The Ed Sullivan Show introduced standup comedy to a wide audience; it quickly became the top primetime variety show. In its early years, The Ed Sullivan Show featured, for a national audience, the work of young comics like Phyllis Diller and Henny Youngman, getting them out of the Borscht Belt, and introducing other young upstarts like Joan Rivers, Woody Allen, and Richard Pryor.

Mort Sahl got his start in the Borscht Belt but rocketed towards national recognition by changing the way stand-up was known. His comedy synthesized news in a way that felt organic, elevating the nascent form of stand-up from entertainment by providing social commentary on the news of the day, like an early predecessor to Jon Stewart. His album, Mort Sahl at Sunset, was one of the first-ever comedy records, and it quickly became a best-seller.

If Mort Sahl was the first comic to deliver caustic social commentary, Lenny Bruce dropped the mic. Bruce went down in history as the most provocative comedian of his time; his shows eventually became so graphic that the police started monitoring them. He was later banned from performing on TV and ensnared in legal troubles for performing obscene material. When he died in 1966, he was cemented as cult legend for comics coming of age in the late '60s, encouraging them to perform hard-hitting material never done before.

Second City opens in Chicago as a revue/theatre/school for improvisational comedy. Early members of the school included Alan Alda, Alan Arkin, Anne Meara, and Elaine May. It grew to be one of the premier comedy clubs in the world, eventually opening locations in Hollywood and Toronto. The cabaret format of Second City shows — the mix of semi-scripted improv plus scripted scenes — informed shows like Saturday Night Live, as it began to cast many of its members from the troupe.

Sahl's success with his comedy album paved the way for other comedians to strike gold with comedy albums. The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart went platinum and won the Grammy Record of the Year. Soon other comedians realized they could reach a wider audience beyond the traditional means.

Comedians needed a place to develop their craft away from the bright lights of studio soundstage. Enter the Improvisation Club in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, the first dedicated comedy club. Soon, other cafes and nightclubs opened and followed its format, like the Comedy Store.

Johnny Carson decides to move the Tonight Show to L.A., making Hollywood the new capital of stand-up. That same year, the Comedy Store opens in Los Angeles, following the success of the Improvisation Cafe and other comedy clubs in New York. It was the first of its kind on the West Coast to give space to just comedians.

Saturday Night Live premieres on October 11, 1975, and comedy is reborn. It launched Steve Martin’s career from lovable banjo playing weirdo on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour to comedy world rock star. It became a platform for some of the earliest stand-up comedians to catch their big break, like Eddie Murphy, Kevin Nealon, Chris Rock, Dennis Miller, Adam Sandler, and Jimmy Fallon.

Freddie Prinze and Friends on HBO introduced the model that influenced Def Jam Comedy and multiple other variety shows. It featured one main comic as MC and various other lesser-knowns doing brief sets, introducing a larger audience to the way a traditional comedy show at a club works. That same model is still the norm in comedy clubs today.

Picking up the gauntlet from Bruce and the caustic comedians before him, Richard Pryor set out to wipe away his squeaky-clean TV persona from the '60s and capitalize on his movie star fame. The result: a comedy special filmed at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach, Calif. Richard Pryor: Live in Concert was a master class in socially charged, autobiographical stand-up that influenced generations of comedians to come.

The success of Martin, SNL, and other comics like Ellen Degeneres make the '80's a boom decade for stand-up. By this time, there are more than 300 comedy clubs around the country and cable channels air more stand-up variety shows than ever, like MTV’s Half-Hour Comedy Hour, VH1’s Standup Spotlight, and FOX’s Comic Strip Live and Comedy Express.

One of those comedians to get his start on the Tonight Show was Jerry Seinfeld. His observational style of standup was adored both by comedy club and TV audiences; he popularized a PG-rated style of stand-up that was never obscene yet still topical. Seinfeld set up Jerry to be an icon for the next generation of comedians and gave them a new format to conquer, the sitcom. TV Guide called Seinfeld "the greatest TV show of all time," and its finale was viewed by 76 million viewers.

Comedy Central debuts, riding the wave of cable comedy shows and proving that the art form demanded its own venue. Although the channel wasn't a hit at first, it eventually found its footing and gave comedians with a modern political viewpoint, like Jon Stewart, their platform.

“Eating It,” a weekly alternative comedy showcase at Luna Lounge in New York City’s Lower East Side, becomes a valuable training ground for young comedians like Dave Chappelle, Patrice O’Neal, Louis C.K., Marc Maron, and more. The show was co-hosted by Janeane Garofalo (who now has a Seeso stand-up special, If I May), and the material was defined by its avoidance of comedy club clichés. Instead of relying on obvious jokes with setups and punchlines, this style of comedy was both autobiographical and observational, much like stand-up comedy today.

Matt Besser (who now has his own Seeso stand-up special, Matt Besser: Besser Breaks the Record), Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts open the Upright Citizens Brigade, the first theatre for long-form improv comedy — not stand-up per se, but a cousin to the alternative comedy in the underground club circuit. UCB put improv on the map and gave live comedy a facelift.

No doubt that the Internet changed comedy for the better, but comedians found one new platform as another road to commercial success. YouTube gave comedians at home in their rooms the power to skip the middlemen and create their own versions of comedy acts and get them out to the widest audience possible. Like Bo Burnham proved, all you need is a dream and a video camera: Within a month of posting his first video, he soon began hitting one million views per day on his channel. The forum made stand-up comedy more testimonial, too. (Another platform that debuted in 2006 to change the face of comedy forever? Twitter.)

Comedy becomes big bucks for major streaming platforms. Seeso, an ad-free platform to only stream comedy programming, debuted with a mix of stand-up specials, like Doug Stanhope's No Place Like Home or Cameron Esposito's Marriage Material, original programming, like Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ and Harmonquest, and past legacy comedy hits like the 40-year archive of SNL or The Office series.

Comedy is no longer underground; it is a full-throttle cultural juggernaut. The success of shows like Louie and Inside Amy Schumer paved the way for artists like Joey “Coco” Diaz, Doug Stanhope, Nick Thune, and Brian Posehn to make their mark.

The comedy platform launches a slew of new and original stand-up programming, from comedians like Dan Levy, Mo Mandel, Ian Harvie (the first transgender comic with a SVOD special), plus many more.