If you were to make a list of the funniest persons in television history, man or woman, Lucille Ball would be at the top. She wasn't only good enough to play the lead in three different, long-running sitcoms; she was also talented enough to have her name in the title of all three. Aside from her most recognized programs, The Lucy Show and Here's Lucy had almost 300 episodes altogether.

Her performance as Lucy Ricardo on I Love Lucy, on the other hand, would be enough to crown her as the funniest woman in television history. Her red-haired, shameless fame-seeking wife of bandleader Ricky Ricardo is arguably the most iconic, most famous character in television history, and her antics—whether on the chocolate factory line, trying to meet celebrities in Hollywood, or hawking alcoholic health tonic—are as amusing today as they were when they first aired. Lucille Ball is the funniest lady to ever grace our television screens. She is timeless, witty, and groundbreaking.

By the end of Seinfeld's last season, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, whose work as Elaine Benes garnered her six Emmy nominations and one victory for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, was widely regarded as one of the two or three funniest women on television.

In the nearly two decades afterward, she has only won six more Emmys, each time in the main role, and she has done it on two very different sorts of series. The first was for CBS's typical three-camera sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine, and the following five—all in a row, setting a record—have been for her outstanding and all-time unforgettable performance as politician Selina Meyers on HBO's single-camera and highly profane Veep.

Few individuals in television history have been as consistently hilarious on so many different programs for as long as she has, and when people look back on her whole career, she may legitimately rank at the top.

The six-time Emmy winner and title character of the classic sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show was the hilarious heart of one of the greatest ensembles ever, and on a show full of truly outstanding characters and moments, her ridiculous and untimely outburst during Chuckles the Clown's funeral is often cited as the single funniest moment in television history.

But, long before she made a name for herself as a divorced, working female lead character (which was unheard of at the time), she starred as the hilarious Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. Fifty years later, she can still make viewers chuckle just by exclaiming, "Oh, Rob!"

She may have made the list only on the basis of that program, but when paired with her own leading role, she easily deserves to be that high on the list.

For a whole generation of television watchers, award season was associated with Joan Rivers, since no night of glitter and glamour was complete without her razor-sharp commentary from the red carpet, where she would take everyone down a peg or twelve. Joan Rivers, often cruel but always hilarious, was maybe the greatest and purest female comic of all time.

She was so skilled that she not only became Johnny Carson's permanent guest host on The Tonight Program, which was a huge accomplishment for anyone, but she also became the first woman to have her own network late-night talk show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, in 1986. Since then, no other woman has had her own late-night talk program on a major network. Joan Rivers was so unrelentingly humorous that she was able to knock down walls that were instantly re-erected and haven't been torn down for more than 30 years.

Television has a poor track record of providing a good platform for humorous ladies, but one area where women have had a chance to thrive is on sketch comedy shows, and six-time Emmy winner Carol Burnett remains the greatest of the best in that specific style.

The Carol Burnett Show was a beloved and important part of the cultural landscape for 279 episodes on CBS from 1967 to 1978, and it still stands as one of the best series ever, thanks to its original sketches and characters, as well as its famous movie parodies, such as the iconic "Went With the Wind," which will forever pop up in any montage of TV's funniest moments. And it was all made possible by the show's namesake, the delightful Carol Burnett, who was always prepared to laugh at herself as much as she made us laugh with her.

No one on this list has had a longer or more productive career than the legendary Betty White, but what makes her CV even more amazing is that no one else has done so in such a wide range of humorous roles.

The seven-time Emmy winner and living national treasure won for her supporting role as the sharp-witted and often mean Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s, and then again in the 1980s for her leading (and arguably most famous) role on The Golden Girls, as Rose Nylund, a wonderful but simple-minded woman. But, unlike almost everyone else on this list, her fame has only grown as she has gotten older, and she has become a comedic hero to an entirely new generation of fans, whose love for her resulted in her being asked to host Saturday Night Live again in 2010, for no reason other than they demanded it.

While the other ladies on our list frequently made you laugh with large, wide performances or by developing strange and distinct characters, only Bea Arthur could bring the house down with nothing more than a steely-eyed glare. If deadpan and seriousness were the sole criteria for being funny, she'd be the most amusing person who ever lived.

While most television viewers today remember the two-time Emmy winner for her role as Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls, where she was tasked with being the show's anchor while still being hilarious, she also starred on the groundbreaking Maude, where she played a liberal woman married to her fourth husband and unafraid to say what she truly thought, a premise that would be notable even today.

Bea Arthur's Maude Findlay first debuted on All in the Family, where her two guest cameos were so amusing and memorable that famed TV producer Norman Lear felt she needed her program. He was correct.

Few comedy performers of either gender have ever had a voice as powerful and distinct as the lady so gifted that she can just go by her first name and never be fooled for anybody else. While television had previously required women to be beautiful and demure to order to be funny, the larger-than-life Roseanne Connor threw that all out the window with her eponymous sitcom, in which she played the loud-mouthed and strong-willed Roseanne Connor, a woman who sounded and behaved more like someone you would know in real life, rather than a typical, polished TV facsimile, only if that real woman also happened to be unbelief.

Furthermore, as unusual, innovative, and honest as Roseanne was from past comedies attempting to depict genuine American family life, it was also hilarious. Even outside of her famous program, her stand-up routines on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show are as amusing and relevant now as they were the first time she delivered them.

