An England is a shockingly energetic Sex Pistols concert DVD, filmed in late 2007 at London’s Brixton Academy.

Role Models. This film doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s the best comedy of the year. Thanks to great performances from king-of-droll Paul Rudd and genial horndog Seann William Scott, Role Models delivered more gross-out laughs – and sweetness – than Judd Apatow, Kevin Smith and Will Ferrell combined. Bonus: You’ll never listen to Kiss’s Love Gun in quite the same way again.

KRAZY! at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Any exhibit that embraces Japanese anime, old-school video games and George Herriman’s Krazy Kat comic strip has got to be cool. The VAG did just that in this playful show, which skipped merrily along the blurred line between high and low art.

Paranoid Park. If you’re a confused and angst-riddled teenager, Gus Van Sant feels your pain. And he makes gorgeous, disturbing films about it. This tale of a callow skate punk with a terrible secret swerved from lyrical highs to nightmarish lows, all the while maintaining the Salinger-like sensitivity that made Van Sant’s Elephant such a heartbreaker.

The Palace of the End. Judith Thompson’s three-act masterpiece may be the most potent piece of theatre to deal with the Iraq imbroglio.

GIRAFFES! Saturday Night Live’s return to form this season featured countless great moments, but this absurdist trifle was a standout. Presented as an educational wildlife video created by a high school media class, the satanic acacia-eaters and atrocious metal riffs of GIRAFFES! (sample lyric: “Giraffes! They drink gasoline and they spit pure fire!”) made this digital short pee-your-pants funny.British actor Patrick Stewart in the title role of Macbeth at the Gielgud Theatre in London, England. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associatd Press)

Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth. Capt. Jean-Luc Picard landed on Broadway in April, piloting a blood-drenched, in-your-face version of Shakespeare’s popular tragedy. As the Scottish thane who kills his way to the throne, Stewart was a wicked joy. To see him carefully make and devour a sandwich while planning his best friend’s assassination was to see a display of sangfroid that even Tony Soprano might envy.

Let’s Ride megamix, Gonzales. Gonzales (aka Jason Beck) is perhaps best known as Feist’s producer, but he’s also a genre-busting genius: a classically trained pianist who can rap. Enlisting friends including Peaches, Jarvis Cocker, Jamie Lidell and the aforementioned Feist, his Let’s Ride megamix (a bonus track from his Soft Power album) is a perfect slice of ’70s-flavoured disco.

Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. One of the biggest comebacks in Hollywood history. Rourke finally delivers on the promise he showed back in the early 1980s, injecting his personal experience of fame’s roller-coaster into the role of washed-up pro wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson.

Little People, Big World. Now in its fourth season on TLC, Little People, Big World is a beacon in the darkness of reality TV. Half of the six Roloff family members are little people: parents Matt and Amy, and son Zack. Matt does endless renovations, Amy’s on a fruitless quest to keep things tidy, Zack obsesses about soccer. Despite squabbles, they all get along and actually support each other. Skip the woeful creatures on Rock of Love and check out this highly functional clan.

The Montreal Canadiens: 100 Years of Glory by D’Arcy Jenish. Released to coincide with the Habs’ centenary, Jenish’s book crafts a gripping history of a team that’s both a cultural institution and a sports entity. He adds marvelous period detail by quoting newspaper game reports from the past 100 years.

The Memories of Angels. Director Luc Bourdon creates an achingly beautiful mash-up, a feature-length montage that uses clips from 120 NFB films shot in Montreal in the 1950s and ’60s as its source material. It’s a gorgeous dreamscape of everyday life, an evocative love letter to that city’s golden age.

Electric Arguments, The Fireman. Paul McCartney often sounds best when he isn’t trying to please. Electric Arguments is essentially a Macca solo album, produced with sometime collaborator Youth over just 13 days. The results are spontaneous and eclectic: trippy electronica bumps up against understated balladry, and his voice alternates between bluesy growling and trembling falsetto. This is McCartney’s extremely weird pop makeover – a homespun gem that proves once and for all the walrus was Paul.

Can’t Go Back by Primal Scream. We had no reason to expect that 17 years after their dance-rock opus Screamadelica, Primal Scream could produce an album as wicked and punchy as this year’s Beautiful Future. Can’t Go Back was the big single, a remedial lesson in scorching riff-rock.

Tina Fey had a career year in 2008. (Peter Kramer/Associated Press)

Tina Fey. The woman New Yorker writer Michael Specter calls “the sex symbol for every man who reads without moving his lips” already had a career year going in 2008: Emmy Awards for 30 Rock, solid box office for the maternity-anxiety comedy Baby Mama. Then, an August gift from the comedy gods: her then little-known doppelganger, Sarah Palin, landed on the biggest political stage of all. Fey was up to the satirical challenge on SNL, crafting zingers including: “I believe marriage is a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers.” Naturally, ratings soared.

Tracy Morgan. If Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin give 30 Rock its sophisticated laughs, Morgan is the clown who plays to the gallery. As off-the-hook ex-movie star Tracy Jordan, he’s spent two-and-a-half seasons amassing an endearingly loopy back catalogue that includes Martin Lawrence-type drag comedies (This Honky Grandma Be Trippin’), Thriller-style videos (Werewolf Bar Mitzvah) and his own bizarre holiday single, It’s a Jordan Christmas! All together now: “Imagine Christmas wishes shooting out of your eyes…”

Kristen Wiig. When we heard comic ace and Weekend Update anchor Amy Poehler was following Tina Fey out the door at Saturday Night Live, we feared the notorious boys’ club was back in effect. But the emergence of Kristen Wiig as a major player during the 2008 season gives us cause for hope. Wiig gleefully throws herself into perverse, tic-riddled characters, from sanctimonious Penelope to her overly exuberant Target cashier, with a fearlessness that’s wonderful to watch.

In Ghost Colours, Cut Copy . Taking New Order’s beat pedigree and Duran Duran’s flair for melody, Australia’s Cut Copy produced what may be the most tuneful, joyous dance record of the year.

Cockroach by Rawi Hage. Hage may be the best contemporary novelist in Canada. That this, his bracing follow-up to De Niro’s Game (2006), was denied both a Giller and a Governor General’s award is a travesty.

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