Animals set the blueprint for Gervais’s career-long obsession with challenging what we can laugh at. Whether he’s dissecting the logic of the Bible or the bizarre mating habits of the animal kingdom, he treats "taboo" subjects with a breezy, conversational shrug that makes the audience complicit in the joke.

Dressed in his signature casual black t-shirt and armed with a can of beer, Gervais essentially reinvented the "educational" lecture as a high-wire comedic act. Here is why the show remains a cult classic:

Ultimately, Animals is a masterclass in observational comedy that suggests humans are the most ridiculous creatures on the planet.

Animals (2003) wasn’t just Ricky Gervais’s debut stand-up special; it was the moment the world realized that the man behind David Brent didn't need a fictional office to be the funniest, most uncomfortable person in the room.