Amy Poehler may have made this list solely based on her television sketch comedy work, but she also had a short but amazing run on the Upright Citizens Brigade, a show with a small but devoted audience, after her stint at Saturday Night Live, where she proved to be one of the most versatile and consistently great performers to ever grace its stage.

She may have made this list only for her portrayal as Leslie Knope on NBC's Parks and Recreation, where she was one of the nicest, most compassionate, and, of course, funniest employers in television history. It's no accident that this was another of her shows with a devoted following. But, when all of her work is considered, she already ranks among the top ten funniest women in television history, despite the fact that she still has decades to add to her already impressive record. With her comic aptitude, capacity to lead a series, and inherent likability, she might wind up far higher on the list one day.

While everyone else on this list had decades to make their impact, Gilda Radner was television's shooting star, dying of ovarian cancer at the far too young age of 42 in 1989.

But her skill shone brilliantly during her brief tenure as one of the original—and still, almost 40 years later, unquestionably best—cast members of Saturday Night Live. Her outrageous, frequently offensive characters, such as the big-haired Roseanne Roseannadanna and the shrieking and ignorant geek Lisa Loopner, made her a standout on a program with an all-star ensemble. And she was one of the first great impressionists the show ever had too, as her mock-up of newscaster Barbara Walters, who Radner played as “Baba Wawa,” still stands as an all-timer from the show.

It's heartbreaking to consider what could have been if she hadn't died at such a young age, but it's a credit to her tremendous skill that she still ranks among television's funniest females.

Jane Curtin is one of the ladies on our list who you might be shocked to see because she is not as well-known as the other women on this list, but a short look at her extensive and remarkable CV demonstrates why she easily fits in any group of the funniest women in television history.

She was not only one of the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players on Saturday Night Live, where she, Gilda Radner, and Laraine Newman formed arguably the show's strongest group of female cast members ever, but she has continued working in television to this day, including on Kate and Allie in the 1980s, for which she won two Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Despite all of those series and all of the praise she continues to earn for them, her single funniest performance may have been as Dr. Mary Albright on 3rd Rock From the Sun, where she portrayed the human female love interest to Jon Lithgow's extraterrestrial researcher. Jane Curtin has a long history of being entertaining on television.

Liz Lemon was the heart and soul of 30 Rock, one of the finest and most adored comedies of all time, and it wouldn't have been possible without Tina Fey as the protagonist.

Always a witty cast member throughout her stint at Saturday Night Live, her biggest triumph on the late-night variety series occurred off-camera in 1999 when she was made the first female head writer in the show’s history. At least, that was her most notable achievement while working on the show, because her most noteworthy work on the program occurred after Fey had departed when a bespectacled governor from Alaska entered the national scene as the Republican choice for Vice President.

There was virtually no one else America wanted to watch impersonate Sarah Palin, and it is possibly the single funniest political impersonation in the show's entire history. "I can see Russia from my house" will be amusing in perpetuity.

Maya Rudolph has a great sense of humour. How much do people actually adore and value her work? She's so funny and lovely that she's the only person who has ever impersonated the Queen herself, Beyonce, without the Beyhive attempting to destroy her. How many other persons on the earth are capable of such feats?

She is unquestionably one of the funniest female cast members in the long history of Saturday Night Live, and certainly one of its most multi-talented, with a plethora of impressions, impeccable timing, a powerful stage presence, and the ability to be either the silliest person in a sketch or the straight man...err, woman.

In fact, she's so skilled that following her and Martin Short's skit together at the star-studded mega-event that was the SNL 40th Anniversary Show, NBC granted the two of them their own variety show, Maya and Marty, a format that had been dormant on network television for a long time. She is an outlier among outliers.

Tracey Ullman is one of the most varied and accomplished impressionists and sketches performers of all time, and she is probably the most underappreciated comic female actor of all time. Her comic talents and abilities, however, extend well beyond that, as she is also a prolific comedy writer responsible for developing a slew of fantastic unique characters.

She has anchored various sketch comedy shows and specials over her lengthy career, which has earned her six Emmys, including her most recent series, Tracey Ullman's Show. Among the many new identities, she portrays are German Chancellor Angela Merkel and legendary actress Dame Judi Dench.

It's likely that she's so underappreciated because many people don't know it's Tracy Ullman playing all of these very distinct characters. And, while her former Fox variety show, The Tracey Ullman Show, will always be famous for giving birth to The Simpsons, Ullman's performance on the show would have won it—and her—a position among television's funniest ladies ever.

Many of television's funniest and most accomplished ladies have been on Saturday Night Live. None of them were ever entrusted with carrying the show's enormous load the way Kristen Wiig was, as she became the show's main point and anchor in a manner that no other woman had before.

If you were trying to create the ideal SNL cast member in a laboratory, you'd want them to be able to create memorable, original characters, do a variety of impressions, make us laugh while being completely silly or completely strange, crack us up with nothing more than a look or a deadpan delivery, and also play the straight character when a sketch called for it. Her rapid ascent is the only reason she isn't higher on our list, since her abilities immediately had Hollywood calling her, but with a lengthy career ahead of her, she has the potential to advance further up this list.