To prove just how successful the decision was, he not only praised his hit comedy newcomers The Middle, Modern Family and Cougar Town but also announced that they would each be returning for a second season.

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In addition to returning shows United States of Tara, Nurse Jackie, Weeds and Dexter, Showtime is readying The Borgias (a period drama starring Jeremy Irons), Episodes (A BBC co-produced comedy with Matt LeBlanc playing himself) and another middle-aged actress vehicle, The Big C (a cancer comedy starring Laura Linney).

FORBES: Showtime Takes On Cancer, Comedy and Leno

For those comics in the Middle East who don't censor themselves, comedy can be a risky business.

CNN: Middle Eastern youth find comic relief through stand-up

Moore has successfully integrated comedy with topical issues as her four middle-class Minnesotans grapple with their various personal problems and with one another.

WSJ: Review: Moore's 'Collapse' is a trenchant comedy

But Matthew Broderick, as her husband, a Caspar Milquetoast with a flap of hair falling over his forehead, never seems to get into the movie at all, and, somewhere in the middle, the rusty gothic-horror mechanics underneath the comedy bring everything to a grinding halt.

NEWYORKER: The Stepford Wives

The usually out-of-touch nature of middle management scores a point where it is traditionally mocked in TV comedy.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Dean Obeidallah, founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and a stand-up comedian who conducts workshops in the Middle East, said he has witnessed an explosion in the number of local comics in the region.

CNN: Iran's cartoonists find new lines of expression